Middle of Nowhere by Caroline Adderson Page B

they would never find out that we were on our own. They would think we’d skipped out with Mom.
    And we weren’t on our own anymore anyway. We had Mrs. Burt. But what about when Mom came back? How could I let her know we were just across the street? How could I let her know we were still waiting and seven out of ten positive she still loved us?
    When the outline of light around the curtain disappeared, I came out of the bedroom. Mrs. Burt had a bunch of pillowcases ready for me.
    â€œJust take what you really want and need,” she said. “We can pick up new stuff. And don’t forget that lotion.”
    I felt like a burglar.
    Lights were on in most of the apartments except ours. I waited in Mrs. Burt’s yard while a few cars passed, then ran across the street.
    I unlocked the lobby door and used the little key to check the mail. Flyers spilled out. I left them on the floor.
    As soon as I was inside our apartment, I switched on the light and started madly stuffing school things in one pillowcase and clothes in another. I went to the bathroom and threw in our toothbrushes and the Economizer Extra-Strength Hand and Body Lotion. In Mom’s room, the silk eye mask was lying on the cardboard box. I did that thing Artie always did — I stroked my face with it — but instead of making me feel better, I felt worse. So I left it there. I lifted the cardboard box and grabbed her wallet just to have the I.D. card from the community college with her picture on it.
    Then I lifted the box again, because from the corner of my eye I’d noticed something.
    The ring box. The ring box that held my tooth. It was under there, too. I picked it up, and right away I knew how I could leave a message that only she could find. I knew because wherever she was, eventually she would come back, even if we weren’t here.
    She would come for that tooth.
    I wrote a note.
    Mom, we love you. We are across the street staying with the old lady. We are waiting for you.
    I tucked it inside the ring box.
    The first place Mom would check would be where the tooth had been in the first place, under her cardboard box bedside table. But Nelson would clear out our stuff and somebody else would move in, so I pushed the box aside and pulled up the carpet. It came up easily. On the foam underpad, over and over so the message would be clear, I wrote:
Look for the tooth
.
    Where do you brush your teeth?
    In the bathroom
, I wrote.
    I taped the ring box in the cupboard under the sink. You had to either reach your hand up and feel around for it, or get on your knees and stick your head right inside the cupboard.
    Who would do that? Only a person looking hard for something. Only a person looking for the single valuable thing she owned in all the world.

    THAT NIGHT BRANDON Pennypacker was in my dream. It was supper at the Pennypackers and he was carrying my plate to me at the table. On the way, he stopped and turned his back. When he turned around again, there was a shiny string of spit attaching his lip to the food, like a spider web that stretched and broke as he set the plate in front of me.
    It was just a bad dream, but one that had really happened in real life almost every single night.
    The next day was the Wednesday of the last week of school. The smell of bacon woke me up.
    At first I didn’t know where I was. Artie, though, was his old self, and bacon was one of the things his old self liked best. He bounded off to Mrs. Burt’s kitchen. I got there last.
    Mrs. Burt was at the stove wearing a man’s dressing gown and, for the first time, no cap. Her white hair floated around her head like dandelion fuzz. She looked so puffy and clutched the walker so hard that I knew she’d had about as good a sleep as I had.
    â€œBoys,” she said, settling at the table with us to drink her tea. “I have an idea. How about a day off school?” To me she said, “I think we should take turns keeping an eye out. See