Out of Breath

Chapter18

In second period, they call me to the principal's office. As I walk to his office, I rehearse my speech about my alibies so he can't connect me to the fish heads. But what he has to say shocks me.

"I heard about the incident with Raven's underwear yesterday."

My muscles relax. He hasn't put me on the stand just yet. "I wanted to talk with Raven today, but we can't find him. I called him down from first period, but he never made it. His teacher said he left the classroom to come here, but no one has seen him since. Do you by chance, know where Raven is?" Ned Flander's look-alike actually seems concerned. I didn't know he had empathy.

Fear arrests me. This is not what I expected to hear at all.

Where is Raven? I can't breathe. I can't think. I pull my inhaler out. I take a puff, but no medicine sprays out. It is empty.

"Would he have walked home?"

"No!" I shout. "We live fifteen miles away. There is no way he would walk. Besides, he doesn't know the way."

"Are you sure?"

"YES!"

"Do you have any idea where he would be?"

"Maybe the bathrooms." I can't think of where he would be.

"We have searched all bathrooms. We have searched the locker room. We can't find him. We have tried calling your parents, but we don't have any phone number on file."

"My parents won't have him."

"Are you sure?"

I guess I am not for sure. Maybe Terry came and hauled him off to a home for dumb people like he had threatened, but that is way unlikely. I stand, sit, stand. I am restless. Where is my brother?

The principal calls the police in, and I give them a description of Raven. Thankfully, it isn't the cop who pulled Butter and me over.

I am told to go back to class, but I can't. I wander the halls, looking for any sign of my brother. I pass the principal several times, but he doesn't tell me to get back to class.

After lunch, once the halls are empty, I go into the vacant gym. I search behind the bleachers, and then I drop to my knees and sob.

Maybe the Dark Skitler got him. He always asks about Raven. I can hardly breathe. I wheeze and must focus on belly breathing, an exercise the doctors taught me to relax my lungs. I decide to do something I haven't done in a long time.

I wipe the tears from my eyes, bow my head, and say a prayer. I don't pray to Terry's God. I don't trust him. I pray to Ma's God. One would think they were the same God, but Ma act's on God's word with love. Terry acts on God's word with the whip.

As soon as I say Amen, the gym doors open, and two German shepherd police dogs come in. The dogs pull two officers straight to me.

"Are you Raven?" an officer asks me. They are not the ones I talked to earlier.

"No," I say, coming out from behind the bleachers.

"I thought we found him. Athena is rarely wrong," one officer says to the other. "What are you doing sluffing behind the bleachers?" he asks me.

"I am Raven's brother," I respond. "I was looking for him back here." I hope they can't tell I have been crying.

"Do you have any idea where he could be?"

There is some dust on my head. I ruffle my hair to shake it out. "I already told the officers everything I know. Except, I had one thought," I said sheepishly. I feel stupid even mentioning it.

"Tell us."

"Maybe a Skitler got him."

"Skitler?" The officer wrinkles his brow in confusion.

"It's a clan on the east of the river," the other responds. He is a tall and dangly officer.

They both give me a strange look. "Why would you think that?"

It is such a long story, and I don't want to tell them.

"Wait, your last name is Vandukel." The tall officer recollects. "Oh, my goodness. I was on the case probably fifteen years ago when your father disappeared. Oh my, you might be on to something. Your brother was the baby involved in the case, wasn't he? And there were Skitlers involved as well."

My nerves scream. They can't take this. I thought mentioning the Skitlers was a dumb thought, but there is validity to it. He knows what happened to my pa. He knows our story.

"Listen, son. We have three more halls to search, then we have scoured the entire school. Come with us, and after we finish those halls, we will look more closely into this Skitler theory."

The officers walk out of the gym. My legs are weak, and I can hardly move. I am out of breath. My lungs need my inhaler, but it is empty.

We search the first hall, and as we make our way to the second hall, the dogs perk up. They are onto something. They pull the officers to Raven's locker.

"That is just his locker," I say.

"Well, maybe there are some clues in it," the officer says. "Why don't you get the janitor and we will open it up."

Surely the school has already searched his locker, but maybe they didn't know what they were looking for. Maybe Raven still has his onyx stone on him. I check with him almost every day to make sure he has it, but I forgot to check today. He better have.

I return to his locker with the janitor and principal. The dogs are crazy in front of it. The principal opens the locker. I am aghast.