Walk Two Moons Page 8

  The door inched open and there was Phoebe’s round face, as white and frightened as ever you could imagine. “Quick,” she said. “Come in.” She led me into the kitchen. On the kitchen table was an apple pie, and beside it were three envelopes: one for Phoebe, one for Prudence, and one for their father.

  “I opened my note,” Phoebe said, showing it to me. It said, Keep all the doors locked and call your father if you need anything. I love you, Phoebe. It was signed, Mom.

  I didn’t think too much of it. “Phoebe—” I said.

  “I know, I know. It doesn’t sound terrible or anything. In fact, my first thought was, ‘Well, good. She knows I am old enough to be here by myself.’ I figured she was out shopping or maybe she even decided to return to work, even though she wasn’t supposed to go back to Rocky’s Rubber until next week. But then Prudence came home and opened her note.”

  Phoebe showed me the note left for Prudence. It said, Please heat up the spaghetti sauce and boil the spaghetti. I love you, Prudence. It was signed, Mom.

  I still didn’t think too much of it, but Phoebe was suspicious. Prudence made the spaghetti, while I helped Phoebe set the table. Phoebe and I even made a salad. “I do feel sort of independent,” Phoebe said.

  When Phoebe’s father came home, Phoebe showed him his note. He opened it and sat down, staring at the piece of paper. Phoebe looked over his shoulder and read his note aloud: I had to go away. I can’t explain. I’ll call you in a few days.

  I had a sinking, sinking feeling.

  Prudence started asking a million questions. “What does she mean? Go away where? Why can’t she explain? Why didn’t she tell you? Did she mention this? A few days? Where did she go?”

  “Maybe we should call the police,” Phoebe said. “I think she was kidnapped or something.”

  “Oh, Phoebe,” Mr. Winterbottom said.

  “I’m serious,” she said. “Maybe a lunatic came in the house and dragged her off—”

  “Phoebe, that is not funny.”

  “I’m not being funny. I mean it. It could happen.”

  Prudence was still asking her questions. “Where did she go? Why didn’t she mention this? Didn’t she tell you? Where did she go?”

  “Prudence, I honestly cannot say,” her father said.

  “I think we should call the police,” Phoebe repeated.

  “Phoebe, if she was kidnapped, would the lunatic—as you say—allow her to sit down and write these notes? Mm?”

  He stood up, removed his coat, and said, “Let’s eat.”

  As I left, Phoebe said, “My mother has disappeared. Sal, don’t tell anyone. Don’t tell a soul.”

  At home, my father was slumped over the photo album. He used to close the album quickly when I came in the room, as if he were embarrassed to be caught with it. Lately, however, he didn’t bother to close it. It was as if he didn’t have the strength to do that.

  On the opened page was a photo of my father and mother sitting in the grass beneath the sugar maple. His arms were around her and she was sort of folded into him. His face was pressed up next to hers and their hair blended together. They looked like they were connected.

  “Phoebe’s mother went away,” I said.

  He looked up at me.

  “She left some notes. She says she’s coming back, but I don’t believe it.”

  I went upstairs and tried to work on my mythology report. My father came to the doorway and said, “People usually come back.”

  Now I can see that he was just talking in general, just trying to be comforting, but then—that night—what I heard in what he said was the tiniest reassurance of something I had been thinking and hoping. I had been praying that a miracle would happen and my mother would come back and we would return to Bybanks and everything would be exactly as it used to be.

  21

  SOULS

  At school the next day, Phoebe wore a fixed expression: a sealed, thin smile. It must have been hard for her to maintain that smile, because by the time English class came around, her chin was quivering from the strain. She was extremely quiet all day. She didn’t speak to anyone but me, and the only thing she said to me was, “Stay at my house tomorrow night.” It wasn’t a question; it was a command.

  Mr. Birkway gave us a fifteen-second exercise. As fast as we could, without thinking, we were to draw something. He would tell us what we were to draw when everyone was ready. “Remember,” he said. “Don’t think. Just draw. Fifteen seconds. Ready? Draw your soul. Go.”

  We all wasted five seconds staring blankly back at him. When we saw that he was serious and was watching the clock, our pencils hit the paper. I wasn’t thinking. There wasn’t time to think.

  When Mr. Birkway called “Stop!” everyone looked up, dazed. Then we looked down at our papers, and a buzz went around the room. We were surprised at what had come out of our pencils.

  Mr. Birkway zipped around, scooping up the papers. He shuffled them and tacked them up on the bulletin board. He said, “We now have everyone’s soul captured.” We all crowded around.

  The first thing I noticed was that every single person had drawn a central shape—a heart, circle, square, or triangle. I thought that was unusual. I mean, no one drew a bus or a spaceship or a cow—they all drew these same shapes. Next, I noticed that inside each figure was a distinct design. At first it seemed that every one was different. There was a cross, a dark scribble, an eye, a mouth, a window.

  There was one with a teardrop inside that I thought must be Phoebe’s.

  Then Mary Lou said, “Look at that—two are exactly the same.” People were saying, “Geez” and “Wow” and “Whose are those?”

  The duplicate designs were: a circle with a large maple leaf in the center, the tips of the leaf touching the sides of the circle. One of the maple leaf circles was mine. The other was Ben’s.

  22

  EVIDENCE

  I spent the next night at Phoebe’s house, but I could hardly sleep. Phoebe kept saying, “Hear that noise?” and she would jump up to peer out the window in case it was the lunatic returning for the rest of us. Once she saw Mrs. Cadaver in her garden with a flashlight.

  I must have fallen asleep after that, because I awoke to the sound of Phoebe crying in her sleep. When I woke her, she denied it. “I was not crying. I most certainly was not.”

  In the morning, Phoebe refused to get up. Her father rushed into the room with two ties slung around his neck and his shoes in his hand. “Phoebe, you’re late.”

  “I’m sick,” she said. “I have a fever and a stomachache.”

  Her father placed his hand on her forehead, looked deep into her eyes and said, “I’m afraid you have to go to school.”

  “I’m sick. Honest,” she said. “It might be cancer.”

  “Phoebe, I know you’re worried, but there’s nothing we can do but wait. We have to go on with things. We can’t malinger.”

  “We can’t what?” Phoebe said.

  “Malinger. Here. Look it up.” He tossed her the dictionary from her desk and tore down the hall.

  “My mother is missing, and my father hands me a dictionary,” Phoebe said. She looked up malinger and read the definition: “‘To pretend to be ill in order to escape duty or work.’” She slammed the book shut. “I am not malingering.”

  Prudence was in a frenzy. “Where is my white blouse? Phoebe, have you seen—? I could have sworn—!” She pulled things out of her closet and flung them on the bed.

  Phoebe reluctantly got dressed, pulling a wrinkled blouse and skirt from the closet. Downstairs, the kitchen table was bare. “No bowls of muesli,” Phoebe said. “No glasses of orange juice or whole wheat toast.” She touched a white sweater hanging on the back of a chair. “My mother’s favorite white cardigan,” she said. She snatched the sweater and waved it in front of her father. “Look at this! Would she leave this behind? Would she?”

  He reached forward and touched its sleeve, rubbing the fabric between his fingers for a moment. “Phoebe,
it’s an old sweater.” Phoebe put it on over her wrinkled blouse.

  I was uneasy because everything that happened at Phoebe’s that morning reminded me of when my mother left. For weeks, my father and I fumbled around like ducks in a fit. Nothing was where it was supposed to be. The house took on a life of its own, hatching piles of dishes and laundry and newspapers and dust. My father must have said “I’ll be jiggered” three thousand times. The chickens were fidgety, the cows were skittish, and the pigs were sullen and glum. Our dog, Moody Blue, whimpered for hours on end.

  When my father said that my mother was not coming back, I refused to believe it. I brought all her postcards down from my room and said, “She wrote me all these, she must be coming back.” And just like Phoebe, who had waved her mother’s sweater in front of her father, I had brought a chicken in from the coop: “Would Mom leave her favorite chicken?” I demanded. “She loves this chicken.”

  What I really meant was, “How can she not come back to me? She loves me.”

  At school, Phoebe slammed her books on her desk. Beth Ann said, “Hey, Phoebe, your blouse is a little wrinkled—”

  “My mother’s away,” Phoebe said.

  “I iron my own clothes now,” Beth Ann said. “I even iron—”

  To me, Phoebe whispered, “I think I’m having a genuine heart attack.”

  I thought about a baby rabbit that our dog, Moody Blue, caught and carried around—she was not actually lunching on the rabbit, just playing. I finally coaxed Moody Blue to drop it, and when I picked up the rabbit, its heart was beating faster than anything. Faster and faster it went, and then all of a sudden its heart stopped.

  I took the rabbit to my mother. She said, “It’s dead, Salamanca.”

  “It can’t be dead,” I said. “It was alive just a minute ago.”

  I wondered what would happen if all of a sudden Phoebe’s heart beat itself out like the rabbit’s, and she fell down and died right there at school. Her mother would not even know Phoebe was dead.

  After homeroom, Mary Lou said to Phoebe, “Did I hear you say your mother is away—?”

  Christy and Megan gathered around. “Is your mother on a business trip?” Christy said. “My mother’s always going to Paris on business trips. So where is your mother? On a business trip?”

  Phoebe nodded.

  “Where did she go?” Megan said. “Tokyo? Saudi Arabia?”

  Phoebe said, “London.”

  “Oh, London,” Christy said. “My mother’s been there.”

  Phoebe turned to me with a puzzled expression on her face. I think that she was surprised at what she had said, but I knew exactly why she had lied. It was easier sometimes. I had done this myself when people asked about my mother. “Don’t worry, Phoebe,” I said.

  She snapped, “I am not worried.”

  I had done that too. Whenever anyone tried to console me about my mother, I had nearly chomped their heads off. I was a complete ornery old donkey. When my father would say, “You must feel terrible,” I denied it. “I don’t,” I told him. “I don’t feel anything at all.” But I did feel terrible. I didn’t want to wake up in the morning, and I was afraid to go to sleep at night.

  By lunchtime, people were coming at Phoebe from all directions. “How long will your mother be in London?” Mary Lou asked. “Is she having tea with the queen?”

  “Tell her to go to Convent Garden,” Christy said. “My mother just loves Convent Garden.”

  “It’s Covent Garden, cabbage-head,” Mary Lou said.

  “It isn’t,” Christy said. “I’m sure it’s Convent Garden.”

  After school, we walked home with Ben and Mary Lou. Phoebe wouldn’t say a word. “Whatsa matter, Free Bee?” Ben asked. “Talk.”

  Out of the blue, I said, “Everyone has his own agenda.” Ben tripped over the curb, and Mary Lou gave me a peculiar look. I kept hoping that Phoebe’s mother would be home. Even though the door was locked, I kept hoping. “Are you sure you want me to come in?” I said. “Maybe you want to be alone.”

  Phoebe said, “I don’t want to be alone. Call your dad and see if you can stay for dinner again.”

  Inside, Phoebe called, “Mom?” She walked through the house, looking in each room. “That’s it,” Phoebe said. “I’m going to search for clues, for evidence that the lunatic has been here and dragged my mother off.” I wanted to tell her that she was just fishing in the air and that probably her mother had not been kidnapped, but I knew that Phoebe didn’t want to hear it.

  When my mother did not return, I imagined all sorts of things. Maybe she had cancer and didn’t want to tell us and was hiding in Idaho. Maybe she got knocked on the head and had amnesia and was wandering around Lewiston, not knowing who she really was, or thinking she was someone else. My father said, “She does not have cancer, Sal. She does not have amnesia. Those are fishes in the air.” But I didn’t believe him. Maybe he was trying to protect her—or me.

  Phoebe prowled through the house, examining the walls and carpet, searching for bloodstains. She found several suspicious spots and unidentifiable hair strands. Phoebe marked the spots with pieces of adhesive tape and collected the hairs in an envelope.

  Prudence was in a lather when she came home. “I made it!” she said. “I made it!” She was jumping all about. “I made cheerleading!” When Phoebe reminded her that their mother had been kidnapped, Prudence said, “Oh Phoebe, Mom wasn’t kidnapped.” She stopped jumping and looked around the kitchen. “So what are we supposed to have for dinner?”

  Phoebe rummaged around in the cupboards. Prudence opened the freezer compartment and said, “Look at this.” For a terrible moment, I thought she had found some chopped-up body parts in there. Maybe, just maybe, Phoebe was right. Maybe a lunatic had done away with her mother. I couldn’t look. I could hear Prudence moving things in the freezer. At least she wasn’t screaming.

  There were no body parts in the freezer. Instead, stacked neatly, were plastic containers, each with a note attached. “Broc-Len Cas, 350, 1 hr,” Prudence read, and “Mac Che, 325, 45 min,” on and on and on.

  “What’s Broc-Len Cas?” I said.

  Phoebe pried open the lid. Inside was a green and yellow hardened mass. “Broccoli and lentil casserole,” she said.

  When their father came home and was surprised to see dinner on the table, Prudence showed him the freezer contents. “Hm,” he said. At dinner, we all ate quietly.

  “I don’t suppose you’ve heard anything—from Mom?” Prudence asked her father.

  “Not yet,” he said.

  “I think we should call the police,” Phoebe said.

  “Phoebe.”

  “I’m serious. I found some suspicious spots.” Phoebe pointed toward two adhesive-taped areas beneath the dining room table.

  “What’s that tape doing down there?” he asked.

  Phoebe explained about the potential blood spots.

  “Blood?” Prudence said. She stopped eating.

  Phoebe pulled out the envelope and emptied the hair strands on the table. “Strange hairs,” Phoebe explained.

  Prudence said, “Uck.”

  Mr. Winterbottom tapped his fork against his knife. Then he stood up, took Phoebe’s arm, and said, “Follow me.” He went to the refrigerator, opened the freezer compartment, and indicated the plastic containers. “If your mother had been kidnapped by a lunatic, would she have had time to prepare all these meals? Would she have been able to say, ‘Excuse me, Mr. Lunatic, while I prepare ten or twenty meals for my family to eat while I am kidnapped?’”

  “You don’t care,” Phoebe said. “Nobody cares. Everyone has his own idiot agenda.”

  I left shortly after dinner. Mr. Winterbottom was in his study, phoning his wife’s friends to see if they had any idea of where she might have gone.

  “At least,” Phoebe said to me, “he’s doing something, but I still think we should call the police.”

  As I left Phoebe’s, the dead-leaf crackly voice of Margaret Cadaver called
to me from her house next door. “Sal? Do you want to come in? Your father’s here—we’re having dessert. Join us.”

  My father appeared behind her. “Come on, Sal,” he said. “Don’t be a goose.”

  “I am not a goose,” I said. “I already had dessert, and I’m going home to work on my English report.”

  My father turned to Margaret. “I’d better go with her. Sorry—”

  Margaret didn’t say anything. She just stood there as my father retrieved his jacket and joined me. I knew it was mean, but I felt as if I had won a little victory over Margaret Cadaver.

  On the way home, when Dad asked if Phoebe’s mother had come back yet, I said, “No. Phoebe thinks a lunatic has carried her off.”

  “A lunatic? Isn’t that a bit farfetched?”

  “That’s what I thought at first, but you never know, do you? I mean it could happen. There could actually be a lunatic who—”

  “Sal.”

  I was going to explain about the nervous young man and the mysterious messages, but my father would call me a goose. Instead, I said, “How do you know that someone—not exactly a lunatic, but just someone—didn’t make Mom go to Idaho? Maybe it was blackmail—”

  “Sal. Your mother went because she wanted to go.”

  “We should have stopped her.”

  “A person isn’t a bird. You can’t cage a person.”

  “She shouldn’t have gone. If she hadn’t gone—”

  “Sal, I’m sure she intended to come back.” We had reached our house, but we didn’t go in. We sat on the porch steps. Dad said, “You can’t predict—a person can’t foresee—you never know—”

  He looked away, and I felt miserable right along with him. I apologized for being ornery and for upsetting him. He put his arm around me and we sat there together on the porch, two people being completely pitiful and lost.