My Abandonment(15)

"This is a very unusual day for me," Mr. Harris says. He takes off his wire glasses and blinks his small eyes while he rubs the glasses with his handkerchief.

"It's only the two of you," he says. "Correct?"

"Who else would there be?" I say. "What's going to happen?"

"There will be time for more questions," he says. "I'm sorry. I see that this is a surprising time for you. A lot is changing all at once."

"Sir!" a man shouts and then they are holding Father back, who has gotten close to where I am sitting.

"Caroline," he says. "Don't be afraid. Just because they don't understand us doesn't mean we've done anything wrong. I love you. We'll be back together soon."

"Yes," I say, and a policeman puts a hand on his arm and turns Father away and then they walk away. The man with the pack and another in front, then Father, then the camouflage man with his gun pointing at the ground.

Father looks back only one time and smiles at me. I watch the back of his head slowly disappear down the slope, his hair sticking up on one side and I'm thinking it's almost time for me to cut it again.





Two


Once Father is gone the air around our house gets harder to breathe. I am trying to slow down my breathing. Mr. Harris and Officer Stannard are just standing there waiting for me to do or say something.

"Can I fill up my pack, too?" I say.

"Yes," Mr. Harris says. "Do you have library books, as well?"

I walk over and take my pack and put in all the papers of my journal and I pick Randy up off the mattress.

"That's quite an unusual horse," Mr. Harris says, and I tie my strip of blue ribbon around Randy's neck and push him all the way in so he's out of sight because these people don't deserve to see him.

I take out the E encyclopedia and open it to as far as I've gotten. All alone I know the E will be useless so I slide it back in with its friends. Instead I put the dictionary in my pack even though I can already tell it will be frustrating to read.

When I start putting my clothes in Mr. Harris says, "You won't need those. We can give you new clothes."

"When am I coming back?" I say.

"We have to get going," Officer Stannard says. "Take what you need, please."

"Don't rush her," Mr. Harris says.

"Will someone bring my encyclopedias?" I say.

"Not today."

I put the branch across the door to our house when I have everything I can take.

"Don't worry about that, now," Mr. Harris says with his hand on my shoulder.

"People will take all our pots," I say, "and plates and our stove and our bed even."

"Don't worry about any of that," he says. "Really. Wouldn't you like to wear shoes?"

"If you like," I say. "I can wear shoes if we're going to the city."

And then we start walking down the slope toward the soft roar of the highways. Mr. Harris is ahead of me, his arms stiff and his shoes sliding in the long grass. The way he goes leaves so many marks you would think ten people had walked here.

"Is my father waiting for us down here?" I say.

We come out of the trees and way off to the left I see the sharp green towers of the St. Johns Bridge far away and I feel those sharp inside. Straight ahead and closer is one empty black-and-white police car. Everyone else is gone. A semi-truck rattles past without slowing down.

Mr. Harris opens the back door and I sit down and swing my legs inside and he closes the door then walks around and gets in next to me. Officer Stannard is in the driver's seat. He starts the engine and we slide fast onto the road with everything passing in the window. The electrical station, Fat Cobra Video, the waste depot where sometimes we scavenged. I look behind us and it's a yellow truck. I can't see any of the other police cars or the truck the dogs probably went in, none of the places Father might be.

"You can talk," Mr. Harris says. "Or not talk, if you want to. If you want to, you can cry."

A sign says Wood Monsters. There are semi trailers on train cars and storage containers out in the railyard. In my pack on the seat between us are the things they let me bring. A cup and a jar of raisins and the dictionary and Randy, who I unzip the zipper to touch his head. I almost want to cry but I remember what Father said and I don't want them to think anything untrue.

"Did you read the scratched leaves?" I say. "The ones I scratched? That's how you found us."

"Pardon me?" Mr. Harris says.

"Nothing," I say.

We're driving toward the tall buildings. Next to us on the right is still the forest park and we drive so fast it's a blur of green. I can't see the edges of the trees, can't hardly read the signs on the road as they slide past. Machines cause more problems than they solve and I have not been riding inside a car for a very long time. For a moment I remember driving with my foster parents, sitting in the backseat like this with my little sister. Each of us is eating one half of a sweet, cold orange popsicle. Outside the windows a cemetery full of jagged gray stones stretches up a hill.