Abandoned (4 page)

“What do you mean?”

“Remember Aunt April told you Charity
and Kjerstina had a project? Well, she’s been working her heart
out, setting everything up so you can do it too.”

“Really? What is it? Tell me.”

“I can’t. It’s a secret.”

“Secrets! I hate secrets! Especially
when
everyone
knows but me.
But really, Dad, I’ll know soon anyway, so why don’t you just tell
me? I promise I won’t let anyone know you told.”

“But that’s no fun.”

“But it’s like torture to not tell me,”
said Lauren. She wiggled in her seat to accentuate how
uncomfortable she was with not knowing the secret.

“But I like tormenting you,” replied her
dad with a grin.

“I’ll get even you know. Just you wait
and see. I’ll think of a good way to get even. It’s a promise!”

“Oh, oh. Now I’m scared,” said her dad
with an expression of exaggerated terror.

“Grrr! It’s so frustrating. Can’t you
just give me a hint. Just a little one. I won’t tell Aunt April. I
swear,” pleaded Lauren.

Her dad looked at her with narrow eyes.
“Hmmm. A hint. Well, let me see.” He took a slow sip of his coffee.
“Okay your hint is…” Then he looked down at his watch. “Oops, no
time. We’d better get going or your plane will be taking off
without you.”

“Dad!” He wouldn’t give her a single
hint all the way to the airport. Together they checked her bags and
got her boarding pass from the airline counter. As they walked
toward Gate B21 where the airplane waited, Lauren fell silent. When
the boarding announcement for Lauren’s flight came over the
loudspeaker, she sighed. Her dad reached over and tousled her hair
as if she were five years old again. “It’ll be okay,” he said.
“I’ll call you tonight.”

“Okay. See you later, Dad.”

“I’m going to miss you, Kiddo,” he said
and pulled her into a hug. “I love you.”

“I love you too, Dad,” replied Lauren
and squeezed hard one more time before pulling away. Slowly she
walked to the gate and showed her boarding pass to the airline
attendant.

“Lauren!” his voice came from behind her
and she turned around, hoping he’d changed his mind. Hoping she’d
be allowed to stay. “Think soldier!”

It took her a moment to realize this was
her hint for guessing the surprise. She smiled and waved one more
time, then walked through the gate. A few minutes later she was in
her seat on the airplane. Still deep in thought, Lauren leaned back
in her chair and closed her eyes. But she wasn’t thinking about the
hint he gave her.

Now that she didn’t have to convince her
dad she wasn’t worried, now that she didn’t have to make flippant
conversation, she was thinking about the stranger.

Who is
he? What does he want with me? And why?
She had so many
questions. But no answers. No answers at all.

The airplane landed at the Misty
Lake Airport, taxied to the terminal, and parked beside it. The
stewardess asked the passengers to remain seated as the stairs were
prepared for them to disembark from the airplane, and when they
were allowed to go, Lauren filed slowly down the aisle with the
others. At the doorway to the airplane, she paused. She could see
Kjerstina, her fifteen-year-old cousin, waving at her through the
big window of the terminal. Lauren waved back as cheerfully as she
could. She didn’t want anyone to know how much she wished she were
home.

“Hey, Lauren!” called Kjerstina when
Lauren stepped inside the terminal. Kjerstina hurried toward her
cousin, her shoulder length brown hair swinging around her head.
“We’ve been waiting forever for you. Your plane was so late.” She
threw her arms around Lauren’s thin frame.

“My, you’ve grown tall, Lauren,”
exclaimed Aunt April, coming up behind Kjerstina. “It’s wonderful
to see you.” When Kjerstina released Lauren, Aunt April pulled her
into another hug. Lauren closed her eyes. She loved Aunt April’s
hugs. Her arms were strong and soft at the same time.

“How’s my baby brother doing?” asked
Aunt April after letting her go.

“Dad’s fine,” said Lauren, smiling. It
seemed weird that her big tall dad was anyone’s baby brother. “He’s
going to come out right before my birthday.”

“Awesome!” said Kjerstina. “Uncle Alan
is so much fun. I can’t wait to see him.”

“Well, let’s grab your bags and get
going,” suggested Aunt April. “Charity’s probably given up on us by
now.”

“We have a surprise for you at home,”
said Kjerstina. “You’re going to love it.”

On the way to Aunt April’s house, Lauren
tried to listen to Kjerstina talk about the wonderful summer they
had planned, but when Kjerstina started listing all the possible
activities in alphabetical order, her mind turned back to her
dad.

What was he doing now? Was he sitting at
the table and reading his newspaper? Maybe he was taking Sweetie
for her walk. It was past time for her to go. Or maybe he was at
the police station, talking to the police about the stalker again.
Did he miss her already? Was he wishing she was there, right
now?

Suddenly, Lauren noticed Kjerstina had
stopped talking and Aunt April had a worried expression on her
face
. It’s because I look
sad
, Lauren realized. She forced herself to smile. “What’s
the surprise, Kjerstina?” she asked.

“Oh, I can’t tell you,” Kjerstina said,
smiling again. “You have to wait and see. But you’ll like it, I
promise.” She paused, then unable to keep quiet, she blurted out,
“It’s so cool! You’re going to love it.”

“Give me a hint,” begged Lauren. “Dad
gave me one. Soldier.”

“Soldier?” asked Kjerstina. “Oh, I get
it.” She laughed. “You’ll never guess it from his hint. It’s way
too hard. How about this one: it’s big and gold and…”

“Stina! That’s enough,” laughed Aunt
April. “No hints. Lauren will just have to wait until we get
home.”

“Can I try to guess?”

Kjerstina laughed. “You’ll never guess,”
she said. “It’s way too cool for ordinary guesses.”

“Stina, I said no more hints,” said Aunt
April. Her voice still sounded somewhat amused, but Lauren could
tell she was losing patience.

“I guess you’ll just have to wait,” said
Kjerstina, flashing Lauren an apologetic look.

“But not for too long,” said Aunt April.
“Here we are. Stina, you and Charity can help Lauren unpack first,
okay?”

“Sure, Mom,” said Kjerstina, opening her
car door. She waited for Aunt April to open the trunk, then grabbed
Lauren’s suitcase. Together they walked to the house.

“Charity!” Kjerstina yelled when they
opened the front door.

“Yeah,” came a muffled voice from
somewhere inside the house.

“We’re back and Lauren’s here,” yelled
Kjerstina.

“I’m in the tub. I’ll be right out,”
came her reply.

“You get to share a room with me all
summer,” said Kjerstina to Lauren as they started to climb the
stairs. “And I’ve been dying to show you what I’ve done to my
room.”

Lauren followed Kjerstina up the stairs
and into the small bedroom. Kjerstina had painted the room since
last time Lauren had visited. One wall gleamed a dark forest green
and the other three were a watery red with white stripes zigzagging
across them. It didn’t seem like it should match at all, but with
the forest green bookshelf against one red wall and the bunk bed
painted red, everything seemed to belong in the room. The door was
white and a red rug sprawled across the wooden floor.

“Do you like it?” asked Kjerstina
hopefully. “Dad says it looks like a Christmas tree exploded.”

“I love it,” said Lauren. “It’s wild.”
Paintings of brightly-coloured tree branches and flowers hung in a
long line across the far red wall. “Did you do the paintings too?”
asked Lauren. “They’re great.”

“Yeah, I did and thanks,” said Kjerstina
with a grin. “I’ve been trying to learn about interior decorating
and I saved up my babysitting money to do all this. Mom gave me
some ideas and Dad and Charity helped with the painting. Charity
wants to decorate her room too, but she hasn’t decided what to do
yet. Maybe you’ll have some ideas she’ll like,” suggested
Kjerstina. “She’s sick of having baby pink walls.”

“I know how she feels,” said Lauren. “My
room at home is plain white. Maybe I should pick out some really
cool colours, like purple and yellow or blue and orange. That’d
look so great.”

“Hey, I knew you’d be a natural,” said
Kjerstina. “Those are complementary colours. They’re opposites of
each other on the colour wheel.” When Lauren looked at her blankly,
she added, “I’ll show you.” Kjerstina pulled a book from the green
bookshelf and carried it to the bed. She leafed through the pages
and then held the book for Lauren to see. “See?” she asked.

Lauren took the book from her. The
picture showed a circle like a pie cut into pieces. Each piece was
a different colour. “The colours across from each other in the
wheel are opposites. Red and green are opposites and see how cool
they look together?” She waved her arm like a person on a game show
displaying a valuable car.

“I really like the purple and yellow,”
said Lauren and looked up as a tall, seventeen-year-old girl
hurried through the door with one towel wrapped around her hair and
another wrapped around her body.

“Hi Charity,” Lauren said and jumped up
from the bed.

“Hey there, cuz,” Charity said and gave
Lauren a one-armed hug, keeping a firm grip on her towel with the
other hand. “It’s great to see you. I didn’t think you were ever
going to get here. Mom and Kjerstina left hours ago.”

“The plane was late. It was almost too
cloudy to land,” explained Lauren. “I thought we might have to turn
around and go back.” She tried to stop the wistful tone from
creeping into her voice.

“I’m glad the weather changed. What do
you think of Stina’s room? Isn’t it funky?” asked Charity, pulling
the towel off her head and grabbing the comb from Kjerstina’s
dresser. She started to pull it through her tangled hair.

“It’s awesome,” said Lauren.

“Hey, hurry up, Charity,” interjected
Kjerstina. “I want to show Lauren the surprise.”

“Oh yeah,” said Charity, her face
brightening. “I forgot she doesn’t know! Why don’t you go out and
start getting ready and I’ll get dressed.”

Kjerstina jumped up from the bed. “Just
finish unpacking, Lauren. Yours is the bottom bunk and there are
two empty drawers in the dresser,” she said, pointing. “When you’re
done, come down to the kitchen. We should be ready by then.”

“Okay,” said Lauren. “But what is it?
You’ve got to give me another hint. It can’t be a big, golden
soldier.”

“No peeking out the window,” Kjerstina
yelled over her shoulder as she raced down the stairs.

“I’ll be down in a minute,” Charity
called to her sister as she hurried to her own room.

“Make sure you comb your hair first,”
teased Kjerstina from the bottom of the stairs. “It looks
hideous.”

“Brat!” Charity yelled back.

Lauren wandered to the door and looked
down the stairs. Kjerstina was already gone. She went back into the
bedroom and pulled the door shut behind her. A minute later, she
heard Charity run down the stairs. Silence fell over the house.
Lauren sat down on the bed beside her suitcase and unzipped it. She
took out the t-shirt wrapped picture and removed it from its
covering. Then she reached into the suitcase pocket for the
thumbtack. She hung the picture on the wall beneath the top bunk,
so only she would see it. Her cousins knew about the painting, but
she didn’t want all of Kjerstina’s friends to see it and ask about
it.

Lauren learned a long time ago not to
say anything about her mom’s accident. It was normal to find kids
that didn’t have a dad for whatever reason, but every kid she’d
ever met had a mom. And the worse thing was that they all felt
sorry for Lauren when they found out. At least Charity and
Kjerstina knew enough not to talk about it anymore. Even Aunt April
and Uncle Chris avoided the subject, unless they felt some
adult-like duty to ask her how she was doing
, really
doing. Lauren hated it when they asked it
like that. She never knew what to say.

She pulled the books out of the
suitcase, opened a drawer and turned the suitcase upside down over
it. Then she shut the drawer, put the books back into the suitcase
and pushed it under her bed.

“Unpacking done,” she said aloud and
sighed. “Now let’s see what this
amazing
surprise is that everyone’s been talking
about.” She left the room, letting the door bang shut behind
her.