The Lost and the Found (21 page)

N
othing. That's what Laurel does about it. I hide out in my room for the rest of the evening, with a brief trip downstairs to say good-night. So I don't see Laurel until the next morning. I'm sitting on the sofa, flicking through catalogs, when she comes downstairs. It's one of my favorite things to do when I'm anxious. I have no idea why staring at pages and pages of terrible jewelry and cheap furniture soothes me, but it does.

“Morning,” she says.

I'm slow to look up from the catalog, busy gawking at the price of an outdoor trampoline. “Morning.” When I finally do look up, I see Laurel smiling down at me. Already dressed, with her jacket and bag in her arms, too. There's a short silence—a moment when either of us could mention Barnaby or the fact that I've been through her stuff. A look passes between us, neither friendly nor unfriendly, and then it's over and she's putting on her jacket. “Where are you off to?” I ask.

“Nowhere special.” She picks up her bag and puts it on her shoulder.

“I've heard it's really good there.”

A brief, baffled look before she gets the joke. “Ha,” she says.

“Want some company?” I don't want to go with her, wherever she's going, but I do want to see what she says.

“No, thanks. Not today. Penny says it's time I started being more independent. Anyway, I'd better get going.” She turns away and heads toward the door.

“What's the rush? Is Nowhere Special open this early?”

She doesn't even bother with a
ha
this time. She doesn't even turn around. “I'm not rushing. I'm just ready to go, that's all. See you later, okay?”

I say good-bye, but the door is already closed.

I jump up from the sofa, and the catalog falls on my foot. I hobble over to the window and watch Laurel walk down the street. I'm ready to duck down out of sight in case she suddenly turns around, but she doesn't. I press my nose up against the window and lean as far as I can so that I can watch her for as long as possible. She walks with her shoulders straight—with an easy confidence I've never even attempted let alone mastered.

As soon as Laurel's out of sight, I rush to the front door and open it. The ground is wet, and the damp starts soaking through the soles of my slippers the second I step outside. I peer around the hedge, not caring how suspicious I look. I'm just in time to see Laurel reach the end of our road. If she turns left, she'll be going to the bus stop where you take the bus to the city center. I seem to spend half my life waiting at that bus stop.

Laurel turns right. Unless she's going to the crematorium (which seems highly unlikely), she's probably catching a bus in the opposite direction, away from town. Why would she be going that way? The only time I ever go to that bus stop is when I'm going to Thomas's house and he refuses to come and pick me up.

A light drizzle begins to fall as I stand on our front path in my pajamas. The mail carrier is walking down the street toward me, back bent under the weight of the mailbag. He says a cheery “Morning” as he hands me two letters and a postcard (both addressed to Laurel).

“Morning,” I echo. He doesn't comment on my clothes or look at me as if I'm crazy; I guess he must see all sorts of odd things, doing a job like that.

The drizzle turns into a steady rain, and I realize I should probably get inside. My legs want to go the other way, though—they want to follow Laurel, to check if she's waiting at the bus stop and maybe even to wait and see if she gets on the number 67, which stops five minutes away from Thomas's house. I stand rooted to the spot for a few seconds before my brain finally wins the battle. My brain knows that there's no way Laurel's going to Thomas's house. She doesn't even know his address. Unless he told her.

I go upstairs to get my phone, texting Thomas to see what he's up to this morning. I ask if he wants to meet up. His reply arrives about an hour later:
Can't this morning. Sorry. Mom wants to go shopping for my bday present. Tonight?

Thomas's mom wants to buy him a watch for his birthday, but she knows she wouldn't be able to choose the perfect one by herself. Thomas already told me this. They're even going to get it engraved. So there's no reason to think he's lying. I text back to say I'm suddenly not feeling very well so I'd better stay home tonight. He says he hopes I feel better soon.

Laurel must have gone somewhere else. Maybe she's just planning to hop on a bus and see where she ends up. That's exactly the kind of weird thing she would do.

I decide to put it out of my mind completely. I will not allow myself to turn into a paranoid wreck. I tell myself that I don't care where Laurel has gone—it's none of my business. Anyway, I'm only a third of the way through my favorite catalog.

When I eventually go to get dressed, I pop my head into Laurel's room. The bed is neatly made, cushions in place.

Barnaby the Bear is not there. He's not in the closet, either.

T
he week has been drama-free. I haven't mentioned Barnaby. Laurel and I had a good weekend at Dad and Michel's. Since being mobbed at the farmers' market, Laurel has stayed home. Business is booming, probably because people feel they can't come up and ask questions about Laurel without buying something. Michel is happy to take their money, but he never tells them anything about Laurel.

The only awkward moment was when Dad sat Laurel down to tell her that the DNA test the police keep going on about has been scheduled for a week from Thursday. They can't put it off any longer, apparently. He'd tried his best to convince them it wasn't necessary, that Laurel had been through enough. But they wouldn't budge. At least they've agreed that Mom can be the one to do the cheek swab, to minimize Laurel's distress.

Laurel asked why they needed to do the test, and Dad said that Sergeant Dawkins had told him they needed to double-check something in their files. She'd left three messages on his phone about it, so it must be pretty important. Dad told Laurel that there was nothing to be afraid of. She looked like she was about to puke. Dad put his arm around her and asked if it was okay with her. She said nothing for the longest time.

I decided to chip in. “You should do it, Laurel. Get it over with. I'll be with you, if you want.”

Laurel looked over at me, sitting in my corner with Tonks on my lap. I nodded encouragingly, and after a second's hesitation, she nodded back. She turned to Dad and said, “Okay.”

Thomas has been quiet this week. Martha and I have been teasing him about getting old. I asked him how the shopping trip with his mom went. “Fine,” he said.

“So you found a watch?”

“Yeah,” he said, before changing the subject. Maybe he was pouting because his mom hadn't bought him the vintage one he wanted. Or maybe he was starting to realize that he should have asked for money instead, like a normal person.

On the day of his birthday, I get to school early and tie a balloon to the radiator near where we normally sit in the cafeteria. The balloon is tacky as anything—silver and heart-shaped, with multicolored letters saying
BIRTHDAY BOY
. I have his present in my bag, along with a homemade card. I haven't decided whether I'll give them to him at school or at the party. Either way, I'd prefer it if Thomas and I were alone. No one else would think the present was particularly impressive, but I know Thomas will like it. I bought it months ago, long before I started wondering if I still wanted him to be my boyfriend. I remember being so pleased with myself at the time—so smug that I'd found the perfect present for him even though he's impossible to buy for.

Martha arrives a couple of minutes before Thomas. She eyes the balloon with approval and suggests that we start singing “Happy Birthday” as soon as Thomas walks through the door. I'm tempted—just to see his reaction—but he's got enough public humiliation in store for him tonight. We sit with our backs against the radiator and watch the door until Thomas comes in, head down, headphones on, completely oblivious to everything around him. He doesn't look up until he's right in front of us. He smiles when he notices the balloon bobbing away.

“Aw, you guys! You shouldn't have!” he says in an overly enthusiastic voice. Then he gives us a withering look. “I suppose this was your idea,” he says, looking at Martha.

“No, no, I couldn't possibly take the credit for this little delight,” Martha says as she rummages around in her bag. “But I can, however, take
all
the credit for this!” She produces a huge envelope with a flourish. Inside is the ugliest card I've ever seen, complete with an equally ugly saucer-sized badge that reads
18 TODAY
!!!

“Happy Birthday, Mr. Bolt,” says Martha, standing and giving him an awkward hug.

I stand, too, feeling almost shy all of a sudden. “Happy birthday,” I say.

“Don't I get a birthday kiss?” This surprises me. Thomas isn't normally one for PDAs. I give him a quick kiss on the lips.

“You know, Thomas, you look different somehow…more manly, I think.” Martha grabs his upper arm and squeezes it. “Nope, my mistake. Still the same old noodle arms.” For a second, I think Thomas is going to be really annoyed, even though he's not particularly sensitive about his body, but he just laughs and says he prefers to think of them as “sinewy.”

He fiddles with the badge, and I can't believe he's going to wear it. He twists the pin on the back so that it's pointing outward. Then he looks at me. “May I?”

“You may.”

The sound of the balloon popping makes everyone in the cafeteria jump and turn around to see where the noise came from. Laney Finch clutches her hand to her chest and leans on one of her friends to steady herself. One of the boys standing next to the coffee machine shouts
“Dick!”
in our direction, probably embarrassed because he jumped so high his head almost hit the ceiling. Thomas gives the boy a little salute; the boy responds with a raised middle finger.

I decide to give Thomas his present at lunchtime—there's no way I can wait until tonight. We arrange to meet at a little deli around the corner from school. I arrive before him and order our panini. The guy behind the counter knows our order by heart. Thomas doesn't like him, probably because he's really handsome and is always very friendly to me while having a tendency to ignore Thomas.

The guy puts the food down on the table at the exact moment the door opens and Thomas walks in. “Shame…I thought I was going to have to join you.” He winks at me and stands back to let Thomas sit down. I smile politely and wonder whether it's weird that I don't know the deli guy's name.

Thomas takes a huge bite of his sandwich, and the melted cheese forms oozy strings from his mouth to the panini. It makes me feel slightly nauseous, watching him. I nibble on the edge of my sandwich and try not to look. In between bites, Thomas tells me about his morning. One of his favorite things to do is to embarrass teachers by showing off his superior knowledge on certain subjects; his current number one target is his English teacher. I used to think it was funny, but today it just seems childish. I smile and laugh in all the right places, though—it is his birthday, after all. He demolishes his sandwich in record time, despite the fact that he's hardly stopped talking since he arrived.

“Are you not eating that?” He looks at my sandwich like a hungry hyena.

I push the plate toward him. “Go for it.”

“I probably shouldn't….I don't want to spoil my appetite for this fancy meal tonight.” He puts his hand on his stomach, which is as smooth and flat as anyone could wish for. Little does Thomas know the most he'll be getting to eat tonight is some chips and dip.

“That's
hours
away! You should eat it.” He doesn't take much convincing.

I take the present and card out of my bag when Thomas has finished eating. At first he says he wants to wait till tonight, that he'd rather open his present in the restaurant than here. Again it doesn't take much to convince him. The card makes him smile. On the front, there's a drawing of us walking hand in hand through a forest. There are wolves and monsters lurking in the shadows of the crooked trees. It took me seven attempts before I was happy with the drawing, and then I had to trace it onto the card. I've never gone to that much effort for
anyone
before.

“I didn't know you could draw! You're really good, you know? This is…
really
cool. Creepy, but cool.”

Inside the card I've written the kind of thing that a girlfriend writes to her boyfriend on his eighteenth birthday. Thomas leans over the table to kiss me. He calls me a dark horse.

The present is next. He tears into the wrapping paper like a kid on Christmas Day. When he sees what it is, he smiles and says “Wow!” and thanks me profusely, but I can tell something isn't right. He says “wow” far too many times. “Wow” is not a very Thomas-like thing to say. It's a first edition of a book by some poet I'd never heard of before I met Thomas—in mint condition even though it's nearly forty years old. It's the
perfect
gift—for Thomas, at least. If someone gave it to me, I'd probably use it to prop a door open.

Thomas leans over and kisses me again, for longer this time. “It's perfect.
Thank
you,” he whispers in my ear. I wonder if maybe I was being paranoid and maybe he
does
love it after all. Perhaps he was so keen to show just how much he loved it that he accidentally went overboard on the enthusiasm and ended up sounding like Laney Finch. But now I feel strange and unsure, and disappointed that the moment didn't go the way I wanted it to go. What is
wrong
with me?