Cara looks out the window. “What do
they think happened?”
“They think it was a prank. Someone
picked two vulnerable kids and told them to do something stupid.” Margot shakes
her head in disgust. “That’s why I called the police so fast. I want whoever’s
responsible for this to understand they’re in big trouble.”
In the past, Cara hasn’t worried
excessively about bullying. Riding the bus with Adam the first week of school as
she does every year, she got a glimpse of how little he registers to other
children. They walk past him, look through him, hardly see him, beyond the
obvious oddity of a third-grader riding the school bus with his mother. It is
sad, of course, and also a relief. If bullies have an intuitive sense for who
will burst into tears most easily, most spectacularly, it isn’t Adam. He might
hum or walk away, but in all likelihood he will hear very little another child
says to him. She has to be honest about this, has to remind herself, often, to
remain clear on who Adam is and what he is capable of. “If another child told
him to do something, I don’t think he would. That’s not like Adam.”
“You never know, Cara. He’s changing.
Adam’s changed a lot this year.”
In any other context, she would take
this as a cause for celebration. He’s changing! Even the principal noticed! Now
it only seems worrisome. “Who is the girl?”
“Amelia Best?” she says as a question,
as if hoping this name might ring a bell, which it doesn’t. “She’s new this
year. Fourth grade. She’s been at this school . . . what? Six weeks. Unusually
pretty little girl.
Very . . .” She tries to find the right word. “Blond.”
Adam has disappeared with a notably
pretty little girl? For the first time in years, she thinks of her fifth-grade
fixation on Kevin Barrows and panics. “Are you sure they’re together?”
“We don’t know. We know Adam better
than we know her. We noticed Adam was missing first, because it’s so unlike him.
He’s so compliant these days that when he didn’t line up at the first whistle,
Sue knew something was wrong and called the office right away.”
“Is it possible an older kid came over
from the high school? Or middle school?”
Margot presses her fingertips
together. “Theoretically, they’re not allowed, but it’s possible.” The middle
school sits within viewing distance of the elementary school—up a hill, with
some soccer fields in between. “So I’m afraid I have to ask—where is Adam’s
father?”
Cara looks up. She hasn’t expected
this. “He’s not . . . in the picture.” This is her standard answer, the one
nobody ever presses her past.
“Right, I know that, but where is he?
I’m only asking because the police have asked several times. Apparently, an
absent father is the first place they look.”
Cara feels her mouth go dry. “I don’t
know who his father is . . . exactly.”
Margot raises her eyes in surprise.
“Oh. So he’s never been in the picture?”
“No. He wouldn’t know.”
“At all? Anything about Adam? There’s
no chance he’s involved in this?”
Cara shakes her head. “None.”
Margot holds up her hand. “That’s all
I need to know.” She looks out the window of her office, as if she’s
contemplating going out there right now, telling someone this. Then she turns
back, with a new thought: “Do you think if Adam was out on the playground, he
could have heard a radio, maybe, playing in the woods?”
Cara’s stomach begins to pound, like a
second heart. Let him not be in the woods, she prays. “Yes,” she says softly.
“He could have heard something no one else did.”
Excerpt from EYE CONTACT by Cammie McGovern. Reprinted by arrangement with Viking, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., from EYE CONTACT Copyright (c) Cammie McGovern, 2006
Fearless, gripping, at once darkly funny and tender, spanning three continents and numerous lives, Americanah is a richly told story set in today's globalized world.
The story of an American family, middle class in middle America, ordinary in every way but one. But that exception is the beating heart of this extraordinary novel.
The best book I've read in a very long time and the first ever Bo Caldwell novel for me. I'd never before read anything about missionaries to China,...
read more
With a poetic voice, Ratner plunges us into this personal trial of a royal family wrenched from their home in Phnon Penh, Cambodia, during the late...
read more
First time novelist Vaddey Ratner captured my heart and senses in this novel based on her childhood in Cambodia. Her story transcends any news story...
read more
Amazon cuts off 5200 affiliates in Minnesota(Jun 19 2013) With Minnesota's online sales tax law due to take effect July 1, Amazon has played a familiar card by cutting ties with 5,200 members of its Associates...
Full Story
