The Missing Girl Read Online Free PDF Page B

slayed me!
    But what about her will slay him, knock him over, stop him in his fast run through life? She shifted her backpack, trotted a block, imagined herself running alongside him on the track behind the school. Is that how they’ll get 49

    started? Maybe. Well, not in real life. Anyway, fast-forward. Fingers linked, she and Ethan are strolling around the duck pond in Lafayette Park. She’s asking him about himself. He tells her this and that, but mostly he wants to know about her, because he’s that unusual kind of person interested in other people, not just himself.
    Maybe she’ll ask if he ever wondered about her name.
    I bet you did. Bizarre, huh? Cueing him in that if he had made fun of her name, her face, of her , that she understands, really she does. But no, that script is too real. This is a fantasy , a movie, and she’s actress, director, and scriptwriter, so she can have it anywhichway she pleases.
    All right then, on with it. Take One, the name scene.
    When they named me, my parents were out of their minds, Ethan . An amused tone—she’s going for laughs here. Berserk people! Someone shoulda called the little men in white . Or maybe a more serious approach? I have suffered with this name every day of my life . Whew!
    Waaay too dramatic. He fingers the silver rings in his ear, nods encouragingly. She notices his ears are large and a little floppy. Sweet. Didn’t she read somewhere that big ears are a sign of a sensitive nature? Nonsense, of course, but still. He is so sensitive, especially for a boy—but she 50

    won’t say that; it’s sort of sexist.
    As she dashed across Oak Street, still unreeling Beauty and Ethan: The Movie , Beauty almost did a repeat of the original Ethan scene, the real one, just catching herself short of running straight into someone else.
    “Oops, sorry!” she said to the man, who was carrying a grocery bag, and she moved to step out of his way. It was funny, really. A total repeat. She stepped one way, so did he; she stepped in the other direction, so did he. “Double oops!” she said cheerily. At that point a little smile had teased Ethan’s mouth, and then there was that cute twitch of his nose, but this man was no Ethan. He looked at her for a moment, almost too long, then his eyes went blank, and he jerked the grocery bag up in his arm and brushed past her.
    “Well, and thank you, too,” Beauty said to his retreat-ing, gray-coated back. There you have it, folks, a typical, emotionless, middle-aged Mallory type.
    Yes, she thought fervently, it would be soul saving to leave this town! Which was exactly why nothing, nothing, nothing would change her mind about getting out of Mallory. That was one promise to herself that she would not break, as she had broken other smaller, less important 51

    promises—to eat less, to stop obsessing about her name, to drop her crushes on this teacher and that boy. She’d never managed to keep any of those promises for any length of time, but this one was different.
    This promise was life or death. Stuck here forever in Mallory, she’d die. It was as simple as that. She’d be alive, but dead. She pulled open the door to the florist shop.
    The bells chimed. Patrick looked up from arranging a mixed bouquet and greeted her with a smile.
    “Patrick,” Beauty said. “I ran most of the way. I’m not late, am I?”
    52

    PATTERNS
    GRADUALLY, AS THE weather warms, as the snow melts, the man’s attitude toward the girls alters.
    Although there are five of them, sometimes only three appear. And then other times, two, with another one lag-ging far behind. The lack of patterns is upsetting. Is it right that he never knows if they’ll be on time, or how many of them he will see on any day, in any week?
    He makes a chart. Basic, no frills. He notes the date and how many show up each day. That day it was two of them. The next day all five of them came galloping along.
    He continues through the week, then the next week and the next. Two.