Silverkey Crossing

Little Sister - Part VIII

The Silverkey Crossing Police Station received a phone call from a distraught mother at about 7:30 PM. Her daughter Erin had not yet come home. They got a similar phone call much later, closer to 11 PM.

The next morning there were even more phone calls. From parents. Mostly mothers. My daughter hasn't been home from school since yesterday. We've called everyone we know around town and nobody has seen her. We're worried sick/pissed off/ scared to death/ etc., etc.

Officer Kurt Nielsen got fingered for the job. He racked up frequent flyer miles at the school scene for handling matters with that troublemaking Dougherty kid, and oh look at that, the very last parent to call in a sixth report of a missing fifth grader from the same school... none other than the Dougherty household. Kurt wasn't happy to see that name pop up again.

So six gradeschool-age kids didn't come home yesterday. Maybe they were all buddies and they ran off on some juvenile adventure.

Small town life is tough for kids. Every generation has only two things to do: Do drugs or do each other.

Or three, get in trouble. Once a small town has a full stock of older folks, the young'uns don't have a prayer. The elderly tend to try to stop time and freeze things. Old buildings get used until they're utterly dangerous and decrepit. New buildings don't get built. New anything is resisted unless it's truly necessary, and even then it's accepted with closed palms. The forward-thinking youth are penned in by the throwbacks trying to make the clock stay in a day when things were comfortable, familiar, and safe.

Life can't be penned in and cordoned off like that. It's dynamic. It needs -- it demands -- room for growth. And those petty boundaries will stay in place for only so long until WHAMMO.

Kurt wondered if the whammo in this case was just the simple possibility that these kids decided to go camping together in a patch of trees. It did seem odd that they would go straight from school to their little escapade, but hey if you're desperate enough for some excitement you don't care where you start at.

Kurt couldn't really remember the last time he had been called out to the grade school.

Stepping inside, Kurt noticed how much of the distant past was marbled with the present day. There were yellowed class photos and news articles from the 1960's hanging besides crisp and clear recent photos.

The principal herself was nervously shuffling about the hallway. She saw Kurt and took took small rapid steps toward him on legs built like beets. Super wide at the hips but tapering down to tiny pinpoint feet. Her short hair bobbed at the sides like great dog ears.

Kurt tipped his hat to her. "Ma'am, I'm Officer Nielsen with SCPD."

"Oh, thank goodness you're here. Principal Kristin Randall. Our phones have been blowing up like we're keeping the missing girls hostage!"

A forty-something teacher in a bright sweater poked her head out of her classroom tentatively.

"The police are here?" she said, looking directly at Officer Nielsen.

"Yes, Bee. Officer, this is Beatrice. She teaches two of the missing girls."

Kurt tipped his hat again.

He took her statement and it didn't tell him much more than he already heard fifty times this morning. He studied the Bee Teacher's eyes, which were more whites than irises and unblinking, a touch of senility in the stare.

The principal stood nearby with crossed arms and stiff legs. Kurt turned to her and asked if he could see each of the girls' lockers.

"Yes, it'll require a master key. I'll fetch it from the office...." and off she went gouging the carpet with her nub feet.