to telephoning down to the veterinarian’s office.
“I haven’t seen Willie Lee,” the young receptionist at the veterinarian’s told her. “And Doc Lindsey has been out inoculatin’ cattle since before noon.”
The principal, with a sinking feeling, went along the corridors of her small school, peeking into each classroom, searching faces, hoping, praying with hands clasping and unclasping, for Willie Lee to appear.
In her heart she knew that Willie Lee had escaped the school grounds a second time, but she did not want to think of such a failure on the part of one of her teachers. Or herself. And truly, she didn’t want anything to happen to the child.
She did wish he could go to another school.
At last, with pointy shoulders slumping, she broke down and spoke over the school intercom: “Attention, teachers and students. Anyone who has seen Willie Lee James since lunch recess, please come to the office.”
In Ms. Norwood’s fourth-grade class, Corrine Pendley heard the announcement of her cousin’s name. Face jerking upward, she stared at the speaker above the classroom door. Then she saw all eyes turn to her.
Her face burned. Bending her head over her notebook, she focused her eyes on the lined paper in front of her and concentrated on being invisible.
The teacher had called her name several times before Corrine was jolted into hearing by Christy Grace poking her in the back with a pencil. “She’s callin’ you.”
Corrine looked up at the teacher, who asked if Corrine had seen Willie Lee. Corrine said, “No, ma’am.” She wondered at the question. Maybe the teacher thought she was a little deaf. Or else she thought Corrine would lie.
Why didn’t everybody mind their own business and quit looking at her?
Bending her head over her math problems, she made the numbers carefully, trying to concentrate on them, but thinking about her cousin. Willie Lee was only eight, and little for his age.
He was slow, but this did not mean he didn’t know about some things. One thing he seemed to know was how to get away when he wanted to. Corrine wished she had gone with him.
Her anxiety increased. She felt responsible. She should have been looking out for him. She was older, and he didn’t have any brothers or sisters, just like she didn’t.
All manner of dark fantasies paraded through her mind. She hoped he didn’t get run over. Or fall in a muddy creek and drown. Or get picked up by a stranger.
Her pencil point broke, startling her.
Carefully, she laid the pencil down, got up and walked as quietly as possible, so as not to become too visible, to the teacher’s desk to ask in a hurried whisper to go to the rest room.
In the tiled room that smelled strongly of bleach, she used the toilet and then she washed her hands. She kept thinking about the front doors. When she came out of the rest room, she turned left instead of right and walked down the hall and right out the double doors. She did this without thinking at all, just following an urge inside.
All the way down the front walk, she felt certain a yell was going to hit her in the back. But it didn’t. Then she was running free, running from school and then running from herself, scared to death to have done something that was very wrong and would make everyone mad at her.
She would have to find Willie Lee, she thought. If she found him, no one would be mad at her. The sun felt warm on her head and the breeze cool to her face.
At that very instant, when finding her cousin and being a hero seemed totally possible, she looked down the street and saw her Aunt Marilee’s brilliant white Jeep Cherokee coming.
The Jeep’s chrome shone so brightly, Corrine had to squint. Still, she saw Aunt Marilee behind the wheel. Corrine stopped in her tracks, and her life seemed to drain right out her toes.
Likely she was going to get it now. And she deserved it. She never could seem to do things right.
The vehicle pulled up beside her, and the tinted window slid down. Aunt Marilee said, “Where are you goin’?”
Corrine, who could not read her aunt’s even tone or blank expression, said slowly, “They announced ‘bout Willie Lee being missin’. I was goin’ to find him.”
Her aunt said, “Well, that makes two of us. Get in. I have to go see the principal first.”
Corrine opened the door and slipped into the seat in a manner as if to disappear. Carefully, she closed the door beside her. In the short drive to the school parking lot, she tried to read her aunt’s attitude but could not. She had never seen her aunt look like this. She thought desperately of what her aunt might be thinking, in order to be ready for what to say or do.
But all Aunt Marilee said to her when they got to the school was, “Come on back in with me. You’ll need to get your stuff from class.”
Aunt Marilee went to Corrine’s class with her and told Ms. Norwood that she was taking Corrine home early. Corrine, who was used to moving from an entire apartment in just a few minutes and therefore was not in the habit of accumulating needless trifles, stuffed all her books and notebooks from her desk into her backpack in scarcely a minute. As she lugged it to the classroom door, she could feel everyone looking at her, but it didn’t matter. She was leaving, at least for today.
The heels of Aunt Marilee’s Western boots echoed sharply on the corridor floor all the way back to the principal’s office, where Aunt Marilee said to her, “Sit right here. I don’t want to lose you, too.”
Without a word, Corrine sat. Aunt Marilee disappeared into the principal’s office.
The secretary, who had bleached blond hair teased up to amazing heights, looked at her. Corrine looked around the room and swung her feet that only brushed the floor.
Aunt Marilee had not fully closed the door, but even if she had, the voices would probably have been heard. Aunt Marilee had the furious tone she used when she and Corrine’s mother got into their fights. Corrine imagined her aunt was standing how she did when she meant business: feet slightly apart and eyes like laser rays.
Aunt Marilee wanted to know how people supposedly educated in child development could not manage to keep track of one little boy who was diagnosed as learning disabled and not able to think above five years old. The principal answered that the school was not a prison and did not have guards.
“We are trying to mainstream Willie Lee to the best of our ability,” the principal said. “We do not lose normal children, who are taught to participate.”
Corrine held her breath, afraid that her Aunt Marilee was going to reveal finding Corrine halfway down the block. And maybe, since she had gotten away—since she had even attempted to leave—maybe she was not quite normal.
“We are doing the best we can with your children, Mrs. James,” the principal said in a low tone.
Corrine saw the big-haired secretary’s eyes cut to her, as if thinking, You’re one of those troublemakers. Corrine swung her feet and looked at the wall, feeling the empty hole in her chest grow until it seemed to swallow her.
“Arguing will not find Willie Lee. I apologize. Now, tell me when and where my son was last seen.” Aunt Marilee’s voice, sounding so very calm and firm, enabled Corrine to draw a breath.
“I’ll tell you,” Aunt Marilee said when they got back in the Cherokee, Aunt Marilee slamming the door so hard the entire vehicle rattled. “Willie Lee knew exactly what he was doin’. I don’t care how dumb people think he is.”
“He is only dumb in some things,” Corrine said.
Aunt Marilee didn’t seem to hear her. She started off fast, gazing hard out the window. “Oh, Willie Lee,” she said under her breath, and for an instant Corrine thought her aunt might cry. This was very unnerving to