Even I found it hard to believe, but Jake and I had once been best friends. Mum got to know his mum, Sue, when they realized they were living one house apart and both expecting babies around the same time; me at the end of October and Jake at the beginning of November.
They began having coffee together, and when we would both kick at the same time, they used to joke that we were trying to talk to each other. I arrived on my due date and Jake apparently fidgeted constantly, driving his mum mad, until he was born ten days later. Sue used to tell that story every time I saw her.
“He was so keen to meet you, weren’t you, Jakey? Ten days he had to wait though! Ten days before he could meet his new best friend.”
Our mums carried on meeting up while we laid in our bouncy chairs, apparently babbling to each other, but then, over the weeks, Sue realized that something wasn’t quite right with Jake. I thrived and outgrew my onesies, whereas he struggled to put on any weight and his skin was constantly red and sore. After months of hospital visits, the doctors discovered that he had a ton of allergies. Not long after that Jake and Leo’s dad left, leaving Sue alone and on constant alert in case her son came into contact with anything deadly.
When we started school it became clear that for his entire education he was going to be haunted by a bright yellow medical bag that followed him wherever he went. The other kids were fascinated at first.
“What’s in that bag, Jake?”
“How many needles are in there?”
“Is it really true that you could die if you ate the wrong thing?”
But after a while the novelty wore off and Jake’s allergies and raw skin made him a target. He turned up at birthday parties with his own specially prepared parcel of food, his mum terrified that a stray nut might have accidentally brushed against the cheese sandwiches and he’d go into anaphylactic shock. As soon as the adults were out of the way, the snide comments would start.
“You eating your baby food again, Jakey-boy?”
I’d give him a smile. Not quite sticking up for him, but at least letting him know I wasn’t siding with them, and anyway, I’d already started hanging around with Tom more, so we weren’t as good friends as we used to be.
Things got worse for him in fifth grade when the whole grade went on a trip to a London museum. As we filed onto the bus I saw there was an empty seat next to Jake, as usual. The understanding was that if you sat too close to him, then you could catch his scaly skin. I’m pretty sure nobody actually believed this, but no one was brave enough to say that.
“Matt! You can sit here if you want,” Jake said, his eyes pleading with me as I edged down the aisle. Tom was already in the backseat, beckoning me over.
What I should have done was dive into the seat beside Jake and prove to everyone that it was fine. There really wasn’t anything contagious about him.
But I didn’t.
“Sorry, Jake. I said I’d sit with Tom.”
I kept my face blank and carried on walking.
Everyone was chattering with excitement as we pulled onto the highway when our teacher, Mrs. Chambers, suddenly heaved herself up out of her seat, making the bus tilt to the left.
“Oh my God! Driver, turn around! I’ve forgotten Jake’s medical bag.”
A united groan rumbled around the bus as we returned to school and waited for Mrs. Chambers to heave herself down the steps, get herself to the school office, unlock a filing cabinet, clamber back onto the bus, and throw the despised yellow bag into an overhead locker.
The bus pulled away as Mrs. Chambers edged herself along the aisle, her large bosom leaning over Jake.
“There’s no need to panic—we’ve got your medicine and EpiPen now, okay? Off we go, driver! We’ll still be there in time for lunch!”
I looked along the gap in between the seats and the windows; I could see Jake, two rows ahead, slumped with his head resting against the glass.
“Why do you have to spoil everything, Jake?”
“That stupid bag! Haven’t you grown out of it by now?”
That September we started middle school and Jake and I were put into different classes, so I didn’t see him much anymore. I hung around with Tom, and Jake surrounded himself with some horrible kids from older years and gained some kind of admiration by becoming the school rebel. I regularly saw him slouched on the desk outside the principal’s office, picking at the dried flakes of skin on his forehead and jutting out a foot every now and then to try and trip someone up. I guess in a weird way, he’d stopped being bullied by becoming the bully.
Monday, July 28th. 6:14 p.m. Office/nursery.
People known to be at home at the time of Teddy’s disappearance:
Mr. Charles
Casey
Hannah
Sue Bishop
Old Nina
Gordon and Penny
Claudia
People known to be out:
Sheila and Brian Corbin (working)
Leo Bishop (working)
Mr. Jenkins (jogging)
People unaccounted for:
Jake
Melody
I stared at the names as I tapped my pencil on the desk. It didn’t look like much, but it was a start. Teddy couldn’t have gone far on his own—I was certain of it. If he’d wandered off, surely they would have found him by now?
I looked out on the cul-de-sac as the police bustled around, busy gathering evidence to try and piece together the mystery of what had happened to the little boy.
But they didn’t know the neighborhood like I did. They didn’t see the things I saw.
I looked down at the pile of pink petals that Teddy had been picking, now gathered in a small mound by the gatepost, and I knew what I was going to do.
I was going to work out who took Teddy Dawson.