Free Mimi by John Newman

is since Mammy died. I’ll have to check Sally’s diary, which won’t be too hard now that she’s gone. It’s the first day that Sally’s been gone. The last time I heard her she was sobbing away on her bed. I thought she’d never stop. I tried to shut her out by putting my hands over my ears, but that didn’t work. The walls in our house must be very thin, you can hear so much — which I don’t usually mind, especially when people are on the phone and I can listen in. But last night I hated it. It was like the days after Mammy was killed, except that I was crying then as well and my pillow used to get all wet and horrible. I bet Sally’s pillow was soaking last night. And she kept doing these gulps. I felt like going into her room and giving her a hug, but I knew that Dad would kill me if I got out of bed, and her door was locked, anyway.
    I must have gone to sleep in the end because I didn’t hear her leave. Nobody did. We didn’t even know until it was time for school. Dad roared up at her a few times while Conor and I stood waiting in the hall, but there was no answer. Then he shouted that he had had quite enough of this carry-on and she’d better come out at once or he’d break down the door. I’d like to have seen that! Dad charging like a bull at Sally’s door and flattening it just like the Incredible Hulk. But he didn’t have to in the end because her door wasn’t locked anymore, so he just turned the handle and walked in — and there was nobody there. Sally had gone.
    Dad just stood there for a moment looking very cross, but then he went pale. He opened the wardrobe and looked inside, and then he bent down and looked under the bed. Of course, she wasn’t there. Her bed was made (very unusual that), and Sally was gone.
    “Where’s Sally?” Dad turned to me.
    “I don’t know,” I answered as fast as I could, but he didn’t wait.
    He pushed past me and raced down the stairs and out into the front garden and out into the middle of the road. Then he started looking up and down frantically. “Conor!” he shouted. “Do you know where she is?”
    “No,” said Conor.
    Then Dad walked very quickly back into the house. “Stay calm, children,” he said to Conor and me — but we
were
calm, at least compared with him. Then he was on the phone to Aunt B. and he wasn’t calm at all. “Betty, she’s gone!” he told her, and his voice was all shaky. Aunt B. must have asked who, because he said, “Sally, of course.” Then he put down the phone and said that Aunt Betty was coming over and we weren’t to panic, and that there was probably a perfectly reasonable explanation for Sally not being in her room, and had either of us heard anything at all last night, and what were the names of all her friends, and that it was probably too soon to ring the police. And while Dad was saying all that without even stopping to take a breath, he was wringing his hands together as though he was trying to get them clean.
    I couldn’t help it — I started to cry, because first Mammy was gone and now Sally was gone, and even though I knew it wasn’t really the same thing I kept thinking, what if she doesn’t come back
ever
?
    Conor had his mobile phone out and he was trying to ring her. It was probably the first time he had ever tried to ring Sally. It was a surprise to me that he even had her number. He held the phone to his ear for a long time, but there was no answer.
    “Try again,” said Dad.
    So Conor did, but this time the phone did not even ring. It went straight to voice mail.
    Dad grabbed the phone off Conor. “Sally,” he shouted, “pick up the phone at once. You have us worried sick. Where are you?”
    But Sally did not pick up. Instead her phone went dead.
    Dad slumped into a chair. He looked very old and worn-out all of a sudden. Conor put his hand on his shoulder, and I put my arms around his neck.
    “It’s going to be all right, Mimi,” Dad said. “Sally will show up soon enough,