Missing People
On my hands and knees, I watched Kimberly until she vanished around the point. Then I stood up, brushed the sand off my body, and started trudging back to Billie and Connie. Billie was a couple of hundred yards away from me, Connie another hundred yards or so behind her mother.
The way we were separated, any one of us could’ve gotten picked off. Keeping an eye on the edge of the jungle, I quickened my pace.
Connie made no attempt to join us. She just stood where she’d stopped, and watched.
When I got within speaking range of Billie, I started shaking my head.
“You almost had her,” Billie said.
“It only looked that way. She slowed down to let me get close.”
“I can’t believe she just ran off and left us.”
“She wants to go on by herself.”
Billie handed the ax to me. “We can’t let her.”
“We can’t stop her,” I pointed out.
“But we can join her.”
“I guess so. If we can find her.”
“She’s on her way to the lagoon,” Billie said. “We’ll just go there.”
We started walking toward Connie.
“What route should we take?” I asked.
“What do you think?” She wasn’t being sarcastic; she was asking my advice.
“Well, we could circle around through the jungle, but that’s what Kimberly’s probably doing. I don’t think we’d have any luck intercepting her, either. It’d be too easy for her to sneak past us. So maybe we oughta just go ahead and make a direct approach to the lagoon.”
“Go straight up the stream?”
“Yeah. That’d be the quickest way to get there. We might even reach the lagoon ahead of her.”
Billie made a rueful smile. “Ahead of her? Think we wanta do that?”
“If we’re careful.”
“I’d hate for us to get attacked without Kimberly around to help.”
I shrugged. “We can probably handle it. I mean, we’re talking about Wesley and Thelma. Unless they take us completely by surprise…”
“What gives?” Connie called to us.
“Kimberly doesn’t want us in her way,” I explained.
“Is she still going to the lagoon?”
“Guess so.”
“Good. We can go back to camp now, right?”
“Sort of,” I said.
“What do you mean, sort of?”
“We’ll go back,” Billie said, “but then we’re heading straight up the stream.”
“Oh, really?”
“That’s the idea,” Billie told her.
“I’ve got a better idea,” Connie said. “Let’s not, and say we did.”
We reached Connie. Then the three of us started walking back toward camp.
“I mean,” Connie said, “Kimberly obviously doesn’t want us with her. Shouldn’t we do what she wants, and stay out of it?”
“She’d be outnumbered two to one,” I pointed out.
“That’s just assuming Wesley hasn’t already bought the farm.”
“Even if he has, what’s to stop Thelma from jumping her?”
Connie smirked at me. “You think Kimberly can’t take Thelma?”
“Sure, in a fair fight. But maybe she gets jumped from behind. Thelma almost nailed me. She isn’t that easy.”
“Well, she knew which buttons to push on you, didn’t she?”
“There’s no point arguing,” Billie broke in. “We’re going up to the lagoon, and that’s final.”
“Is it?”
“Yeah, it is.”
“We’ll see about that.”
Billie gave her an annoyed glance, but said nothing. For a while after that, none of us spoke.
We were nearly back to our camp when Connie said to her mother, “It sure is nice to know you care more about Kimberly than you do about me.”
“Don’t give me that,” Billie said.
“I’ve got a splitting headache—and my shoulder’s killing me. I’m an absolute wreck, but you’re gonna make me hike all the way up to the lagoon just to help Kimberly—who doesn’t even want our help.”
“But maybe she needs it.”
“Shit, she ran away from us. Why should we wipe ourselves out when she doesn’t even… ?”
“You know why,” Billie told her.
“I do? Really? That’s news to me.”
“She’s your sister, for one thing.”
“My half-sister.”
“Oh, that’s nice. Very nice. If your father could hear you say that…”
“Well, he can’t. And I don’t appreciate you throwing him in my face all the time.”
“He’s your father and Kimberly’s.”
“Big deal.”
“If you don’t come with us,” Billie said, “I can’t go. I’m not about to leave you by yourself.”
“Fine.”
“You have to do this for her.”
“Yeah? Do I? And what’d she ever do for me?”
They glowered at each other.
“Practically raised you, maybe?” Billie said.
“Oh, for Godsake…”
“Stayed home instead of going away to college. Because of you.”
“She didn’t have to do that.”
“No, she didn’t have to. She wanted to.”
“Didn’t wanta miss out on all those fine opportunities to boss me around.”
I couldn’t help it. I asked, “Why didn’t Kimberly go away to college?”
“She wanted to stay with the family,” Billie explained. “She never came straight out and said so, but that was the reason. We certainly could’ve afforded to send her anywhere, and she had the grades. I think it was almost entirely because of Connie.”
“My fault.” Connie raised her hand.
“Not your ‘fault.’ You were… ten or eleven at the time. When Kimberly was just about your age, a year or two older, maybe—that’s when Thelma went off to college. Kimberly always… She loved Thelma so much. It hurt her so much when Thelma left home.” Billie’s eyes filled with tears. She sniffed, wiped her eyes, and said to Connie, “She just couldn’t… put you through that. You two were so close. She knew how you would miss her.”
Now, tears began to glimmer in Connie’s eyes. “So it was my fault.”
“Don’t be silly. She loved you, that’s all. She didn’t want to leave you without your big sister. And she would’ve missed you too much.” Billie looked at me and wiped her eyes. “That’s why,” she said.
I came out with a lame, “Oh. Just wondering.”
Billie was done crying, but Connie kept it up for a few more minutes. When she finished, she sniffed and
