I keep walking and walking. Even though I’m tired. And so hungry. And so cold. And my feet hurt.

  Reminding myself that if I’d just gotten on that plane with Umma, I wouldn’t be any of these things right now.

  I wonder if she’s missed me yet. Or even noticed that I’m not there.

  I try to figure out if her plane has landed yet. I remember that it takes 16 hours and 48 minutes to fly from New York City to Honolulu on a direct flight. That means one with no stops along the way.

  Then I remember that there was a stop. In Los Angeles. I have no idea how long for.

  I try to calculate how long ago it was since I watched the plane pull away from the New York airport terminal. It seems like days ago. Weeks ago. A century ago.

  And even longer, so much longer, since Christmas. At Morley’s place.

  I can’t work it out. How long ago everything was. When I was safe.

  All I can do is keep going.

  But now I notice that there aren’t so many houses. I’ve gotten to more of a main street. Not like in the city, exactly, but there are some businesses. A computer place. A gas station. And then, best of all, a fast food coffee and donut place that’s open all night.

  I go inside and head for the ladies. Lock myself in. Use the toilet. Try to clean up, as best I can. Check my backpack. My laptop is there. A lot of my stuff is missing. The best news is no one found what’s in the secret pockets. That includes what’s left of my money.

  I pull out a $20 bill, tuck it in my jeans pocket and go up to the counter. They haven’t started making breakfast sandwiches yet, the woman at the counter says, but they will soon. I ask for two of them as soon as they have them, and two hot chocolates and two honey-dip donuts.

  “Oh, uh, is someone joining you?” she says.

  “No,” I say. “I hope not.”

  She gives me an odd look, but takes my money and gives me the change and the donuts. I put some coins in her tips jar.

  “Thanks,” she says. “You from around here?”

  “No. Um, just visiting,” I say.

  I grab the tray and find a booth. Take a sip of hot chocolate, discover it’s still way too hot and wait for my laptop to power up while I eat one of the donuts. It’s a relief to see I get online right away.

  First thing to do is check for messages. There are several from Eira. A few from Margaret. One from Morley; she’s still mad at me and says Jayden is, too.

  None from my mother.

  I decide I better answer the one from Eira first. I tell her what happened. The short version. I go up to the counter and ask the woman where this is. The address, I mean. She tells me.

  We seem to be the only two people there.

  I go back to my seat. Start a new message to Eira. Put in the address. Say I’m OK, getting some breakfast as soon as they make it. Staying warm. But does she think she can come here and pick me up? Or just tell me how to get back there? That is, if I can stay at her house for a while. Until…

  Until what?

  I haven’t got a clue.

  My Dad doesn’t want me. He says it’s too upsetting to his wife and his new family to have me there.

  My Mother? She’s more interested in shopping and playing those gambling games online and her newest boyfriend than she is in me. I really doubt she’ll come all the way from Hawaii to help me.

  Margaret? She’s with her own family in Mexico. Or at her new job. I don’t even know where that is.

  Madame? No. That’s not a good idea.

  A couple more messages come in. One is from Brentwood Kings Academy. This is what it says:

  Dear Miss Park,

  On behalf of the Directors, Head and Staff of Brentwood Kings Academy, we are delighted to offer you a place at our school.

  We invite you to join us…

  As if, I think. There is no way I can get there. No way I can pay for an expensive school like that.

  I only have a little bit of money. And no home.

  The next one is a congratulations message from Madame. It makes me smile, but only for a minute. Then I think how am I going to answer this?

  After all she did to help me get accepted.

  I don’t have a clue what to tell her.

  Or anyone, really. What am I supposed to say? It’s 4:58 in the morning and I’m sitting in a booth in a donut shop. Still dark outside. I’m alone. Far from home.

  Really far from home.

  This makes me think again about my Christmas, at Morley’s with all her family.

  But it wasn’t my Christmas really, was it?

  It was their Christmas. I just happened to be there. Because there was a storm and the power was knocked out and trees were down and the airport and all the roads were closed.

  So, I was there.

  Total accident.

  Not like being here.

  Total non-accident. All totally my own dumb fault! If I’d just followed the rules, just sat near that woman the whole time until I got on the bus, none of this would have happened.

  It’s then I look up and the counter woman is putting my two sandwiches on the table. Wrapped up, not on plates.

  “Here you go, sweetheart,” she says. “I hope things…”

  Right then, there’re sirens. Two police cars turn into the parking lot, their lights flashing, the sirens stopping with a CHIRP! I grab my backpack and make a run for it.

  But I’m not fast enough.

  “Not so fast!” a man police officer says, catching me as I come out the door. “We need to have a little chat, Miss!”

  “No!” I scream. “No! Let me go. Let me go!”

  He doesn’t. No matter how hard I struggle. He’s just so much bigger than me.

  “Come on, now. Settle down. We’re going to go back inside. We’re going to sit down. And talk. Just talk. OK?”

  I can’t fight him. I’m so tired and hurt. I just can’t fight any more.

  He leads me inside. Sits down, his back to the door, indicating the booth he wants me to sit in.

  I slump down. Put my head in my hands. I want to cry. But can’t let myself. In front of him. And the other officer. She sits down next to me.

  The counter woman brings over coffees for them. And my two breakfast sandwiches, the ones left behind when I bolted.

  “OK, young lady. Let’s start with name.” He pushes the sandwiches closer to me.

  “Sam,” I say, taking a bite.

  “Short for Samantha?”

  “Just Sam,” I say.

  “Got a last name, Sam?”

  “Sam Park.”

  “OK, good. I’m Sergeant Ken Martin. This here’s Officer Stephanie Lopez.”

  “Nice to meet you,” I say, shaking their hands. Even though it isn’t. Because they’re going to take me back to that awful place. As soon as they look up my name on their computers and find out I got in trouble for being a thief.

  “So how old are you, Sam?” Officer Lopez asks.

  “Eleven,” I say. There’s no point in lying. They’re just going to find out anyways.

  “Eleven,” Sergeant Martin says. “That’s pretty young for you to be out, cold night like this? On your own? Want to tell us about that?”

  “No.” I have a feeling he isn’t going to like this answer.

  He doesn’t.

  “Your parents know you’re here?”

  “No.”

  “That’s a fancy backpack you’ve got there. Fancy laptop, too. Not cheap.”

  “No.”

  “Didn’t steal them, did you?”

  “No.”

  “No,” he says thoughtfully. “Well, Officer Lopez, what do we think? Should we leave the young lady here to finish her sandwich?”

  Yes! Please, yes. Just leave me here. “I’ll only stay until, um, until it gets light out. And then my aunt is coming to get me.”

  “Your aunt? And who would that be?” Officer Lopez asks.

  I tell them.

  “She knows you’re here?”

  “Yes,” I say. I show them the email from her.

  “Right, well, how about we all wait for her back at the station? I think that’s what we need to do,” Sergeant Martin says. His partner closes my laptop and takes it.

  Sergeant Martin takes my backpack while I’m putting on my coat.

  Officer Lopez stops to talk to the counter woman. She must have been the one who called them.

  And now they’re going to take me back to that awful foster home.

  I suddenly feel sick to my stomach. I grab the side of the police car, lean over and throw up on the ground. Sergeant Martin gets in the driver seat. Officer Lopez stands next to me. Then she opens the front seat, gets a bottle of water, twists off the top and hands it to me.

  “Rinse out your mouth,” she says. “Then spit!”

  I do that.

  She opens the back door, helps me in. Tells me to fasten the seatbelt. Closes the door.

  I try to get the door open and make a run for it, while she’s getting in next to me from the other side.

  But I can’t. The back-seat doors don’t have any door handles. You can’t roll down the windows, either. Even if you could, they have bars on them. I guess once you’re in here, you aren’t ever getting out unless someone lets you out. It makes me very nervous, but there’s nothing I can do. I’m trapped!

  We start driving. The two officers don’t talk, but they have a radio on and there’s some talking on it. I can’t quite hear it, but it’s not like an ordinary radio. It sounds more like walkie-talkie messages but with a lot of static.

  We pass more houses and stores. Turn onto a highway. Then off, passing more stores and businesses and finally, we turn into a parking lot next to a black building.

  “Come on in, Sam!” Sergeant Martin says, holding the door open for me. “Place isn’t fancy, but at least it’s warm. And we’ll figure out where you’re supposed to be right now.”

  I have no choice but to follow him, with Officer Lopez right behind me. We get to a small room with just a table and four chairs. There’s a computer that seems to be attached to the table.

  “OK. Here’s what’s going to happen, Sam. You’re going to tell us everything you can about how you got to be out alone in the middle of the night. Let’s start with you tell me your full name and show me some ID, if you’ve got it. Anything with your name on it. And your picture. Got anything like that?”

  I do. I reach into my backpack. Open the secret pocket. And pull out some papers and a little blue booklet.

  Hand them to Sergeant Martin.

  “Oh,” he says. “Well, this changes things.”

  He hands my passport and my middle school student card to Officer Lopez to look at.

  “That’s ID, isn’t it? They’ve got my picture,” I say. “And my name.”

  “Sure do,” she says, sending her partner one of those adult looks.

  Officer Martin is keying something into the computer. I can’t see the screen, but I think I know what he’s going to find. Charged for stealing. Children’s custody. Another name for a jail, for kids. Like that horrible foster home. Only bigger. And you can’t leave until you grow up.

  I’ve read about them. Online.

  “Tell me your parents’ names. Addresses. Phone numbers.”

  I tell the officers my mother is on a plane. That we don’t have an address anymore. Our house is sold. She’s moving. To Hawaii.

  “And you’re supposed to be with her?”

  I tell them about the airport. The two French women, in the washroom who wanted to steal my backpack.

  “And you knew these women were speaking French – how?”

  “Parce-que Mademoiselle,” I say, answering Officer Lopez, “Je parle le français.”

  “Do you now?” she says, smiling. “So, what did these women in the bathroom have to say? And why didn’t you just leave and get on your plane? With your mother?”

  I tell them. Everything. I don’t leave anything out. The women’s names. Or at least the names I heard them call each other. What they said. Why I was in the ladies’ for so long.

  “And the airline didn’t put you on the next plane out to join your mother?”

  “Um, no. I didn’t ask them. I didn’t know I could. I thought I’d have to buy another ticket and…”

  “I see. OK. Then what did you do?”

  I tell them. Subway ride. Bus station. Bought two tickets to Boston. Emailed friends for help. I show the two officers my un-used bus tickets. They have the date and time when I bought the tickets printed on them.

  “But you didn’t send a message to your parents about this, uh, bus trip?”

  “No.”

  “I wonder why. But we’ll get to that. What happened next?”

  Just wasting time, really, until it was time to get on the bus. Picked out a sandwich and a drink. Woman hit me and stepped on me. Man grabbed me. Police came and said I was a thief and I had to go and be searched and…

  “Hold on a minute,” he says. “I just want to be sure I’m hearing this right. Lopez, you getting all this?”

  “Yes sir,” she says.

  They both ask some questions about details – who? When? Where? What did they look like? and I answer them.

  “OK. Then what?”

  The search. Going through my things. Taking my credit card. Finding things in my backpack that I didn’t put there. The child custody woman. The foster home. The other kids there. Doreen and the baby. How I got my laptop back, but my phone is gone.

  How I escaped. And ran and ran. And got to the donut store.

  “Right,” Sergeant Martin says when I pause and drink the last of my glass of water. “Do you have any idea where this place was?”

  I tell him the street address of the house next door and that the peeling paint green house didn’t have any number. “OK, very good,” he says. “I’m on it, Steph. You carry on here.”

  “OK, Sam, you’re doing great. So, can you describe the two, uh, people in police uniforms at the bus station?”

  How tall they were. About how old. What colour hair. What kind of accent did they have. Any scars? Tatoos? Anything else about them I can remember.

  I do that.

  “Did you get names? Badge numbers? Anything like that?”

  No, I didn’t. I describe their uniforms, different than the one Officer Lopez has.

  “And the woman who drove you to the, uh, home?”

  I describe her. Her car. But no, I didn’t notice the license plate number. Why would I?

  “And the woman there? Doreen? Anything more you can tell me about her?”

  Her dirty long hair with gray roots. No make-up. Smudgy tattoos on her arms and legs. I try to think if there was anything else. But no, there’s nothing more I can remember about her. Or that poor little smelly baby.

  “But I’m worried about the other kids there.”

  I describe them. Everything I remember.

  “Did you ever hear their names?”

  “No. Not for the two boys. They mostly only talked to each other. And the little girl who cried but she wouldn’t come with me. Her name is Rachelle. Rachelle Leitkov. And the other girl was Lakeesha. She was the one who kicked me. I don’t know her last name.”

  “Kicked you? You didn’t tell us this before.”

  I pull up my sweater and shirt. Most of my right side, from my chest down to my right thigh, is bluish-black with bruises.

  “Oh my God,” she says. “Why didn’t you say sooner?”

  “I thought you were going to take me back to that place. The foster home.”

  “Listen to me, Sam. That wasn’t a foster home. And those weren’t real police officers, at the bus station. They are criminals. They were trying to kidnap you. And the other kids there.”

  “What? But why?”

  “To get money. From your parents. To get you back.”

  “Like ransom money?” I say. There was something about that in my dad’s movie.

  “Yes, exactly like that. They wanted to hurt you. And your family.” I start to feel shaky again. And sick. “But you’re safe now.”

  Sergeant Martin comes back, signalling to Officer Lopez that he needs to talk to her. In private. That means so I can’t hear what they say.

  “OK, sweetheart. Do you think you could tell our artist so she can draw the people you’ve told us about?”

  Yes, I think I can do that. Even though my eyes are just about closing themselves, I’m so sleepy. And I really need to use the washroom.

  She comes there with me, waits while I use the toilet and wash my hands and face again, and then we walk through some doors and halls and more doors. Finally, we get to another desk. I tell the artist, Luca, what the two people who I thought were police officers at the bus station look like. Also, the woman who shoved into me and the man at the store, the ones who said I was stealing. And the tall woman who drove me to the place that isn’t a foster home. And the big woman there, the one who took my laptop. But I got it back.

  I remember them all pretty clearly, even though I wish I didn’t. The scar the fake police officer woman had under her left eye. The purple streak the tall woman had in her black hair. The smudgy tattoos the big woman has. The only clear one looked like a skull and crossbones.

  My throat is sore. It feels like I’ve talked and talked and talked.

  Officer Lopez comes back to get me. She hands me a yogurt and a little spoon and some hot chocolate in a paper cup that is almost warm and a water bottle and a granola bar.

  “Sorry,” she says. “That’s all there was in the machine. But the cafeteria should be open soon.”

  I sit down and peel the top off the yogurt. Peach flavour. Not my favourite, but I’m hungry so I don’t care. I drink all the water and some of the hot chocolate.

  Then I’m sleepy. I think I could fall asleep right here, in the police station, in this chair. But I can’t. Not before I can find out what’s going to happen next.

  Where they’re going to send me.

  Or are they going to call Eira and Dom to come get me?

  Or what?

  “Just a couple more things we need to know,” Sergeant Martin says. “We know your mother was on that plane but we’ve now learned there was an incident.”

 

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