Free Girl, Missing by Sophie McKenzie

kissin’ and cuddlin’.’
    I sipped at my tea, my heart beating fast. ‘When she left, d’you know where she went?’
    Bettina shook her head sorrowfully. ‘Darlin’ I wish I could tell you. But one day she just upped and left with you. Not a word to anyone.’
    â€˜Oh.’ I stared into my teacup. A longing filled me. This old lady had known me longer than anyone. Before Mum and Dad, even. ‘What was I like?’ I spoke before I’d realised I was going to. My voice sounded small.
    Bettina put her gnarled hand over mine. ‘The cutest little thing,’ she said. ‘Though I only minded you a few times I’ll never forget you. You were real quiet, real serious. Hardly said a word. And you had this sad little face. It took some doing to make you smile. But when you did you were so pretty. There was this one time I sorely wanted to take a picture of you. You were sitting right where you are now.’
    â€˜Did you?’ I said. ‘I mean, do you have the photo?’
    Bettina shook her head. ‘Sonia came back from wherever she’d been and found me. She was real mad. Pulled the film out of my camera. She moved out the next day.’
    We finished our tea and left. Bettina wasn’t in any hurry to say goodbye. I got the strong impression that she didn’t have many visitors.
    Out on the street it was light, but still freezing. I wished for the tenth time since arriving in America that I had brought a warmer jacket.
    â€˜Guess we’d better find out about buses to Burlington?’ Jam looked at me sideways. I could see he was wondering if I was going to insist we kept trying to find Sonia.
    But the trail was cold. There was nothing more I could do. What Bettina had said made me certain that Sonia was not my real mother. Yet I still knew nothing about my life before she found me.
    The next logical step was to call the
Missing-Children.com
hotline and tell them I thought I might be Martha Lauren Purditt.
    But I didn’t want to do that any more than I had wanted to do it back in London.
It’s
my
past. I don’t want police and officials and Social Services people taking over. Making all the decisions
.
    Jam stood there, shivering. He was still looking expectantly at me.
    â€˜Let’s go into a shop. Ask where the bus station is,’ I said.
    As we walked down the road towards a conveniencestore, I pulled the wodge of dollars out of my pocket. ‘How much d’you think . . . ?’
    I stared at the unfolding roll of money in my hand. Apart from the dollar bill on top, the other notes were all just plain pieces of grey paper.
    â€˜That cab driver,’ I hissed.
    â€˜What?’ Jam looked round.
    â€˜He ripped us off with the change for the fare.’ My voice rose to a squeak as I rifled desperately through the pieces of paper.
    I looked up at Jam.
    We had one dollar left.

14
    The ride
    We walked, unspeaking, towards a small square patch of green between two of the apartment buildings. My ears stung with cold, but I hardly noticed.
    We had no money. How were we going to get back to Burlington?
    Jam paced up and down on the hard grass. ‘We’ll just have to ring your mum,’ he said.
    My heart sank. I knew we had to make the call. But it felt like defeat. The wind whipped round my shoulders. I dragged my jacket round me more tightly. There was no other choice. I dug into my pocket for my mobile.
    â€˜You guys need a ride?’ I looked round. A middle-aged woman with wavy brown hair was leaning out of a car window, smiling at us.
    Instinctively I shook my head and turned away. The woman opened her car door and leaned further out. She was wearing a police uniform. ‘Hey, I don’t bite,’ she laughed. ‘Where you folks headed?’
    I caught Jam’s eye. We walked over to the woman together.
    She was older than she looked from a distance. Her hair was very set. It might even have been a