The Missing (4 page)

For lunch, they ate at the wooden picnic benches on the edge of the woods. She’d forgotten to pack her own sandwich, and her stomach rumbled. Janice Fischer walked behind the bus to smoke one of her hippie Amer- ican Spirit cigarettes, and Lois found herself thinking about Ronnie.

Maybe the article in the paper was a hoax. Noreen had submitted it as a mean joke, and right now Ronnie was on his way to find her. Any minute he’d come driving

up to the edge of the woods at eighty miles an hour. He’d get out of that cheap heap of bolts he thought was such a chick magnet, and in front of the kids, the bus driver, Janice Fischer, and the whole world he’d shout, “Noreen’s a hog. I love you, Lois. I’ll always love you.”

Lois blew her nose so hard that her tissue broke and her hand got slimy. This trip right now wasn’t fun. This trip really sucked. She noticed the children watching her. They seemed sad, and a few were hugging them- selves. Only James Walker was not paying attention. “My eyeth,” she told them. “They’re irritated, do you underthand?”

They looked at her.

“I’m very allergic.” These kids, she really did care for them. She loved them as if they were her own, even James. She was so upset she’d forgotten that, but it was true.

Caroline Fischer slid her package of Crackers ’n Cheez along the table until it reached Lois. “I have ex- tra,” she said.

Then crayon-eating George Sanford rolled a Granny Smith in her direction. Michael and Alex Fullbright gave her their oranges. Donna Dubois handed her the half-eaten segment of a Kit Kat bar. Lois sighed. It be- came a competition among them, until all the children donated their snacks or half sandwiches, and a mound of food rose in front of her. The gesture was too much to endure. She drew a ragged breath, terrified that it would end in a sob right in front of these wonderful children, but it did not. “Thank you, boys and girls,” she said, biting into a tart Granny Smith.

After she admonished them all to empty their pock- ets full of sticks and rocks, they boarded the bus. She started roll call, but noticed Caroline waving an empty

Rough Rider condom wrapper at the boys sitting be- hind her. She’d probably found it in the woods, though Lois doubted she understood its use.

“Thath garbage,” she said to Caroline, taking it out of her hand. Then she held it up for the class to see. “Don’t touch garbage, boyth and girlth, you never know where it’s been.” This reminded her of Ronnie. Was he with Noreen right now? Were they working on a family at this very moment? And what about her own period, six weeks late?

She headed for the front of the bus and looked out the window. No red Camaro in sight. There would not be a red Camaro. These people, her friends, they’d be- trayed her. They hadn’t even called to say:
Uh, look, Lois, you’ll hear about this anyway, but we went and did something nutty.
And there was one simple expla- nation: She’d effed up. She’d surrounded herself with the wrong people, because Ronnie, Noreen, and even her mother were no good.

Worst of all, she knew she was better off without them, but in the end that didn’t matter. After school today, she’d stop by Ronnie’s house and beg him to take her back, but he’d never do it because Noreen was too damn scary to cross. After a month or so of a broken heart, she’d swallow it all down and stop by the Dew Drop Inn, where Noreen would say something mean, and Ronnie would smile like a milksop, and she’d pre- tend like nothing was wrong. She’d forgive them even though they hadn’t asked for it, because being their friend was better than watching Regis Philbin with her drunk mother. She’d eat shit like always, because she was Lois Larkin, and she didn’t have any goddamn sense.

“Drive,” Lois said, while Janice Fischer slathered her daughter’s condom-tainted hands with gobs of green

antibacterial gel. They pulled away from the woods, and Lois started crying all over again.

It was only after they got back to school that she real- ized that the lump in the seat across from her was not a little boy, but a book bag and jacket. James Walker was missing.

T W O
‌

The Monster in the Wood
s

T

he ground under James Walker’s feet went crunch, crunch, crunch, like the bamboo xylophone from music appreciation. There were leaves and sticks and rocks, all dried up and hollow. Overhead, leafless branches poked the bright blue sky. He jumped up and down, and listened to things break. It was dead as a rab-

bit in here!

Instead of boarding the bus when Miss Lois called, he’d pretended his big brother, Danny, was chasing him. He ran until he was panting and sweaty and couldn’t see his way out. He knew he wasn’t supposed to wander off, but he hated Miss Lois. When she said his name her upper lip curled like somebody was trying to feed her yellow snow. He figured if he ran away to- day, maybe his dad would get mad enough to have her fired.

It wasn’t Miss Lois’s fault he was a left-back, though. First his mother started him a year late for kindergar- ten because he was small for his age, and then Mr. Crozzier flunked him, and wrote in his
Permanent Re- cord
that he was “emotionally and mentally stunted.” That’s why he was the only eleven-year-old in the fourth grade. Once a month during recess he had to meet with

a social worker and talk about his feelings. He didn’t usually have any, so mostly they played Iron Man on the Xbox.

James’s parents wanted him to be more like his big brother, Danny, who got straight A’s and played la- crosse. Danny and Dad shot eighteen holes at the Corpus Christi Golf Club once a month. They wore matching polo shirts and khakis like they were members of Team Jerk America.

Danny liked to take James’s hands and hit him in the face with them.
Why are you hitting yourself, James? Why are you hitting yourself?
he’d ask. One time he stuffed James’s mouth and nose with salty yellow snow and even after James cried, “Mercy, Master Daniel,” Danny had held his lips and nose closed tight until he swallowed. When stuff like that happened, James imag- ined poking Danny’s eyes out with a fork and then eat- ing them like a couple of meatballs so nobody could sew them back into his empty sockets.

James walked deeper. Crunch, crunch, crunch. The fallen trees were hollow inside, like corn husks. An idea came to him, and it made him jump with delight. The Incredible Hulk pretended to be strong, but he probably threw
hollow
trees. In the movie on HBO the trees had looked real but the camera had played a trick. James grinned, because he’d thought of something smart all by himself, which meant he wasn’t totally retarded.

To test his theory he lifted a hollow log, which was light as a cardboard box. Underneath he found a slug, so he took out the matches he’d swiped from his mom’s kitchen and set it on fire. The slug’s skin glowed, and then got wrinkly. A plume of smoke that smelled like burnt tires whirled over its long body. Then the slug’s skin split open and white crud oozed out. Even though

he’d killed it, he didn’t want it to suffer, so he stepped on it to make sure it was dead.

When he was a kid, only eight years old, he’d sneaked into Mr. McGuffin’s backyard to play with the newborn baby rabbits in the hutch. They’d been gobs of fuzz with red eyes that were smaller than his fists. His favorite was Gimpy, who’d been born with shriveled hind legs. Gimpy couldn’t run like the others, which meant he never left James’s lap. Mr. McGuffin said James could adopt Gimpy as soon as he grew big enough.

So one day he was holding Gimpy. The silly rabbit licked his fingers, and he wondered if he loved it, even though it was just a dumb animal. He couldn’t remem- ber the last time he’d loved something. Maybe never. Gimpy kept licking. His big red eyes were all innocent- looking, and James decided that Gimpy was a liar. He was like Danny, who was nice on the outside but bad on the inside. So he squeezed Gimpy just a little.

Gimpy didn’t screech. He didn’t shout for James to stop (now that James was eleven, he knew rabbits couldn’t talk, but back then he’d thought maybe they secretly could; they just didn’t want to). Gimpy’s eyes got all big like they were going to pop out, which was kind of funny. James had wanted to let go, but instead he held on tighter. Squeezed harder. The reaction was all wrong, even though he’d wanted it to be right. He couldn’t help it! Sometimes he forgot the right thing.

Gimpy’s eyes looked like they were going to fall out. Something popped, and one of his sockets was bleed- ing. It was just a hole, drippy and red. Not funny like a meatball. Bad. So bad he gagged, only nothing but spit came out. Still, even while Gimpy bled, James squeezed tighter. He didn’t know what else to do. He wanted to make it
un-happen
, but he didn’t know how.

Gimpy tried one last time to get away, and James knew he should let go, but he got scared. The rabbit was broken like a toy he couldn’t fix. What if Mr. McGuffin found his missing eye, and figured out what James had done? His hands were like a metal vise that wouldn’t open. The rabbit started kicking—not real kicks. Spazzy, jerky shivers. Then Gimpy screamed this low-pitched, terrible scream. A mix between a grunt and a cry. It lasted for a long time, and it was the kind of sound that hurt to hear. It didn’t hurt his ears; it hurt his insides. It hurt his heart, hearing Gimpy cry like that.

After Gimpy screamed everything inside James got quiet, like he wasn’t there anymore. Like he was sleep- ing. Everything went black. His body kept going, but he wasn’t in charge of it. He was someplace safe where he didn’t have to think about Gimpy. If he tried, he could see what was happening, but he didn’t have to feel it. He didn’t have to feel anything. It was like fall- ing asleep.

When he woke up Gimpy wasn’t moving. The bunny was floppy and cold in his lap, which made him wonder how long he’d been sleeping. The funny thing was, he knew it was bad to hurt an animal, knew that he’d loved Gimpy, but still, a part of him liked it. Even if he wasn’t smart, killing Gimpy had been brave. Most peo- ple wouldn’t have had the guts.

He dug a hole for Gimpy behind the hutch and bur- ied him there. He was so sad about cold Gimpy that he couldn’t remember his prayers, so instead he asked God to let him into heaven, even if it turned out that pets aren’t normally allowed. Unless Gimpy was going to haunt him, and then he wished Gimpy permanently dead. He covered the filled-in hole with leaves so Mr. McGuffin wouldn’t notice the fresh dirt, and then ran

home, took the phone off the hook, and told his mom he had to go to bed because he felt sick.

When the front bell rang, James prayed to God it wasn’t Mr. McGuffin. He prayed he could undo what he’d done. But it
was
Mr. McGuffin at the door, and James heard him talking to his mother in the front hall. Their voices were soft, and then his mother was shouting, and Mr. McGuffin started shouting, too. He listened, even though he didn’t like what he heard. “That’s maniac’s gonna kill a man one day,” Mr. McGuffin yelled.

He pulled the covers tight over his body and wished he was asleep. He was so scared he couldn’t even cry. How had this happened? Because he was bad. Those teachers at school, and the kids who didn’t invite him to sleepovers because he was too rough, and Danny, and even his parents, who didn’t touch him unless he asked, they all knew what he’d just figured out. He was bad inside. He’d killed his own rabbit.

Mr. McGuffin didn’t come storming up the stairs and into his room like he’d expected. The front door slammed, and then there was silence. A little while later his mother arrived, carrying a tray of orange juice and cinnamon toast. She laid it across his bed and pulled up a chair. (She never sat on his bed when she wanted to talk. Only Danny’s.) “Feeling better?” she asked.

She was fugly. Once he’d punched her in the stomach and told her so. He hadn’t counted on her crying about it the way she did. “I feel bad, Felice,” he told her, be- cause for as long as he could remember, she’d never an- swered to “Mom.”

She didn’t pet his hair or hold him or anything. “Mr. McGuffin was over here,” she said. He got scared. But instead of feeling scared, a fire made of ice spread in his

stomach. It burned so blue and aching that his skin shivered. It froze his insides and then broke them into little pieces until he didn’t feel bad anymore. Like the deep sleep, he didn’t feel anything anymore.

“He said he found your favorite rabbit. Someone killed and buried it. He thinks it was you, but I told him that was impossible. I told him you were in the yard practicing the T-ball. That’s what you were doing all morning, isn’t it?”

He didn’t know what to say. Her eyes were narrow, like she was looking at him, but doing her best not to see him. Why was she pretending he’d been in the yard?

“I’m sick,” he said.

“You’ve got a virus, probably,” she told him. Then she patted the side of his leg, but her hand didn’t linger. “I’ll leave you to sleep.” She shut the door, and he heard a lock turn. Ever since that day, she didn’t look at him the same. Even when her mouth smiled at him, her eyes never did.

James overheard his dad on the phone that night with Mr. McGuffin. He said that if Mr. McGuffin started telling stories about the rabbits in his yard, he’d get sued for slander, and then he wouldn’t be able to afford his mortgage, let alone vermin for pets. And by the way, what was a single man doing inviting children to his house to play with rabbits?

Hurting Gimpy was the worst thing James had ever done. It had been wrong, and he didn’t want to do any- thing like it again. But then again, sometimes he did.

James stopped walking. It was dark out here. He’d been thinking about Gimpy coming back from the dead and haunting him in these woods, which had made him forget where he was going. He couldn’t see the blue sky

overhead anymore. Just dead branches and dry leaves so thick that everything was sort of shadowy, even though it was daytime.

The kids in his class said this place was full of ghosts, which was why the trip to Bedford had sounded like so much fun. But nobody had seen anything special out here, except for Miss Sad Sack Larkin, crying.