Jakarta Missing Read Online Free PDF Page B

down or phones disconnected, anyway. But she could probably figure out how to use this one. “Where’s Mom?”
    â€œShe stayed in bed today. Just resting.”
    Dakar coughed. It felt as if a small chunk of ice had gotten caught in her lungs. Mom was probably fine, though. She had been unusually cheerful since they came to Cottonwood. “Is she ever going to take a trip to see where she grew up?”
    Dad rattled the edge of the paper restlessly. “I have no clue. I thought that was the main reason why we came to North Dakota. She won’t talk about it. I don’t think anybody understands—including her.”
    Dakar stared idly at the picture of the family Mom had hung by the table. Dad and Jakarta were laughing, their arms around each other. She herself had her mouth open and was holding up one finger as if to say “wait a second.” Mom must have been looking at something off to the side, but you couldn’t tell what. “No, you’re wrong,” she wanted to say. “Someone might understand. Me.” But people just didn’t go around telling Dad he was wrong. And maybe she didn’t even really understand. Still, it seemed to her that Mom might be like a scarab beetle. The ancient Egyptians considered scarab beetles sacred because new beetles seemed to pop mysteriously and miraculously out of little balls of dung. Really, though, adult beetles laid their eggs and then rolled and rolled the dung with their hind legs until the eggs were hidden deep inside.
    Maybe Mom had been like that, burying the North Dakota piece of her heart in a neat little ball of ice. Maybe she was afraid of what might happen if she saw the place where she’d grown up. What if seeing it didn’t help, and the hard little ball was still there? Or … what if she loved it so much that she never wanted to leave North Dakota again?
    Dad ran his hand through his graying red hair, making it stick up everywhere. “I was thinking about something that doesn’t have anything to do with Jakarta. The doctors in a medical center in Atlanta have been consulting with me about a case that’s baffling them. They thought it might be something tropical. I was just going over everything in my mind, wondering what I’m missing. What could I possibly be missing?”
    Dakar pulled back. She hated the smell of newspaper. And she hated the person Dad was thinking about. Wait. What a terrible thought! She wanted to care about the patient, a person who was lying in a hospital bed … itching, hurting, maybe even dying. I care, she thought quickly. I do care, I do. It’s just that there were so many people all the time, always wanting to be near Dad or neeeeding him.
    She wished she were more like God and Dad. Mrs. Yoder said, “The Bible suggests that God loves poor people most especially.” The first story Dakar ever wrote said, “God loves lepers. My dad loves lepers. But I am scared of them.”
    Well, okay, her heart definitely wasn’t frozen yet, if she could feel guilt. The honest, shameful truth was, she wanted him to be sitting on the couch and thinking about Jakarta, only Jakarta. But she would never say that to him. Dad, who had such a big heart for the wretched and the poor and the sick, would never understand. Besides, ever since boarding school she and Jakarta had been careful about saying anything that would hurt Mom’s or Dad’s feelings. Every moment with your family was precious. You learned that in boarding school even if you didn’t learn anything else.

FOUR

    T hat night in her sleep Dakar quit breathing again. She woke up gasping—huge, noisy gulps. When air was finally trickling back in her lungs, she started to cough.
    Through the coughing she heard footsteps. She felt the light in her face. “Dakar?” She felt Dad’s hands pulling her up. He held a glass of water to her mouth.
    â€œI’m okay.” It was a