And This Is Laura Read online

  “Let’s see.” She tapped her pencil thoughtfully against her cheek. “Jill had something or other she had to stay for this afternoon. At least, I think it was this afternoon. And Douglas went over to Al’s house—or the Chesters’ maybe. Well, one or the other. They’re forming a jazz quartet—did you ever hear of a quartet with piano, guitar, tuba and piccolo?”

  She was in one of her vague moods. I felt my apprehension build as she spoke. She didn’t really know where anyone was—she’d been off on the coast of Cornwall dreaming up hideous secrets all afternoon.

  “Actually, I think the piccolo player is some girl they’re all trying to impress, and they just asked her to be in the group so they could get to know her bet—”

  “Where’s Dennis?”

  “He’s downstairs, watching television.”

  “No, he’s not!”

  “Well, that’s where I told him to stay until it was time for me to drive him to Roger’s.”

  “Well he’s not there now!” My voice was shrill. She couldn’t understand why I was so upset.

  “Then he must have gone outside.”

  “No, he’s not. He’s not out front, he’s not in the backyard. I haven’t seen him anywhere on the block and I looked all over the house for him.”

  “But where would he have gone? He was dying to go to Roger’s and I told him just to wait fifteen minutes—”

  “When did you tell him that?”

  “About three-fifteen.”

  “It’s four-thirty now!” I cried.

  She leaped out of her chair. “It can’t be! What happened to—I completely lost track of the time.”

  “Not to mention your kid,” I muttered.

  “Maybe he went to Stevie’s,” she said. She grabbed the phone. “Or to the Brills’. You call them on Jill’s phone, I’ll call the Elmans.”

  He wasn’t with Stevie Elman or Larry Brill. They hadn’t seen him since they came home from school.

  “He’s got to be somewhere,” my mother insisted. “Did you look in the basement?”

  “I just yelled, I didn’t look. I’ll go look now.”

  But even as I went down the basement steps, I knew he wouldn’t be there. He was gone, like the picture and the doll. And it wasn’t really my mother’s fault. If I’d told her, she wouldn’t have let him out of her sight. Why hadn’t I told her? I knew she wasn’t the kind of mother to hover over her children every second of the day. But Dennis was never the kind of kid to just take off on his own either. He liked to be with people and most of the time if he wasn’t watching television or counting, he was with one or the other of us. I should have told her though. Even if it had made her worry; a little worry would have been better than this. It might even have prevented it.

  He was not in the basement.

  “I called the Traubs,” she said. “I thought he might have decided to go on his own. He’s not there.”

  “Oh, Mom, he doesn’t know how to get there. Besides, it’s all the way across town. He couldn’t possibly walk.”

  Jill came in just then.

  “Dennis is missing,” I said.

  She dropped her books on the bed. “When? How do you know he’s missing?”

  “He’s not here,” I said simply.

  “Look, Jill, you and Laura go up this block and down Laurel Crescent and Larch and yell for him. I’ll take the car and go around the neighborhood. He probably just went for a walk. Go on.”

  She ran downstairs. A moment later the front door slammed.

  Jill looked at me, her face pale. “We knew it was going to happen. We should have been more careful. How long has he been gone?”

  “We’re not sure. She hasn’t seen him since three-fifteen.”

  “Has she called the police?”

  “I don’t think so. He really hasn’t been missing so very long.”

  “We’d better get going. You take this block and Larch and I’ll go up Laurel and Beechwood.”

  Outside, we went our separate ways. I started up the street yelling, “Dennis!” every five seconds. Mrs. Brill stuck her head out the front door when she heard me calling.

  “Didn’t find him yet?”

  I thought that was pretty obvious, since if we had found him I wouldn’t be walking the streets yelling for him. I shook my head.

  “Don’t worry. He’ll turn up.”

  She closed the door and I resumed the search. He wasn’t on our block, or if he was, he didn’t hear me. I started down Larch. I yelled his name in front of every house, thinking he might be inside visiting somewhere. I went around the sides of houses and looked in backyards, but no Dennis.

  When I got back home, Jill and my mother were already there. Their faces fell when they saw I was alone.

  “Did you call Dad?” I asked.

  “No. He should be home any minute anyway. No point in worrying him.” Jill and I exchanged guilty glances at that familiar phrase.

  “What about the police?” asked Jill. “Shouldn’t we call them? They cover more territory than we can.”

  “Yes, I think I’d better,” my mother said. “At least they can be on the lookout for him, though I don’t think he’s officially missing until he’s been gone overnight.”

  She bit her lip and quickly turned away from us.

  By seven o’clock there was still no word of Dennis. My father and Douglas had come home and we had sent out for a couple of pizzas which nobody could eat. Beth called every half-hour to find out if Dennis had gotten home and to report that he hadn’t shown up at her house.

  My mother kept phoning the police to find out if they had any news yet. They repeated that as soon as they had anything they’d call her.

  Finally they promised to send someone out to the house, probably just to get her off their backs. Since they had a complete description of Dennis already, I couldn’t see the point of a personal visit, but it seemed to relieve my parents a little.

  “At least they’re doing something,” my mother said. “At last.”

  At seven-thirty the doorbell rang. Jill and Douglas raced to the door and flung it open.

  “I’m Lieutenant Cohen.” The man in the gray suit spotted me behind Douglas. “Hi there. I recognized the address. Thought I’d come over and see if I could be of some help.”

  “He’s the father of a boy in my class,” I explained, when my parents looked questioningly in my direction.

  “Is there any news?” asked my mother.

  “Nothing yet, I’m afraid. But you know, he really hasn’t been gone that long. Even though he’s only seven, we don’t consider him a missing person yet.”

  “He’s never gone off like this before,” my father said. “He’s the kind of a child who stays quite close to home.”

  “Well, this usually happens once during childhood, at least,” said Lieutenant Cohen, “even with the most dependable kids. Was he angry or upset about anything? Had he been punished? Was there any reason he might have run away from home?”

  My mother looked embarrassed. “I’d promised to take him over to a friend’s house,” she said. “Then I lost track of the time and the next thing I knew it was four-thirty and he was gone.”

  “Did you call the friend?”

  “Oh, yes. We’ve been in touch ever since he was missing. He never showed up there. It’s way over in Country Manor. He wouldn’t know how to begin to get there.”

  “Let’s get a description of the boy and what he was wearing,” the lieutenant said.

  “But you have that already,” my mother objected. “I gave them all the information on the phone.”

  “Let’s go over it again,” he insisted. “You might remember something else.”

  Douglas scowled. As my father and mother led Lieutenant Cohen into the living room he whispered, “Just busywork—to make it look like they’re doing something when they’re not.”

  Jill nodded despondently. “You’re probably right,” she said, “but what else is there to do?”

  �
��Blue corduroy pants, red plaid flannel shirt. His winter jacket, navy blue with a hood. It’s fake fur, nylon plush, I think. Forty-five inches tall. About forty-five pounds. He recites commercials by heart.”

  Lieutenant Cohen wrote everything down in a little black notebook, although he must have had all that information already.

  “Any relatives or grandparents he might have gone to visit?”

  “Not around here,” my father replied. “There’s no one nearby.”

  My mother started to cry.

  “Now, Mrs. Hoffman,” Lieutenant Cohen said, “it’s too soon to get that upset. This is your first experience with this kind of thing, but believe me, it happens every day. He’ll turn up pretty soon. Most of them do.”

  “Most of them!” my mother repeated, swallowing hard.

  “Practically all of them. I’m not trying to give you any false hope. If I wasn’t so sure he’d be all right I wouldn’t say so. But we’ve never had one lost kid from this area that we didn’t eventually find.”

  “But he’s not in this area now,” my mother sobbed. “God knows where he could be by this time.”

  My father put his arms around her and held her.

  Lieutenant Cohen stood up. “He might still be very close by,” he told them. “Often they just get tired and settle down somewhere for a nap. He could be right in the neighborhood.”

  “Thank you, lieutenant,” my father said absently. “I’m sure you’re right.”

  “We’ll keep in touch,” he said. Jill and I walked him to the door.

  He turned and looked at me appraisingly. “It’s odd that you didn’t predict this,” he remarked. “Considering how psychic you are.”

  “She did!” Jill blurted out. “Weeks ago.”

  “Really? What did you do about it?”

  “I didn’t do anything,” I said. “I didn’t know what there was to do.”

  “I told her not to tell our parents,” Jill said. “It would just have worried them and if it was going to happen there was nothing anyone could do to prevent it.”

  Somehow it didn’t sound like such a convincing argument now that Dennis had actually disappeared. Lieutenant Cohen didn’t seem to think so either. He gave us a very skeptical look before he spoke again.

  “And isn’t there anything you can do now?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, if you’re really psychic, why don’t you go into a trance, or whatever it is you do, and find out where your brother is?”

  “Laura!” Jill grabbed my arm. “That’s a great idea! You could do it.”

  I looked anxiously from the lieutenant to my sister. “I don’t know,” I hesitated. “I’ve never tried anything like that before.”

  It would be wonderful if I could help find Dennis, but I was very uncertain about my ability to do it. All my predictions had seemed to be about the future, and what Lieutenant Cohen was suggesting was that I psychically tune in on what was happening in the present. Like mind reading, I guess; get into Dennis’s head and see where he was

  “I don’t know . . .”

  “You can try,” urged Jill.

  “If it was my brother,” Lieutenant Cohen said, “I’d certainly want to at least try.”

  I searched his face carefully for some clue to his real feelings. Was he daring me to find Dennis because he thought I was a fake and would give myself away if I couldn’t do it? Or did he actually believe I was psychic and that maybe I really could help?

  “I can’t promise anything,” I said at last.

  “I know, Laura,” Jill nodded. “We’re just asking you to try.”

  “And I’m a little out of practice,” I warned. “I haven’t been doing it much lately.”

  “It’s true,” she agreed. “You really haven’t had the time.”

  “But I’ll try.”

  “I’ll wait here,” said Lieutenant Cohen, “so in case you come up with anything I can have it checked out right away.”

  I studied him again. I just couldn’t figure out whether this was a challenge, or he sincerely hoped that I could find Dennis. His face was bland, revealing nothing.

  “I’ll go upstairs and see what I can do.”

  He nodded and sat down on the oak bench near the front door. He crossed his arms and leaned back, prepared to wait.

  I went to my room and stretched out on the bed. At first I just tried to relax, like I had on the night of the play. I felt a great pressure, as if Dennis’s safety depended on me.

  And I was frightened of what I might find out.

  But it had to be done. Since I did have the Gift, this might be my chance to use it for something really important, to do some good with it. To help.

  I closed my eyes.

  Dennis, I thought. Dennis. Where are you?

  At first nothing happened. I just lay there, repeating his name over and over again. I opened my eyes a couple of times and saw that I was still in my room, still surrounded by the familiar things I saw every day.

  But then . . . Crowds of people were milling around, carrying packages. At first, that was all I was aware of. But soon, as if picking him out of a crowd, I spotted Dennis. I seemed to be right behind him, following him as he went from place to place. But we didn’t take much time getting places—he would appear in one spot, and then suddenly turn up somewhere else, while I found myself with him in one store after another.

  He ate a big dish of ice cream. Then he was standing in front of a cage, looking at some puppies tumbling around on shredded newspaper. Then he was sitting in front of a huge color TV, watching cartoons. He rode a mechanical horse, feeding dimes into the slot again and again, while he bounced up and down on the painted saddle.

  He went into someplace dark, where there was a big screen with moving images on it, and ate candy. Then he was walking up and down aisle after aisle of shelves filled with toys.

  The moment I came out of it I knew exactly what I had seen.

  I leaped off the bed and ran downstairs.

  “The shopping mall,” I said. “He’s at the shopping mall, wandering around.”

  Lieutenant Cohen stretched his legs and stood up. “We thought of that already,” he said. “We have the security people there alerted.”

  “But I’m sure that’s where he is,” I insisted. “I saw him.”

  My parents heard me. “You saw him?” my mother demanded. “When?”

  “Just now—I got a psychic vision. He’s at the mall, hacking around.”

  Jill ran to the closet and grabbed her coat.

  “Let’s go,” she said.

  “Oh, come now,” Douglas scoffed. “You can’t believe—”

  “Wait a minute,” urged Lieutenant Cohen, holding up his hands. “It’s a big place. I’m sure he could spend hours without anyone spotting him. It’s very possible—a lot of the kids go there. But don’t run off all disorganized. Let’s take this one step at a time.”

  He phoned the head of security at the shopping center. Douglas shot him a look of disgust, threw up his hands and went into the kitchen.

  “His sister,” Lieutenant Cohen was saying into the phone, “thinks he might be walking around the stores.” He gave me a sideways glance. “Do you have enough people to check them in some kind of order? Well the department stores could page him again.”

  “Try the TV departments,” I said. “If he’s tired, he’s probably sitting in front of a television set somewhere.”

  “Check the TV departments,” he said, nodding in my direction. “He might have settled down there.”

  “The movies,” I added. “He went to the movies. But I don’t know if he’s still there.”

  “And check out the movie too. Yeah, I know they’re not supposed to, but he could have slipped in with a bunch of kids.”

  “I think we should go ourselves,” said Jill. “We know what he looks like. And Laura knows where to look for him.”

  Lieutenant Cohen raised his eyebrows. “Well, it’s a good logical guess,�
� he admitted.

  “It’s not a guess! Laura saw him. Just because you couldn’t find him—”

  “Jill,” my father interrupted, “take it easy. Now that they know where to look they can concentrate on that area.”

  “Look, Mr. Hoffman, I don’t know anything,” the lieutenant objected. “But as long as they’ve got the manpower over there to put in a good search we might as well try it. A lot of kids do turn up at the shopping center and it’s a place where they can kill a lot of time without anyone noticing them. Whether or not your daughter is really psychic I can’t say. But I’m willing to give her idea a try, if only to convince you that we’re not going to overlook any possibility in finding your boy.”

  He left, promising to call us as soon as he found out anything.

  We went to wait in the living room.

  “You’re sure, Laura?” my mother asked. “You really saw him?”

  “I really did, but the thing is, I don’t know exactly when I was seeing him. I mean, I was trying to concentrate on where he was right now, but I don’t know for sure that’s what I saw.”

  “You mean, it could be some time in the future?” Jill asked.

  “Yeah. It usually is the future that I see; at least, I think it is.”

  “Well then, that’s all right,” said Jill. “Because even if you did see him in the future, that means he’s okay now. Otherwise—” She stopped and looked around anxiously. “I mean—at least we know he has a future—” She stopped again, realizing how awful that sounded.

  “It’s all right.” My mother managed a little smile. “We know what you mean.”

  Douglas joined us in the living room. Another half hour dragged on. As the minutes ticked away so did my confidence. Shouldn’t they have found him by now? With all those people on the lookout for him, if he was at the mall he should have been spotted by this time. What if I’d been wrong? What if something had happened to him, something that I didn’t see? I’d reassured my family that he was fine—but what if he wasn’t?

  Douglas sat opposite me, his arms crossed over his chest. Every once in a while he scowled in my direction.

  The phone rang.

  We all made a mad dash for it. My mother snatched up the receiver first.