General (see Also Headings Under Social Themes)
At first my mother doesn't seem to understand. Why are there cops at our house? Why are they talking about Danny?
"Where is he?" she says. "Is he all right?"
The taller cop looks down at his partner. I have this weird feeling that they tossed a coin before they rang our doorbell—the loser gets to tell the family.
The cop pulled something out of his pocket.
"You recognize this, Josh?"
I stared at it. It couldn't be.
Andrew looked at it too. After a moment he said, "That looks like the fish club Dad gave you."
"Those are your initials, aren't they, Josh?" the woman cop said.
I nodded.
"It's what Scott was hit with. We have it down at the police station, Josh. Besides your initials, it has your fingerprints on it."
I couldn't swallow. I couldn't talk. When I got scared like this, a hand came up from inside and grabbed all the words out of my mouth. My dad started coming toward me and everything went into slow motion. I tried to run into the kitchen, but every step seemed to take five minutes. So I grabbed a chair and pulled it in front of me. My dad picked it up and threw it across the room. Then he grabbed my arm.
"Stupid," he hissed. "No good. Nothing."
I lay on the gritty wooden floor of the filthy shack, frozen with terror. For weeks I had been hearing about the two girls who had disappeared, but I had never in a million years thought that something like that was going to happen to me.
But here I was, tied up, groggy, panic-stricken—and waiting. Waiting for whatever had happened to the girl who had been found "not alive." Waiting for whatever had happened to the other girl.
This couldn't be happening to me.
But it was.
“I became what you wanted. What everyone wanted. A fighter. Not fighting for anything. Just fighting everything.”
Ever since I was a kid, being even a little bit hungry has given me bad dreams. The past couple of nights I've dreamed that a police car was taking me away in handcuffs. Both times I've woken up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. This is so upsetting that I have to calm myself down by closing my eyes and visualizing the inner workings of various locks. This is a talent I learned during my advance training at the Walter Gurski School of Lock Picking. I find it very soothing during times of stress.
