Missing Since Monday by Ann M. Martin

Author:Ann M. Martin [Martin, Ann M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4532-9807-7
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2014-03-19T16:06:00+00:00

11

Search for the Children

THE NEXT DAY, MIKE and I went back to school. We barely made it to our lockers. Everyone knew about Courtie. Kids who had never spoken to me stopped me in the halls to say they were sorry or, more often than not, to ask what had really happened. They’d been hearing rumors for days. Now they wanted the true, gruesome details.

When I finally reached my locker, I found Martha waiting for me with Paul Keane, whose mother ran the printing business.

“Oh, I’m so glad you’re back!” Martha exclaimed as I turned the dial of my combination lock. “I hate it when you’re not at school.”

“I’m kind of glad to be back myself,” I said. “It’s awful at home, but now I feel like I’m not doing anything to help.”

“Well,” said Martha, “the reason Paul and I are here is because we wanted to suggest that the kids who are going to help look for Courtenay could eat a really fast lunch today and then hold a meeting in the cafeteria about the posters.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Good,” said Martha. “I’ll get Mr. Sakala to make an announcement this morning about the meeting. Maybe other kids will want to help, too.”

More than one hundred students gathered around Martha and me in the cafeteria at lunchtime that day. They took over eight of the big tables by the windows. I was astonished. I couldn’t believe so many people cared.

Martha, David, Mike, and I talked to the students as a panel. We asked them to divide themselves into groups of three for distributing the posters. There were thirty-nine groups all together. That meant one hundred and seventeen kids, counting ourselves.

“Gosh,” I said, leaning over to Paul, who was sitting in front of me, “even if we give each group just fifty posters, which isn’t nearly enough, that’s almost two thousand. How many can you really print up? We ought to give everybody more like a hundred. That’s almost four thousand posters.”

Paul gulped. “I hadn’t counted on that many.”

David nudged me. “What’s wrong?” he whispered.

I explained.

He slipped his arm around my shoulders, and I leaned against him gratefully. “I’ve got an idea,” he said softly, brushing his lips against my ear. David stood up on his chair and cleared his throat. The students, who were trying to divide territory among their groups, fell silent. “Sorry,” said David, “but we’ve just run into a problem. I don’t know why we didn’t think of this before, but we’re going to need some money to run this search. A lot of people will donate their time, materials, and facilities, but not everyone.”

A few kids groaned.

David held his hands up. “I’m not asking for donations from you guys,” he said, “but we’ve got to think of some ways to raise money—fast.”

I spoke up. “Could we organize a bake sale, like by Sunday?” I asked.

“Sure,” said a couple of voices.

“The Joggers Club could run a marathon and take pledges for miles run,” suggested someone.

“How about a car wash?” said Mike.

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