Missing Okalee by Laura Ojeda Melchor

Author:Laura Ojeda Melchor
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Shadow Mountain Publishing
Published: 2021-08-23T22:24:42+00:00

11

On Thursday, I’m the first one in my classroom. When I settle into my desk at school, I find an envelope with my name printed on it.

Dread sweeps through me.

Helena walks into class, thick coppery braid slung over her shoulder.

“Helena,” I whisper. “Did you see who left this on my desk?” I hold up the envelope.

Helena peers at it and then shakes her head. “I’ve been out with Bo. He’s been acting weird after the shots he got yesterday. Maybe it’s a sympathy card from someone?” She opens Little Women and starts reading ahead, even though Mr. Ripwinkle hates it when we do that.

I stare at her. The pre-Okalee’s-death Helena would’ve stood beside me while I opened the envelope. It feels like this Helena is ignoring me.

“Are you okay?” I whisper again.

Kat walks into the classroom, and Lucia, and Wardie.

Helena glances up from her book. “Fine,” she says with a quick smile.

Worry tugs at me, and I want to ask her more, but then Mr. Ripwinkle comes into class, face pale, eyes shadowed with gray like he didn’t sleep well last night. Me either, Mr. Ripwinkle, I think.

He straightens his tie and says, “It’s time for class to begin. Everyone please take your seats.”

I make a mental note to talk to Helena at recess.

Wardie nods hello at me, and I nod back, my hand pasted over the card. Then, as Mr. Ripwinkle reads our morning poem, I open the envelope and scan the words.

You still haven’t explained why you lied. I saw you at the river with your sister right before she went under. Your secret is weighing on me. I want to tell someone, but first I need to know why you didn’t tell the truth. I need to know why I saw what I saw. Maybe it’s all a misunderstanding.

If you write the truth down on a piece of paper and leave it on the top shelf of the back wall of the library between World Book Encyclopedia Volume 1 and World Book Encyclopedia Volume 2 by Friday at 12:00, I will consider how to work this out with you. Otherwise I will need to talk to an adult.

That is the right thing to do. I have kept quiet for too long already.

My fingernails turn white from pinching the card between them. I flip the card over. I look around the classroom for signs of guilt. Wardie’s nodding along to Mr. Ripwinkle’s analysis of whatever poem he just read. Helena is still buried in Little Women. Lucia Ang is yawning to David Carter, like she thinks this class is boring.

But Kat Waters is looking straight at me. And when I meet her gaze, she doesn’t look away. I hold the card up just enough so she can see it and mouth the words, Was this—

She whips back around before I can form a silent you? on my lips.

It must be her. She and I already talked in the library once, so it makes sense that she’d want me to return there with a declaration of truth.

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