Authors: Elaine Marie Alphin
"I don't want you to go out sailing unless Diana goes in her boat, also," he'd said. "And you can't go out unless you wear your life jacket. No discussion about these rules, all right?"
Cameron agreed at once. His father couldn't know that having to wear the life jacket was an added relief. It hid the fact that he was wearing a shirt instead of just his swimming trunks. Cameron didn't care how much Dr. Oshida had told them, he didn't want anyone to see his back. Anyway, he didn't mind rules. They told him what to do to prevent punishment, to prove that he was good at last, even if he could never be good enough. Each one of Neil's father's rules helped diminish Cameron's fear of being found out through something like the syrup or the jokes, and laid another brick in the wall of safety he could feel going up around himself.
The wall Diana seemed to be trying to knock down.
Cameron released the clasp on the life jacket and turned to face her. "What?" he asked, keeping his voice even, the way he did whenever a teacher asked him something in school.
"Why did you go off in the mall that day?" she asked roughly, and he realized she wasn't challenging his claim to be Neil after all.
The articles had said that Neil had gotten impatient while his mother was shopping in a big department store in the mall. She told him to wait, but Neil sneaked away and went off by himself. They knew he'd gone into the record store, because the clerk there recognized his picture; she said he'd started hanging around the videotape section, so she'd told him to go find his mom. The teenager giving prizes in the video game arcade recognized his picture, too, and said that the boy had left with his father. He said that before he realized that the man hadn't been the boy's father, but he couldn't say what the man looked like. He was paid to keep an eye on the kids, he said, not the grown-ups.
"Why did you go off with that man?" Diana demanded, and Cameron could hear the anger clearly in her voice this time. "Why did you ruin everything?"
"I didn't mean—" he began, staring at her helplessly.
Why had Neil done it, any of it?
It was a stupid thing to do, going off with a stranger. Yet all the boys had done it, one way or another. Why would a kid go off alone in a mall in the first place, anyway? Then he thought of what it must have been like with toddler Stevie demanding attention, and six-year-old Diana tagging along.
"I just wanted to be alone for a while," he said, imagining what Neil must have felt. "I thought I was old enough to go by myself."
"Well, you weren't," Diana snapped.
He shook his head.
"You should have waited," she told him. "Mom said she'd take all of us to the arcade—"
"I didn't want everybody," he said suddenly, betting that was what Neil had felt.
Her lips twisted in a sneer. "You never did," she said. "It must really bum you that you have to room with Stevie again, and you can't even go sailing without me. You never wanted to waste time with us. Stevie practically worshiped you, but you never had any time for him you ordered him around, or you told him to get lost."
"I—"
"So you got your own way, like always," she went on, ignoring him. "You went off by yourself, and you got your wish you sure got away from us for a long time. But why did you have to spoil everything for the rest of us?"
Cameron stared at her blankly. Surely Neil had spoiled everything for himself, not her. She was still alive, she lived in this great house, she had parents, friends, a sailboat, an allowance. She didn't know what Hank Miller was like.
"What are you talking about?" he said, suddenly angry himself."You're safe! You don't have any idea what I—"
"You!" she shouted, and they both suddenly glanced toward the house to make sure no one was watching their fight. But apparently their parents had left them alone, as they'd promised. "Some time to get to know each other again," Neil's father had said. Cameron supposed that was what they were doing, all right.
Diana went on in a quieter voice. All the anger and pain were still there, but they didn't carry any further than Cameron's ears. "That's what it's always come down to—you! You never cared about anybody but yourself. If Mom and Dad weren't paying attention to you, you were furious. Well, you ought to be delighted. You're all anybody's been thinking about for the past six years!"
"I've been gone," he told her. "You've been here!"
"So what?" she said, her eyes blinking dangerously "Stevie and I were here, so they didn't have to worry about us. It was all Neil—'Where's Neil?' Put the posters up, ask everybody at the mall, drive up and down the streets, look for you—look everywhere for
you.
Talk to the police, call the task force, talk to a psychic, give another interview, in case somebody has seen you and might remember something if they see your picture—you, you, YOU!"
"But—" he tried to say, but he couldn't stop her.
"I had the lead in our fourth-grade play," she went on, and he could see now that she was crying. "They promised to come, they said it was great, they were so proud of me. Then that special investigator assigned to your case called because he'd had another report of a missing boy from the same mall, and this time they had some information about a car or something."
Her voice was choked now. "They never came to my play. You were all they cared about. They went to work, they talked to the police, and they didn't have any time left over for Stevie and me."
She stared hard at him, the tears still running down her face. "And they're still doing it. Dad tells you all about sailing, Mom makes sure you get your favorite food. They tell Stevie not to wake you up this morning—and it's his room, too. They tell us to be careful with you because you've been through such an ordeal—well, what about us? What about
our
ordeal?"
"I'm sorry!" he cried, finally succeeding in breaking into her outpouring. "I'm sorry—I don't care if you believe me or not—that's not what I wanted to happen!"
As Cameron said it, he wondered whether, just maybe, that had been what Neil had wanted, if he really was the selfish little jerk Diana had described. But no kid would be willing to suffer the way Neil had suffered, just to be so important to his family. He probably hadn't realized what he was doing when he tried to get his parents' attention, or when he went to the arcade alone that afternoon. He was too little, or too dumb, to understand consequences. Well, Pop had taught Cameron all about consequences. The ache inside filled him again, and he wished he were back with Pop, back where the rules were clearer, where he understood the penalties better, and where he could at least dream of learning to be good enough someday to make the beatings stop. He didn't think Neil could ever be good enough to win Diana's approval.
"I don't want anybody's attention," Cameron told her, fighting to control his inner shaking. "I just want to be left alone."
"Fine with me," Diana said, turning away and scrubbing the tears from her face with the back of her hand. "But I've got to act like I'm glad you're home, or Dad will be disappointed in me. I've got to hang around here with you. I'm missing tryouts for the summer musical—they're doing
The Sound of Music,
and I know I'd get a good part. I want to be an actress, but Dad doesn't care about me. All he's ever cared about is you."
Cameron felt bludgeoned, the way he'd felt when Pop had told him how bad he was. Diana might not know he wasn't Neil, but she already knew he was a disappointment.
"Just remember—once school starts you're on your own," she went on. Then she turned back suddenly, her eyes narrowed. "What grade are you going into, anyway?"
Cameron looked out at the sparkling water, trying to blank out her dislike. "Eighth," he said. "I got held back."
"No!" Her voice was outraged. "That's too much!"
"What?"
"I'm going into eighth grade, too!" Diana cried. "But I won't be stuck with you all the time! It's bad enough everybody's going to be all amazed at your coming back—I refuse to have you in my class!"
"Don't worry," he said stiffly. "The last place I want to be is in your class."
She dragged the straps of her life jacket angrily through the clasps and started for the dock. Then she stopped and turned back to him. "If you went to school and everything," she demanded, "why didn't you tell anybody who you were? A teacher, or the police? Why did you go along with him?"
Cameron stared at her for a minute, then looked back down at the straps dangling limply from his own life jacket. Carefully he threaded one through the clasp. Why did everybody think he could have said something? Why weren't they angry at the adults who were free, who weren't being beaten and punished, who must have seen but who hadn't done anything all the times he'd been bruised and dizzy and swallowing aspirin every hour? Sure, he'd tried to hide it, but grown-ups were supposed to be smarter than kids—why hadn't they seen through him and helped him? Why was he to blame for everything? He wanted to shout at her, to shake her, but he couldn't let himself be like Pop.
His arms felt heavy as he smoothed out the second strap. "He told me not to," he said quietly. "He told me he'd kill me if I didn't do what he said."
"But if you'd told somebody, they'd have arrested him and he couldn't have done anything to you."
Cameron fastened the last clasp and raised his eyes to meet her angry glare. "I had to do what he said. He killed all the other boys who didn't do what he told them to."
Then he walked past her unsteadily and climbed into the bobbing Sunfish. After a minute she stepped into her own boat and cast off.
No, Cameron tried to say.
Don't go with him!
But the boy went, slipping his hand into the man's. He skipped alongside the man, looking up eagerly as he talked.
Then they were in the house, and Cameron said, "Be good, keep quiet. If you just do what he says, you'll make it, like me."
But the boy wouldn't listen. He tossed his jacket on the floor, he climbed on the furniture. He talked and he laughed, and when the man yelled at him, he began to cry.
"Stop it!" Cameron told him, shaking the boy. "Don't cry! He doesn't like it when you cry!"
But it was too late. The man opened the cellar door and gave Cameron a shove, and as he tumbled down the stairs he could hear the man unbuckling his belt and cursing.
With a strangled sob Cameron sat upright and found himself not on the hardpacked earth floor of the cellar, but in a twin bed in a sunfilled room. The sheets were damp and twisted around him, and Stevie was staring at him curiously, his dark hair still sleep-tousled.
"What were you dreaming about?" he asked. "You sounded like you were trying to say something, but nothing came out."
Cameron wasn't surprised. Pop had taught him how to keep silent early on. He jerked at the sheets and freed himself, then shivered slightly in the air-conditioning. "I was dreaming about the man who took me," he said shortly. Then he looked at the smaller boy, who frowned back at him under his thick tangle of dark hair: Neil's brother.
"Listen," he said. "Don't ever go anywhere with a stranger, Stevie. Run away from him."
Stevie scrunched up his face. "I know that. You think I don't know that? Mom and Dad have told me about a million times."
Cameron sighed. "Well, don't forget it, okay? It's really important."
Stevie shrugged. He climbed out of bed and dragged off his pajamas, then pulled on shorts and picked up a faded surfing T-shirt. "Hey—why didn't the ocean say hello?"
Cameron closed his eyes. He didn't know how long he could keep trying to think up riddle answers. Why was the boy asking about the ocean, anyway? Cameron thought of the surfing T-shirt, and grinned. He opened his eyes. "Because it waved."
Stevie actually grinned back, just for a moment. Then he said, "Come on. Mom told Mrs. Pierson to make pancakes for you, and it's late."
Mrs. Pierson had been the housekeeper before Neil disappeared; Cameron remembered that from the articles. She came on weekdays, when Mrs. Lacey was at the museum and Mr. Lacey was at his law office. Cameron wondered what she'd expect him to be like.
He sat in his bed and looked around the room, half of it cluttered with Stevie's toys and half of it eerily bare in contrast. He wondered if any of the books or games on Stevie's side of the room had belonged to Neil once. Had the Laceys saved Neil's things, hoping he would come home, then finally realized that even if he did he'd be too old for them? What had they done with the things then? Thrown them away? Saved them for Stevie?
Even if he could have gotten back into his own house, there was nothing Cameron would have taken with him. He'd never had toys, like the other kids in school had. He'd used school bats when he played ball at recess, and the books he'd read had all been from the library or from school. Had Pop ever given him anything except clothes? Cameron didn't think so, but maybe he just didn't remember. No birthday presents—he had a birthday set down on the school records, but Pop never acknowledged it when the day came. No Christmas presents, either. Santa had been a larger-than-life version of Pop, knowing whether he'd been bad or good. Cameron had always been too bad to be given presents. It had been a relief to be sure that Santa was only a made-up story.
He punched the sweat-soaked pillow angrily. He had no memories, no souvenirs of growing up. Between the amnesia and his jail-like existence, Pop had stolen his past. Cameron glared at the room around him. Well, now he was getting even by stealing Neil's future.
He slid out of bed and walked unsteadily into the bathroom. He stripped off his sweaty pajamas and stepped into the shower, wishing he could wash away the dream and the exhaustion he felt even after sleeping late. He'd lain awake the night before, listening to Stevie's soft, steady breathing, thinking how hard it was to guess the right thing to do or say, like stepping blindly out into space and hoping there was a step there to catch you—like going into dinner in the dining room Tuesday night. It was the first time they'd eaten there, and Cameron had a bad moment when he saw the places set at the table: one chair at either end for the adults, then two chairs on one side and only one on the other. Everyone was waiting for him to sit down, and Cameron's appetite for the roast had died as he realized they expected him to sit in Neil's regular place. But which one was it?