Free Sara Lost and Found by Virginia Castleman

at Mrs. MacMillan. “Did the caseworker mention these to you?”
    Anna sharply sucks in air. I slip off the chair in the kitchen and when I reach it, peek around the door frame.
    His questions freeze something in me. Cigarette burns?
    Anna buries her head in her knees and whimpers. I don’t hear Pablo come up behind me, when he gently lifts me up and takes me to the couch.
    I get on my knees and wrap my arms around my sister, rocking her back and forth.
    Mrs. MacMillan walks over and strokes my hair. “She’s lucky to have you, Sara.”
    I am not sure “luck” is the right word. To me, luck is something more sudden than a sister. Luck is like finding a cookie that the rats overlooked.
    Or not being called on when you don’t know the answer at school.
    Or finding Ben and Rachel home when you run away.
    That’s luck.
    When Anna settles down and the glass is all swept and vacuumed, Dr. Dan picks me up and sets me on a counter in the brightly lit kitchen so he can take a closer look at my foot.
    â€œWell, I don’t see any glass shavings in the cut, Sara, but just to be safe, I’m going to put some hydrogen peroxide on it. This is going to sting, but only for a moment. You’ll see a lot of bubbling around the cut as it cleans it out. Are you ready?”
    Anna presses against my leg, clenching her teeth and staring at my foot, like she’s the one getting the stinging stuff put on. It’s the twin thing I talked about before.
    Pablo and Mrs. MacMillan stand in front, giving me “It will be okay” looks, but I know it won’t. Looks try to lie sometimes, but I usually can tell a fib look from a truth one.
    â€œReady,” I answer, not feeling one bit ready. The liquid is cold at first, then turns burning hot around the cut. I yelp, trying to jerk my foot away, but Dr. Dan has a good grip on it.
    â€œOwwowow!” The bubbling starts and the burning fades. Anna and I lean forward and watch the liquid clean the wound.
    â€œAll done!” Dr. Dan chirps. “I’ll put a Band-Aid on it and you, brave girl, are good to go.”
    â€œAnd as for you, Anna, I have some lotion we can put on your arm that will fade those burn marks.”
    â€œNo!” Anna presses her other arm across the burned one.
    â€œGood, Anna, for saying ‘no.’ It doesn’t sting,” Dr. Dan added quickly. “As a matter of fact, it feels good. Tell you what, I don’t even have to put it on. I can just squeeze some lotion in this hand”—he turns the bottle over and pours lotion onto Anna’s left hand—“and you can rub it lightly onto your arm. How’s that?” He pulls me down from the counter and pats my head.
    As Anna rubs the lotion on her burns, a small smile slightly curls her lips. “No hurt!”
    Dr. Dan grins. “That’s right. No hurt.”
    But what Anna doesn’t see is that Dr. Dan has the hand she bit behind his back, and he’s flexing it. Open. Close. Open. Close.
    Daddy’s hands are important too. He can’t play drums if his hands don’t work.
    Open. Close. Open. Close.
    I stare at Dr. Dan’s hands, wondering, Is Daddy okay? Can he come and get us?
    The MacMillans are nice, but I want to go home.

CHAPTER 10
    I DON’T HEAR HER COME in, so when Mrs. MacMillan sits down beside me that evening, there’s no trying to hide my tears. All the commotion earlier over the broken plates kept my mind on other things, but now old worries have begun to creep in. Exhausted by the day’s events, Anna has fallen asleep on the floor under the window before I can ask her who burned her arm with cigarettes. The thought of someone doing that to her fills me with rage. When her arm falls to the side, I can see the marks make a P . I count the circles. There are eight of them.
    Mrs. MacMillan hands me a book. “I hear you like stories,” she whispers. “This was one of