Empty Smiles, page 5
He was peering into the fridge. “Milkshake? I know it’s not really a good pre-dinner option, but it’s so hot, and we could all use a treat. I could make chocolate, vanilla, peanut butter, or strawberry. Maybe mint chocolate chip too, but no guarantees about how it would come out.”
“Yum. Strawberry, please,” Coco said.
Her mom sighed. “For me too. If ever there was a day for it . . .” Suddenly she turned around and hugged Coco. “I’m glad you’re all right. That was scary, what happened to Ruth and Tim.”
“Oof,” Coco said.
Mr. Adler started rummaging through ingredients.
Coco’s mom pulled back. “Coco—look. I know you meant well, but we asked you not to frighten that boy—not to ask him questions—and you did. He got hysterical all over again. I need you to listen when I tell you to do something.”
“I know.”
Coco was going to add, I’m sorry, Mom. It won’t happen again. But then she hesitated. She thought, Mom doesn’t know why I tried to talk to Tim. If she’d known, she wouldn’t have tried to stop me.
They hadn’t told the grown-ups anything. To keep them safe. Brian insisted on it, and Ollie too, before she disappeared.
But was that really what the grown-ups wanted? To be safe? Coco was pretty sure Mr. Adler would choose danger, even death, for the chance to get Ollie back.
What if I told them? Right here. Right now. I’m so tired of secrets.
Ollie would be angry. Ollie never wanted to tell the grown-ups. She did everything she could to protect her dad. Brian would be angry if I told too. Maybe even Phil. I hate it when my friends are angry at me.
You’re thinking like a kid, whispered another part of herself. This is more important than hurt feelings. Ollie’s not here. What do you think is the right thing to do?
“I know you told me not to ask Tim questions. But I had to,” Coco said in a rush.
“Coco, what possible reason—”
“I had to!” Coco snapped.
Her mom drew back, startled. Coco heard Mr. Adler, on the other side of the kitchen island, stop slicing strawberries. “Coco—” Her mother took a deep breath. “Okay, you say you had to. Why?”
Coco sounded shaky, even to herself, as she said, “I’ll tell you, okay? But you have to listen. You have to promise to listen all the way through.” She paused. “Can we have those milkshakes first?”
* * *
—
“Ollie isn’t dead,” Coco began, when they were all sitting on the living room sofa with frosty drinks in their hands.
Mr. Adler went still.
Hastily, Coco went on, “She’s missing. But she’s not dead.” She was holding her milkshake, hardly drunk, very tightly between her hot palms.
Mr. Adler opened his mouth, closed it again.
Her mom saw Mr. Adler’s stricken face, and she looked angry. “Young lady—”
“She’s alive! I know it. You promised to listen. You have to listen!”
“Coco—”
“No, Zelda. Wait. We promised we’d listen.” Mr. Adler’s voice sounded strange and fragile.
Coco said, “Thanks.” Then she paused. Looked up. The sun had gone behind the trees on the other side of the creek. The light in the living room had dimmed. The parched yard outside was turning gray with dusk.
There was a shadow, thrown clear across the yard. A person’s shadow. Coco saw two legs, a hand upraised. Saw the outline of—fingernails? A lumpy nose. A strangely twisted shadow. “Who’s that?”
Mr. Adler turned his head. “What?”
“There—in the yard. There’s someone out there.” Coco was on her feet.
Mr. Adler said, “It’s probably just the Brewsters. They’re often over—”
“Just standing in the yard?” Coco felt her voice getting shrill. “Not moving?”
Mr. Adler looked at her face. “I’ll check, if it would make you feel better,” he said soothingly. He got up and went toward the French doors.
“No, wait. It might be dangerous,” Coco said.
“Coco—” started her mother.
“Tim Jenkins was kidnapped by someone! What if they’re outside?”
“Coco,” her mom said again. She sounded like she was trying hard to be reasonable. Their abandoned milkshakes made cold rings on the coffee table. “Why would Tim Jenkins’s kidnapper be waiting outside the house?”
“Because I know who kidnapped him.”
Both adults stared at her. “What?” Mr. Adler said.
Right at that moment, someone knocked on the front door. Boom. Boom. Boom. The daylight was almost gone. The shadow hadn’t moved. The overhead lights flickered.
“No. Don’t answer it,” Coco said.
“Coco, no one is going to kidnap you,” Mr. Adler said.
“You don’t know, you’re not listening—” The knock on the door came again.
“What’s wrong with the lights?” her mother asked.
Mr. Adler shook his head. “Nothing. A tree must have blown down on the lines or something. I should get the door.” He turned again toward the entryway.
Coco’s mom yelped, short and sharp.
“What, Mom?” Coco demanded, spinning around. Her heart was going like a hummingbird’s wings.
“Oh, I must have been— I thought I saw—a face in the window.” Her mother was staring.
“What kind of face?” Coco whispered.
“Oh—honey, I must have been imagining things. It looked so pale. Strange eyes. Maybe a prank?”
Boom boom boom on the door.
“Enough of this,” Mr. Adler said.
He reached for the handle just as Coco cried, “No, wait—”
But the door was already swinging open. And there was no one there. Except the porch light, flickering. Mr. Adler went out onto the porch. “Some joke. Of all the nights to—”
The shadow was gone from the yard. But . . .
“Wait! Do you hear that?” Coco said.
Her mom was looking exasperated. “What now?”
“In the house.”
Both adults fell silent. In the stillness, Coco could hear the hot leaves rustle outside, and the sound of the creek.
And a sound from upstairs.
Thump. Creak. Another thump.
Coco held her breath. Someone was walking around upstairs.
Mr. Adler shut the front door. “Guys, stay down here, please. I’m not sure what’s going on, but I’ll just go see. Have your phones handy, and be ready to head next door to the Brewsters if you think that—”
Her mother interrupted, her voice sharp with anxiety. “You’re not going up there alone. We should just call the—”
A massive crash cut her off. As though someone had pulled down a bookcase over their heads. All three of them jumped. Coco, heart pounding, whispered, “I—I think that was Ollie’s room . . .”
Mr. Adler was already running for the staircase, wearing an expression of fury.
“Coco!” her mom shouted, but Coco was right on Mr. Adler’s heels. No way was Ollie’s dad investigating mysterious crashes without her. She heard her mom coming up behind them. To the end of the hall. Mr. Adler’s hand was on Ollie’s dragon-shaped doorknob. He was bursting into the room . . .
Silence. Stillness. Mr. Adler just stood in the doorway.
Coco’s mom said, her voice surprisingly small, “Roger? Is everything okay?”
He didn’t answer.
Coco peered around Mr. Adler.
The room was a mess. Stuff was scattered on the floor. Ollie’s plushies had been torn open. Her novels lay broken-spined, like dead birds. The bedding was thrown back and ripped down the middle.
But there was no one there. The room was empty, except for the mess on the floor.
The window was open. Coco ran across the room and looked into the blue-gray dusk. Nothing. Just the rustling of the sugar maple outside Ollie’s window, and beyond—was that movement? A scuttling, as though someone was sneaking away. But maybe she’d imagined it. The street was still.
Mr. Adler stumbled into the room like a sleepwalker. He knelt and picked up a picture of Ollie and her mom. It had been on Ollie’s nightstand. The glass was broken in the frame. He tilted it and brushed off the glass, very gently. He didn’t say a word.
“Oh, Roger,” her mom said. “I’m so sorry.”
“Who would have done this?” Mr. Adler whispered. “Who could?”
“Were they—looking for something?” Coco’s mom asked tentatively.
“I don’t see why. There was nothing valuable in here at—”
Coco felt like her heart was going to stop. Coco could think of one thing of Ollie’s that the smiling man might want. Just one. But it wasn’t in Ollie’s room. It was—
“Mom?” she whispered, in such a strange voice that her mom and Mr. Adler both whirled around to face her. “We have to go home. We have to go back to our house right now.”
“Honey, why? Honey, are you okay?”
“Because—I’m pretty sure I know what—the person who did this—what they were looking for.”
“What was it?” Mr. Adler demanded. “And where?”
“That’s just it. It’s not here.” Coco swallowed hard. “It’s in my room.”
6
BEFORE SHE DISAPPEARED, Olivia Adler had owned a wristwatch. It wasn’t a smartwatch or anything. It was an old-fashioned digital watch. It had a bulky face, a built-in compass, and an altimeter.
Ollie’s mom had it with her when her plane crashed. It was banged up, with a cracked face. Ollie always kept it close. Until she gave it to Coco in the minutes before she disappeared.
Coco always kept it close too. But she’d left it at home that morning, when they went to the swimming hole. Mr. Adler might see it and wonder how she’d gotten it. And there was a deep-down part of herself that complained, I just want one normal summer day. Just one where I don’t have to think about lost friends, or ghostly wristwatches, or danger.
“Careless,” she muttered to herself all the way back into town. She and her mom lived on Bank Street, five blocks from Phil. “How could I be so careless?”
Coco loved their house. It was small and neat and had phlox and sunflowers growing in the yard. But she hardly saw the yellow front door, hardly saw anything, until she hurtled up the stairs and stopped in the doorway of her bedroom.
It was a mess.
“Oh my God.” Her mom was right behind her. “Coco, how did you know? Coco?”
Coco’s rug was covered with torn paper, stained with color from her beloved sketching pencils, lying broken. Her walls were smeared with smashed-open paints.
But Coco hardly saw any of that. All she saw was the desk drawer where she’d kept Ollie’s watch. The drawer that was hanging open. She felt inside the drawer, but she already knew what she’d find.
The drawer was empty. Ollie’s watch was gone.
Ollie’s watch wasn’t ordinary. It told them things. Important things. Ollie thought that a bit of her dead mother lived in that watch. And Coco had lost it. The one thing that might have given them an advantage. And she’d decided, on this one day, carelessly, to leave it at home . . .
“Coco?” her mom whispered, coming across the floor. “I know you’re scared, honey. But this is serious. Do you think you know who did this? How did you know they would come here?”
Coco dashed the tears out of her eyes. She’d beaten the smiling man once. She wasn’t going to let him win this time. Not in a million years.
“Let’s go back to the living room,” she said. “I’ll tell you.” She firmed her lips. “I’ll tell you everything.” She looked her mom straight in the face. “I really need your help.”
Her mom studied her for a moment. She looked strangely relieved. Then she nodded. “Okay, hon. I am so, so glad that you said that. You can tell me anything. But first we’re calling the police. We need to report the break-in.”
* * *
—
The police came and went. Different officers this time. They took some pictures, looked around, nodded, left.
Mr. Adler had stayed back to wait for the police at the Egg while Coco and her mom raced home. After those officers had gone, he came into town. Coco was glad to see him.
He made pasta salad. “Too hot for hot food,” he said. When he put the plates down at the table and they all sat, Mr. Adler fixed her with a serious expression. “Coco, keep on with what you were saying earlier. Before we discovered the break-in. How did you know the thieves would come here too? Does this have to do with what you were telling us?”
“Yes, hon. Can you tell us now, please?” her mom added.
Coco looked down at her pasta salad. She could smell the olive oil and sun-dried tomatoes. Delicious. She had no appetite at all. “Yes, it does. Here goes.”
Coco started talking. She didn’t stop for an hour. Neither adult interrupted. Her mother tried to say something once or twice, but Mr. Adler put his hand on hers, and she stayed silent.
Finally, Coco finished, “And then Ollie was gone. Not dead, but gone. And we got to shore. And neither of you remembered.”
Both adults stared.
“And you still don’t remember,” Coco finished.
Her mother looked worried. Coco couldn’t figure out Mr. Adler’s expression. Finally, she couldn’t stand it anymore. “Okay? Say something?” She hated how her voice came out small and squeaky when she was nervous.
“I don’t know what to say.” There was a worried line between her mother’s eyebrows. “Coco, if this is a prank, it is an extremely hurtful one.”
Coco felt like crying. “Mom, this is me! Have I ever played a prank? Ever? In my whole life? Never mind a completely maniac prank where I mess up people’s houses—mess up my own room! And lie about someone I love! Why would I do that?”
“I don’t—” Her mom looked a little helpless. Mr. Adler still hadn’t said anything. Coco noticed that he was rubbing the scar on his right hand again.
In a strange voice, Mr. Adler said, “You think Ollie’s alive.”
“I know she’s alive.”
Mr. Adler went on in the same slow, puzzled voice. “And that—she’s been kidnapped?”
“Sort of.”
“By the same person that kidnapped Tim Jenkins.”
Coco was more sure of herself there. “Yes.”
“But somehow we—your mother and I—don’t remember any of this—these things that happened to you.”
Mr. Adler didn’t believe her. Coco despaired. He wouldn’t help look for Ollie. She’d tried, and she’d failed. Sadly, she said, “No—you don’t remember. He’s—I guess he’s magic, in a way.”
“Magic,” Mr. Adler said.
It sounded unbelievable, even to Coco. “Yes.” Her voice came out small.
“Coco . . .” her mother began, a warning note in her voice.
But Mr. Adler interrupted. “Coco, say I believe you. What would you want us to do?”
“I— Roger, surely—” Coco’s mom spluttered.
Coco felt a ball of disbelieving hope rising like a sun inside her. “We need to visit Tim Jenkins. We need to find out what he knows. That’s step one.”
Mr. Adler nodded. He said, very simply, “Okay. We’ll go and try to see Tim Jenkins.”
Her mother broke out in protest. “Roger, please. You can’t be serious. This is—the kids have been—this is clearly what the kids have been frightening themselves with for the last year, and we shouldn’t encourage—”
“Coco has never lied to us. Have you, Coco?”
Coco shook her head, eyes still fixed on him in wordless hope.
“Well, then,” Mr. Adler said, as though that solved that. “And this is the first time she’s trusted an adult with her story. Isn’t that so?”
Coco couldn’t speak. She nodded yes.
“I think your mom and I both want to be worthy of that trust, Coco. If you need to visit Tim Jenkins, then that’s what we’ll do.”
Somewhat to Coco’s surprise, her mom agreed. “All right. But I don’t know how we’ll get in. There’ll be national media for sure: a proper circus.”
Coco said, “Well, Mom, you are a reporter.”
Her mom stood up and started clearing plates. “We’ll give it a try, then. Tomorrow morning.”
“There’s not much time—” Coco began.
But her mother fixed her with a gimlet eye. “A kidnapped child popped up alive in Lethe Creek. We had our houses broken into, and you think there’s a kidnapper who has his sights on you too—and that he’s magic. I don’t know what to think, but I know that’s enough for one night. We’re washing up, checking the locks on the doors, and going to bed. I’m making you up an air mattress, not in your bedroom. And that,” said her mom, in a tone that Coco knew was not be argued with, “is final. Finish your supper now. We’re starting on dishes.”
Coco picked up her fork and discovered that she had an appetite after all. Her heart felt lighter than it had in a long time. She was right to have trusted them. It felt good to trust people. It did.
She hoped Brian wouldn’t be mad.
7
AFTER A FEW days, the carnival closed up, just like a real carnival would. But Ollie never saw anyone packing it. No one took down the rides. No one put the doll prizes into a box or onto a truck. Certainly the carnies didn’t do any work. Still less the smiling man. The thought of him packing dolls into boxes almost made Ollie laugh.
