still just a kid

This is the description Dad gave to the sheriff’s department when he finally got through to someone on the phone.  “Pretty girl.  Built.  Brown hair.  Feathered.  Real good tan.  No scars.  No tattoos . . . well, none that I know of.  Her left pupil is kind of funny.  Makes her look a little foreign, I guess.  Got a mouth on her, too.  Not afraid to bite the hand that feeds her, know what I mean, officer?  Real pretty girl though.”

Dad came up to my room after making the call.  He sat down at the end of my bed where I was looking through a BMX catalog my buddy Swan had picked up at the Schwinn shop in town.  Like me, Swan was hoping for a new bike, too.

“I hope you know how serious this is that your sister has disappeared,” Dad said.  “Louisville isn’t exactly next door.  It’s a good four hours away.  Plus, who the hell does she know there?  Who’s there to watch over her?  Nobody, that’s who.  Shit.  Your sister thinks she’s all grown up but she’s not.  She’s still just a kid . . .”  This was real worry I was seeing in Dad’s eyes.  Not the kind of worry I saw with him standing in K-mart watching the price of his favorite mousse go up again.

“Come on,” he said, standing me up.  “There’s nothing we can do about it now.  You hungry?”  He led me downstairs and put me in front of the television.  “Find us a movie,” he said.  “We’ll eat our turkey pot-pies in here tonight . . .”

I flipped through the channels until I found Cleopatra starring Elizabeth Taylor.  Cleopatra’s library was on fire and she was begging the Romans to do something about it.  The Romans didn’t care though.  They had their own problems and just looked at her like she was crazy.