A/N:  I actually wrote this story as part of a mystery unit assignment in English class in eighth grade.  It’s…interesting.  A chimpanzee could have figured this thing out…oh well, if you listen to my ninth grade science teacher, high-schoolers might as well be chimpanzees.  Anyway…

Disclaimer:  Hey!  There is no disclaimer!  I actually wrote and posted something totally original!

A/N:  There are a lot of chapter divisions in here, so I just split up chapters in convenient places in the story’s plot and gave each section an overarching “chapter title.” 

Chapter One

I'm not going to try and make anybody believe that I'm the next Sherlock Holmes or something.  It was really all of us together who figured it out.  And we were incredibly, extremely lucky. 

              My friends and I have always been close, ever since we met each other, which was in second grade.  Their names are Melonie, Mike, and Tim.  My name is Carrie.

            The town we live in is pretty small, not much to look at, really.  The biggest crime around here is usually someone stealing the local Burger King sign and putting it on top of McDonald's or something.  No one was ready for what happened this fateful day.  Not even the police.

                The first word I got of it was at school, from a guy named Greg.  He's a regular loudspeaker for meaningless gossip, so that's what I assumed this was.

            "Hey," he walked up to me in the hall, as I was getting my locker opened.  "Hear what happened to Mike?"

            "No," I told him.  "Did he finally get a haircut?"  Mike is currently engrossed in growing his hair as long as he can manage.  So far it's past his ears.

            "Nope,"  Greg looked around the hallway to see if anyone was eavesdropping, and leaned close to my ear. "He's missing."

            That ground my mind to a halt.  As I'd said, Mike is one of my close group of friends.  "What?"

            "You heard me.  Missing.  They don't know whether he ran away or what."  Then Greg left, looking for someone else to spurt his story to, while I leaned against my locker, thoughts swirling like a tornado in my brain.  It had to be overblown.  Had to be.  Mike was not the type to run away from home.  Greg had heard Melonie talk about him getting home late or something, and jumped to conclusions for the benefit of the story's shock factor.  Trying to convince myself of that, I closed my locker, and walked to first period.  I was so wound up, I forgot my books.

Chapter Two

            Mike wasn't in my morning classes that day.  That didn't help my mood.  What if Greg was right?  I had to know.  I don't see Melonie at all during the day until lunch.  I have one morning class with Tim,  but Melonie was the one to ask about this, since she is Mike's twin sister.  Did I forget to mention that?  Sorry.

            When I got to the cafeteria, I looked around for Melonie.  We usually sit at a particular table together, so my first glance was there.  I saw her walking across the cafeteria to the table, her head down, though I doubt she was enjoying the aroma of cafeteria food.  She looked upset.

            "Melonie!  Hey, Melonie!  Wait up,"  I called out across the cafeteria.  I sat down next to her at the table.  Melonie looked up at me, and by her expression, my fears were confirmed.  Something really bad had happened.

             Melonie looks just like her brother, the same shape of the eyes, an only slightly smaller nose.  Their eyes are both a clear green that is shocking at first, especially since their eyes are so large compared with their face.  They both have red hair, but Mike's is more of a coppery auburn, while Melonie's is a soft strawberry-blonde.

            Melonie's large eyes looked at me, and I saw fear and grief in them.

            "Did you hear?"  she asked me.

            "Somewhat.  Greg told me,"  I responded.

            She rolled her eyes, but a trace of a smile graced her lips.  Then she became somber again.  "He's missing.  he was at the mall with Tim last night, but  he never came home.  Tim says he saw him leave the mall, but that's it."

            "Have you called the police?"

            "Have we?  Who haven't my  parents called?"  she responded.  "We're frantic."

            "This isn't a bad neighborhood, you know.  Not gang territory or anything.  I mean, what could have happened to him?"

            Had I said too much?  Melonie's great green eyes began to water.    "I don't know,"  she said.

            Tim slid into the seat across from us.  He looked at Melonie with sympathy, and a trace of guilt in his cool gray eyes.  He felt responsible He'd seen Mike last night, the last of us who had.

            I don't think any of us felt like eating that lunch period.  Tim poked at his entree with a fork, and I got rid of my lunch early on.  Melonie was too brooding to notice her food, so I took her tray for her, too.      

            We trudged together to sixth period math, which we have together.  Mike was in this class, too.  I didn't dare to look at his empty seat.  We all knew it was there.

            Where was Mike?

                                                *                       *                       *

            Tim, Melonie, and I met in the back parking lot of the school after school had ended.  I think we all just unconsciously needed each other.  None more than Melonie.  We walked the four blocks to Mike and Melonie's house, the afternoon sun in our eyes and turning Melonie's and Tim's hair into flames of gold light.  My own, dark hair, fell around my face.  We didn't talk very much. 

            When we reached Melonie's house, we went inside to the kitchen, which has one of those counters with stools.  Melonie fixed us some bowls of ice cream.  We ate in silence.  When I had about finished my bowl, I cleared my throat, unsure of how to approach The Subject.

            "So...so.  What do the police think?"  I ventured.

            "Truancy.  A few are toying with the notion of foul play, but not wholeheartedly."  She looked up and met my eyes.  There was a force behind her words.  "Michael wouldn't run away."

            "We know he wouldn't," said Tim, who up until now had stayed silent about the whole thing.  "Listen, what are the police doing about it?"

            Melonie gave a snort.  "The truth is, we really don't know.  I guess they're up at the mall looking for clues or whatever...you'd think they could at least tell us."

            "Maybe, maybe not," Tim said philosophically.

            "Wanna go and see?"  I asked.

            Tim looked at Melonie worriedly.  Would she want to?  Was this too much?

            "Sure," she said, and that was it.  Tim gave me an annoyed but relieved expression.  Then we went to the mall.

            It's five blocks to the mall in the opposite direction from the school, four blocks past my house.  Our end of the town is shaped kind of like a T, with the mall and the middle school on opposite ends of one main road.  The school is situated at the intersection of this street and another main street that's like the top of the T. 

            Anyway, we walked along the main road to the mall.  It took about fifteen minutes before we saw the large complex.  We walked across the parking lot, but-

            "No cops,"  Tim said.  He was right.  There wasn't a police officer in sight.

            "Let's walk around to the other side,"  I said.  "Maybe they're over there."

            "He left from this entrance," Tim asserted.

            We lifted feet to the other side of the mall.  Nothing.  We walked back to the front.  A full three-sixty, and no one was there investigating.

            "This stinks," Melonie exclaimed, beginning to get angry.  "My brother is missing and there's not one stinking officer in the whole area?"

            "Maybe they didn't find anything,"  Tim offered.

            "Well maybe they just didn't look hard enough,"  Melonie raged.  I didn't blame her.

            "Even so, It should have taken them longer than this, shouldn't it have?" I reasoned.  "Maybe they just figure he ran away from home and is out there somewhere getting ready to hop train for Dallas or somewhere, so they don't bother."

            Melonie's eyes bored into me.  I finally had said too much. 

"Still, they'd want to know which direction he went, wouldn't they?"  Tim said, trying to bring us back to a less divisive subject.

            "Maybe we ought to look-" I cut off short when I realized that I was telling us what to do.  Melonie wasn't too happy with me, and she was Mike's brother.  Tim obviously had the same feelings, because as soon as the words were out of my mouth, he turned to me with an impatient scowl. 

            I couldn't look at Melonie, so I spoke from behind my back.  "I mean, if it's okay with you..."

            Melonie surprised me by touching my arm.  She's not a lets-get-close-and-ride-this-out type of person.  "Mike is my brother.  No matter what kind of problems we had, we could always help each other out with them.  We hated each others guts a lot, but we were always there for each other.  I'm not there for him now.  And I need to be."  She looked up at me. "Let's go find him.  We owe it to him."

            It was possibly one of the most touching things I'd ever heard in my life.  My own eyes started to water, and I knew Melonie wasn't that mad at me anymore.  She was also right.  Mike had to be found.

            "Okay," I said.  "Tim, where exactly did you see him come out?"

            "Right door.  I didn't see which direction he went when he went outside,"  Tim told us.

            Melonie got up and stood by Tim.  "Is there any way he left footprints or something?  It was muddy last night,"  she asked.

            "If he stayed on the sidewalk he probably didn't," I answered.

            "What if he went through the alley like he does sometimes?" Tim said.  "He didn't necessarily stay along the path.  How would we know?"

            "Let's walk over there," I said.  "Maybe we'll see something."        

            We all did.  The alley is just a short length of pavement between the cinema and the main mall building, which they say will someday be made into part of the mall.  Whatever.  Sorry, but I don't think it's gonna happen.  The alley is maybe four feet wide and ten long, not that important. 

            There was a lot of trash here, since nobody really cared what this hidden place looked like.  Don't ask me why Mike had such an avid fascination with sneaking through this place.  Maybe because of the fact that it is hidden.  Maybe because you're not supposed to.  Anyway, we trooped through it, looking in vain for clues.  When we reached the other side, we all leaned against the brick wall of the mall in defeat. 

            "Nothing," Melonie said.  "Dang, Mike, why couldn't you have gotten snatched where somebody saw you?"

            I glanced around our not-so-cheerful surroundings, managing for once to ignore the beautiful hills next to the mall.  There was a road that wound around from the mall to our neighborhood and gave a good view of the vista, but it was long, so we'd decided not to take it on the way over. 

            There were wads of gum and even more unpleasant things everywhere on the blacktop around us, and even something that looked like green play-doh.  Yuck.  I looked closer at it.  Hey.  There was a shoe print in it.  Could have been anybody, really, but...  There was a message in the shoe print. 

                                    Da  Man

            There was only one guy in the whole world who would cut 'da man' into the soles of his new Nikes. 

            "Hey!  Hey, I found something,"  I called out to the others.  We all crowded around the green stuff.

            "It's him!  He came this way,"  Melonie exclaimed.  "Don't worry, Mike, we're on your trail."

            "And we called him a moron,"  Tim commented.  "Now who's glad he did it?"

            I arced an eyebrow in his direction.  "Really?  I seem to remember you doing all the name-calling."

            Tim shrugged.  "Yeah, well."

Chapter Three

"Well,"  Melonie summarized.  "We know he came back here, but we're still not sure when or why."

            I studied the footprint.  It wasn't much.  Just a glob of green play-doh with 'da mad' stamped into it.  I had read several mystery stories, and they always got a lot from footprints...  I analyzed the glob.

            "The print's imbedded shallowly.  Dither he wasn't striding hard, or-"  I looked down.  The front side of the shoe-mark was a little bit deeper.  he'd had his weight on the balls of his feet.  So.  Running.

            "He was running out of the alley," I told the others.  "The print's not that deep.  Too shallow for someone to have stepped on this stuff."

            I prodded the stuff with my foot.  It was hardened, but slippery.  Like it had been moistened, then dried.

            "Hey.  It rained last night, around five, right?"  I asked Melonie.  She agreed.  "If Mike left the mall at six-" I looked at Tim, who nodded; "Then it would have been kind of wet out here.  He ran the back way, maybe heading for the back road that goes through all the fields.  The play-doh was moistened by the rain, so his shoe made a shallow print.  Then the play-doh hardens again.  The rain was over at about five-ten, so the play-doh would have dried out quickly.  Mike had to have come directly here."

            "And you got all this from a shoe print in green glop?"  Tim asked. 

            I was on a roll.  "He seems to have been going quickly, so that he might not have felt himself step on this stuff.  The direction the print is facing is probably the direction he continued to go.  To the back road."

            Melonie nodded her head. "Makes sense.  Mike liked to take that road.  So whatever happened probably happened there."

            "He may not even have been kidnapped,"  Tim pointed out.  "He may have just been hurt or something, and unable to get home." 

            Melonie's tone took on urgency.  "Then we'd better get over there fast!  I hope Mike's okay."

            We took off at a jog to the other street, running towards Heaven-knows-what to find Mike.  Or at least find out what happened to him.  We'd been on this road together plenty of times, so we kind of knew what places to watch for.

            When you first get on the road you're above ground level, with a guard rail before the drop-off.  We looked down the hill to make sure no one was down there.  It was disturbing work.  Once the avenue reaches ground level, you're thrust into a finger of the forest that borders the town on the west.  We spread out to either side of the road in the trees, calling Mike's name.  Why hadn't the police been out doing this?

            After about ten minutes we were out of the forest, and fields of grass surrounded the road, rolling hills.  In about five minutes the grass got taller, and we could just barely see over it on the roadside.  We spread out in the grass again, keeping sight of the road.

            "Watch out for the cave,"  someone called out to me.  It had been town myth that there was a cave somewhere just out of town, but no one was totally sure of the story.  Turns out, there really is a cave, but it's well hidden by the tall grass, about a hundred feet from the road.  We had stumbled upon it, and, like total idiots, lowered Tim in to look at it.  The cave opening opened straight up, and it was a five-foot drop to the bottom, where the caverns start.  Intrigued(and naive) we all dropped in and looked at the cramped but glorious space.  Then it occurred to us to try and get back out.  We couldn't, of course.  Finally, I had scrambled up the bank (I'm the smallest) and helped Tim out, then we both helped Melonie out, and all three of us pulled Mike out, who was then the tallest and heaviest of us.  We had gotten home three hours late.  Our parents were furious.  We decided not to go back and explore the cave.  Now I approached the place where I knew it was, a patch of thick grass beside a lone oak tree.  Maybe Mike had foolishly wanted to explore it some more.  I doubted it, but you never knew with him. 

            I carefully approached the opening.

            "Hey, guys," I yelled.  "What if he fell in the cave?"

            They came over to me, looking nervous.  "Are you sure we can get him out if he did," Tim asked.  I pursed my lips.  I hadn't thought of that.  If he was unconscious down there... if he was down there at all. 

            We all knew where the entrance was.  Even if we didn't go into the cave, we trooped up there a lot to talk in the place where the grass is thickest.  I guess we're kind of like little kids with secret fort.  Well, a lot, I guess.

            Anyway, we all crowded around the entrance, looking down into the dank darkness.

            "Mike?" Melonie yelled into the hole, which is about four feet across.

            "Mike? You down there?" Tim echoed.

            "Hello? You okay?" I asked.

            Silence was our answer.  So either he was down there but unable to answer, or he wasn't down there. 

            I squinted into the hole, trying to see if something was in the cave.  I could almost see...Wait! There was something down there.  It was small, white, about the shape of a-of a shoe!

            "There's something down there," I said. "Looks like a shoe."

            Melonie squinted. "Yeah, I see it too.  Is it Mike's?"

            "Only one way to find out," I said.  And I sat up and slid on my rear end into the cave.

Chapter Four

It seemed long for a drop of five feet, and my feet stung when I hit the bottom.  My eyes, unadjusted to the dimness of the cave, couldn't see anything.  I heard the others above me.

            "Carrie, are you nuts?" Melonie yelled down.  "You're crazy!"  she answered her own question.

            "Remember what happened last time?"  that was Tim. 

            "Well, what are we supposed to do?  Tell the police there's a shoe in a cave?  Anyway, I'm already down here."

            "They probably would come,"  Tim retorted.

            I closed my eyes and tried to adjust them to the darkness.  I opened them, and looked around.  The shoe was right in front of me, a Nike.  I picked it up and walked with it to the shaft of light that came down from the entrance.  There was something cut into the sole.  I turned it to the light.  Sure enough, it said 'Da Man.'

            "It's his," I called up.  I looked around the cavern. "He's not down here."

            There was a sound of dripping water in the cave, but  otherwise it was silent down there.  I listened again for any sounds of life, but nothing came. 

            "Here, catch," I called up out of the hole.  I tossed Mike's shoe up into the sunlight.

            "Carrie, I repeat, are you out of your mind?"  Melonie called down as Tim caught the sneaker.  "What if you get stuck down there?  We barely got out last time."

            I guess the thought never really occurred to me that what I was doing was dumb, too.  But then, that's me.  I have many different mind-frames.  They vary often.  One minute: foolish Mike. Next minute: I'll do it too.  Third minute: Am I nuts?

            I approached the wall of the hole.  I found a foothold.  When we all got stuck down there, I was the first to finally make it out.  That was probably because I was, and still am, the smallest member of our group. (Unfortunately, I am also the shortest)  I was able to hold onto a few handholds the others couldn't have.  I had grown some, but I thought I could still make it out.  In how many hours this time? I asked myself.  I started up the wall.  I was about one foot off the cave floor.  Two feet.  Melonie reached down and grabbed my arm.  Tim grabbed my other arm.  With a combination of them pulling and me climbing, I finally emerged from the entrance.  We fell back, breathless from exertion.

            When he had finally caught his breath, Tim said, "That was really stupid, Carrie.  What if we couldn't have gotten you out?"

            "Well, sorry," I said.  I knew I had been foolish, but at least I'd gotten the shoe, right? "But at least we know Mike came be here.  Why would he drop his shoe in the cave?"

            "Maybe it wasn't on purpose.  And if he actually did go into the cave, I don't think he'd be inclined to go gallivanting around down there with one shoe," Melonie said.  She gave me a reproachful look.  "Carrie, I thought you were smarter than that.  I mean, you figure out he went this way, right?  Then you have to go jump in a hole and need our help to get out."

            I looked at the ground, wishing we'd move on to another subject.  How, oh how would I explain this to my folks?  Unless I didn’t' tell them.  But then Melonie would probably tell her parents, and they would tell mine.

            I picked up the shoe from where Tim had laid it on the ground.  I examined it.  It was muddy, but then the cave was muddy, so it had probably been dirtied when it fell down there.  There were pieces of golden grass stuck to it.  So he had gone through the field.  We already knew that.  The questions were, of course, why was Mike near here?  And how did he  lose a shoe?

            "Okay, now we roughly know Mike's path last night.  He goes through the alley, to this road, then he comes up by the cave at some point.  He went through the alley to the road at roughly six-o' clock.  Did he continue to run along the road, or did he slow down and walk some? When was he hurt, or-or whatever happened to him?"  I wasn't sure if I wanted to suggest the possibility of a kidnapping, though it was first and foremost on everyone's minds.

            "Or if he was abducted,"  Tim voiced our fears.  "And why Mike? f And why last night?"

            "You family isn't rich or anything,"  I pointed out.  "I mean, it's not as if you'll be able to pay a million bucks for ransom or anything.  Why Mike?  Or is this just some kook who took a kid randomly?

            "Kook or no kook, I think we have ample reason to fear for the worst,"  Melonie began.  "I mean-"

            BANG!

            "What was that?" I screeched.

            "Gunshot,"  Tim whispered.  "What, you've never heard one before?"

            "Not in a secluded field while investigating a disappearance," I snapped, but also whispered.  "Who's shooting a gun?"

            "Might be a hunter or somebody.  Not necessarily-"  Melonie was again cut off by a shot.

            BANG!

            "Let's check it out,"  I said.

            "Are you serious?"  Melonie demanded, despite her earlier reasoning.  "Someone over there has a gun."

            "Don't do anything else stupid today," Tim said.  That would have really gotten my goat, but at that instant another shot rang out.

            BANG!

            I revised my idea.  "Maybe not.  I mean, unless it's okay with you?..."

            Fat chance.

            "Let's just go,"  Tim said.

            "yeah,"  Melonie echoed.  "Let's go."

            I was inclined to agree.  What was I thinking?  Talk about different mind frames. 

            "Come back tomorrow?"  Tim asked.

            "Call the police,"  I suggested.  "My uncle Sean is on the force.  I could talk to him tonight."

            “Yeah, call your uncle.  He’s cool. He’ll help,”  Melonie said.  My uncle had met all of my friends before, and we’d even shown him around back here in this section of the hills.  He was cool.  He’d want to help as much as he could.  Wouldn’t he?

We all trooped back towards the road, spirits none the brighter for having found another clue.  Once we hit the road we turned towards home, another mile in this direction.  We re-entered the woods, another strip of the forest that went the rest of the length of the road.  A few minutes later, we passed an old gravel driveway.  We saw it every time we came up this way, but this time my eye caught it and stuck.  I made  a few mental calculations, thinking of the visible curve of it from the road.

            "Hey, that driveway,"  I began.

            "Unless this has something to do with The Simpsons last night, I don’t want to hear it,"  Melonie put her hands over her ears.

            Tim turned to look at it, figuring out what I had seen.  "If it deeps on in that same direction, it would be in about the same place we heard the gunshots coming from," he said.

            Melonie pulled her hands away from her ears and looked, too.

            "That doesn't mean that the gunshots are connected with Mike.  Some person lives way back there, likes to hunt or has targets set up."  I reasoned.  "Still, it's a weird coincidence that Mike came this way."

            "Let's just let the police figure it ;out,"  Tim said, which is some of the best advice he's ever given.  Fortunately, once we listened to the police, we decided not to heed it.

Chapter Five

Police Chief Williams is a man of about forty, with close-cropped brown hair and steely blue eyes.  He could at least have worn a pair of shades over them, I thought to myself as Melonie, Tim, and I sat in front of him.  Those eyes can give you the creeps, if he looks at you sternly long enough.  Which he definitely did for us, let me tell you.

            We had just finished telling him the story of how we set out for clues as to what had happened.  He was not happy.

            "Wanting to help your friend is admirable,"  he was saying sternly, "But you don't need to be out where you could get hurt.  Leave that to us."

            "But why weren't there any police officers at the mall?"  Melonie asked.  Why wasn't anyone investigating?"  That's where Mike was seen last."

            Williams sighed.  "We did have people at the mall, but there was simply no evidence to be found.  WE tried to find witnesses, but there were none.  Our force had to respond to a call on the highway between here and Norton, so that's where all out people went."

            Melonie looked down at the floor, obviously not impressed with the answer.  Tim scowled along with her.  Me, I didn’t' know what to do.

            "The shoe found in the cave was disturbing,"  Chief Williams went on.  "But it was not necessarily his, or dropped there by the result of foul play."

I looked up.  "But it was his shoe!  WE told you about the message on the bottom.  IT had to be his."

            Williams actually smiled.  "My son carved something on the bottom of his shoe, too.  Must be a new fad at school.  You don't know who else is doing it."

            I sighed.  Frankie Williams, the copycat.  Of course he'd followed in Mikes' lead.  He always had to be the latest and greatest.  But no  one else I knew of had done it' and no one talked about it, which is usually the first thing people do when they go through with something like carving "Da Man" on the bottoms of their shoes.  I thought  I recalled Frankie saying something about it once.

            "Do you have the shoe with you??"  he asked, just as he got through reaming us for trying to find it.

            "Yeah."

            I dug in my backpack and pulled it out.  I placed it on his desk.  "Thank you,"  he said.  And then we were allowed to leave.

            Once outside again, Melonie, Tim, and I walked home together.

            "That stunk,"  Tim complained.  "He didn’t' believe anything about Mike having gone that way."

            "Well, at least he took the shoe.  It's more than they've tried for,"  Melonie pointed out.  "But it had better be worth the heart attack we had trying to get you out of that cave."

            "I admit, that was dumb," I said.

            "The police tried,"  Tim said.  "There's no reason to point finger this early."

            "Mike could be in Arizona by now and they'd hardly care.  Why are you taking up their side?"  Melonie demanded of Tim.

            "Hey, maybe Tim's right," I stepped in.  "I think they are doing all they can."  I paused. "I also think it's not enough."

            "So, what do we do?"  Tim asked no one in ;particular.

            "Something that will get us in big trouble," Melonie said wryly.

            "Probably,"  I agreed "Mike may be found by the police, and he might not.  Um....did anyone else get a weird feeling at the police station?"

            "Like what?" Melonie asked.

            "Like something was wrong there.  Something just out of reach was wrong, somehow."  I lightened up.  "But it was probably nothing."

            "I kinda got that same feeling,"  Tim said.  "Like there's something wrong.  But, hey, it was just  a feeling."

            "Yeah," I nodded, and tried to convince myself, too.

Chapter Six

Journal: 9-21-99 Search for Mike

1)missing 9-19-99

2)left mall at 6:00 PM

3)footprints suggest went by alley to back road

4)shoe found in cave.  Left shoe, size 8 wide.  Gave shoe to police

5)

Suspects:

1)?

Motive: unclear

            "What'cha doing, Carrie?"  Melonie leaned over my shoulder to read what I was writing.

            "Compiling all we know so far,"  I answered, putting a dot on one of the i's that I'd missed.  "I know it sounds like Ghostwriter or something, but it will help me think straighter."

            It was the next day at lunch, and Tim, Melonie, and I were sitting together once again.  Our spirits were only marginally brighter than yesterday, because now we at least had something to consider.

            Tim looked over.  "So do we actually want to keep looking for him?  Even after the warning we got last night?"

            "Like I said last night," Melonie said.  "We owe it to Mike to find him, in a way.  I know the police say that the best way to help him is to stay out of the way, but..."

            "They do seem to be a little disorganized on the case," I filled in for her.

            "Paul Bunyan's kind of tall, too," Tim replied.  I gave him a look, which he ignored.  "Anyway, we should keep a journal like that,"  he said.  "It really could help us."

            I closed the notebook.  "We gave them the shoe.  maybe they'll know what to do.  maybe they'll figure it out.  Maybe we won't have to do anything."

            I looked up and saw cold stares.  "Look,"  I said, "We might should just let them be for a while.  They don't turn anything up, we try."

            "Cause, we're sure to," Tim said.  I wasn't sure whether he was serious or not.

            It was an uneventful day, the kind that happen all too often.  The kind that can give you a major headache when you think that something could be happening right at that instant that is too huge to miss.  Especially when it involves your friend.  We all walked back to Melonie's house again after school, but decided to change environments, so we scooped up our stuff and trooped over to my house.  It' son the next street over from Melonie's and Mike's, so we could just walk through three backyards and we were there. f We sat in my living room and did homework, then just sat and stared at each other.

            "Well," I finally broke the silence.  "I hope we can get an update on the situation soon.  I am going out of my mind."

            "You and me both,"  Melonie said.

            We continued to sit and stare at the clock, until finally I stood up.  I said, "Why dot' we at least watch TV or something?"

            We dutifully switched on the set and watched a rerun of Family Matters.  It didn’t' help that much.  Urkel just couldn’t' get our minds off The Subject.  At five fifteen my Dad got home and Full House started.  Fifteen minutes into the show, and we'd seen all the TV we'd need for the rest of our lives.  Melonie turned the television off.

            It occurred to me that this was the exact same position we'd been in yesterday at this time.  The thought wasn’t' that comforting.  WE were not anywhere close to helping Mike. 

            I sighed, ran a hand through my hair.  "Okay, now what do we do?"

            Tim slumped against the back of the couch.  "I don't know,"  he said finally.

            None of us did.  We just had to wait.

Chapter Seven  

I dreamed that night.  It's funny, I don't usually remember my dreams.  But this dream I did. 

            Mike was in a room, a dark room with no lights, tied in a chair and gagged.  I had slipped quietly into the room, like a thief in the night.  Melonie was behind me.  We untied Mike, and took off his gag.

            "Man, am I glad to see you guys," he said.  At that instant, light flooded the room, and I whirled around.  A dark figure, Mike's kidnapper, was silhouetted against the blinding light from outside.  We all just stood there, until he made a move into the room.  Then, we scattered.  Melonie to the right , me to the left, Mike straight back.  I found an open window and climbed through.  It was evidently a one-story house, because I found I could scramble onto the roof.  I scrambled.  At the other end of the roof, there was a sort of vent from the inside, going to the same room.  I shimmied over to it, and peeked inside.  The kidnapper was gone, but now there were two people tied up and gagged in there.  Melonie and Mike were captives together.  I felt the roof beneath me quiver, and suddenly it gave way.  I was falling into the darkness.  Falling, until I hit-

            My bed.  I woke with a start, sweat popping out on my forehead.  A dream, I told myself.  Just a dream.

            But as I examined the dream, detail by detail, I realized that it wasn't all baloney.  It was a warning.  From some subconscious part of me that saw the possibilities.  I shivered.

Chapter Eight

Today was Saturday, so I ate my breakfast and made for Melonie's house, calling a meeting with the others on the phone.  We all arrived there at about ten o' clock. 

            "Well,"  Melonie started the talking.  "I, for one, am ready to go out and find something else out.  Mike is not going to be available forever.  I say we go now."

            Tim voiced his approval of the plan.  Only I stayed silent.  I would usually have been all for going out and doing something about it, but my dream came back to me in a flash of dark memory.

            "You know," I began, "We really are putting ourselves in harm's way by doing this.  Who knows what his kidnapper will do when he figures out we are looking for Mike?"

            Melonie and Tim glanced at each other uneasily.  I continued.  "And we're pretty sure it's that.  I mean, why else would Mike come up by the cave and lose a shoe, then disappear without warning?"

            "There are other explanations, but they are very...hard to believe."  Tim said.

            "Like this is."

            "Whatever," Tim said.  But we were all in agreement on the kidnapping thing.

            That was assuming a lot, but we were sure in our judgement, and almost nothing can stop a kid with a stupid idea.  Or most people, for that matter.

            "Well, where should we start?" I asked.  "We've found his shoe in the cave.  We've given it to the police.  What lead is there for us to follow?"

            Everyone was silent for a minute, thinking.  Melonie stirred uneasily.  Finally, she spoke.  "Well, there's always that old driveway, and whatever house it leads to," she pointed out.   

            This brought me back to the dream.  My subconscious added gunshots to the darkness, and the result was not very pleasant. 

            Tim was a bit wary, too, but more willing to investigate.  "Well, we'll have to be careful, and make it look like we're not there to find out what happened to Mike."

            "How on Earth will we do that?  'Hello, would you like to buy some candy bars?'"  I imitated a person selling candy.  "'Only a dollar.  May we come in and look around?  Do you have any kids tied up in here?'"

            That got a few snickers from Melonie and Tim.  But it was true: there really wasn't a way to do it.

            "We could sneak over and spy it out while he's not there,"  Melonie suggested. 

            "Yeah, and get arrested for trespassing.  No thanks,"  Tim replied. 

            "Well, how else are we supposed to know?  Mike needs help now!"  Melonie argued.  "I say it's worth the risk of getting in trouble with our police."

            "Well, how about getting in trouble with the kidnapper?"  I asked, which kind of dropped a bomb into the conversation.

            "What are you, a coward, Carrie?  Mike is in trouble!"

            "You have to admit, you sound awfully scared."

            My own temper flared.  "Okay, I am scared.  Something really might happen.  It happened to Mike!  What's to say the criminal's not coming after Melonie next?"  That was stepping a little too far over the line, but I had to get the point across.  I spoke softly now.  "I tell you what.  If you want to do it, I'm in.  But we need to watch our backs."

            I had called a truce of sorts, but I wasn't dumb enough not to see that it would evaporate any time now.  We left the house for the back road, a grim little party.

            Melonie turned to me.  "Do you really think they'll come after me?"