Drew had suffered through three weeks of captivity. No video games. No TV. No hanging out with friends. No Melia’s Thursdays. No staying up past 9:00, not even on weekends. Just three weeks of boredom and frustration. Three long weeks without any progress in his search for the Mystery Artist. Not that he was sure he still wanted to find the Mystery Artist, now that Mike “Huddy” Hudock, the meanest kid Drew knew, had emerged as the most likely candidate.
Three weeks to sit around and think about how he was so close to crossing Huddy off his list. Not only was Huddy still on his list, but he was also a good artist, which made it that much more likely he was the artist Drew was searching for. And, if he was, what would be the point of continuing the search? It would only be a letdown if Huddy really was the Mystery Artist. Besides, Drew could never ask him about it. Huddy had warned Drew, Zobby, and Tommy that if he ever saw them again, they’d be sorry. The only positive thing for Drew to dwell on during the three weeks he was grounded was that he could count the dragging minutes on the watch his dad gave him.
He stared longingly out the circular window of his basement door. It was a few days after Christmas and his first chance to hang out with Jeff and Tommy. A thick blanket of snow had dropped down the night before, as if the sky had decided to give him a present on his first day of freedom with his friends. Drew had a simple wish regarding the weather: If there isn’t enough snow for sled riding, it should be warm enough for baseball; but when it isn’t warm enough for baseball, there should be enough snow for sled riding.
Tommy sat on the old leather recliner, Jeff on the floor. Both were staring into the TV screen, their mouths slightly ajar and their thumbs tapping away on controllers. Drew had been trying to break them from their trances for the last half hour.
“Guys, please, let’s do something else. Let’s go sled riding.”
“But this game is sick,” said Tommy. “It’s definitely my favorite Christmas present I got this year.”
“Yeah, it got at least four stars in every review,” Jeff added.
“That’s great, but I’ve been stuck in my house forever.”
The boys finally put down their controllers.
“I only got grounded for a week,” said Tommy. “How come you got grounded for so long?”
Drew shrugged. “My parents grounded me ‘til Christmas. They were really mad.”
“Yeah,” said Tommy. “My parents were real mad at first, ‘specially my dad. But my brother stood up for me. He was like, ‘Relax, Dad, he’s just a kid, he didn’t realize what he was doing.’”
“Jason stood up for you?” said Drew. “I thought he was a jerk.”
“He is. Maybe he just wants to make sure my parents take it easy on him the next time he messes up. I dunno, sometimes he’s okay, ya know?”
“Yeah, I know what you mean,” said Jeff.
As Tommy and Jeff talked, Drew wondered about Jason. He was one of the names on his list – one of the names he had hidden from his friends. Drew hadn’t given much of a chance to Jason being the artist. He had always imagined Jason as the type of kid who was spitting spitballs or flicking the ears of the kid in front of him during class, not drawing pictures.
“Drew?”
“Huh?”
“You wanna go sled riding, right?” Jeff asked.
“Yeah, we can go to school and sled ride down the hill into the parking lot. It’s perfect for sled riding. You still have those sleds, right?”
“Yeah, they’re in my garage. So I guess we can do that,” said Jeff, looking to Tommy for confirmation.
“All right,” said Tommy, “but we should have a snowball fight, too.”
“Sure, fine,” said Drew.
“Maybe we should find someone else to come with us,” said Jeff. “If we have a snowball fight, it’ll be better if we have even teams, right?”
“Good point,” said Tommy. “I can text Caleb. He got a sick phone for Christmas.”
“No way!” Drew snapped.
“Why not?”
“You know why,” said Drew. “I’ll call Zobby. She’ll wanna play.”
“Ugh, come on, man,” said Tommy.
“What?”
“I don’t wanna hang out with Zobby. If you don’t wanna hang out with Caleb, I don’t gotta hang out with Zobby. She’s your friend, not mine.”
“Well …”
“Besides,” Tommy continued, “Caleb will be on our baseball team again, so you gotta get along with him.”
Jeff rolled his eyes. “Caleb thinks he’s so good at baseball, but he’s not.”
“He’s pretty good,” said Tommy. “He hit two homers last year.”
“And struck out about a hundred times,” Jeff muttered.
“Zobby struck him out,” Drew added.
Jeff chuckled, Drew began to laugh, and even Tommy couldn’t help joining in. The fact that Zobby had struck Caleb out wasn’t what was funny – she was a really good pitcher – but it was that Caleb could never get over it.
“Look,” said Drew, “when springtime comes around, we’ll invite Caleb to do baseball stuff. But not now.”
“All right, whatever,” said Tommy. “So who can we call?”
“I could call Trevor,” said Jeff.
Drew winced at the suggestion. The boys had befriended Trevor since the cheat sheet incident, and now he sometimes sat at their lunch table, but Drew was still uneasy around him. He still felt guilty about what he had done, and he had a lingering worry that something would spark Trevor’s curiosity and lead him to the truth about the cheat sheet.
“Uh, wait,” said Drew, “wasn’t your cousin staying at your house? Is he still there?”
“Yeah,” said Jeff. “He was visiting someone else today, but he might be back.”
“Let’s invite him,” said Drew.
The boys ran up the stairs and into the dining room. Penny was sitting at the table, eating an apple and working on her laptop. As a real estate agent, she could essentially make her own hours to cater to Drew’s schedule.
“Mom, we’re gonna go sled riding at the school.”
Penny’s expression stiffened as she lowered the apple from her mouth.
“I mean, can we go sled riding at the school?”
Penny still didn’t respond. She cast a suspicious glare at her son.
“What?” said Drew. “I’m not grounded anymore, right?”
“Right, but I told you I’d be keeping a closer eye on you from now on.”
“I know, I know. But I’m telling you the truth. We’re going to school to sled ride down the hill and have a snowball fight. It’s the truth, I swear.”
“Don’t worry, Penny, we won’t do anything bad,” said Tommy.
Penny stood up. “You go to the school and nowhere else. And be sure to stick together. No one goes off on his own.” She looked at the clock on the stove. It was 2:02. “And I want you home by four o’clock, not a minute later. And I’m going to call both of your mothers to make sure they know where you’ll be.”
“Okay, but we have to go to Jeff’s first anyway to get the sleds, plus we have to put on snow clothes. Can we make it four-thirty?” Drew asked.
Penny’s response was in the form of a sterner look.
“Four o’clock sounds fair,” said Drew. “But Jeff has to call his house before we go.”
He looked down at his watch, which he hadn’t taken off since his father gave it to him, to make sure he knew what time it was. Mesmerized by the firm, steady ticking of the seconds hand, he kept his eyes on the watch as Jeff dialed. For no particular reason, he felt like timing the call.
“Hey, Mom, it’s me. … Yeah, everything’s fine. … Is RJ back yet? … Can I talk to him? … Okay, thank you. … RJ, do you wanna go sled riding and have a snowball fight with me and my friends? … Yeah, at my school, it’s real close. … Me and two of my friends, Drew and Tommy. You met them before. They were at my birthday party, remember? … Yeah, you did. Tommy’s the taller, athletic one, and Drew’s the one who’s all over the place. … Right, yeah. … ‘Kay, cool, we’ll be there in like ten minutes to get you. … ‘Kay, see ya.”
Drew’s head had shot up. He was confused by what he had just heard.
“All good?” Tommy asked as Jeff hung up the phone.
“Yeah, he’s in.”
“All right, hurry up and get ready so we can stop at my house,” Tommy said to Drew.
Disoriented from Jeff’s comment, Drew nodded and went up to his room. What just happened?
****
As the boys made their way to Tommy’s house, Jeff’s words were running laps in Drew’s head, circling his brain and constricting his thoughts. Drew’s the one who’s all over the place. Drew’s the one who’s all over the place. Drew’s the one who’s all over the place …
Drew couldn’t stop thinking about it. All over the place. What does that even mean? Maybe Jeff meant to say that Drew had a lot of hobbies. Or maybe it was another way of calling him energetic. But the more Drew thought about it, the more he realized it was not an endearing label. Jeff had called Tommy athletic. Why wasn’t Drew athletic? Or couldn’t he have said something else – nice, funny, outgoing, something? Why couldn’t he have said Drew’s the one who always wears the Pirates hat? Drew was sure he had been wearing his hat both times he met RJ. Or why not mention that Drew was shorter and thinner than Tommy? There were so many things Jeff could have said. Why did it have to be all over the place?
“Hey, what did that mean before?” he asked Jeff, interrupting Tommy’s guarantees of “lighting everyone up” with snowballs.
“What did what mean?” said Jeff.
“When you were on the phone with RJ, you said I was ‘all over the place’ or something. What does that mean?”
“Yeah, all over the place? It means, uh, you know, all over the place.”
Drew looked at Tommy, hoping to see a face as confused as his own, but Tommy just stared back blankly. It was the face he would make if Jeff had simply said, “Drew has green eyes.”
“Do you know what he’s talking about?” Drew asked Tommy anyway.
“Yeah,” said Tommy, now looking at his phone. “It means sometimes it’s like you’re not paying attention.” He shrugged nonchalantly. “It’s not a big deal. Everyone knows it.”
“Right, and, you know,” Jeff added, “sometimes a teacher calls on you to read and you don’t know where we are because you’re looking at a different page. That’s why I never call on you when we do popcorn reading.”
Jeff didn’t seem like he wanted to defend his comment, but rather that he had to because he had already said it. Still, it felt to Drew like he was just piling on.
“I …” Drew started. The thoughts were swirling around in his head, but he wasn’t sure how to slow them down and form them into the right words.
“Are you mad?” said Jeff. “I really didn’t mean anything by it.”
“Yeah, man. Who cares?” said Tommy. “It’s just, whatever.”
Drew gave a half-hearted smile, and they made their way through the Porters’ front door. Tommy shouted his afternoon plans to his mom, who answered from one of the back rooms, and then he ran upstairs to get changed.
Drew and Jeff stood inside the doorway and waited. Jeff turned to Drew to say something, but Jason emerged from the kitchen and came toward them. Jeff seemed to choke on the words at the sight of Jason. He stiffened like a statue with his lips sealed shut, looking down at the ground.
Just ask him, Drew said to himself. But either because Jeff was there or because he still hadn’t summoned the courage, Drew also found himself tongue-tied as Jason approached.
The boys instinctively parted like a double door. Jason passed through without breaking stride, slightly bumping into both boys, and walked out the front door. Drew watched as Jason hopped into a rusty Honda Civic that had pulled up to the curb. The exhaust was so loud that Drew could still hear it after the car disappeared up the street.
Jeff again turned to Drew to say something, but Tommy came running down the stairs.
“All right, let’s go,” he said.
****
As the boys headed for Jeff’s house, Drew continued to wonder about what Jeff had said. All over the place. Why would Jeff say that? And why would Tommy agree? It didn’t make sense. He wasn’t all over the place. It was just that other people couldn’t see what was going on inside his head. You can’t judge someone if you don’t know what’s going on inside their head, can you? he wondered.
Was it possible that all this time, the person Drew thought he was on the inside, the person he knew he was, was not the same person everyone else saw from the outside? It was strange to think about, like when you hear your own voice on a recording. Drew remembered the time he’d called home from his dad’s and left a message on the voicemail. When he got home the next day and heard the message, he couldn’t believe it was him. They were the words he had said, but the voice didn’t sound like his – it sounded like a distorted, barely recognizable echo of himself.
And he thought about what Tommy had said: “Everyone knows it.” Everyone? Did everyone really think Drew was all over the place? Zobby? His parents? His teachers? Maybe Mrs. Steinbeck, but even Mr. Sawyer? Did the whole world view him as nothing more than some kid with a little jumping bean for a brain?
Meanwhile, the boys were almost at Jeff’s house. Along the way, Tommy listed everything he got for Christmas, and Jeff gushed about the golf clubs he got from his Pap.
“He always takes me mini golfing,” he said, “but this summer he’s finally gonna take me to the country club to play. Pap’s the best.”
When the boys arrived at the Gray house, RJ was sitting on the living room couch waiting for them.
“Hey, RJ, what’s goin’ on?” said Drew.
Realizing that RJ must have thought Drew was “all over the place” when he had met him before, Drew wanted to try and show him it wasn’t true. He would show RJ that he was just as normal as any other kid.
“Nothin’,” said RJ.
“That’s cool,” said Drew, trying to sound as “normal” as possible.
Almost as fast as Tommy changed, Jeff did too. He came back downstairs and the boys retrieved the sleds from the garage. As the other three boys walked down the front steps, Jeff snuck back and gave his mom a quick kiss on the cheek. Drew noticed it out of the corner of his eye but didn’t draw attention to it. And with a slight waddle to their gaits, the boys were off.
****
The four boys made their way down the shovel-scraped sidewalks of Emerson Boulevard. The hill looked slick and untouched as it glistened in the sunlight. As soon as it was within their sight, the boys sprinted toward it. It was the only time kids could be seen running toward the school. There were stairs that led to the doors at the top of the hill, but the boys neglected to use them. Instead they stomped through the parking lot and began to clamber up the hill. After several minutes of their feet sliding from under them and causing them to slip back down, they finally struggled their way to the top.
Drew stood and looked out over the horizon of the neighborhood. He set his sled on the ground, sat on it, tucked his legs, and began his descent down the hill. As the brisk December wind blew against his face, he finally felt the exhilaration he’d missed while cooped up in his house. Tommy came gliding down soon after, then RJ, then Jeff, each boy toppling over at the bottom when his momentum ceased.
“Awesome!” said RJ. “Let’s do it again! Race you guys to the top!”
The boys scrambled up the hill, flew back down, then repeated the act several more times. After a while, Jeff suggested the boys build a jump. Drew liked the idea. But just as they stooped down to begin building, Tommy scooped up some snow with both hands, packed it into a tight snowball, and whipped it at Jeff, striking him in the shoulder.
“I’m hit,” Jeff cried.
“Man down!” yelled RJ. “I will fight for my fallen cousin!”
He formed a snowball of his own and threw it at Tommy, barely missing him. The snowball fight had begun.
“Ha! Me and Drew against Jeff and RJ!” yelled Tommy. He grabbed Drew’s arm and yanked him over.
“You guys go over there,” he directed Jeff and RJ, pointing to the other side of the parking lot. It hadn’t been plowed, and there was just one car, a half-buried Jeep, parked anywhere in sight.
“Here,” said Drew, standing up his sled in the snow to use it as a shield, “I’ll make ‘em and you throw ‘em, then we’ll switch.”
“Yeah, cool, start pilin’ ‘em up.”
Snowballs flew through the air. Tommy threw the hardest, but just like on the pitching mound, he was wild. Few of his throws connected with his targets, and he was getting upset.
He bent down behind his shield and said, “I think there’s something funky with the snow. Mine keeps breaking. Find some ice and make some ice balls.”
Before Drew could respond, Tommy was struck on the top of his head by a snowball RJ had lobbed over his shield.
“Yes!” RJ exclaimed.
“Let me throw for a little,” Drew finally said.
Unlike Tommy, Drew was precise and methodical when it came to the art of throwing a snowball. He waited and waited while Tommy replenished the arsenal.
“What are you waiting for?” Tommy asked.
“Wait for it …”
As RJ stepped out from behind his shield to gather more snow, Drew swiftly shot up, planted his feet, and fired, drilling RJ in the chest with a tightly packed snowball.
“Nice! Now let me try,” said Tommy.
Now with a mountain of snowballs between them, Drew and Tommy unleashed. Tommy threw often and erratically, while Drew relied on patience and accuracy. He nailed his target on almost every throw.
As the battle continued, Drew noticed a girl passing by behind Jeff and RJ. She was walking a big, brown, fluffy dog along the sidewalk. It was fighting to come over to the boys, as if it wanted to join in on the snowball fight, but the girl tugged at its leash.
A flash of white came whirling at Drew. He tried to dodge but was too late. Thump. The snowball nailed him on his right hip.
“Gotcha!” Jeff cried out.
Drew regained his focus and packed together more snowballs. Tommy had been rapidly firing so many that their stock had quickly depleted. Drew popped back up to return the favor to Jeff but stopped before he could release the snowball in his hand. What he saw momentarily paralyzed him.
Thump.
Thwack.
One snowball hit Drew in the left shoulder. Another smacked him on his right cheek. The ice stung as it seeped into his pores. Tommy pulled him behind his shield before he was hit again.
“What are you doing, man? It’s like you’re not even trying.”
Drew wiped at the slush dripping down his cheek, but his frosty glove only made it worse. He gritted his teeth and grabbed a snowball. He could hear Jeff and RJ laughing from behind their shields.
They probably think I wasn’t paying attention because I’m ‘all over the place,’ he thought.
He stood up, and RJ hopped up at the same time, smiling, ready to launch another attack. RJ fired a snowball. Drew leaned to his right and it whizzed past him. He now had a clear shot at RJ, but he didn’t take it. The girl and her dog were walking away, and he had to stop them. He reared back and launched the snowball over his enemy’s camp. With a sharp splat, it landed hard against the capital letters on the back of the girl’s jacket – letters that spelled the name BALLENTINE.
****
“Whoa,” said Tommy. “Did you do that on purpose?”
Without answering, Drew ran over to the girl. He did the math in his head. Alexus Ballentine was the third name on the list, so that meant, if this really was her, she was in eighth grade. Did I really just throw a snowball at an eighth-grader?
“Hi, uh, sorry about that.”
The girl turned around and looked at Drew with a slight grimace.
“We were just, um –” Drew continued.
“Having a snowball fight,” she said. She gave a half smile that helped put Drew at ease.
“Yeah.”
“Well, did you win?”
“Um, I dunno. We weren’t really keeping score.”
“Yeah, the score doesn’t really matter in a snowball fight, huh?”
“No, I guess not,” said Drew.
“Uh huh. Well –”
“What’s your name?” Drew asked suddenly.
“Alexus.”
“Alexus Ballentine?” Drew asked. “Um, just because your jacket says Ballentine on the back.”
“Yep, that’s me. I’m on the school dance team. They give us these jackets with our names on them.”
It really was her. Alexus Ballentine. She had dark brown skin, big brown eyes, and a friendly smile that revealed a mouthful of braces. The rest of her was hidden, bundled up underneath the jacket, baggy sweatpants, and a white beanie pulled down over her head.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“Drew Daley.”
Alexus held out her hand, clad in a black mitten. “Nice to meet you, Drew Daley.”
Drew kept his gaze fixed on her as he shook her hand. Was he shaking hands with the Mystery Artist, the person who created something that changed his life? Was it the very hand that drew the picture?
After shaking hands, Alexus took a few steps backwards to continue her walk with her dog. It seemed like time was in slow motion as the potential Mystery Artist was leaving, and Drew was incapable of saying anything.
Before she left, though, Alexus stopped, somehow noticing Drew’s curiosity, and said, “You look like you wanna ask me something.” Her round eyes narrowed a bit, as if she were trying to read Drew’s thoughts.
“Oh, no, I’m just sorry about hitting you with that snowball.” Just say what you really wanna say. This girl is nice. She’s not scary like Huddy or Jason.
“No biggie,” said Alexus. “My brother does stuff ten times worse, and –”
“It’s just that you look familiar,” Drew blurted out. “Well, not you you, but your name. Your name sounds familiar, I mean.”
“Hmm. Well, I’m not exactly famous. Maybe you have an older brother or sister who knows me? Or maybe you know my little brother, Adam. He’s in fourth grade.”
“No, I don’t have any brothers or sisters, and I don’t think I know Adam,” said Drew.
Alexus nodded and shrugged. “I dunno then. I don’t think I know you. Well, actually, I do now. You’re Drew Daley, the kid who nailed me in the back with a snowball while I was walking my dog, Lucky.” She finished her sentence with a smile to let Drew know she wasn’t mad.
“Yeah, sorry again about that. Sometimes my aim isn’t very good.”
“It’s okay. No big deal. See ya,” she said as she began to walk away a second time.
“Wait …”
“What is it?”
“Well, I think I just realized why your name sounds familiar,” said Drew.
Alexus looked at him with a friendly curiosity. “Oh yeah? Why?”
Drew snuck a glance over his shoulder. His friends had disappeared, though the sleds were still on the ground. From the corner of his eye he detected some movement behind the snow-covered Jeep, which was about 20 feet to the left. He was pretty sure Jeff, Tommy, and RJ were hiding behind it, trying to listen to his conversation.
“Well, it’s nothing really, it’s just that, uh, I think I have your old science book, from Mrs. Steinbeck’s class.”
“Oh, that’s cool. So you go to school here,” she said, motioning toward the building. “Small world, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“So I’m assuming you know that because you looked at the names inside the front cover, right?”
“Well, yeah.”
Alexus nodded. “I always do that, too. Don’t know why. I guess just to see if I’ll recognize one of the names.”
“Really?”
“Yep. But I never remember the names later. You must have a pretty good memory, huh?”
“What do you mean?” Drew asked. No one had ever told him he had a good memory before (at least not that he could recall).
“To remember my name just because you saw it in your science book. That’s impressive. I bet you’re like the genius of your grade, huh?”
“Definitely not. I’ve looked at the names a bunch of times. I mean, not a bunch of times, but …”
“There’s that look again, like you wanna ask me something. What is it?”
“Well … someone drew a picture in the book, and it’s really good, and I was wondering if maybe it was you.”
“Hmm. It’s really good?”
Drew shook his head eagerly. “Yeah, it is.”
“Then I doubt it was me,” said Alexus. “I’m not much of an artist. All I can draw is stick figures.”
“Oh. This picture is of an ocean shore. You can see the sunset and the sand and waves and everything.”
“That sounds really cool,” said Alexus. “But yeah, sorry, wasn’t me.”
“Oh, okay,” Drew murmured. “No big deal,” he added with sudden casualness, trying not to sound as disappointed as he really was.
“Then again, I guess it’s possible it was me. It would’ve been like three years ago, so I could’ve drawn it and forgot about it. But if you said it was really good – and do you think it took a lot of time?”
“Oh yeah,” said Drew. “There’s so much detail in it.”
“Then it definitely wasn’t me, because I never would’ve had the guts to do something like that during Mrs. Steinbeck’s class. I was so scared of her.”
“Yeah, she’s still scary!”
Alexus shook her head. “Back then I was terrified of her, but seriously, she was one of the nicest teachers.”
“What? She used to be nice?”
Alexus laughed. “Well, maybe ‘nice’ isn’t the right word, but think about it – she has a quiz every week, but she doesn’t have any big tests. In other classes, they might only have like two tests for an entire quarter, and if you do bad on one, your grade is bad. But with Mrs. Steinbeck, you get nine quizzes each quarter, and homework, and science lab stuff. So one bad quiz doesn’t kill your grade, ya know? And she never gave homework on weekends, which was so nice.”
“Oh, yeah, that is cool,” said Drew. Though he knew all those things, hearing them from Alexus helped him to see Mrs. Steinbeck in a new light. Mrs. Steinbeck might never be Drew’s favorite teacher, but he felt like he understood her better.
“But anyway, what are the other names? Maybe I know one of them.”
“Um, I don’t really –”
“Don’t pretend like you don’t remember the other names,” said Alexus. “You remembered mine.”
“Okay, there are four others, but the only one I haven’t found is a girl named Stacey Janofsky. I looked her up online with my friends, but we couldn’t find anything.”
“Stacey Janofsky,” Alexus repeated. “It does sound familiar …”
“She should only be one grade ahead you,” said Drew.
“Yeah, I dunno. I think I recognize the name, but I don’t know who she is.”
“Are you sure?”
Alexus frowned. “I’m sorry, I really don’t know her.”
“Man, how am I ever gonna find her?”
“Maybe you can hit her with a snowball.”
Drew blushed. “I –”
“It’s okay. I think it’s cool what you’re doing.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you’re like, on a mission to find someone. You’re pretty focused, huh?” said Alexus.
“Me, focused?”
“Yeah. Focused on a mission to find Stacey Janofsky …”
“The girl with bright red hair and purple glasses,” said Drew.
“Wait, she has purple glasses?”
“Yeah, at least she did in the yearbook picture I saw of her.”
“Oh my gosh! That’s why I recognized the name. I do know who she is. I just didn’t know her name. Everyone always called her ‘Red.’”
“Because of her hair?”
“Actually, no,” said Alexus, shifting her weight uncomfortably. “I think it was because she had really red cheeks, especially when she got embarrassed.”
The dog was getting restless and began pulling away.
“Settle down, Lucky,” Alexus said. “Yeah, thinking about it now, I feel really bad. I never even knew her real name. Everyone called her ‘Red,’ not just me.”
“Well, okay, so I can still find her, though,” said Drew.
Alexus took on the expression of someone who had bad news.
“What?” asked Drew. “Now you look like you wanna tell me something.”
“Well, she doesn’t live here anymore.”
“Oh. Well, was she an artist?”
“I don’t really know. I know she was super smart, but she got made fun of a lot.”
“Where’d she move to?” Drew asked.
“No clue. That’s the thing. She kind of, you know, disappeared.”
“Disappeared?”
“Yeah. Red was – I mean Stacey was really smart. Like really, really smart. She was always winning competitions at school, spelling bees and things like that. Then one day she just wasn’t there. My friend Mara, she’s a year older than me, was supposed to have a few classes with her. But on the first day of school, Stacey wasn’t there. And she didn’t show up the next day, or the next day, or ever.”
“But she couldn’t just disappear,” said Drew. “People don’t just disappear!”
“She kind of did, though. Some people say she went to a college prep school. Some say she left because she got made fun of.”
“So what do you think happened?”
“I never really thought about it,” Alexus answered. “I mean, I knew who she was, but I didn’t know her or anything.”
“And no one has seen her since?”
“Not that I know of – Lucky, hold on. Listen, it was nice talking to you, but I really have to get going. Nice meeting you, Drew Daley.”
“Nice meeting you, Alexus Ballentine.”
“Enjoy your adventure!” Alexus said as Lucky pulled her out of the parking lot and down the sidewalk.
****
As Drew walked back toward the other side of the parking lot, Tommy, Jeff, and RJ stepped out from behind the Jeep and hurled questions at him – much harder to endure than snowballs.
“You know that girl?”
“How old is she?”
“What were you talking about? We couldn’t hear.”
“Her name’s Alexus,” said Drew. “She’s in eighth grade. We were just talking about some stuff.”
“Wow,” said Jeff. “It’s like when you talked to Skylar Jansen at lunch. You shoulda seen it, RJ. Drew was talking to the most popular girl in sixth grade like it was no big deal. And now she always waves to him when we walk by her house.”
“Really? That’s impressive,” said RJ.
“Wait,” said Tommy, “were you talking to her about that dumb little picture or whatever?”
Tommy’s question kicked Drew’s pedestal out from underneath him.
“Why?” Drew asked, unsure how else to respond.
“I thought I heard you say something about Stacey Janofsky. Isn’t she that ginger girl I looked up for you that one time?”
“Well –”
“I knew it,” Tommy continued. “That’s weird, man. Why would anybody care about –”
“Lay off,” said RJ. “I don’t know what picture you’re talking about, but if Drew’s talking to all these older girls, whatever he’s doing is working.”
“Yeah, that’s awesome,” said Jeff.
Drew was grateful for RJ’s interjection. He didn’t want to explain why he was on this mission. That was why he had decided to do it on his own in the first place.
He pulled off his left glove to check his watch. It was 3:45. “Whoa, guys, it’s almost four o’clock. I’m not getting grounded again.”
Without another word, the boys bolted home. When Jeff and RJ turned down Jeff’s street, they quickly said their goodbyes.
“Drew, that was awesome. I’ll talk to you later,” said Jeff.
“Yeah, Drew. That was sweet. And maybe I can check out that picture sometime,” said RJ.
Drew and Tommy continued on to Ernest Way without any conversation, and Tommy darted off to his house. Neither boy said goodbye, but they were in a hurry and didn’t have a second to waste.
Drew stormed through his front door and looked at his watch. It was exactly 4:00. His mom was in the living room on her laptop.
“Just in time,” she said.
“I know, but I made it,” Drew answered, smiling and catching his breath.
That evening, Drew was no longer concerned about being “all over the place.” Instead of Jeff’s words, it was Alexus’s words echoing in his mind. “You’re on a mission to find someone … You’re really focused,” she had said.
“That’s what I need to do,” Drew said aloud to himself. “Stay focused on my mission. In the end, it’ll all be worth it.”
He pulled out his list and crossed off Alexus Ballentine’s name. Though he had made progress, today’s developments also raised more questions. What happened to Stacey Janofsky? Where could she be? Drew looked at the three names that remained, two with dread, one with hope. The only problem was that he would have to place all that hope in someone who was practically a ghost in Emerson.