Tell Me (9 page)

I'm waiting . . .

First I get a headache.

Then a stomachache.

Then I chew my thumbnails down even more.

I'm doing all this at the long table at Flower People. Burke is hanging around this table, too, not because I'm here. Taylor is sitting next to me.

Right now, he's inspecting mum plants that look fine to me.

Taylor hasn't really looked at him. Me, I just look people in the eye.

Burke takes the mum plants, says, “These are for the library,” and heads outside. Taylor watches him through the window. I give her a look, and she says, “Okay, well.”

Whatever that means.

Lorenzo says the best part about being twelve is you're close to being a teenager, but you don't have to
commit to the whole exhausting experience.

Mom is supposed to call me back this morning, and I don't know how that is going to go.

I keep trying to write something to Dad, but all I can think of to say is:

 

Please change back. I need a seriously good father right now!

 

Every kind of flower imaginable is on this table. I'm not great at arranging flowers, but Mim wants to change that. She takes a rose, cuts the stem. “Basically, nature tells us what to do.” She puts the rose in a vase and adds some greens. “Flowers don't grow without green, so we need to add that to be natural.” Mim clips another rose and places it in the vase. “You don't want them too tall. See? You pick the best flower you've got and make it your focal point.”

I take an orange one, Taylor goes for pink. Burke walks by, shakes his head at me. I put the orange flower down, pick up a puffy blue one. Burke nods and walks off.

“Now we build around it.” Mim clips flowers quickly and puts them in the vase. “See how easy it is?”

I clip flowers and put them in the vase and it doesn't look anything like Mim's.

Taylor puts three big flowers in a vase surrounded by greens. “Get along, you guys. Make me proud.”

Burke laughs from the other room. Taylor smiles slightly. Her design looks much better than mine.

We change and arrange, I stick myself with rose thorns and cut a snapdragon too short. Mim fixes it. “That's pretty good. Stick this here to make it better. See?”

She wraps ribbon around the vase. “That's the ticket.”

That's when Mom calls.

“I've been thinking,” she says, which can be good or bad, depending.

“Mom, I'm sorry if it seems like I'm not listening to you.”

“Anna . . . listen to me.” Mom says that she and Mim have been talking, and Mim has explained what's going on with the girl I saw.

“I have to stay, Mom. It's hugely important. I need something that's not about me, you know? I need to help somebody else! I'm not trying to be a pain.”

I wait.

Mom sighs. “Honey, I hear you. I understand how important this is. For now, you can stay.”

“Mom, thank you!”

“For
now
. But, hear me—if your helping this girl gets out of control, you'll need to come home. You are dealing with a lot of stressful things all at once, whether you know it or not.”

Oh, I know it!

My chest feels tight.

“You can't carry all of this on your shoulders, Anna.”

“I won't, Mom. Now there's Homeland Security.”

“What!”

I can't rest at all!

At dinner we light a candle for the girl and pray that God will keep her safe. I want to pray that twelve guys from Homeland Security will drive their tanks to wherever she's at and rescue her. Then she could get adopted by good parents in Philadelphia and we could be friends.

Every day, I promise, I'll think about her.

I'm not going to let this go.

I look at every van I see, whether it's new or scratched. I look in the back window to see if she's there.

I call Daphne a few times to see if anyone has seen
her.

No one has.

Just me and Winnie.

Everything feels hard.

Everything feels stuck.

Now my brain opens and I remember another thing—not made up—I remember!

The girl had a scar above her eyebrow. I try to draw it.

It was like a squiggle. I remember it now and something else, too.

She had earrings on. They were shaped like little pink flowers. I draw that.

I wish my dad were here, the way he used to be.

I could call him.

Maybe it's a bad time, maybe something made him angry.

Even more reason—he needs to hear an adorable, talented voice.

I speed-dial my father.

Six rings.

I don't want to leave a message. But then, Dad's voice breaks in. “Anna?”

“Dad . . .”

“I am so glad to hear your voice,” he says. He doesn't sound angry.

I bite my lip. “It's good to hear yours, too, Dad.”

“Wow, kiddo, I'm so sorry I haven't called you.”

“It's okay.”

“It's not okay. I owe you a big apology. I'm sorry for all the anger, Anna, for all the outbursts . . . I'm sorrier than I know how to say.”

“That means a lot, Dad.”

“I've been working through a lot of stuff.”

I nod—I have, too.

“Tell me . . . how are you doing?”

And we talk about that. How I have one foot here and the other foot there.

We talk about the festival, and then in one long blurt I tell him about the girl in the van, the sheriff, and Homeland Security.

“You've got the big guns on your side! You've got a lot going on.”

He sounds like the dad he used to be. . . .

I want to ask, What happened?

Okay, I'm only twelve, but I'm not stupid.

“I wish you were here, Dad.”

“I wish I could get away, honey. Work is crazy right now.”

I tell him about the yellow scrunchie bracelets.

“Wear that like a flag,” he says.

I hold up my hand with the scrunchie. “I will.”

“I'm so proud of you, Anna. Prouder than I know how to say.”

He used to tell me that all the time.

I'd better not mess up.

I'm at the library retracing her steps—how she came in through the front door not on her own, how she was yanked into the bathroom by the lady with the white sunglasses and then pulled out, how she was so brave she tried to escape.

She's got courage, I know it!

I'm in the petunia suit, happy on the outside, wilting on the inside. A lady comes into the library with her baby who won't stop crying. This mother looks so tired. I go up to her and just give her a hug, and she starts crying—they don't prepare you for this in petunia training.

“Can I help, ma'am?”

“I've just had a miserable week.” She tries to smile, but her heart isn't in it.

And I do something you're not supposed to do in the library, but I'm one tough flower and I've learned a thing or two. Actually, I learned this as a radish, about smiling when your heart aches.

That song I sang is perfect for right now. I look at the lady and don't think about my voice cracking or my nerves or any of that.

I just let it come from my heart.

The lady is smiling at me and nodding and her baby is quiet as I sing this song called “Smile.”

Ben walks over as I finish, and everyone applauds.

I take a bow. The lady with the baby shakes my hand.

Ben says, “You said you didn't sing.”

“Well, only sometimes.”

I go back to telling the people about the festival and passing out flyers.

I want to say,
Have you seen a girl with baby animal eyes?
There should be a flyer for that.

It's hot in this suit.

Several kids circle me and do the slide. I try, but . . .

“I can't right now, you guys. I'm sorry. I feel—”

That's all I remember.

I faint dead away.

I wake up on the floor—a crowd of people is looking at me.

“I told you she'd be all right.”

I'm not sure who said that.

“What happened?” I ask.

“Low blood sugar,” someone guesses.

“The color's coming back to her cheeks.”

A pile of festival flyers is on the floor next to me.

“It's going to be fine, darling,” Winnie assures me.

“Get her some water.”

Ben holds out a bottle of water. I drink.

“Drink some more,” he says.

A woman puts her hand on my head. “No fever. You want to go lie down?”

“I am lying down.”

Ben laughs. I try smiling. I'm good at this.

Eventually, I get out of the petunia suit and move to the back table. It's quiet here. I'm looking through a book about horses, feeling more relaxed.

A girl with short brown hair is sitting at this table. She's half staring at me, which is irritating.

“Were you a flower?” she asks.

“A petunia.” I study a picture of an Appaloosa horse that looks like Zoe. I don't want to talk right now.

“I need to talk to you,” she says.

She has a round face with blue eyes and freckles. She leans forward. “You saw that girl who came in here last week with that lady—the one with the flower tattoo?”

I shut the book. “Yes!”

She whispers, “They went in the bathroom together, right?”

“Right.”

“And I thought, that's kind of strange.”

“Right.”

“And the girl was scared.”

“You remember her?”

The girl nods. “It just felt weird. The lady she was with smelled like smoke.”

I don't remember that exactly.

This girl gets something out of her book bag. A matchbook. She holds it. “I need to tell you something.”

My heart is pounding. “Tell me.”

“My name's Siri.”

“I'm Anna.”

“Don't get mad,” Siri begs.

“I won't!” I say that louder than you're supposed to in a library. People look at me. Winnie raises an eyebrow. Siri looks scared. “I won't get mad,” I whisper.