“N-no,” he stumbled. What’s the best answer? “No. I just remembered I forgot my homework, though.” He turned and ran back the way he’d come, hoping she bought it.
If only he was new. What he wouldn’t give to be back in school, with regular hours, a regular life. And food.
Back on Main Street, he turned right and found himself heading into the center of town. Rows of old brick buildings lined both sides of the street, which was busy with people bustling to and from their parked cars, many carrying coffee cups. A couple of men, one in a suit and another in a blue uniform, were waiting to use an ATM. Jack pulled his cap even lower as he passed them. He stood across from one group of shops, all connected like Legos, and read the signs: THE GRASSHOPPER SHOP, LEFT BANK BOOKS, COASTAL COFFEE. At the top of the Coastal Coffee sign, Jack read: FREE INTERNET CAFÉ.
What kind of miracle was this? Sure, libraries had computers, but libraries also had librarians who, wanting to be helpful and all, paid close attention to the comings and goings of kids. A coffee shop — now, that was probably different. A coffee shop would be used to tourists — people that no one had ever seen around before. And at this hour of the morning, a café would be busy, with people trying to get to work and to school on time. They’d hardly notice him.
With Internet access, he could get directions to the animal park, plan a route. And, even though he wouldn’t allow himself to check his YouPage — not until he’d seen Lydia — there was a small chance that reporters had tracked down his mother, had figured out her whereabouts. Maybe she was back in this country. He’d feel better knowing they were both in the same country again.
Jack climbed the steps of the coffee shop and went inside.
The walls and ceilings were painted periwinkle, Nina’s favorite color. Loads of people were seated at tables near the entrance — tables covered in plastic tablecloths with pictures of watermelons, apples, and cherries, he noticed, trying to keep his head down. Once, when he was little, Gram had spread a cloth like these out for a picnic. They had taken turns pretending to pick a piece of fruit and eat it right off the cloth. How he wished he could grab a bunch of cherries off the plastic right now.
In the back of the café was a display case that held pastries: doughnuts, éclairs, croissants, giant muffins. A yeasty bread smell, combined with the scent of coffee, nearly overtook him, and for a moment he imagined grabbing a chocolate croissant off a woman’s plate and bolting outside.
Instead, he looked around the side of the display case, toward the back of the shop, for a computer.
There wasn’t one. How could this be a free-Internet café and not have a computer? On the wall he saw a small handwritten sign: WI-FI AREA. Oh, so you could have free Internet if you brought your own laptop. Figures! All the excitement he’d felt only moments ago leached out of him.
“You’re him!” He turned at the loud whisper. It was the girl he’d met on the street — again standing so close, he could count the freckles on her nose. She’d been following him!
“You’re the missing kid,” she gasped.
Jack felt like a kid in a game of tag, about to be marked it. He couldn’t catch his breath. He didn’t know what to say, couldn’t think. He pivoted from his left foot to his right and then ran, squeezing past tables and through crowds and out of the shop.
“Hey!” he heard her yell from behind him.
Jack sprinted past the rest of the storefronts on the block and down a side street before he paused to look over his shoulder. The girl was following him, and man, was she fast! There were no other roads shooting off the one he was on, and if his sense of direction was correct, this street would soon end at the ocean. Then what? A dog barked loudly, discouraging him from cutting across the unknown backyards. Instead, he suddenly reversed direction, clipping the girl with as much force as he could as he raced back up the hill, to the center of town, and ducked into a bookstore on the corner. A bell over the door jingled.
It was a smaller store than Jack expected, and, even though he could see instantly that it had lots of little nooks and crannies for sitting and reading, he knew he couldn’t hide in there for long. Fortunately, the one and only customer in the store — a man who rocked back and forth on his heels as he spoke — was trying to explain his needs to a woman behind the counter. Jack moved to a back corner of the store, which happened to be the children’s section, and sat for a moment in a small stuffed red chair to catch his breath.
He picked up a nearby graphic novel, hoping to look engrossed and be somewhat hidden if anyone else came into the store. He felt as if the girl’s shout and his tearing out of the coffee shop so quickly had alerted everyone to the fact that something unusual was happening in town.
And no doubt he’d made the girl mad when he’d clipped her. Come to think of it, that was pretty stupid. She’d probably gone straight to the police station to report her sighting.
The woman came out from behind the counter and led the man to some shelves at the front of the store. “We could put the display here,” she said.
Jack glanced around the bookshop for a rear exit. There was a curtained doorway in the back, but he doubted it led anywhere except to a closet-size office. But across from the counter was a partially open door — a heavy metal door. He decided to risk it. He could simply say he was confused if it led to a dead end.
Making as little noise as possible, he slipped through the open door and into . . . into what? What was this? There were boxes of books all around, but he was not in a typical storage room. Jack touched the walls — metal, too. He was in a . . . in a safe. Not a safe, a vault. The kind that he’d seen in a movie about notorious bank robbers. Why would there be a vault in a bookstore?
He read the label on one of the boxes: Left Bank Books. Maybe the store used to be a bank?
He was about to exit the vault when the light from outside was blocked. The girl from the café was standing three feet away, peering inside. He froze against the wall, hoping she wouldn’t notice him in the shadows.
“Hello?” she called hesitantly.
His breath caught. Could she see him?
“Mrs. Magillicutty?”
That must be the woman who was behind the counter when he came in. So she couldn’t see him! He wanted to exhale in relief, but he was afraid even the slightest movement would give him away.
As the girl continued to peer into the vault, Jack could hear the woman — Mrs. Magillicutty — at the front of the store. Please go away, Jack thought at the girl. Please!
The girl poked her head back outside the vault. “Mrs. M., have you seen —?”
She was going to ask about him! And this would be the first place they’d look. He couldn’t let that happen!
Not knowing what else to do, Jack reached out, grabbed the girl’s wrist, and pulled her into the vault with him.
“Ouch!” the girl cried, and then opened her mouth to yell.
Quickly, Jack pulled the door of the vault shut.
“What’d you do that for?” the girl shouted. “We’re locked in here now, you know. And it’s no use yelling. The Morris twins did that for hours, but no one heard them.”
Jack couldn’t see the girl’s face in the dark, and so he stammered in her general direction. “Y-you were going to turn me in!”
“Of course I was going to turn you in. The whole state of Maine’s looking for you! Your poor grandmother is worried sick.”
He bristled at that but was glad she couldn’t see it. “I can’t let you turn me in,” he said.
“But why? What’d you do?” The girl pulled her cell phone out of her bag and flipped it open. “I’d better get reception in here. I have a test this afternoon.”
Jack couldn’t even remember a time when his biggest worry was some test at school. “I didn’t do anything.”
The girl looked up from the screen. “Then why’d you run away?”
Where would he even start? he wondered. Not that he was actually going to tell this girl anything.
“I can’t believe this. Not even a single bar!” She snapped her phone closed in frustration. “I wonder if Mrs. M. will hear us if we bang on the walls.”
The thought of being discovered sent Jack’s heart racing. “Couldn’t you just pretend you locked yourself in by accident? I mean, when she realizes there’s someone in here? I could hide in the shadows and slip out once the coast was clear.”
“Slip out?” He could hear her sit down on a box. “You’ve got to be kidding. First of all, there’s no telling how long it’ll take for us to be discovered. We could be in here all day! Secondly, when we are discovered, Mrs. M. will be furious, and that’s nothing compared to what will happen if anyone finds out I let you go.”
“But no one would have to know you ever saw me. Like I said, I could just slip —”
“Slip out, I know. But how am I going to explain how I ended up in this vault in the first place without mentioning that I was following you? Besides, if I turn you in, I’ll be a hero. And if I don’t, and someone finds out about it — which they will — I’ll probably be grounded for the rest of eighth grade.”
Jack sat down on a box as well. His legs no longer felt like they could hold him. “Please,” he said. “I know turning me in seems like the right thing to do, but sometimes things aren’t what they seem.”
“Well, why don’t you enlighten me, then?”
“Huh?”
“Convince me that I’m wrong. And everybody who’s out looking for you, everybody in the state of Maine and your grandma and the police — convince me that we’re all wrong, and that you’re better off on your own.”
Jack wrapped his good hand around the plastic elephant in his pocket. All of his instincts were telling him not to trust this strange girl, not to let her get any closer than she already was. But he felt trapped, cornered. What choice did he have, really?
“I don’t even know you. . . .” he began, but he knew he was just stalling.
“Sylvie Winters,” she said. “Nice to meet you. I don’t remember if they mentioned your name on the news. . . .”
“I’m Jack,” he said, and left it at that. He took a deep breath. “The reason you can’t tell anybody is because if you do, I’ll be . . .”
He could feel her staring at him, waiting.
Just like that, all the fight drained out of him. He put his head in his hands. “I’ll be taken away from my mother,” he whispered.
Sylvie was silent for a moment more and then asked, “Because she left? That’s what happened, isn’t it?”
Jack nodded.
“Permanently?” Sylvie asked.
His head snapped up. “No! She’s gonna come back, I know she will. I just don’t know how long she’ll be gone.”
“OK, OK. I believe you,” Sylvie said, soothingly. “But what I meant was, do you think they would take you away from her permanently?”
Jack was glad for the darkness. It was easier to talk to her when she couldn’t see him. “I don’t know,” he said. “But it’s bad, right? I mean, could she go to jail for something like this?”
She paused. “I suppose,” she said, as gently as anyone could say such a thing. “I think it qualifies as abandonment or child neglect or something.” He could tell she was thinking. “So, what were you planning on doing?”
“Before I got locked in a vault?” Jack asked.
Sylvie laughed. “Yeah. Before that.”
He looked up. “I was going to see an elephant.”
“Would you like half of my sandwich?” Sylvie asked. They’d been trapped in the vault for at least two hours. “Or maybe we should each eat a quarter. Who knows how long we’ll be in here.”
Jack eagerly accepted and popped the entire portion of the egg-salad sandwich into his mouth before wishing he’d savored it.
“So, tell me another elephant story,” said Sylvie.
He gave himself a moment to finish chewing and asked, “Aren’t you tired of them?” though he was hardly tired of telling them. When Sylvie had questioned him about his determination to see Lydia, Jack had tried to explain his obsession with elephants by telling her some of the most amazing elephant stories and facts that he knew. He didn’t think he’d convinced her not to turn him in, but he had convinced her that elephants were pretty darned cool.
“Well, then, tell me how you were planning to get all the way to York,” Sylvie said.
“I don’t know. Walk, I guess. I’ve gotten this far.” Jack took off the hat he’d found. It had grown increasingly warm in the vault.
“Yeah, but everyone is looking for you now,” said Sylvie. “It’s all anyone wants to talk about . . . the missing boy.”
“Really?” Jack found it hard to believe that there wouldn’t be more important things to talk about — more important people to pursue — in Maine. Certainly, the state must have had its share of murders and burglaries, too.
“You’ve got to admit, it’s a pretty gripping story. An eleven-year-old kid, all on his own, has somehow survived without any food or money or help. Plus, it’s just driving people crazy that the entire Maine state-police force hasn’t found you yet. But I did,” Sylvie added with a good deal of satisfaction.
Jack declined her offer of some grapes, even though he’d eaten very little. He had to face the fact that at some point, this vault was going to be opened and Sylvie was going to announce to the world that she had found the missing boy. He’d be carted off, his grandmother would be called, and all the struggles of the week would have been for naught. In fact, maybe he’d be in a whole heap of trouble for not having gone to an adult — not to mention for stealing the elephant and the bike. Maybe he and his mom would both be going to jail.
But if he could just hold on a little longer, just make it as far as York’s Wild Kingdom, maybe by then everything would be OK. Maybe all he needed was to look into Lydia’s eyes, and he’d know what was supposed to come next, how this would all work out. He couldn’t give up now, not when he was so close.
Jack cleared his throat, not quite sure where his thoughts were going. “If you knew that you were going to be taken away from your mother, if you knew you’d never live with her again, is there anything you’d like to do first?”
Sylvie checked her cell reception again. She’d done it about fifteen times, even though there was never a signal.
“I don’t know,” she said.
Jack pulled his fingers through his hair. If he couldn’t even get her to put herself in his shoes, how would he ever convince her to let him go?
“I’d play Monopoly with her,” Sylvie said finally.
“Monopoly?”
“My mom is always trying to get me to play board games with her — especially Monopoly. But it’s so boring, you know? Except, there are some things I like. I like that my mom always tries to land on Indiana Avenue because she went to school in Indiana. And she always licks her finger twice before picking up a Chance card. And she always has to have the shoe.”
“That’s my mom’s favorite, too.”
“So, yeah, Monopoly. That’s the last thing I’d want to do with her before I left.”
Jack wished his one last thing could be something he did with his mom and not something he had to do on his own. But he knew, deep down, that even if he was alone, seeing Lydia would be his Monopoly.
Sylvie offered the grapes again.
“Mudo,” Jack said. He put one in his mouth and sucked on it slowly.
“Mudo?” asked Sylvie.
“It means ‘thank you.’”
“Huh,” said Sylvie. “So, seeing the elephant, seeing Lydia, really means that much to you?”
Jack nodded. “It’s all I have left.”
“But your mom —”
Suddenly, there was a clicking noise.
“The lock!” whispered Sylvie. He’d expected her to sound relieved, but instead she sounded frightened. “Mrs. M.’s opening the lock.”
Jack held his breath, praying that she finally understood
.
“Hide!” Sylvie commanded, pulling him toward a stack of boxes behind her.
Hope surged through him. Was she really —?
“Hide!” she said again.
Jack did as he was told and hid behind the pile of boxes —
And not a moment too soon. The heavy vault door swung open.
“Hi, Mrs. Magillicutty!”
“Good heavens!” Mrs. Magillicutty screeched. “Sylvie Winters, what on earth are you doing in here? You scared me half to death! How long —?”
“I came in this morning, looking for you, Mrs. M. I was checking to see if you were in here, and someone shut the door.”
“What do you mean, someone shut the door? I never shut this door. . . . The sales rep, maybe? Or one of the customers? They should all know better. . . . Someday, someone is going to make me permanently close this vault,” she muttered. Then she seemed to remember that Sylvie was there. “You’re all right, though, sweetie, aren’t you?”
“I’m fine, Mrs. M. Just happy to be free!”
Jack wondered if that last bit was for his benefit. Maybe she really did understand.
“What did you need me for in the first place?” Mrs. Magillicutty asked. Her voice sounded farther away, like maybe Sylvie was leading her to the front of the store.
“It was just a silly question about a book. I can’t even remember what it was, exactly,” said Sylvie, who was definitely farther away. “But, Mrs. M., can you take me to school and help explain? I have a test this afternoon. . . .”
Jack waited until he heard the bell jingle over the door, until he could no longer hear Sylvie’s voice. Then he slid out from behind the boxes, went directly to the front door of the store, turned the lock, and slipped out into the sunshine.
If what Sylvie had said was true — that everyone was looking for him — he had to hide immediately. He turned sharply to the left and headed back down behind the buildings on Main Street, following the same route he’d attempted earlier, when Sylvie was chasing him. He knew he shouldn’t stay on the street — not when every kid in Searsport was in school — but where to hide?