Hard Truth Read Online Free PDF

those of an adult.
    What if it turned out to be Melinda, she wondered. Melinda Eagan, her best friend in fourth grade, who had disappeared in the blink of an eye on her way home from Lorna’s house after celebrating her ninth birthday. Melinda, who hadn’t been at the bus stop the following morning, or any other morning.
    It didn’t take much to recall the shock and sense of the surreal she’d felt when, as a child, she’d been told that Melinda had disappeared. Just thinking about that night brought back the fist-to-the-gut feeling you get when something is too terrible to be true.
    Melinda’s mother had called the Stiles’ house around six-thirty that night, looking for her daughter. Lorna was in the dining room clearing the dinner table when the phone rang, and her mother answered it. She walked toward the kitchen, and heard her mother say, “Jason stopped by for her around five. I offered to drive them, but he said . . . Are you saying she hasn’t arrived there yet?”
    Lorna went into the kitchen. Her mother stood at the back door, looking out into the growing darkness.
    “What did Jason say?”
    Lorna set the dishes on the counter and watched her mother’s face. “Billie, I’m going outside to take a look around. Maybe she forgot something and doubled back and got disoriented in the dark. I’ll bring her home if I find her.”
    Mary Beth hung up the phone, a very worried look on her face.
    “What happened to Mellie, Mom?” Lorna had asked.
    “She must have gotten distracted by something, someplace between here and there, because her mother says she hasn’t gotten home yet. She said that Jason told her Mellie ran ahead of him through the field and he thought she went straight home, so he stopped off behind the Conrads’ house to talk to his friend Matt. But when he got home, she wasn’t there.”
    “Did he go look for her?”
    “Billie—Mrs. Eagan—says they looked over on their side of the field, but she wasn’t there. Or maybe she’s there and just doesn’t want to be found.”
    Lorna watched her mother grab a jacket from a hook near the back door.
    “Maybe it has something to do with the dress . . . maybe Mellie’s trying to hide the bag so her mother won’t know she took the dress out of the house. Who knows what that child is thinking?” She turned in the doorway and looked at Lorna. “Can you think of any place she might have gone? Any place she likes to hide, or someplace she goes when she wants to be alone?”
    Right then, Lorna’s father came into the kitchen.
    “Mary Beth, where are you going?” he asked.
    “Melinda hasn’t arrived home and her mother is worried. I thought I’d take a look around the barn.”
    He glanced at his watch.
    “She left around five, right?” He frowned. “It’s been an hour and a half already. Billie’s just looking for her now?”
    “She’s been looking on their side of the field.” Lorna’s mother opened the door and went outside. “I’m thinking maybe she’s hiding here, on our property. I won’t be long.”
    “I’ll come with you. And here, Mary Beth, we need light.” Lorna’s father took two flashlights from the closet and followed her mother outside.
    Lorna had leaned against the windowpane and watched the twin yellow circles of light from the flashlights glide across the yard and disappear into the barn. All the while, she was biting her bottom lip, wondering if she should tell about the secret place where she and Mellie sometimes went to read or to be alone and talk. If she told now, and Mellie wasn’t there, then everyone would always know their secret, and if Mellie came back, she’d be mad that now everyone knew and she’d have to look for a new hiding place.
    But if Mellie was there, she needed to come out and go home.
    No doubt Mrs. Eagan was going to be loaded for bear. Lorna had heard her grandmother say that, and while she wasn’t exactly sure she understood what bears had to do with anything, she understood the