‘Max isn’t a runner,’ Mrs Gosk says.
‘I honestly don’t think he’s in the building, Donna,’ Mrs Hume says.
Donna is Mrs Gosk’s first name. Kids can never use a teacher’s first name but teachers can use it whenever they want.
‘He wouldn’t just leave the building,’ Mrs Gosk says, and she is kind of right. Max would never leave the building unless a teacher tricked him into leaving, which is exactly what happened.
I am the only one who knows what happened, and I can’t tell anyone. Max is the only human person who I could tell, but Max isn’t here, because Max is the one who disappeared.
Mrs Palmer’s voice comes on the intercom again.
‘Staff members, please take a moment and look around you and the area that you are in. Max Delaney from Mrs Gosk’s classroom has lost his way somewhere in the building and we want to be sure that he finds his way back to his classroom. If you see Max, please call the office immediately. And Max, if you can hear me, please go to your classroom. If you’re stuck somewhere, please call out and we’ll find you. No need to worry, boys and girls. It’s a big school and kids can sometimes get a little lost.’
Yeah, right, I think.
‘I don’t think he’s in the building. I think we need to call the police,’ Mrs Hume says. ‘He doesn’t live too far away. Maybe he walked home.’
‘That’s true,’ Mrs Riner says. ‘We should call his parents. He could be on his way home.’
‘Max would not leave the building,’ Mrs Gosk says.
Mrs Palmer returns. I can’t believe how calm she looks.
‘I have Eddie and Chris checking the basement and opening all the closets. The cafeteria staff are searching the kitchen. Wendy and Sharon are doing a sweep of the outside.’
‘He’s gone,’ Mrs Hume says. ‘I don’t know how or why, but he’s not here. It’s been too long. This is Max we’re talking about.’
‘We don’t know that,’ Mrs Palmer says.
‘She’s right,’ Mrs Gosk says. Her voice is softer. She doesn’t sound as certain as she did a second ago. She sounds absolutely terrified. ‘I can’t believe that Max would ignore all those announcements.’
‘You think he left the building?’ Mrs Palmer asks.
‘Yes. I don’t know how he disappeared, but I think he’s gone.’
I told you Mrs Gosk was smart.
CHAPTER 23
The whole school is in something called lockdown. This means that no one is allowed to leave the school until the police officers let them leave. Even teachers. Even Mrs Palmer. It’s weird because I am the only one who knows that Mrs Patterson took Max, but I’m also the only one who can leave the school. I feel like I should be the one who is locked down, but I am the only one who is not.
Even though I know what happened to Max, I still don’t know where Mrs Patterson took him, and even if I did, I still wouldn’t know what to do. There is nothing I can do. So I’m just as stuck as all the people who don’t know anything.
Except I’m probably the most worried. Everyone is worried. Mrs Gosk is worried, and so are Mrs Hume and Mrs Palmer. But I think I am more worried than all of them, because I know what happened to Max.
Even the policemen are worried. They look at each other with squinty eyes and talk in whisper voices so the teachers and Mrs Palmer can’t hear. But I can hear. I can stand right next to them and listen to every word they say, but I can’t get any of them to listen to a single word I say. I am the only one who could help Max, but nobody can hear me.
When I was born, I tried to get other people like Max’s mom and dad to listen to me, because I didn’t know that they couldn’t hear me. I thought they were ignoring me.
I remember one night when Max and his mom went out and I stayed home with Max’s dad. I was afraid to go with Max because I had never left the house before, so Max’s dad and I sat on the couch together for the whole night. I screamed and yelled at him for the whole time. I thought that if I shouted long enough, he would at least look at me and tell me to be quiet. I begged him to listen to me and talk to me, but he just kept staring at the baseball game like I wasn’t even there. Then, as I was screaming, he laughed. I thought for a second that he was laughing at me, but he must have been laughing at something the man on the television had said, because the other man on the television was laughing now, too. And then I realized that it would be impossible for Max’s dad to hear the man on the television because I was screaming so loud and right into his ear. That was when I understood that no one could hear me except Max.
Later on I met other imaginary friends and eventually figured out that they could hear me. The imaginary friends who could hear, at least. Not all can.
I once met an imaginary friend that was just a hair bow with two eyes. I didn’t even know that she was an imaginary friend until she started blinking her eyes at me, like she was trying to send me a signal. She just looked like a little bow in a little girl’s hair. A pink bow. That’s how I knew she was a girl. But she couldn’t hear anything I said because the little girl never imagined her that way. Even when kids forget the ears on imaginary friends, most of them still imagine that their imaginary friends can hear, so they can. But not this little bow. She just blinked at me and I blinked back. She was afraid, too. I could tell by the look in her eyes and the way that she blinked, and even though I tried, I couldn’t tell her that everything would be okay. All I could do was blink. But even those back-and-forth blinks seemed to make her a little less afraid. A little less alone.
But only a little.
I’d be afraid too if I was a little deaf hair bow stuck on a kindergartener’s head.
Little pink hair bow girl disappeared the next day, and even though I think that not existing is the worst thing that could ever happen to someone, I think that little pink hair bow girl was probably happier after she disappeared. At least she wasn’t so afraid anymore.
*
The police think that Max ran away from school. That’s what they say when they stand in a circle and whisper. They don’t think that Mrs Gosk is telling the truth. They think that Max probably left her classroom earlier in the morning than Mrs Gosk says he did, and that is why they haven’t found Max yet.
‘She just lost track of the kid,’ one of the policemen said, and everyone in the circle nodded their heads.
‘If that’s the case, there’s no telling how far he could’ve walked,’ another policeman said, and everyone nodded again.
Policemen are not like kids. They always seem to agree with each other.
The police chief said that he has officers and community volunteers (which is just a fancy word for people) looking in the forest behind the school and walking the neigh borhood streets searching for Max. They are knocking on the doors of all the houses to see if anyone has seen Max. I thought about going outside to search, too, but I am going to stay inside the school for now. Even though I am not locked down, I am staying locked down. I am waiting for Max to come back. Mrs Patterson can’t keep him for ever.
I just wish the police would figure out that Mrs Patterson took Max. I keep thinking that the police on television would have already figured it out.
I have seen a lot of police officers over the last few days. First there was the policeman who came to the house after Tommy Swinden broke Max’s window, and then there were the policemen and one policewoman who came to the gas station when Dee got shot and Sally got stuck. And now there are policemen and policewomen all over the school. Bunches of them. But none of them look like the police officers on television, so I’m worried that none of them are as smart. The real-world policemen are all a little shorter, a little fatter and a little hairier than the ones on TV. One even has hair in his ears. Not the girl policeman, though. One of the boy policemen. I have never seen such normal-looking police officers on TV. Who do the television-maker people think they’re fooling?
Who do they think they’re fooling? That’s a Mrs Gosk question. She asks it a lot. M
ostly to the bad boys when they try to tell her that they forgot their homework on the kitchen table. She says, ‘Who do you think you’re fooling, Ethan Woods? I wasn’t born yesterday.’
I would like to ask Mrs Patterson who she thinks she is fooling, but it looks like she is fooling everyone.
Mrs Palmer is annoyed that the school is locked down. I heard her say it to Mrs Simpson after the police finished searching the school. Mrs Palmer thinks that Max ran away, so she doesn’t understand why the whole school has to be locked down for all this time. The police already searched every room and every closet and even the basement, so they know that Max is not here. I think they are just being careful. The police chief said that if one child can disappear from a school, others could, too.
‘Maybe someone took the boy,’ he said to Mrs Palmer when she tried to complain. ‘If that’s the case, someone in the school might know something about it.’
I don’t think he really believes that someone took Max. He is just being careful. He is playing just-in-case. That’s why Mrs Palmer is mad. She doesn’t think there is a justin-case. She thinks that Max went for a walk and didn’t come back. That’s what the police chief thinks, too.
I keep thinking that every minute the police search the basement and the forest and knock on doors is another minute that I lose Max for ever.
I don’t think Max is dead. I don’t even know why that idea keeps popping in my head, because I don’t believe it. I think Max is alive and just fine. He’s probably sitting in the back seat of Mrs Patterson’s car with that blue backpack. I think he is fine, but I also keep thinking that he is not dead. I wish I could stop thinking about him being not dead and just think about him being alive.
But if Max was dead, would I ever know? Or would I just poof away without even knowing what happened? I keep holding my breath, waiting to poof, but if I was going to poof, I wouldn’t even know it. I would just poof. One second I would exist and the next second I would not. So waiting for it to happen is silly. But I can’t help it.
I keep hoping that maybe there is a reason why Mrs Patterson took Max. Maybe they went for ice cream and got lost, or maybe she is bringing Max on a field trip and forgot to tell Mrs Gosk, or maybe she took Max to meet her mother. Maybe they will pull into the driveway any second and Max will be back.
Except I don’t think Mrs Patterson was talking to her mother yesterday.
I don’t think Mrs Patterson even has a mother.
I wonder if Max’s mom knows yet. And his dad. Probably. Maybe they are searching the forest right now.
Mrs Palmer comes into the classroom. Mrs Gosk has been reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to the kids again, which I usually love, but Max is missing the story now and he loves it when Mrs Gosk reads to the class. Plus Veruca Salt just disappeared down a garbage chute and I do not think Mrs Gosk should be reading stories about disappearing kids right now.
Mrs Gosk stops reading and looks up at Mrs Palmer.
Mrs Palmer says, ‘Could I speak to the class for a moment, Mrs Gosk?’
Mrs Gosk says yes, but her eyebrows rise, which means that she is confused.
‘Boys and girls, I am sure that you heard us call Max Delaney to the office a little while ago. And you know that we are in lockdown. I’m sure you have lots of questions. But there is nothing to worry about. We just need to make sure that we find Max. We think he may have wandered off or got picked up early and forgot to tell us. That’s all. So I am wondering if anyone knows where Max might have gone. Did he say anything to anyone today? Anything about leaving the school early?’
Mrs Gosk already asked these questions to her kids a little while ago, when the kids saw the police cars pull up in front of the school and Mrs Palmer asked teachers to ‘begin lockdown protocols until further notice’. But she lets Mrs Palmer ask anyway.
Briana raises her hand. ‘Max goes to the Learning Center a lot. Maybe he got lost going there today.’
‘Thank you, Briana,’ Mrs Palmer says. ‘Someone is checking on that right now.’
‘Why are the police here?’ This is Eric, and he did not raise his hand. Eric never raises his hand.
‘The police are here to help us find Max,’ Mrs Delaney says. ‘They are good at finding lost children. I’m sure that he will turn up soon. But did he say anything to anyone today? Anything at all?’
Kids shake their heads. No one heard Max say anything because no one talks to Max.
‘Okay. Thank you, boys and girls,’ Mrs Palmer says. ‘Mrs Gosk, could I speak to you for a moment?’
Mrs Gosk puts down the book and meets Mrs Palmer in the doorway to the classroom.
I follow.
‘You’re sure he didn’t say anything to you?’ Mrs Palmer asks.
‘Nothing,’ Mrs Gosk says. She sounds annoyed. I would be, too. The police chief has asked Mrs Gosk this question twice already.
‘And you are sure about the time he left the classroom?’
‘I’m sure,’ Mrs Gosk says, even more annoyed.
‘Okay. If the kids think of anything, let me know. I’m going to see about lifting the lockdown. We have a bunch of parents on the street already, waiting to pick up their kids.’
‘The parents already know?’ Mrs Gosk asks.
‘The police have been knocking on doors for two hours, and the PTO is organizing volunteers to search the neighborhood. An Amber Alert went out. There’s a news van outside already. There are bound to be more before six.’
‘Oh,’ Mrs Gosk says, and she sounds a lot less annoyed. She sounds like a little kid who has just been punished. Mrs Gosk never sounds like this. She sounds scared and confused, and this scares me.
Mrs Palmer turns and leaves Mrs Gosk standing in the doorway. I follow Mrs Palmer down the hallway. I want to hear what she says to the police chief, and I do not want to hear what happens to that nasty Veruca Salt.
I don’t care how rotten she is. Disappearing kids don’t seem so funny anymore.
As Mrs Palmer crosses through the lobby and turns toward the office, one of the front doors to the school opens. The policeman standing beside it is holding it open.
Mrs Patterson walks in.
I stop.
I can’t believe it. Mrs Patterson is walking into the school. I wait for Max to follow behind her, but the policeman closes the door.
No Max.
CHAPTER 24
‘Karen, I can’t believe the news,’ Mrs Patterson says. ‘What could have happened?’
Mrs Palmer and Mrs Patterson hug in the middle of the lobby.
Mrs Palmer is hugging Mrs Patterson and Max is not here.
I thought about running out to Mrs Patterson’s car to see if Max was still in the back seat, but I decided not to. Mrs Patterson said that she couldn’t believe the news about Max disappearing, and since she was the one who disappeared him, I know she is lying. Max isn’t in her back seat anymore.
For a second, I thought he was dead, and my whole body filled with sadness. I thought that I might be dead for a minute, too. Then I remembered that I am still here, so Max must still be alive.
Here’s the thing: if Max was dead (which he is not) and I was still alive, that would mean that I won’t disappear when Max dies or when Max stops believing in me.
I don’t want Max to be dead, and I don’t think he is dead (because he isn’t), but if he was dead and I wasn’t dead, that would mean something. It would be the saddest thing ever in the history of all things, but it would mean something, too. Something important about me. I’m not saying I want Max to be dead, because I do not and he is not. But if he ever was dead and I still existed, that would be an important thing to know.
I only keep thinking that he might be dead because I watch too much television.
Mrs Patterson and Mrs Palmer finish hugging just as the police chief comes around the corner. It was a long hug. I think they like each other now, even though they didn’t like each other before Max disappeared. And I think Mrs Palmer has forgotten a
ll about the damunion. They look like best friends, standing in the middle of the lobby. Sisters even.
‘Ruth Patterson?’ the police chief asks.
I don’t know if he is really a police chief but he is in charge today and he has a big belly, so he looks like a police chief. His real name is Bob Norton, which is not a television show police officer kind of name. It doesn’t make me feel good about his chances of finding Max.
Mrs Patterson turns. ‘Yes, that’s me.’
‘Can we speak in Mrs Palmer’s office?’
‘Of course.’
Mrs Patterson sounds worried. The police chief probably thinks she is worried about Max, but I think she is worried about getting caught. Maybe she is trying to make worried-about-getting-caught sound like worried-about-Max-disappearing.
Mrs Patterson and Mrs Palmer sit on one of the couches together, and the police chief sits on the couch on the other side of the coffee table. He has a pad of yellow paper on his lap and a pen in his hand.
I sit next to the police chief. Even though he doesn’t know it, I am on his team.
‘Mrs Patterson,’ the police chief says. ‘You are Max Delaney’s paraprofessional. Is that correct?’
‘Yes. I spend a lot of time with Max. But I have other students, too.’
‘You’re not with him all day long?’ the police chief asks.
‘No. Max is a smart boy. He doesn’t need assistance all day.’
Mrs Palmer nods as Mrs Patterson is speaking. I have never seen her be so agreeable around Mrs Patterson before.
‘Can I ask why you were absent from work today?’ the police chief asks.
‘I had a doctor’s appointment. Two appointments, actually.’
‘Where was your appointment?’
‘The first was just down the street,’ Mrs Patterson says, pointing in the direction of the front of the school. ‘At the walk-in clinic. They have a physical therapy center located in the building. I had physical therapy this morning for a shoulder problem. Then I had an appointment on Farmington Avenue. That’s where I was when Nancy called.’