Free The Summer Experiment by Cathie Pelletier Page B

moved back to Maine. This was at an apartment building in Fort Kent where they stayed for a couple months until Catherine found a house for sale in Allagash. The neighbor had looked out her kitchen window and there was Marilee, swinging on the swings used by children who lived in the building.
    â€œI saw the missing person story on the news,” said the neighbor, a woman named Carla. “So I called out to her and asked her to come in, but she refused. I ran inside to get the phone and when I came back out, the swing was still swinging but she was gone. It’s only been five minutes since she was here.”
    We knew where she was and that she was okay! At least she was still in a safe part of the country. Our hearts almost burst with joy, as much as some of the adults wanted to throttle Marilee. Funny how you can do that. You can pray with all your soul that someone is unharmed, please, and still alive. And then when you find out they are, you want to kill them. But I think everyone was mostly just relieved and happy, even though it wasn’t over yet.
    â€œI’ll call the Fort Kent police,” my dad said. He had stayed home from work to join the search. “I know Doody Michaud personally.” So he called and explained to the chief of police what had just happened. He also told him what the women said Marilee was wearing—a green sweatshirt and blue jeans. “And she has her brown hair tucked up under a black bandana to hide it.”
    Now Fort Kent was buzzing like a saw. And, of course, everyone wanted to drive there as fast as they could to search for Marilee. So her parents and my parents and my baby sister and my big brother and a fiancé named Sarah all piled into my Dad’s two-seater pickup truck and headed to Fort Kent. I didn’t want to go with them. Something in my mind kept telling me to stay there at home, that I could do more good there, especially if she finally telephoned me. And then, if I had gone, I’d have had to sit on Johnny’s lap or Marilee’s dad’s. Stay here at home, my mind whispered to me. So I stayed.
    Fort Kent was beyond buzzing now. But by mid-afternoon, when my mom telephoned to update me, things hadn’t changed. I was now sorry that I hadn’t gone with them. By now, almost three hours had passed since Marilee was spotted on the swing. Yet, no one in that town of 4,000 people had seen a young girl wearing a green sweatshirt. You almost had to be proud of her.
    â€œRobbie, there’s nothing you can do but wait,” Mom said. “Take a shower and get something to eat from the fridge. I’ll call you if there’s any news.”
    I went upstairs to my room and slipped out of the jeans I’d had on since the day before. They were really dirty from the search. There was even some hay in my back pocket from climbing up into Mr. Finley’s loft. I threw the jeans into my wicker laundry hamper and pushed open my closet door. I pulled a T-shirt from the top shelf and grabbed a clean pair of jeans. When I reached down for my leather sandals, I saw two red sneakers with white laces staring up at me. I didn’t own red sneakers, period, let alone ones with white laces. Where the heck did they come from? I leaned in for a closer inspection. When I grabbed one of the sneakers I discovered, to my surprise, that it had a warm foot in it.
    That’s when I remembered where I’d seen the red sneakers before. I pushed through my clothes hanging on the closet rod. And there she was.
    â€œMarilee Evans,” I said. “You come out of my closet and you come out now !”
    Her face was pale and streaked, so I knew she’d been crying. Her bottom lip was trembling.
    â€œI’m sorry, Robbie,” she whispered.
    Mad as I was, I threw my arms around her and hugged her tight.
    â€œWe’ve been so worried,” I said. “When I first heard you were missing, I thought you had gone south and maybe a