Page 81 of The Rebel
I’d talk to Valencia about it before I said anything to Mom.
Oliver was doing homework at the dining table and Mom was folding laundry when I came in. I intended to act normal, talk about school stuff (except lunch in the truck, of course), but Mom was amped up as she indicated I should take the other end of the sheet and help her fold it.
“Kristin called me earlier,” she said.
My heart immediately sunk, like somehow the gossip girls had gotten to Mrs. Reid already and Valencia was being sent away. “Oh?” I asked weakly.
Mom lowered her voice as if she was telling a secret. “They’re flying Valencia out to meet them.”
Now my heart stuttered, missing a bunch of beats. Parking lot cameras maybe? Had we been caught in action? I had no words, not one sound to utter.
“Paris is missing her so much. Well, they all are. But Paris wants Valencia with them, so she’s flying out tomorrow.”
“To—tomorrow? Does she know?”
“Not yet,” Mom said, urging me to make another fold. “Kristin had an email from Principal Portman about theart exhibition. Strangely, Valencia never told her she’d been selected and they’d been talking earlier today.”
“Valencia only found out this morning in assembly,” I said, but I remembered she’d phoned her Mom during lunch break.
“Paris isn’t coping without her,” Mom said. “He misses his sister.”
I had a weird thought that I was going to miss her too. “How long will she be gone?”
“There’s three weeks of the tour left,” Mom said, checking her watch. “I guess she’ll be feeding Volley at the moment.”
I nodded, stunned at this new development. In a way, it would be good for Valencia to be with her family, but heck, I needed her too. Our relationship was new and exciting and it didn’t seem fair that we’d have to put it all on hold. Then again, it might actually be a good thing. Nobody would be comfortable with us living in the same house and being together—so maybe the timing was perfect.
Mom tutted at my uneven corners just as Valencia bounded in the front door like she was on the run from a stampeding bull.
Panting, she took a second to catch her breath before saying in choppy sentences, “Volley’s missing. I can’t. Find him. He hasn’t come and I’ve been...calling for ten minutes.”
“I’ll come,” I said, tossing my end of the roughly folded sheet over to Mom. Hearing the commotion, Ollie joined us.
We scrambled across the fence. Valencia had left the back door wide open.
“I’ve called him a hundred times,” she said, eyes glistening with tears. I had a sudden thought that I needed to find Volley at all costs, because there was no way Valencia would get on a plane if she didn’t know he was safe.
Ollie picked up the dry food canister and headed out into the backyard shaking it.
“Maybe he’s trapped in a room. Or a closet? Have the doors been closed or blown shut?” It was a ridiculous thing to suggest, as if the wind would come inside the house. “Let’s try every room, every door. He has to be here somewhere,” I said reassuringly, and knowing Ollie was out of sight, I wrapped my arms around her, kissing her forehead—again. “Don’t worry, we’ll find him.”
Her dark eyes looked up to me as if I was her knight in shining armor, but now the pressure was on, preferably to find him alive and well.
“You fed him this morning, right?” I asked, tucking a strand of hair off of her face. Geez, I had a fixation with touching her!
“Yep.” She didn’t seem to mind the attention. “He’s been sleeping in a spot by the window,” she said, striding into the dining room, calling in desperation, “Volley! Volley? Where are you?”
We opened every door, looked behind every curtain, even in the bathtub. Ollie returned with no joy and we all walked down the driveway out to the sidewalk, no one saying aloud what we feared the most—a squished cat on the road.
I had no qualms holding Valencia’s hand, not with the worry etched on her face. Ollie would think I was comforting her.
“Let’s retrace your steps,” I said. “He couldn’t be in the garage, could he?”
“No, I drove in and went straight out to the laundry room to get his food. Well, I stopped in the kitchen to put my backpack down first,” she said.
“Okay, and there was no sign of him when you called out?” We stood in the kitchen, all looking to the door that led to the laundry room as if we could manifest Volley to appear.
“He normally comes running as soon as he hears me,” Valencia said. “I usually don’t even have to call.”
