The Leaving Part 1

The Leaving.

Tara Altebrando.

For Liz, who was taken too soon.

AVERY.

The lights hurt my eyes and Mommy is crying and not looking at me. I am on her hip, with Woof-Woof between us.

I am wearing my monkey pajamas.

I am supposed to be in bed.

But Mommy and then Daddy came into my room and turned on the light and said, "Sweetie. We just need to do this thing. It's important. Then you can go right back to sleep."

Daddy scooped me up and I grabbed Woof-Woof because he goes where I go, especially if it's someplace important.

Max isn't here.

Max isn't in his fireman pajamas.

Today was his first real day of kindergarten and he didn't come home.

I don't know why and I am afraid to ask because that is why Mommy has been crying.

It started at the bus stop.

The bus came, but Max wasn't on it.

I want to ask "Is Max dead?" as Daddy puts me in my car seat.

But I don't want to because I don't know what dead means except that it's bad. Maybe kindergarten is bad, too? Maybe it takes you away and makes moms and dads sad.

The lights that hurt are on big cameras where we end up. In front of a big building that looks like it is made of gray LEGOs.

They make night feel like day.

They make me feel weird about my pajamas.

There are men talking into big microphones and I haven't seen my Minnie Mouse microphone in a while and it seems like my toys have started disappearing. Did Max take them with him?

Men are talking.

Like grown-ups with rules.

Then Daddy is right next to me and Mommy-with a microphone, lollipop-close to his mouth. Fishy camera eyes are pointed at us.

He is saying, "Please, bring back our son. Bring all the children back, unharmed."

A woman screams, "My daughter said she was going on a trip, to the leaving . . . does anyone know what that means?"

And Mommy looks at me, like she's only just remembering that she's holding me, and I squeeze my thighs around her tight so that now I can lean toward the microphone, and the world gets quiet, so I say, "I really want Max to come home."

Mommy lets out a sound I have no word for and pulls my head into the s.p.a.ce between her head and her soft parts and pushes through all those shoulders and elbows and arms.

Woof-Woof is gone and I think about screaming.

Then I do.

My father says, "Here," and he has Woof-Woof.

I grab him and hug him and his brown ears smell like sleep and apple juice and my thumb that I suck and I say, "Woof-Woof, I thought I lost you," and he has these two eyes that are st.i.tched out of thread and they are wide apart and I know he's not real but for the first time ever, he looks so very sad.

So sad that it hurts to look at him.

I find Mommy's shoulder and find my thumb and close my eyes to make it all go away.

Scarlett

Like being ripped open, midnightmare. Breathless, in the center of a scream.

Her hands went to the knot on the blindfold at the back of her neck. It was tied tight. It hurt her fingers to undo it.

Then her eyes were freed.

Night.

Heat.

Palm trees.

"Where are we?" A girl.

"What's going on?" A boy.

She turned.

Saw the others.

Saw him. His name was . . . ? Something with an L?

He took off running after the van, screaming, "Stop! Wait!"

One taillight out. Tires screeching. Gone.

Lucas. His name was Lucas.

And hers?

They'd gotten out of that white van, just a moment ago. Three rows of seats. Ripped leather upholstery that dug into her thigh.

She had spent the journey fighting sleep-or something-and working hard not to tear the blindfold off.

He'd said not to. It had been important to behave.

"Where are we?" A girl- Sarah?- screaming.

"Who was that?" Adam-his name was easy, biblical-paced. "Who was driving?"

She studied him-his skin light brown, darker than the others'-then his clothes.

Black shirt.

Black jeans.

Sneakers.

Then Lucas's.

"Scar?" He was staring at her.

What scar? Where?

Oh.

Scarlett.

Her name was Scarlett.

"You okay?" He came closer.

She studied her own clothes. Swallowed to wet her throat. "Why are we all wearing the same thing?"

"I think I'm having a panic attack," Sarah said. "Oh my G.o.d. OhmyG.o.dohmyG.o.d."

"Just calm down"-the first words out of . . . K . . . K . . . K . . . Kristen's mouth.

"WHY SHOULD I CALM DOWN?" Again, Sarah. Screaming.

Something was poking Scarlett's hip.

Two of her fingers slid into her right jeans pocket, found a folded piece of paper. Took it out. Unfolded it.

"What's that?" Lucas asked.

Lines, this way and that. "A map."

The others dug through pockets. They all had maps.

Her eyes found a red-inked star on hers and saw her nails were also red: worn and chipped, like blood leaking out of her cuticles.

"I think this is a map to my house," Lucas said. "Thirty-three Locust Place."

"Mine's not ringing any bells." Kristen flipped to the other side of her map, and back. "Maybe I got the wrong one?"

She wasn't chewing gum, but Scarlett pictured her that way. Always chewing.

Scarlett turned. A slide. Some swings. A gate.

A thought about a cracked tooth, a boy.

Had it been Lucas?

No, but . . .

Her feet had orders.

Marched toward the playground.

Stood at the center on the springy blacktop.

A warm wind woke an old swing. It squeaked and swung a ghost child.

"I've been here," Scarlett said to no one.

The others came in, too.

She stopped at a red horse on a springy coil, the kind you sit on . . .

. . . and rock.

Sarah was all panic. "Why don't we remember where we live?"

Good. Question.