I found myself lazily playing with a pen during English Lit, the sun’s yellow spilling through the classroom’s windows. It had been an average day, all things considered, though as the day moved on, the noise and murmur surrounding Jenny Gallagher’s and her brother’s disappearance started making its way around the many groups of students. It would be the only thing anyone spoke of, at least for the next day or so.

  I barely kept myself awake as I listened to our teacher read the opening passage of a short story we were to study for the next few classes. My mind wandered, and I thought of Harry and how he had been keeping something from me. Did anything happen between him and Anne? I thought but quickly decided that it simply sounded wrong in my head. They were their usual selves that morning, and they’d never been any good at hiding things from me.

  Wow, I blinked and came to a realization, I must really find American Literature boring if I prefer internal monologues to paying attention.

  In the end, I decided that I had no clue what it could’ve been. Harry had said nothing, and I would treat it as such. It was nothing until he made it something.

  I glanced behind me, at Harry sitting at the desk by the window. A blue flash caught my attention, and I noticed a police car park in front of the school’s gate. The lights turned off, and some policemen got out of the car and walked towards the school. I should have found that odd, but it really wasn’t. A girl had gone missing, of course they’d come to her school to ask questions. I don’t know what they were hoping to find, but I guess that was above my pay grade. It was either procedure or routine sprinkled in with a bit of wishful thinking.

  With all that going on, all the intrigue and the questions were making me tired, and I decided that I’d earned a small nap to pass the time until the bell rang.

  Something poked me on the side, and I kneed the desk. I drew in a sharp breath and cursed under my breath.

  Mrs. Hawthorne raised a disappointed brow and rolled her eyes. The better part of a dozen nodding heads and lazy eyes turned to face me, and I chuckled quietly.

  “Sorry, I … uhm … yeah,” I said and sat back down.

  That excuse sounded better in my head.

  The middle-aged woman clicked her tongue and returned to her whiteboard. “Moving on,” she said.

  I heard a light giggle from beside me and I knew who’d been responsible for my hurting knee. A streak of sunlight gleamed into my eyes, and I grimaced at the girl sitting at the desk beside me. Anne had the seat next to mine, her head propped on one hand, looking at me with sidelong glances. I noticed a small mirror inside her pencil case when she used it to reflect the sun back to my eyes again.

  “What do you want?” I whispered.

  She shrugged with a self-pleased smile and turned her attention back to the teacher.

  I sighed and leaned over the textbook. Holding my head upright with one hand, I grabbed the anthology of American short stories with the other. Adequately annoyed by Anne’s insistence to not let me sleep, I began reading the passage our teacher was going over.

  My eyes were starting to close by themselves, and I concluded that it was a battle not worth fighting. Sleep was inevitable, and why should I obstruct it? With the way I was sitting, and a little luck on my side, I could pretend to be reading and successfully doze through the remainder of the class. At least that was my intent.

  A rubber eraser bounced off the back of my head, and I turned around to scowl at the one responsible.

  Harry was giggling with his jock best friend, Jackson beside him, and when he looked at my annoyed face, my eyes half-closed, he spread his hands and pretended to smile with an innocent look. He pointed at Anne, a frail attempt to shift the blame. There seldom was any accountability in such things.

  I turned to her, and she quickly made it her business to inspect the book’s paper texture. There was a tiny quirk to her lips, and she pinched her nose between her thumb and index.

  And so the puppet master shows her hand.

  I shook it all away and let the sun and the lull slowly claim me as I propped the book on my desk—

  Someone nudged my chair from behind, and I was interrupted for the third time. I knew it then for what it was: a despicable scheme against me, against my coveted sleep.

  The lesson progressed at a snail’s pace, and I had no way of making it move faster, no way to hasten my torment. Every time I managed to steal some shut-eye or happened to find something interesting enough to get lost into, I was interrupted by someone’s annoying whim. The only way out was actually paying attention to class and keeping vigilant, but with the long-winded passages taunting me and the teacher’s high-pitched but lethargic voice guiding me like a boatman down the river, it was an inescapable situation.

  During one of the long-drawn dances of attrition, I lost myself to my frustration and accidentally slammed my hands on my desk.

  With a tap of her short-hilled shoes, Mrs. Hawthorne turned to me. “Mr. McNeil!” she said with such energy that you’d think she was waiting for the opportunity to speak of anything other than the book in her hand. “Do you have anything to share with the rest of the class?”

  I decided to stay quiet. After the previous incident, I wasn’t really confident in my excuse-making.

  “Nothing?”

  I was mute.

  “Then kindly tell us what you think Irving’s intent was with the passage we just read.”

  I struggled to keep the smile from my face. For once in my long career as a student, the insufferable impulses of my classmates and friends proved to my benefit; I had been paying attention. “I would be delighted,” I wanted to savor the moment as much as I could, “Irving wrote a moral—”

  The door swung open and cut me off mid-sentence.

  “Excuse us for the interruption,” said the chubby, suit-wearing principal of the school. “Could we have your class for a moment?”

  Mrs. Hawthorne promptly welcomed him and another man inside the classroom.

  “McNeil, it’s fine, we don’t need to listen to your excuses.”

  I felt unjustly snubbed, and I spoke out. “But … I know the answer.”

  “Shh, McNeil, enough,” she turned back to the two men, “Principal Staton, what is the matter?”

  Soured and grumpy, I took back to my seat. I doggedly set my eyes to the two men standing in front of the whiteboard and never let my gaze drift away. I knew that the moment I let myself wander, I would inevitably falter and catch a glimpse of Anne’s smug face. And that was an image I didn’t want in my mind.

  “Sergeant Stone wants to inform everyone here about something. It will only take a minute,” the principal said and gave a nod to the officer.

  A man appeared from behind him wearing a policeman’s uniform. Tall and stout, with a cleanly-shaven chin and a thick moustache, the police sergeant walked in front of the teacher’s desk. “My name is Sergeant Hudson Stone of the VPD,” he said, his voice slow-paced and deep, breathy. “Us and the folk over the Sheriff’s Office have organized a search effort to find Jenny Gallagher. You probably know already, so I won’t waste any time on it. She’s been missing for less than a day; if we have a chance to find her, now is the time. Some colleagues and I will be here for a time after the last bell. If you have any information or want to join the search, come down to the principal’s office.”

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  The Sergeant waited. “That is all,” he said and turned to leave the room.

  “What about her brother?” Harry’s asked from behind me.

  “Officially, the search extends to him as well.”

  There was an implied unofficial position on the matter, but no one asked for an explanation. Jenny’s brother has been missing for a week. And that could only mean a couple of things. And none were even remotely close to good.

  Sullen silence succeeded his words as he exited the room, and the principal followed, belatedly thanking our English teacher for her time. Awkwardly, the principal stopped at the door and added, “For your information, anyone who’s not eighteen must get their parent’s signed approval to join the search.”

  ***

  School was over, but I found myself staying behind, leaning on the side of a green Corolla as the last stranded students were picked up or left. Nemo’s car had something loveable about it even though it was almost the same age as us, with spots of chipped paint and an off-putting smell that no one had ever really managed to find the source of. It was the first car in our friend group, and as such, it had a special place in our hearts. Right then, as I waited outside the school’s parking lot, it served me well as a comfortable place to lean on.

  “What’s taking them so long?” I asked, staring at a lone tree that stuck like a sore thumb in the concrete parking lot.

  Donna was sitting on top of the car’s hood. “Someone’s grumpy,” she leaned over, her hands on the car, her hair falling down one side of her face. “What happened? Did someone miss their mid-class nap?”

  “Matter of fact, I did. Your friend wouldn’t let me. She’s even started weaponizing mirrors against me,” I crossed my arms, “and when that wasn’t enough, she put my friend on the job. Mrs. Hawthorne’s class has practically become a minefield for any unfortunate snoozers that might wander by.”

  “Snoozers?” she said, her voice cheery.

  “One who habitually sleeps in,” I answered naturally.

  She giggled lightly. “I don’t think that’s how you use the word, Terry.”

  “What do you mean it’s not how you use the word? It comes straight from Nemo Faerwald’s Renowned Dictionary of Words that Might or Might not Exist.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “Never heard of it?” I feigned shock.

  Donna shook her head. “It went out of print before I could get my hands on it.”

  I rubbed my chin. “It is a very sought out item. Honestly, only a select few have ever had the honor of reading it.”

  “Rarer than Anne’s Extensive Map for the Curious Window-Shopper?”

  I drew a sharp breath through my teeth.

  “She has every store color-coded and rated based on seasonal pieces.”

  Her answer surprised me by how true it was and I laughed. Donna did the same.

  It was a silly, somewhat juvenile way of spending the time as we waited for the others to come. And in contrast to the troublesome announcement our friends were sure to bring, it was more than pleasant.

  I could faintly put two and two together, and with the newspaper this morning, the announcement back in class, and a text from Nemo that said to wait for him by his car, the scene of me roaming around the woods with a flashlight in my hand and a hyperactive teenager by my side wasn’t hard to imagine.

  Sometimes, it didn't take a detective to figure out Nemo's intentions.

  Our laughter died out and we returned to the comfortable quiet.

  Then Donna huffed and got off the hood of the car and onto her feet. But she'd put more force to it than she intended, and accidentally stumbled closer to me.

  Adrenaline shot right through my head and for a brief second, I thought that she would fall. Impulsively, I reached to catch her, but she hadn’t fallen, so I only grabbed her by the arm and pulled her closer to me.

  She was startled. Her eyes wide, a shade of dark brown, looking into mine.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Oh?” She smiled with the corner of her lips. “I’m good,” she touched my hand and pushed it ever so lightly, “thank you for catching me.”

  I took an involuntary step back. “It’s nothing,” I said as I scratched the back of my head. There was an awkward pause after that, and I swallowed louder than I’d intended.

  “So,” Donna fixed a strand of dark hair behind her ear, “chemistry, right?”

  My ears turned warm and I stuttered. “I … ehm, sure … I think so.”

  “You think so?” she said, her voice quiet. “You don’t know how you feel about it?”

  I chuckled, unsure of how I was supposed to respond to what she was asking me. My mind was making rounds on itself. She’s a nice friend, kind, funny—

  “I mean, you’re always going on about how you despise that class.”

  Devious, cruel, a siren.

  My head returned to me, and I came to realize that I was being played for a fool. I should’ve been angry, but for some reason, deep down, I was relieved. “Ha ha, very funny,” I said flatly.

  She chuckled and walked halfway around the car. “You should’ve seen the look on your face,” she said and deepened her voice to mimic mine, “I … ehm, sure.” She laughed louder and leaned on the car for support.

  I would have laughed with her, but it was my job to play the annoyed and the irritated. Though I don’t know if I sold the performance. I had a stupid smile on my face.

  “What are you doing to my car!” a distressed voice shrieked from afar and I turned to see Nemo jogging towards us. “You’ll dent it.”

  Donna stood upright with an excuse on her tongue before she even turned to face him. “I almost fell; I had to lean on something.”

  Nemo waved indifferently and inspected the car for any imperfections other than the ones the old Corolla had come with. In truth, I don’t think that car has ever been without any. And Nemo, ever the maniac, had memorized every last one. I should know, he made me quiz him on it. “You should be more careful not to trip on yourself. The parking lot’s a bit too even; I’ll call the principal and complain to have it roughened up for you.”

  “Hey! I’m not that heavy!” said the petite, five-foot-nothing girl.

  Nemo glanced up and smiled.

  Harry and Anne walked up behind him. “Come on, Nemo. It was an accident,” Anne said with her coy voice. “I’m sure she didn’t mean it.”

  Nemo smirked at Donna and me. “I’m sure she didn’t,” he knelt and poked around the front wheel, “anyway, we’re behind schedule, jump in, we’ve got some distance to cover. Who’s taking who?” He sprang up and turned to Anne, the only other driver among the five of us.

  It was quickly decided and agreed that we would split into two groups: one was Harry, Nemo and I; the other was Donna and Anne. There was apprehension in the way they spoke, avoiding mention of where we were going as best they could. But my suspicions were all but confirmed the moment I saw the thin stack of papers Harry held in his hand. I didn’t say it out loud, but it was almost certain that our ending destination would be the Geir-Lakewood Park on the north side of town.

  I stopped the four of them in their hushed eagerness. “You’re not going to tell me where we are going are you?”

  Harry turned to me. “You get in the car and we’ll tell you.”

  I crossed my arms.

  Harry tossed me a deodorant, and I fumbled to catch it. I arched a brow at him.

  “I’m not getting into the car with you if you don’t spray,” he said.

  Nemo turned the key and the car gurgled and wheezed into life. Harry opened the only other door of the car, knocked the passenger’s chair down, and jumped in the back seat. The door was left open, the engine rattling loudly in the empty lot.

  A loud screech of tires rubbing against the warm concrete turned somewhere behind me and left off on the long road outside school. It was Anne’s silver Jetta.

  “Come on,” Nemo spoke over the engine. “We are wasting light.”

  Harry beamed a smile from inside the window.

  I sighed. “I’m so gonna regret this,” I mumbled to myself.

  Reluctantly, but aware of the consequences, I used the refreshing spray and entered the car, closed the door and fastened my seatbelt. “Nemo,” I turned to him, holding up the limp seatbelt for him to see, “why is it doing that?”

  “Dad bought a mini fridge, and I had to fasten it to get it home somehow,” he said.

  “And?”

  “And a squirrel jumped in front of me, so I pumped the breaks.”

  Nemo floored the gas and the green Corolla lurched forward.

  I sighed.

  It stalled.

  Nemo lowered his head, and I barked a laughter.

  Harry joined me.

  Nemo slumped his shoulders, coaxed the car back to life, and we drove off on our merry way. We kept joking about that for the better part of the ride.

  I wasn’t an asshole, making fun of your friends’ mistakes once so often was good for the heart.