Jimmy could feel himself blushing, one which turned into a glare when he looked at Alan.
“You should see them together, Mom, they make the perfect couple. They even sit together at lunch and walk home together and sometimes they bump into each other on the way to school too and get all shy.”
“How sweet,” Kelly said. “What’s her name?”
“Tina,” Alan said.
“Well Jimmy, I think you should invite Tina over for dinner one of these nights so we can meet her.”
“No!”
“Mom, remember how he used to always say he would never fall in love with anyone, or marry anyone or ever date anyone.”
“I do and now I really have to meet this girl.”
Thanks a lot Alan, Jimmy said to himself while dumping his coffee in the sink. “Mom, can I borrow the car for a moment so I can get some good coffee?”
“Oh, honey, I have to leave for work soon.”
“I’ll be really quick.”
“How about you guys get ready for school and I’ll swing you by McDonalds and then drop you off.”
“Oh man,” Alan said while looking down at his nearly empty bowl. “I just ate.”
“Oh, look at the tears rolling down my cheeks,” Jimmy said to his brother while pointing at his own face, and then to his mother, “That would be great.”
Ten minutes later the three were heading toward McDonalds. Eventually Jimmy would realize he hadn’t thought about Samantha once while in the car, nor what had happened the night before. In fact, it wasn’t until he was at school, quickly finishing his bacon, egg and cheese bagel, and drinking his large, five cream five sugar, coffee that he started to think about it, his mind wondering how many of the guys around him had to still fantasize about being with girls whereas he now knew what it was like. Even better, he didn’t have to wine and dine them in hopes of luring them into bed. Instead he just had to be in the mood.
Megan’s day did not start out well. First, her alarm clock didn’t go off for some reason or maybe in her sleep she had switched it off without knowing. Because of this, she didn’t get to spend much time in the bathroom and would look like shit for school. Worse, there had been nothing in the kitchen to eat for breakfast.
“I could make you some eggs,” her mother said as Megan franticly looked through the cabinets.
“Mom, I don’t have time for eggs.” She whipped open the cupboard again and looked at the cereal selection. Nothing. She slammed it shut. “There’s nothing to eat.”
“How about some grapes?”
“Grapes? That’s not enough food.” God, her mother’s help was only making things worse.
“Toast.”
“Not enough. I want Frosted Mini Wheats. Why does Tim always eat it all?” When her brother ate cereal he would fill the bowl to the brim and then top it off completely with milk. Five minutes later he would grow full and dump most of the cereal down the garbage disposal, wasting it. This pissed her off, especially since she would now have to go to school hungry and her stomach would be growling all day.
It began at ten.
She was sitting in Calculus, listening to the teacher droll on, when suddenly her stomach noisily cried out for food. Petrified, Megan slammed her fist down into her gut to stop the noise. The damage had been done, however, and everyone knew it was her.
A few moments later it happened again.
She looked around to see if anyone had noticed. No one was looking at her but she knew they had all heard. God, it was so embarrassing.
How far could the sound travel?
She wanted to shrivel up and disappear.
There were a few more roars from within before Calculus was finally over. Unfortunately she still had World Literature and knowing the bitch Mrs. Gliek she would get a detention for her stomach noises because they would be disrupting the class.
That didn’t happen, though her stomach was continuing to growl angrily. Thankfully this was the last class before lunch so she thought the worst of the day was almost over.
This wasn’t the case, but she wouldn’t realize that until later.
“Hey Megan,” a voice said.
Megan turned and saw Steven Charlton coming toward her in the hallway, his class — American Politics — having just gotten out as well. “Hey Steven, how you holding up?”
“Okay, I guess. I was just wondering if you’ve heard from Samantha at all or if your Dad has learned anything.”
“No, nothing really. My Dad says he can’t do anything until she’s been missing for a few days, and even then he thinks she left and went to Hollywood or something.”
Steven’s face twisted while he shook his head. “Samantha didn’t want to go to Hollywood. Why does everyone keep saying that?”
“Because of Misty all those years ago,” Megan said. In 2005 a girl named Misty had dropped out of high school on her eighteenth birthday and left for California to become an actress. Instead of being in blockbuster movies, however, she could be found moaning and groaning all across the Internet in a series of low budget porn videos. It had been quite a scandal, one which caused her parents to leave town, their shame too great. “Everyone thinks all girls want to be actresses and will throw their lives away to try and become one.”
“But that wasn’t—”
“I know she wouldn’t do something like that,” Megan said.
“You know, if something happened to her and she was kidnapped or attacked, your Dad is losing time. I watch these crimes shows on TV when I can’t sleep and they say the first twenty four hours is the most important and your Dad hasn’t even started to look for clues.”
Megan thought about something for a second and asked, “You two would almost always talk to each other after school, right?”
“Yeah,” Steven said. “It usually took her like twenty minutes to get home, so I’d always give her a chance to get settled. Sometimes we would go out too. I would swing by and pick her up and we’d get ice cream or something, but this week she didn’t want to do that at all because she worried about not fitting in her prom dress.”
Megan saw emotion in his face when he said this and grew even angrier at her father for not doing any investigating, especially knowing Samantha would not want to miss the prom. “Did she answer when you called?”
“No. At first I thought maybe it was taking her longer to walk home, but then when she didn’t answer the second time I just figured she didn’t want to talk.” He shook his head. “I should have known something was wrong and headed over there, but—”
“It’s not your fault,” Megan said. “And whatever happened I don’t think it happened to her at her house. I think something happened while she was walking home from school. You know, like someone grabbed her from the side of the road or something. There is that stretch by the old Hood place that is pretty much deserted. If someone saw her there walking alone they could have just—” she saw Jimmy Hawthorn standing there listening to them and turned to him. “You walk by the old Hood place on your way home from school, don’t you?”
“Um, no,” Jimmy said. “I’m a few streets over and that road curves the wrong way.”
“Oh, for some reason I can picture you by that house.”
Jimmy shrugged. “I ride my bike sometimes, so maybe you saw me over there.”
“Hum, maybe that’s it,” Megan said. She then asked, “That area is pretty wooded, right, so do you think someone could have grabbed her from there without anyone seeing?”
Jimmy shrugged again. “Maybe, though why would someone do that?”