Do You Know the Monkey Man? by Dori Hillestad Butler Page B

This guy sounds good. Can we find out how much he charges?”
    Coral scrolled to the bottom of the page. “Nineteen ninety-nine.”
    “That’s not bad,” I said, nodding.
    “Should we go with him?” Coral asked.
    “Sure.”
    “Okay.” Coral read from the form. “First we need your e-mail address.”
    “But my mom can read all my e-mail.” I didn’t know whether she
would
read it, but I didn’t want to take any chances. I could just hear her if she suddenly came across an e-mail with my dad’s address in it.
    “I guess we can use my e-mail address and I can let you know when I hear something,” Coral offered. “My mom and dad never check my e-mail.”
    “Okay.” That worked for me.
    “Now we need to type in what we know about your dad. The more information we can include, the better.”
    We filled in his name and we put my address in the blank for “former address.”
    “What about birthday?” Coral asked.
    I shook my head. I didn’t even know when my dad’s birthday was. “I know he’s around thirty-three, though. My mom’s thirty-two.”
    So we counted back and figured out what year my dad had probably been born.
    “Every little bit helps,” Coral said, typing the information in. “Anything else?”
    I squinted at the choices on the screen. I had no idea what city or state my dad lived in, what his Social Security number was, whether he practiced any religion, whether he was affiliated with any groups, or anything else. The only thing left to fill in was my credit card information.
    I dug the card out of my wallet and Coral typed it in. Then she scrolled back over everything else we’d already typed in so we could double-check it. “Looks good. Should I click on ‘Submit’?” Coral asked.
    I bit my lip. There was still time to back out.
    But I wasn’t going to.
    “Click on ‘Submit,’” I said.
    Now all I had to do was wait.

Chapter Eight
    T hat night I dreamed about Sarah again. This dream wasn’t as vivid. In fact, I think I was even aware I was dreaming. But I didn’t want the dream to end.
    We were here in this house and we were playing hide-and-seek. I’m not sure how old we were. Older than three, but not as old as I am now.
    “Come find me, Sam!” she called in a giggly voice.
    I searched for her in the front closet, behind the living room couch, under the kitchen table. Finally I found her in my mom’s room, crouched behind a chair. She came out laughing. “Again, Sam! Again!”
    So we did it again. I pressed my forehead against our front door and counted. “One, two, three …” When I got to twenty, I went to look for her again. It went on like that several times, with her doing all the hiding and me doing all the seeking.
    Then I said, “I want to hide this time. You count and I’ll hide. Then you can come find me.”
    Sarah tipped her head back. “Silly! You can’t hide. Everybody knows where you are. But nobody knows where I am.”
    And then I woke up.
    Nobody knows where I am.
    I opened my eyes and blinked a few times in the darkness. I rolled over and checked my clock. 2:14 A.M. I groaned. It was still nighttime. I hugged my stuffed monkey to my chest and tried to go back to sleep, but I was wide awake.
    I turned on my reading lamp, then leaned over the edge of my bed and slid the photo of Sarah and me out from my book.
    Nobody knows where I am.
    Things always seem kind of creepy at night when you’re alone in your room and everything’s all dark, but I couldn’t help but wonder whether my sister was somehow trying to communicate with me through my dreams. We were twins, after all. We had a connection to one another that other people didn’t have.
    I stared at the photo, looking for…I’m not sure what I was looking for, but whatever it was clearly wasn’t there.
    I lay back on my pillow and sighed. I tried to remember what it was like when Sarah was here. What it felt like to have a sister. But no matter how hard I strained my brain, all I could