The Lost Days (9 page)

Later

Bus Dream: I’m locked in the Blackrock jail. All the police are standing around laughing, eating doughnuts, polishing their guns, polishing their guns with half-eaten doughnuts, you know, police stuff. I keep asking why I’m locked up and no one hears me. I realize they are too stupid to build a jail cell that I can’t break out of, so even though they can see everything I’m doing, I start looking over the whole cell inch by inch to find the way out. It takes forever. I inspect the door and windows 923 times, but there is no way I can jimmy them. I keep looking…every inch of floor, walls, I even crawl upside down over the ceiling…FINALLY I get to the toilet. Super-yuk, but I see something hidden down in it…I ask one of the officers for his shirt. He is dumb enough to take it off and hand it to me through the bars. I wrap it around my hand and reach down, down, down into dark water and there I feel a little switch…I push it, the gate opens, and I walk out. No one even looks at me, not even the officer who gave me the shirt.

Pretty good dream, but even that didn’t cheer me up.

Later. So…Much…Later

Things to do when I get to Wichita:

1. Look for posters with my face on them.
   
2. Walk around aimlessly and hope someone recognizes me.
   
3. Ask for free food.
   
4. Make new lean-to.
   
5. Look for posters…yeah.
   
6. Um.
   
7.  
   
8.  
   
9. Um.
   
10.  
    
11.  
    
12.  
    
13. I really have no desire to go to Wichita.
    

Blackrock may be a wretched little town, but it’s the only place I have any memories of. That’s tough to beat.

Later

I do not remember the word for that thing you use to make bread dark and crispy. I believe it starts with a D. (???) I don’t care what Jakey says, I am clearly losing my mind.

On the bright side, I still remember how to say “Life sucks.”

Day 8

Finally got off the bus in Wichita, in the late late hours of the night, extremely hungry, completely stiff and sore, freezing my bum off without any sleeves, and not happy about having to figure out AGAIN where to eat and sleep in a town where I know no one and nothing. So it didn’t come as a complete disappointment
to hear Schneider yelling “EARWIG!” from across the street.

I still ran the other way. He caught up to me.

“Let’s be reasonable, huh, kid? Look, why don’t we get a snack and talk it over? I think it’s all going to work out just fine! Huh? I bet you’re hungry? Hey?”

He had me there. I let him buy me some sandwiches and listened to him chatter. Here’s what I learned:

1. The police and the school are peeved about the $243 in tickets and the forty million hours in detention I owe them. Which is why they got Schneider on the case.
   
2. Schneider is actually a licensed private investigator, which is how he convinced the bus depot lady to tell him what city I’d bought a ticket to.
   
3. Schneider thinks it’s a real shame the teachers insisted on calling me Charlene when Earwig is SUCH a coooool name.
   
4. Schneider thinks cats are the best animals EVER and soooo much cooler than dogs!
   
5. Schneider thinks it’s sooooooooo unfair to hassle me for unlicensed slingshot use because slingshots are, like, really coooool. And stuff.
   
6. Schneider is so full of manure his hair stinks.
   
7. Schneider also happens to know quite a lot of interesting information, such as the fact that Ümlaut is paying the police to agree that Curls does not need to attend school.
   
8. Schneider also knows that Raven went into hysterics when Ümlaut told her he had paid for my bus ticket out of town. Now both Ümlaut and Attikol are freaking out and competing to see who can find me first so that they can win her LOVE. (Retch.)
   
9. Schneider agrees with me that I can turn this to my advantage if I want to go back to Blackrock.
   
10. Schneider admits there is some reward money in it for him from BOTH Attikol and Ümlaut if he brings me back to Blackrock.
    
11. Schneider looked very uncomfortable when I wondered out loud how Attikol and Ümlaut would feel if they knew he had made deals with both of them.
    
12. Schneider reluctantly compliments me on getting this information out of him and says I would make a totally wicked private investigator.
    
13. Schneider agrees to give me a cut of the reward money and to never use teen slang again if I come back to Blackrock with him.
    

Which is why I’m writing all this in Schneider’s car on the way back to Blackrock.

Later-back in Blackrock

Life is way better in Blackrock when you have A) a beautiful birdbrain who relies on you to deal with her junk mail and keep her
espresso machine running; B) two rich jerks willing to pay any money to keep the birdbrain happy; and C) a PI who is worried you will tell certain rich jerks that he is a shameless double-crosser. Attikol and Ümlaut have paid off my tickets and “convinced” the school to drop my detention. Schneider has agreed to do some detective work for me, beginning with a search of missing persons. And I now have a permanent permit to park my new fridge box in the back alley, regardless of the street-sweeping schedule. Still dealing with floods of junk mail, but at least things are looking up.

Later

Have been walking around town just to make sure no new MISSING posters with my face on them have appeared. Nada.

Spied on Attikol eating lunch with a bunch of important-looking people for a few minutes before I almost passed out with boredom. He had better start spending his time pushing buildings to the east if he really cares about getting a date with Raven!

Later

Cabbage came home to the lean-to this evening looking different somehow. I finally figured out that the bandage is off his shredded ear, and there are stitches in it! Who would have done that? Maybe I should track down the local vets? Will have to write more later as the cats are all yammering at me to come with them
for our nightly exploration.

I wonder if they missed me like I missed them?

Later

Excellent discovery tonight!! Those cats are gooooooooood! Right away when we got out of the fridge box they had a plan. They started leading me again, back to the spot where the security officer surprised me that one time. Except they were approaching from a roundabout way. So smart—we made it to the destination without interference. The destination turned out to be an auto impound lot surrounded with ten-foot razor wire. All four of them went up to this one spot in the fence and meowed. I was like, what? But then I saw they were sort of scratching under it. And actually, the dirt was pretty loose there, so we were able to squirm under without much problem.

I had no idea what we were doing there. But I kept following them.

I followed them through the rows of cars to one that stood out: the strangest and most beautiful van ever. I think it started out as a ’63 VW van, but had mostly transformed into a bizarre and complicated contraption that looked like a science lab, rocketship, and botanical garden. And that’s just what I could see from outside. The doors were chained and padlocked, and that’s all I could really discover before the guard showed up with his flashlight and dog, and the cats all bailed. Just got a Polaroid and the license plate before splitting (see above and below). Will get Schneider on this tomorrow. Am half-expecting that he will have already found out who I am with his missing persons search. Fingers crossed.