Fire

The News Never Lies

The hotel room was horrible, which was pretty much what I’d expected. My sneakers were quiet on the dirty beige carpet as I walked in. The bed springs creaked in rusty protest when I sat down on the bed, which was outfitted in mustard colored sheets with white flowers.

Yuck.  Well…beggars can’t be choosers.

I let out a relieved breath and flopped over onto my back, running my fingers over the threads in the comforter. What did I do now?  I was safe for tonight, but what about after that? I needed to find my aunt before tomorrow night, because there was no way I was going to be able to pay for another night at a hotel. I stared at the ceiling, thinking absently that the stucco was starting to go yellow.

Why couldn’t I be one of those kids who carried a cell phone with them everywhere?  Then I would have wireless internet and I could look up my aunt online.

You have to have money to have a cell phone.

But if she wasn’t in the phone book there was no guarantee I would be able to find her online. But I might as well try, maybe I could find an internet café tomorrow or something. If there was one in this miniscule town.

I grew bored of looking at the ceiling and sat up, spotting the remote control on the night stand beside the bed. Guess there’s nothing else to do, so it’s time for a little network television.

At first the TV just hissed and spat, until I found a channel that actually worked. The news broadcaster – a blonde woman with a thin, pinched looking face – was droning in a flat voice about a liquor store robbery. I turned over and propped my chin in my hands, watching with eyes half open. Local news was better than nothing.

More boring news stories. A nursing home was running out of money. There was a rash of break-ins in a quiet neighborhood….

I let myself drift a little, eyes shutting, listening to the sound of the reporter’s voice.

“…and in another story, a seventeen-year-old girl from Victoria is being listed as a missing person, after burning down her local high school…”

The bed springs screeched as I shot upright, heart suddenly thundering, eyes fixed on the screen. There, beside the reporter in the upper-right hand side of the screen, was a picture of me.

Oh shit!

The picture was a bad one. I had my head tilted to one side as if I was giving the photographer attitude, and my mouth was a flat line, no cheery smile there. The dark hair framing my face was messy and tangled, and dark eyes peered out from beneath too-long bangs, staring cold-heartedly forward. The girl in the photo was hard, stony looking. A face that held no remorse.

Icy fingers had my heart in a strangle-hold, and I stared wide eyed at the screen, struggling to catch my breath. They were making me look heartless. They were making me look crazy.

I remembered that picture. It was a school photo taken last year. That day was blazed into my memory forever because I’d had a screaming fight with dad that morning, and virtually as soon as I’d walked into the school they were pulling us all aside to do photos. So of course, I’d sat there staring bleakly at the camera, making awful faces whenever they’d asked me to smile. Finally they’d settled on a blank expression, stating that it was better than a grimace.

So now here I was on TV, in all my sulky glory.

Crap! Why couldn’t I have smiled that day?

The news reporter was still talking, her straight rows of white teeth flashing behind cherry lips, perfectly plucked brows creasing in fake concern, “Jessica Parker has been missing for a full day, and is wanted for questioning. If you see her you can call the police hotline. She is unarmed, but possibly dangerous.”