Overnight (7 page)

“All of us have to call her that, or it won’t work,” coaxed Leticia. “C’mon. It’ll be funny.”

Kristy picked up the mittens. “Meow, meow, meow,” she said. “I can do a good meow, I don’t even move my lips and I sound just like a cat, listen.”

Through tensed, slightly parted lips, she made tiny mewing noises, and the others agreed she sounded exactly, completely like a cat.

“You should do that when Martha’s around,” said Leticia. “You’re so good at it. Nobody can even tell it’s you. I
dare
you.”

Kristy looked nervous.

“I double-dare you,” said Caitlin.

That did it. Kristy agreed with a nod.

Martha came back into the dining room.

“Hey, where’ve you been,
Meow?”
quipped Leticia. Stifled laughter sounded around the table.

Martha gave Leticia a look. Leticia returned it, dead-on, although her heart tripped fast and frightened. She had never played a trick on Martha before.

Until now. Waves of angry thought chopped at her. How could Ms. Calvillo be so blind? Martha never, ever put effort into science class. An A plus was such obvious cheating! Leticia set her chin and tried not to let her face betray her. She wondered why she cared so much. Maybe it was because she had studied so hard and only got a B plus. Or maybe she was just sick of Martha, sick of her traitor’s jokes, sick of laughing along.

“Kiddos!” barked Topher, clapping his hands as he reentered through the kitchen. “Clear your plates. Grown-ups are taking over the main floor, and we’re going downstairs to watch movies. But first, everyone into the kitchen to help Caitlin’s mom call your parents.”

“Why are we calling parents?” asked Caitlin. “Is my party ending? Gray is coming back soon, I know it. My party shouldn’t end just because Gray left for a little while!”

“My party shouldn’t end!” Ty mimicked in a squeaky voice.

“You’re dead!” Caitlin grabbed him from behind and they both crashed to the floor, scratching and yanking at each other. Leticia watched. She was glad she had an older sister instead of a little brother.

“Kitchen, kitchen,” Topher ordered. Then he began pulling at Caitlin and Ty. “Can’t we call peace between you two for one lousy second?” he growled as he heaved them apart.

Leticia jumped up from her seat and herded through the door into the kitchen with the others. She took care to keep away from Martha.

The kitchen was crowded with the unfamiliar faces of the Donnelleys’ neighbors. From outside came voices, people joining forces to organize in small search parties. Scouting, shouting, talking on phones, counting off into car caravans, sounding off opinions that rattled in Leticia’s ears—“What could have happened to her?” “Oh, please! Nothing,
nothing
bad ever happens in this neighborhood.” “She could have gone…where would she have gone?” “And we’re sure they’ve checked the whole house?” “The basement? Everywhere? Everywhere?”

Most parents were not available. Mrs. Donnelley kept leaving messages.

Leticia’s mom and dad were in Key West at a conference until Sunday. Leticia listened to Mrs. Donnelley explain the situation to her family’s housekeeper, Mrs. Grange. “Leticia is perfectly welcome to stay until tomorrow, and then I’ll take her home,” said Mrs. Donnelley in her best phony hostess voice. “But we want to notify everyone of the…situation.”

Leticia knew she was staying because Mrs. Grange did not know how to drive.

Kristy’s mom was out to dinner with her boyfriend.

Martha’s parents were out of state, at a bed-and-breakfast. Leticia heard Martha tell Mrs. Donnelley that she did not know the name of it. Leticia had a hunch this was a lie, but Mrs. Donnelley was too upset and distracted to question her.

Zoë’s mom was playing violin with the city orchestra tonight. Her dad was in the audience with his cell phone turned off.

Serena’s parents were home. They said they would be right over.

Topher counted heads like duck-duck-goose. Then he led the girls and Ty from the kitchen back downstairs to the family room.

“It’s still my birthday party, and I still pick
Titanic
,” squawked Caitlin, spreading her arms across the television screen as if to protect it from another choice of movie. “Topher, it’s in the rack. Will you put it on?”

Ty made two thumbs down and started to boo. Topher swatted him. “Yo, it’s still your sister’s night tonight, Ty, so cool your jets.”

Topher stood in front of them, spinning the
Titanic
disk on his finger. He had a way of doing things in a careless, college-ish way. All at once, Leticia was overwhelmed with a sharp, aching wish to see her sister. A desire to run as fast as she could out of the Donnelleys’ house, across three states, straight to Celeste’s campus and dormitory and into the security of her arms. Too much about tonight was out of place. Celeste would know how to make things right again.

“Here’s the rules,” Topher said. “Pay attention ’cause it’s just three words. Everybody Stay Put.” Topher’s eyes moved to Ty. “And the men are gonna watch this movie and like it. It’s that or bed.”

“Aww…” Ty rolled onto the floor and propped his chin in his elbows.

Titanic
was so boring, especially since Leticia had seen it a thousand times. She suppressed a sigh as she curled up in the armchair and opened her goody bag. Other girls dropped onto the couch or carpet. Bumpo’s eyes followed Leticia’s fingers as she poked a chocolate into her mouth. She took out another chocolate and stealthily dropped it to the rug. Bumpo gulped it down happily.

“
Titanic
is crap,” Martha muttered, lifting her head from where she was stretched under the coffee table.

Leticia leaned forward. “Wow, I can’t believe you said that!” she exclaimed. “Criticizing Caitlin’s favorite movie on her birthday. Sheez!”

“Yeah, Mar,” Serena agreed, flipping her hair. “What’s your problem?”

Martha scowled. “Sor-ry. But at least I’m not trying to make my friend’s dog sick by feeding him chocolate. You might as well give him poison, Leticia. Don’t you know anything about dogs? Chocolate is potentially deadly to canines.” She sounded just like her father, Leticia thought.

But Caitlin turned and shot Leticia a look of exasperation. “Yeah, Martha’s right. Don’t feed Bumpo chocolate,” she said, while Ty jumped up and began to pry open Bumpo’s jaws.

“He already ate it,” Ty announced.

“Nice going, Leticia,” said Martha.

“I didn’t mean to,” Leticia mumbled, careful to avoid Martha’s eyes and the tiny gleam of triumph she knew would be shining in them.

Topher’s cell phone rang. He picked it up and edged to the back of the room, sliding into the beanbag chair. Leticia listened.

“Yo, dude! Uh-uh. Not a trace, and we’re going on, like, three hours. Aw, dude, I can’t come
out.
We got cops here!” Topher’s whisper cracked with excitement.

The movie’s sound was turned up loud, but voices made a constant static above. Leticia could hear that Mrs. Rosenfeld had arrived with Gray’s little brother, Robby. Then she thought she heard Mr. Rosenfeld’s voice, too, along with the more distant scratch of police shortwaves.

We are like the Enchanted Castle princesses, thought Leticia. We are trapped here in the dungeon while real things in the real world are spinning all around us.

A few minutes later, Serena’s parents arrived, chattering, jostling down the stairs behind Mrs. Donnelley, and making so much fuss that Caitlin had to press
PAUSE.

Serena stumbled to her feet, reluctant. “I don’t wanna…” she began. But Mr. Hodgson pulled her up in his arms while Mrs. Hodgson touched Serena’s nose, her cheeks, her hair, to reassure herself that all the princess pieces of lovely Serena were here.

They were overprotective, those Hodgsons, half-crazy with parent love. Like that time when Serena fell in gymnastics competition, Leticia remembered, how they swept in from the audience and scooped her up and away like she was made out of stars and glass.

Her own mom and dad were different. They had raised Celeste and Leticia to be independent. They weighed and balanced and related everything back to The Law, to Ethics and Conduct and Responsibility. “Figure it out,” Leticia’s mom liked to say. “It’s your life. You live with your decisions, and you should be prepared to defend them.”

The Hodgsons held a parent net to catch Serena every time. Now Leticia watched them cling to her. Then Mrs. Hodgson turned to Mrs. Donnelley. “It’s
late.
Shouldn’t the girls be in bed? Some are staying the night, isn’t that correct?”

“Yes, yes, yes.” Mrs. Donnelley sounded defeated. Her mother power was gone since she had lost Gray. She was not being who she liked to be—a show-off perfect mother. A mother who said, “Caitlin, you really need a hair trim!” or “Caitlin, let’s get you some new sneakers because your other ones are absolutely, positively
shot
.”

Ha, ha, thought Leticia.

After Mrs. Donnelley and the Hodgsons went upstairs, Zoë said, “Maybe the Hodgsons came because they want to take Serena far away and safe from the kidnapper. Like what happened to that other girl. Remember that story in the newspapers?”

“There’s no kidnapper! Shut up!” Caitlin threw a pillow at Zoë’s head.

“I was only thinking out loud,” said Zoë.

“Yeah, but don’t say stuff like that, Zoë. Just because Gray is missing
temporarily
doesn’t mean that poor Caitlin’s birthday party should be ruined.” Kristy’s voice was stern. “She’ll probably be back any minute.”

“Thanks, Kristy,” said Caitlin in a sad little voice.

“That kidnapper was a man, though,” said Martha. “Right, Zoë?” Leticia thought she detected worry or something like it in Martha’s voice.

“Yeah, yeah, that’s right. Remember?” Zoë sat up. “It was all over the news a while back, every channel, my mom was talking about it all the time, that horrible scary story about that girl—”

“Stop, Zoë, I swear, or I’ll get nightmares!” yelled Caitlin.

“Hey, kids, lower your voices, how about?” called Topher from where he was, on another phone call.

“C’mon, everyone stop talking and play the movie.” Leticia did not want to think about kidnappers, or worse. She thumped her fist like a gavel. “It’s just getting good. It’s about to start sinking.”

The room hushed. Caitlin pressed
PLAY
and raised the volume.

From somewhere in the room came the sound of a cat meow.

“Did you hear that?” asked Martha after a moment.

Nobody answered.

“It sounds like a cat!”

Nobody said a word.

“Gee, you’re all so funny, I forgot to laugh,” said Martha with a yawn.

Kristy raised her mouth and eyebrows and looked over at Leticia, who smiled.

It was working. It was really working.

They were following Leticia. They were playing her game. Ignore-Martha-till-she-cries.

Only Martha never cried, did she?

T
HE VOICE WOKE HER.

“Kathy!” he said. “Kat. Get out here! Who is that kid?”

Gray opened her eyes to see a man standing in the middle of the room. From outside, she heard the rumble of a car driving away too fast.

Kathy, Kat. That was Katrina.

The man, who must be Drew, was not much older than Topher. He was small, heavy-boned, and fattish around his middle. Not as nice-looking as Topher. No, not at all, with that bumpy pink skin and those gluey, oyster-blue eyes. His hair straggled over his ears and a plum-colored tattoo of a swan marked the upper half of one of his arms. Then Gray saw it was a birthmark.

In a fairy tale, Drew would not have been the handsome prince, but he might have been the tailor’s apprentice or the cook’s apprentice. The jolly, foolish man who somewhere along the way has helped the unlucky princess. Who, as a reward at the end of the story, gets to work at the palace.

Drew did not look very jolly right now. He looked angry and confused.

Katrina shuffled from the bedroom as Gray sat up and wiped some drool from her cheek.

Drew turned. “Kat?” he drawled. “Who’s the girl, Kat?”

“My name is Gray Rosenfeld,” said Gray. “It’s time for me to go home.”

“Who? Who is this? You know this kid?” Drew kept steering his questions in Katrina’s direction.

“She’s from my party,” Katrina answered primly. “Which, as it turned out, wasn’t my party after all. I couldn’t find my party.”

“Party? Kat, we’ve been through this. I’ll have a party for you when we’re more settled. Next week, maybe.”

Katrina clenched her fists in her lap. “You told me whenever I wanted it. You promised…and I thought you were tricking me when you left this afternoon! I thought I was supposed to come find you!”

“Find me? I said a thousand times I was going out with Tony for a while. I had some errands, I said. I
told
you.” Drew’s drawl was dropping into a low grumble.

Katrina did not say anything. So Gray recited her address and her phone number and her mother’s car phone number and her mother’s cell phone number and her father’s work number and her father’s cell phone number. She was halfway through Caitlin’s address when Drew interrupted her.

“Okay, okay.” He held up a hand for Gray to stop. “I’ll take you home. My girlfriend, Kat, she’s a little, you know…” He pulled his hand through his greasy hair. His feet were restless on the floor. They carried him a little bit here and then there. He turned to Katrina again. “You took the car and went out? Where to?”

“Oh, around. The store, and then some roads with houses. I thought I was supposed to find you.”

Drew spun in a clumsy half circle and made a frustrated growling noise. “You said you’d stay here and wait for those guys to drop by. Did they come by while you were out?”

“How do I know if they came by while I was out? I was out! Why are you yelling at me? I hate it when you yell!” Although it was Katrina’s voice that blared. She cupped her hands over her face and began to wag her head back and forth.

“And where’d you find her, this kid?”

“I stopped by the party and she came out with me. She wants to leave, but I don’t know if I can drive any more.”

Gray edged herself forward on the couch. She allowed herself to suck both ends of her thumbs, which she had been long trained against doing. She needed food. She needed to use the bathroom. She could feel panic crawling like invisible bugs on her skin, and she wished she knew her mother’s yoga breathing tricks.