The Scavenger's Daughters (Tales of the Scavenger's Daughters, Book One) (25 page)

Just before he disappeared through the doorway, Calli stood and gathered herself. “You cannot go out there walking around, Benfu. You are sick, you should be in bed.”

“I’ll be back when I find Jasmine. Don’t worry, I’ll be fine. Come on, Linnea. Let’s go.” He held the door and Linnea slipped through. They left the courtyard together.

Linnea followed her Ye Ye as they started with their own courtyard and then moved out into the
hutong
. They took turns calling out to Jasmine in the
hopes that she was being silly and hiding somewhere near. That wasn’t something she would normally do, but Linnea knew anything was possible.

Neighbors had begun to stir and a few came out to see why they were calling out. Widow Zu looked up from watering her tiny vegetable patch as they passed, her hand in midair as she searched their faces to see what was wrong.

“Zenme le?”
she called out. She wasn’t one to ever hold her tongue. In her book it wasn’t nosiness that kept her asking questions; it was her right as the
hutong
matriarch.

Linnea looked at her Ye Ye and saw he was too preoccupied with looking around the line of trash barrels to pay attention.

“Our Mei Mei, Jasmine, is missing,” she answered the old lady. “Have you seen her, Widow Zu?”

The old woman squinted. “Which one is that?” She waved her hand in the air. “Oh never mind—you all look the same to me and I haven’t seen any of you girls this morning until you. But I’m sure she’ll turn up.”

The old woman went back to watering the small patch of grass on the edge of her dirt yard. Linnea followed along behind her Ye Ye, checking the areas he didn’t. He was easy to keep up with, even with her looking in more places than he, as he struggled to get his breath while he went. Linnea kept an eye on him, too, as she looked.

At the end of the lane he stopped just before entering the street and turned to her.

“Linnea, you go that way and I’ll go down to the end of this street.” He pointed in the other direction.

“No, Ye Ye. I don’t want to leave you. Let’s look together.” She was worried about him. His cheeks were flushed and she’d never seen him so upset. She was concerned because he could barely walk a few steps without attempting to muffle a cough.

She jumped when he barked back at her. His voice was much hoarser than normal, making him sound nothing like himself at all. “Just do what I say, Linnea! We don’t have time to waste.”

At that he took off in the opposite direction and Linnea turned down the lane, her head bent to hide her hurt feelings. She knew he was just afraid for Jasmine and wasn’t mad at her, but he rarely ever yelled at them and it stung. Was he still mad at her about Jet?

Behind her she heard him start another round of coughing and she shook her head. He was too sick to be exerting himself so much. She hoped that Jasmine would beat them home and that she was only hiding somewhere around the house and was fine. When she turned up, her little sister was going to get a few yanks of the hair for the trouble she’d caused.

At the intersection, Linnea stopped to wait for traffic. She turned her head to look behind her at how far her Ye Ye had gone. She couldn’t see him for the crowd that was gathering between them. Linnea wondered what they were looking at, then turned back around to cross the street. She didn’t have time to be nosy; she needed to find her sister.

In front of the grocer’s stand she stopped to ask if he had seen a little girl that morning. The man stood with his hand to his eyes, trying to look beyond her. By the looks of his soiled white apron and his perfectly arranged fruit bins, he’d been at work for hours already and probably would have seen Jasmine if she had come by.

“Dui bu qi.”
She waved her hand in front of his face, trying to get his attention. “Excuse me.”

He ignored her and continued to look down the street. Linnea was irritated. They’d shopped there plenty and it wasn’t like the grocer to be so rude. Her Ye Ye had told her many times how the same man used to sell his fruit and vegetables from worn baskets hanging from a pole across his neck. Ye Ye said that years of hard work and customer loyalty had finally earned the man a real storefront with shelves and crates, and he’d built his business up big enough to actually be able to take care of his family, but Linnea thought maybe he was getting too uppity. Was he too good to give her a moment of his time?

“I said
dui bu qi
.” She tried again.

Distracted, the grocer looked down at her and then his eyes widened. He pointed behind her.

“Oh, hey—aren’t you one of the scavenger’s daughters?”

Linnea felt her temper flare, but she needed to ask him about Jasmine and then she could just go. She didn’t need to waste time defending her family.

“Because if you are, I think that’s the old scavenger who just fell in the street. Can’t see him anymore, too many people around him. But I’m sure that was him. He waved at me when he went by.”

Linnea felt her heart in her throat. Had Ye Ye been hit by a car? She turned and began running as fast as she could.
Please let him be okay; please let him be okay.
At the curb, she darted out into the street, not even looking around her. Just a few feet from her a taxi driver slammed on his brakes and laid on the horn. A woman on a bicycle swerved and cussed at her, waving her fist at her as she fought to get her bike back in balance. Linnea kept running and covered the two blocks in seconds. Out of breath, she pushed through the crowd.

“Move! Let me through!” she cried out. “That’s my Ye Ye!”

Linnea hoped she was wrong—that the grocer was wrong. But something told her they weren’t. The crowd parted and she felt cold chills run up her arms as she saw her Ye Ye lying on the street, his eyes rolled back in his head. Linnea knelt down on the ground next to him. She didn’t see any blood or anything to indicate he’d been hurt. He simply lay there, white as a sheet and not moving at all, despite the chaos of the street around him.

“Ye Ye! Ye Ye, are you okay? Can you hear me? What happened?” Linnea pulled her jacket off and bundled it, then slid it under his head.

He didn’t answer but she could see his chest rising and falling. The people around them babbled about seeing him fall, but no one offered any help. They stared and pointed, clearly excited at the interruption to their morning. Linnea looked around, trying to find any familiar or sympathetic face. She didn’t know what to do. Everyone simply stood around her, staring.

What felt like an eternity later but could only have been seconds, a young girl about Linnea’s age—on her way to school by the looks of her
pristine uniform—dropped to her knees beside them, holding out her cell phone.

“Do you need to use my phone to call someone? Maybe an ambulance?”

Linnea knew an ambulance crew would take one look at them and know they couldn’t pay a transport fee. She didn’t even have thirty yuan for a taxi—much less several hundred they’d charge for an ambulance ride. She looked at the phone in the girl’s hand and suddenly remembered that Jet had made her memorize his number in case she ever needed him. He had wanted to buy her a phone, but Linnea wouldn’t let him as she knew her Ye Ye would have drawn the line at such an extravagant gesture.

She looked back down at her Ye Ye, then around her for help. She thought about running the two blocks back home to get Nai Nai, but she couldn’t leave him. She was on her own. She grabbed the phone from the girl and punched in the number. As she waited for it to connect, she squeezed her Ye Ye’s hand and tears ran down her face and dropped on his chest.

“Please, Ye Ye, be okay. Please,” she pleaded quietly as the number connected and rang once, twice, then three times. She studied her Ye Ye’s face while she waited. He was pale. Too pale.

“Jet, where are you?” she mumbled just as he answered. She hoped he wasn’t tied up with anything too important that he couldn’t get away. The crowd around her was so loud she didn’t hear him answer at first.

“Hello? Hello? Who is this?”

At the sound of his voice Linnea froze. Then she saw her Ye Ye’s eyelashes flutter.

“Jet! I need you. It’s an emergency. Can you come right now?” Her voice shook and she ignored the looks of pity the strangers around her cast her way. She felt a moment of panic in the lull it took him to answer; then she heard his voice.

“Just tell me where you are, Lin. You can explain when I get there.”

Linnea climbed into the car and shut the door. She looked up at the hospital they had just left and shook her head, amazed at all that had transpired over the day. She hated leaving her Ye Ye there but knew that Nai Nai would stand guard and not let him get up. His second collapse in two days made it fairly clear she wouldn’t let him come home until the doctor gave his approval. Still, leaving Nai Nai there alone to deal with his stubbornness made her nervous.

She peeked over at Jet and was surprised at how much older and more mature he looked sitting behind the wheel. She hadn’t even known he had a driver’s license. Wait, at nineteen, was he even old enough for a driver’s license? He had looked so embarrassed when he’d shown up with the fancy car. But Linnea didn’t care where he’d gotten it, as it had probably saved her Ye Ye’s life. It had taken them both and a few recruited pedicab drivers to get the old man into the backseat and Jet had raced him to the hospital, and even signed his father’s name as guarantor of any incurred charges. Linnea felt the weight of the favor and didn’t know how she’d ever repay him. But first things first—and now that she’d gotten Ye Ye settled and Nai Nai there to manage him, it was time to get back and see about the rest of her family.

“We need to hurry, Jet. Nai Nai is really worried about Poppy. Ivy has taken care of her before but never totally alone. She’s been there all day without me or Nai Nai.”

“Okay—but Linnea, I think your sister is more than competent. I saw how she tended Poppy the other day when I was there. She was great with her. You have to calm down before you are the one collapsing.”

She was also surprised that even though they had ended things badly, being around Jet didn’t feel awkward. It just felt comfortable. And that made her happy, even in the midst of her panic about everything else.

Linnea swallowed the lump in her throat. “I’m glad Nai Nai came out to tell us Ye Ye is stable and resting. And the doctor isn’t going to let him leave this time until he does more tests.”

Suddenly she remembered the other emergency and felt a sense of urgency to get home. Nai Nai was depending on her to take care of everything. She needed to check on the baby, make sure her sisters were fed, and
then go back out and try to find Jasmine. They’d already spoken to a policeman at the hospital, but he said they couldn’t take a report until the child had been missing at least a day and night. Were they crazy? Jasmine wasn’t much more than a baby! Did he really think they’d let the night come without trying to find her?

She had said as much to Jet as they’d stopped in the parking lot of the hospital and leaned up against the shiny black sedan. Jet had stood in front of her, his hands intertwined with both of hers, causing little jolts of electricity to shoot up through her fingers and linger low in her belly. She knew she shouldn’t have let him so close but just his touch made everything seem less horrible. And he hadn’t left her side since he had shown up with his father’s car and transported Ye Ye to the hospital. He’d even taken her back home for her Nai Nai once Ye Ye had been stabilized and she could leave.

“Linnea, can we talk?”

“I’ve got so much going on in my head right now, Jet, believe me, I couldn’t make sense if I wanted to. I appreciate what you’ve done today, but honestly, I can’t think of anything but my getting Ye Ye better and finding my little sister.”

Jet turned his body so he could see behind the car to back out and his arm grazed hers. She wondered if he felt the same shiver of pleasure she did when they touched; then she felt guilty for even thinking of that when her little sister was still lost.

“I don’t know where else to look,” Linnea said, shaking her head in frustration. One minute they were talking about the doctor’s grim prognosis if Benfu refused medical care, and the next she was racking her brain to think of where Jasmine could be. In between she worried whether her other sisters were okay. She hoped Ivy was also looking out for Maggi’s needs, as well as the baby’s. But first and foremost, she worried for Jasmine.