Free Picture Me Gone by Meg Rosoff

But everyone loves my cowboy egg. Hi-ho, Silver!
    I’m wondering what’s with the Hi-ho, Silver, but what I say is, Please could you at least consider selling it? I have a friend at home whose parents are getting divorced and she’s really upset and depressed and this egg would definitely cheer her up. I sneak a peek at him to see if my story is working. She’s desperate, I say in my saddest lowest voice.
    Well, he says slowly, shaking his head. That’s a pretty sad story. But I’m afraid it’s out of the question. It’s not for sale. And besides, it’s two years old. It won’t even taste good.
    I think of Catlin. She wouldn’t care what it tasted like. It’s something else she wants, from me. A sign. This egg is a great big blinking sign that says, we are friends forever and we laugh at the same things.
    You’d be asking me to disappoint a whole town, says the child-hating deli guy. Maybe next year.
    I know it’s only an egg but I feel like crying. Maybe another amazing egg will appear somewhere on our journey. Maybe America is full of them. But in my heart I know it isn’t. And then I try to convince myself that the perfect Easter egg doesn’t matter, especially when Matthew might be dead, and how on earth would I have managed to get it home anyway? But the egg would matter to Catlin. I know it would. It would make her happy, even just for a minute.
    Dad buys a bottle of local organic hand-squeezed artisan apple juice and I glare at him because I hate the idea of giving this man any of our money.
    A collar of reindeer bells on the door rings as we go out. Hi-ho, Silver! the man calls, but I don’t look back.

sixteen
    I t’s starting to get dark, so we park at one of the motels, and the receptionist tells us they’re full because of Easter vacation. Try the Mountain View Motor Inn, she says, it’s a half mile down the road.
    We get back in the car and because the road is so curly, it seems a long way till we find it. But there’s a little dog symbol next to the credit-card stickers on the office window, so we’re in luck. I tell the guy behind the desk that my dad is parking the car and he says he likes my accent, am I Australian? When Gil comes in he offers us a family room for no more than a regular double.
    So now I have my own room attached to his with my own TV. I like this. Private but connected. There’s a snug corner in my bit that’s perfect for Honey’s bed and she curls up there like it’s where she’s always lived.
    She doesn’t need much exercise at her age, Gil says, and I think how strange it is that at nearly the same age, she’s old and I’m young. He takes her out anyway and I text Catlin.
    No sign of our missing guy I write.
    Boo bloody hoo comes the text in return, and I’m shocked and upset because I thought we were friends again. But the phone bleeps a second later.
    Dad’s moved out. Mum cries all day.
    Oh. I’ve known Catlin long enough and can hear her voice, small and furious.
    Oh Cat, I text back, I’m REALLY sorry xxxxxxx
    It takes a while for the next one but I know what it’s going to say before it arrives.
    I don’t give a shit.
    Which is more or less definite proof that she does.
    Love you loads I text back, but she doesn’t answer.
    Gil returns with Honey. Temperature’s dropping, he says, then gives her one of the dog chews Suzanne packed and pours some dinner for her out of the box. She sniffs it and turns away. No leftover bacon, no French toast, no ice cream, no deal.
    We leave Honey and walk next door to a big square restaurant done up to look like a cartoon version of Thailand with huge carved pillars and a pointy roof painted all over red and gold. My Thai, it’s called, and it’s nearly empty. The waitress says to sit anywhere and we do, and then when she comes over again we order pad thai and green curry and she says she likes my accent which I never know quite how to answer. I get up to look at the big orange fish in the tank near the register