The Disappearance of Emily H. Read online

  “Yeah. My mom’s been paying me for all my good grades.”

  Alyssa rolls her eyes. “You’re not even doing the work.”

  “I have to copy it over so it’s in my own handwriting.” Danielle tightens her grip around the box. “Besides, you’re not doing your work, either.”

  “But I’m not getting any money for grades or for chores or for anything,” Alyssa says. “My parents’ll never pay me for grades. My stepdad’s a jerk.”

  “Come on. We can go to my house and experiment with the different colors.” Danielle carries the box to the front of the store.

  I open my eyes to Alyssa and Willow staring at me. The others have gone ahead. I can’t help but notice Alyssa’s bare eyelids.

  “You okay?” A worry line creases Willow’s forehead.

  “I’m fine. Just, uh, a little dehydrated,” I say.

  Alyssa shoos us with her hands. “Go, you guys. I’ll catch up.”

  As Willow and I jog, she keeps glancing back to where Alyssa’s putting weight on her foot and walking around.

  I replay the memory in my mind. Danielle was one of the girls with Jennifer in the photo line. Alyssa and Danielle looked pretty much the same in the memory as they do now. So I’m guessing this happened last Christmas. It sounds like they’re not doing their own homework. I wonder who’s doing it for them.

  “Did you drink any water before we started?” Willow asks me.

  “No,” I say sheepishly, like I’m a big moron, which is better than being a freak.

  “That’s not smart.” Willow shakes her head and a bobby pin slides down her neck, hanging on a few strands of hair.

  I shrug, like, Hey, I know better, but stuff happens.

  “Don’t get too weirded out by what Torie says about your house,” Willow says. “She’s a drama junkie.”

  “Did you know Emily Huvar?” I ask.

  “Not really. We were in language arts and social studies together.”

  “Was she on the team?” I ask.

  With her index finger, Willow pushes the bobby pin back into place. “She didn’t do sports.”

  “It must be tough for her family,” I say. My mom would be a wreck if I disappeared and everyone thought horrible things had happened to me. “And tough for her close friends.”

  “It was hard on her family,” Willow says slowly. “But she really didn’t have any close friends. She wasn’t the type.”

  “What do you mean?” I think people might describe me the same way.

  “She transferred to Yielding last fall. Maybe if she’d been here longer, she would’ve made friends.” Willow chews on her lip, thinking. “No, I don’t think so. Emily was kind of strange. A huge loner.” She looks back to make sure Alyssa’s still out of hearing range. “Alyssa’s group bullied her.” She pauses. “To be funny.”

  I’m so sure they were going for humor when they picked on her. Not. They were going for the jugular. Because that’s how mean girls operate.

  Willow shakes her head and makes a face, embarrassed at saying only negative things about a girl who might be dead. “Emily was super smart, though. She was taking a computer class at the high school.”

  “Let’s pick up the pace,” Alyssa says, jogging up.

  When we reach the others, they’re still discussing Emily.

  “Sydney’s got this wild idea that Emily’s living in Canada under a fake name. Maybe she switched the letters—” Torie starts.

  Alyssa scowls. “No more talking,” she says to the group at large. “We’re pouring it on for the last hundred yards.”

  We get to the Jitter Bean red-faced, sweaty, and breathing hard. Everyone jostles to get through the door.

  Inside smells of coffee and doughnuts. I think half the town’s crammed in here, either chatting loudly or checking their phones.

  We form a line.

  Carrying a metal tray, a bald man approaches from the hall behind the counter. “Great timing, girls. They’re piping hot.”

  Amid cheers, he slides the tray into the glass case, then brushes off his hands on his white apron.

  “What are they?” I ask, gesturing at the mutant miniature doughnuts. They’re missing holes and dusted with brown powder.

  “Cappuccino delights,” Torie says. “They were invented here. I mean, right here.” She stomps on the linoleum floor. “Yielding might be in the backwater, but we’ve got some cool stuff going on.”

  “The filling is amazing,” Willow says to me. “Indescribable. You have to try one.”

  The runners ahead of me carry their orders over to the tables.

  “What can I get for you?” the bald man asks me.

  “A frozen hot chocolate and a couple of cappuccino delights.” I make a split-second decision. “To go.”

  I wave goodbye to the girls. A few wave back. Most of them are too busy talking and eating to notice me. Alyssa’s rubbing her ankle.

  In the parking lot, I hang a left and jog back to a certain streetlight, a streetlight I stopped at last night with Levi. This time, I read Emily Huvar’s missing-person flyer carefully.

  MISSING: EMILY HUVAR

  Height: 5′2″ Weight: 120 lbs.

  Hair: brown Eyes: brown

  Age: 13

  Last seen June 21 at 8:30 p.m. in the vicinity of Maple Street and Birch Avenue. She was wearing jeans and a solid purple T-shirt and was carrying a backpack.

  At the bottom of the paper, there’s a police file number and contact information.

  Sucking on my straw, I stare at the photo. At her messy hair and round, sad eyes.

  I’m walking in this girl’s footsteps, around the house, on the way to school, through the halls. I’ve already met students she knew. I’ll probably have a teacher she had.

  Emily Huvar. Who was socially awkward. Who was super smart. Who didn’t have friends. Who was picked on by the popular girls.

  What happened to you?

  The first thing I do when I get home is scour the place for sparkles left by Emily and her family. I don’t come up with much. Under the upstairs bathroom vanity, I catch one of a small woman, on her knees, filling a box with stuff like shampoo, toilet paper, and tampons. Mrs. Huvar packing up? In the living room, I find a memory of Emily lying on the carpet, earbuds in, flipping through a magazine. And there’s the vision I got before, of the man with the big gut shouting about chores. I don’t check in the basement. I don’t want to meet any spiders.

  I wish my grandmother were still alive. She was so good at finding memories.

  After inhaling a bowl of Lucky Charms, I shower, then spend a few hours on my room. I think of Emily as I tape up posters of my favorite bands, Panic Station and Cat’s Cradle. They cover up the tape marks left by her posters. Slowly but surely, I’m taking over her space, erasing her. Someone will do the same to me in our old apartment in Detroit. It’s just the way it works. The difference is, I didn’t disappear. Nothing bad happened to me.

  Downstairs, Levi paws at the front door, then stares up at me with a look that says, “You owe me. You abandoned me this morning. Come and sit outside while I pee.”

  I get my butt comfortable on the top step of the porch, my favorite mug—a photo mug of me running—filled with cold milk beside me. The chip out of the rim got bigger with this last move. I’m unfolding the paper bag with the cappuccino delights I saved from this morning when the next-door neighbor’s door opens.

  An older woman advances down her driveway and across the sidewalk. A faded checked housedress billows behind her.

  She stops at the foot of our driveway. “Your dog should be on a chain or a leash. It’s the law.”

  Really? Levi’s curled up like a comma in a patch of shade on the lawn. But, in the interest of keeping things cool, I call to her. “Come here, girl.”

  She immediately trots over.

  “Sit,” I command, and she obeys, sitting up tall and straight, trying to impress.

  “Does it bite?” the woman asks.

  “Sh
e,” I say. “No. Never.”

  She stomps up the driveway and over to me. “Did your parents know you were out by yourself last night?”

  Eww. We have a creepy, annoying, spying neighbor.

  “Did they?” She wags a finger at me.

  I visualize my mom, comatose after her sleeping pill. “Sure.”

  “Hmpf.” The crepey skin on her neck jiggles. “They think it’s safe? Letting you wander around alone in the dark?” She pauses dramatically. “You know what happened to the other girl? And it was still dusk when she disappeared?”

  “I wasn’t actually alone,” I say. “I had my dog.”

  She ignores me. “You’d think those parents would know better now, wouldn’t you? But oh no. The younger sister still rides her bike around here. Unsupervised.”

  There’s a sister? I never picked up a memory of her. Not that I got many memories, period. She must’ve shared the bedroom with Emily. My room.

  “I’m glad your family moved in,” the woman says gruffly. “I don’t like a vacant house. Things happen in vacant houses.”

  “Like what?”

  “Shenanigans. Teenagers sneaking in and getting up to shenanigans.”

  I suddenly remember the PB&J sandwich Levi found in the yard. Maybe someone sneaking into our house dropped it. That’s a disturbing thought.

  “Your dog still isn’t on a leash.” The woman turns and flounces down the driveway.

  “Go get her, Levi,” I whisper. “Go bite her right in her big checked butt.”

  Levi gazes at me solemnly, sitting as still as a statue. It’s not hard to figure out which of us is better behaved.

  I stretch out my legs and finish my cappuccino delights, which really rock as much as everyone says.

  I’m increasingly curious about Emily Huvar.

  “In you go, Levi.” I nudge her through the front door, then get my laptop and head to the Jitter Bean for free Wi-Fi and air-conditioning.

  The gold bell hanging from the doorknob tinkles when I walk in. A guy’s restocking the stir sticks on the cart at the end of the counter. He looks up at the sound of the bell. It’s the cute Frisbee guy. The guy who was making his friend laugh during school pictures.

  He works at the Jitter Bean? But how? He’s only in middle school.

  The coffee shop is dead. Big difference from this morning. It still smells great, though. A Seattle Ska song is playing in the background.

  I ask for a cup of water and go to the cart for a straw. Whistling along to the music, the guy has finished with the stir sticks and is working on loading up the napkin dispensers. A sparkle twinkles at me from his belt.

  “You’re new, right?” he says. “I saw you in the picture line at school.”

  My heart skips a beat. He noticed me? “Yeah. Just moved here.”

  “Sorry for slowing things down yesterday. Garrett and I have this ongoing competition to see who can make the other guy laugh so hard, he has his eyes closed for his picture.”

  “And?”

  “Hopefully I pulled it off again. I don’t want to break my three-year winning streak.” He smiles, and his very blue eyes crinkle at the corners. “Can you believe they broke up after only one CD?” He nods at the Oily Artichokes logo on my T-shirt.

  “I was so bummed.” I tap the straw on the counter so that it busts through the paper.

  “At least Seattle Ska are still going strong.” He whistles a little more.

  “Seattle Ska?” I make a face. “They’re not even in the same league.”

  He looks at me like I just escaped from an insane asylum. And might be dangerous. “What’s wrong with Seattle Ska?”

  “Their lyrics. Can you say incredibly lame?” I make my fist into a microphone. “ ‘You have a hamster. My rug has dust mites. Your ex called again last night.’ ”

  “That’s probably not their strongest song,” he says. “I’ll give you that.”

  The bell on the door tinkles again.

  In walks a super thin girl with short shorts and a tank top that looks like it spent a couple of hours on high in the dryer. She was in the picture room yesterday, laughing loudly.

  She stands hips-touching close to the guy. “You didn’t call me.” She sticks out her lower lip.

  “I’m at work. And you know how my dad is.”

  So that’s how he’s working here. It’s a family business.

  “Who’s this?” She lifts a bony shoulder in my direction. Like I’m not a few inches from her and the owner of two perfectly functioning ears.

  “I don’t know,” he says slowly, realizing he never asked my name. He grins. “Someone who doesn’t like Seattle Ska.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” the girl says. “Everyone likes Seattle Ska.”

  “Well, apparently not everyone,” I say.

  She links an arm through his.

  Oh, puh-lease. Could you be more unsubtle? I get it. He’s your boyfriend. Or else you want him to be. It’s not like I’m flirting with the guy. I don’t even know if he’s my type.

  He unlinks his arm. “I gotta finish the cart.” He looks at me. “I’m Hugh. This is Avalon.”

  “Raine.” I haul my laptop bag off my shoulder and onto a nearby table.

  “If you want online, the password’s ‘donuts are us,’ ” he says, then spells it. “There’s a quiet room around the corner.” He opens a drawer and pulls out a bunch of artificial sweeteners.

  “Yeah, you probably want to use the back room,” Avalon says, sorting the packets into different bowls.

  Seriously? Comments like that make me want to follow Hugh around, flaunting some major hip action, just to get on her nerves.

  The door opens again, and a couple of moms with strollers wheel in wailing babies. Maybe I do want that back room after all.

  I pick up my cup. Then, my bag knocking against my side, I walk around the corner to peace and quiet.

  I choose a table and chair near an outlet because my computer holds a charge for all of three seconds. Getting comfortable, I kick off my flip-flops and stretch out my legs. The air conditioner thuds on.

  I spend a few minutes on Facebook. It doesn’t take long because I don’t keep in touch with many people. Then I hop over to the Yielding Middle School website. Great. There’s a button that says ENGLISH SUMMER READING. I click. At least I’ve already read one of the three books.

  I search for Emily Huvar plus Yielding plus New York. And come up with a boatload of hits.

  There are photos of the family, showing Emily, who never smiles; a younger sister; a harried-looking mother; and a big-bellied father. Mr. Huvar was the frustrated man from the hall-closet-doorknob memory. And Mrs. Huvar was the kneeling woman from under the bathroom sink.

  I click on an online report with a hundred or so comments that are seriously all over the place, from parents questioning why Emily was out alone in the evening to a breeder of guard dogs to a mother who believes in microchipping babies at birth.

  The best comments, the ones that say the most about Emily, were written by students.

  I wish now id sat next to you at lunch when you were eating by yourself

  you have a nice smile

  can someone tell her parents she still has my copy of a tree grows in brooklyn? The schools making me pay if i don’t turn it in

  she’s weird

  you made fun of my weight. Maybe you didn’t mean to hurt my feelings, but you did

  I liked the poem you wrote for English

  Then I hop over to an article from the Albany Herald.

  June 28

  Yielding Teen Still Missing

  Last Saturday, thirteen-year-old Emily Huvar did what many typical teen girls do on a weekend evening. She ate dinner with her family, then loaded up her backpack and left on her bike a little after eight-thirty to spend the night at a slumber party with girlfriends. Emily was dressed in jeans and a purple T-shirt.

  What happened next isn’t so typical. Emily never arrived at her destination. She
disappeared somewhere between her house and her friend’s house, six blocks away.

  Approximately three blocks from her destination, Emily met a fellow Yielding Middle School student on Maple Street. They talked briefly. Then Emily turned west on Birch Avenue. This was the last sighting of the teen.

  The three girls at the sleepover didn’t contact any adults when Emily did not show up. There had been some doubt as to whether her parents would allow her to attend.

  Taxi logs and bus records shed no light on the teen’s whereabouts. There are no reports of strange cars in the area. There have been no recent abductions in Yielding or in nearby towns. The Huvar family has not received a ransom note. Nor was a goodbye note left by the teen. Mrs. Huvar says her daughter packed only pajamas, a change of clothing, and toiletries. The bike has not been found.

  Emily Huvar’s disappearance has rocked the small community of Yielding to the core. The girl has seemingly vanished into thin air.

  If you have any information, please contact the Yielding Police Department at 555-476-8823. According to chief of police Joseph Bulkowski, every minute counts in a missing-person case. Emily Huvar has now been gone for eight days.

  I watch a few news clips. Both of Emily’s parents have foreign accents, but her mother’s is way stronger, to the point that I only understand every other word. It doesn’t help that she’s in tears for most of the interviews. Emily’s younger sister, Tasha, looks shell-shocked.

  All the stuff I read says the same thing: the longer Emily’s missing, the more likely it is she’s dead.

  An article from a local paper, the Yielding Bugle, is the most depressing. There’s actually a graph with a line going down, down, down, showing that, at this late date, the chances of Emily’s still being alive are dismal. I’m more likely to get an A in math.

  I stumble across a black-and-white photo of Emily that’s not a head shot. She’s a petite girl, standing on our porch, leaning against the post at the top of the steps. I click to zoom in on her face.

  She’s looking straight into the camera, pulling me in with her huge, round, luminous eyes. They’re the kind of eyes that follow you, the way the Mona Lisa’s supposedly do. Eyes that reach out and say, “Whatever sadness you’ve seen in the world, I’ve seen worse.”