Free Small as an Elephant by Jennifer Richard Jacobson

for sure that she hadn’t been hurt or arrested.
    He began to read the entries, several of which he’d seen before. There was a lawyer in Washington, D.C., named Rebecca Martel, and a real-estate broker in Iowa. He skipped ahead a few pages, making sure that her name wasn’t in the news. It wasn’t, and the muscles in his neck and shoulders relaxed. Then he clicked on his mom’s YouPage, wondering if she had access to a computer and, if so, whether was she making entries — or leaving messages on other people’s pages? On his page?
    He couldn’t look while the page was loading. Instead, he glanced over at the woman at the next computer, who was typing with a baby in her lap. A pacifier popped out of the baby’s mouth and rolled onto the floor. The mother leaned over, picked up the pacifier, sucked on it herself, and then slid it back into the baby’s mouth.
    He made himself look at the page. Not a trace of recent activity anywhere.
    He clicked on his own YouPage. A message would say so much — that she’d been thinking about him, that she knew he’d be smart enough to get to a computer. It might even tell him what she was thinking or, at the very least, what he should do next.
    Nothing. Jack’s throat dried up. He took a swig of water from the bottle he was carrying, hoping he wouldn’t get in trouble for drinking in the library.
    Maybe it was better that his mom hadn’t written. Leaving a note would mean that she wasn’t spinning, but was rational and making decisions. Decisions like,
I’ll write Jack a note.
Decisions like,
I’m going to leave Jack in Maine.
    Don’t be stupid,
he said to himself. She wouldn’t
decide
that.
    It was like the elephant he stole yesterday. Right now, it was sitting on the box back in the barn. He had no intention of leaving it there — that elephant was special. It was like it was meant to belong to him. But something could happen, right? Something could prevent him from going back to get it. Mrs. Olson could discover his things and call the police, who would arrest him when he returned. Or maybe the woman from the gift shop would be standing right there on the sidewalk when he walked out of the library, and she’d grab him. Then Jack would
have
to leave the elephant. These things happened.
    Thinking about the elephant,
his
elephant, made him feel anxious. He wished he had put it in his pocket when he woke up.
    A message screen popped up on his YouPage. It was Nina!
    Nina: How come ur not in school?
    Jack: How come UR not in school?
    Nina: I am! I’m hanging out in the computer lab.
    Jack: Bingham will kill u if he sees u on UPage
    Nina: First day of school. He’ll go easy. Answer my question.
    Jack: Long story
    Nina: Once upon a time . . .
    Jack laughed. He was always saying
long story,
and she was always getting him to talk. But this time he didn’t know what to say. He began tentatively.
    Jack: We decided to stay awhile longer
    Nina: Your mom’s letting u skip again?
    Jack: Yeah, u know her
    Nina: So everything’s OK?
    More than anything, he wished he could tell Nina — could get her to help him figure things out. But he couldn’t tell anyone this time. Not even his best friend.
    Jack: Course
    Nina: Hey! Did you see the elephant?
    Nina had been with Jack when he discovered that there was actually an elephant in Maine — an elephant right off the Maine Pike, the road they’d taken north. The elephant’s name was Lydia. It was what he and his mother had argued about.
    Jack: Nah. My mom wasn’t feeling well —
    That summed up a lot, and was probably true.
    Nina: Is your mom with you now?
    Jack: Affirmative
    Nina: She isn’t, is she?
    Jack: Gotta run. TTYS
    Jack closed the screen before Nina could say anything else.
    Thinking of her hanging out in the computer lab just frustrated him more. He typed in the Curley Middle School address and read the welcome-back message from his principal and a note about the upcoming Fall Fling. The Fling was a blast last year,