Why Ay Novel (continued)

"I looked everywhere, Mom!"

She gave me that stare. You know, the one that clearly asks, "Everywhere?"

It was true: I hadn't checked every room in the house. It didn't make sense to me to check places where Rebecca would never go, such as the garage or the garden shed. She had no interest in cars or tools, and was terrified of spiders.

Mom made a sound like a disgusted rhinoceros and dropped the towel she was holding onto the counter.

"That girl . . ."

Her tone hinted at the consequences to Rebecca when we found her. I couldn't help but smile—just a little.

Dad chose that moment to enter the kitchen. He had a folded newspaper tucked under one arm. Yes, a real newspaper, printed on paper. Sure, they were handy to have around when we were house-training Buster when he was a puppy. Aside from that, I never saw the point. Why didn't he just get the latest updates from one of the countless newsfeeds?

"Jonathon," Mom said, trying to sound patient and calm and, I thought, not succeeding very well. "Michael can't find Rebecca."

Thanks, Mom. Put the blame on me!

I started considering ways to exact my revenge on Rebecca after we found her. Not immediately afterward, as Mom would already be mad from dinner being late, but when I could.

Something involving spiders . . . or snakes. Maybe Chen-Tzu would let me borrow one of his tarantulas . . .

Dad looked at me and then back at Mom.

"You've checked the house?"

Mom gave him the same look that she had given me just a few minutes. Unlike me, however, Dad just ignored it.

"Well," he said, placing a hand lightly on my shoulder. "Let's go take another look."

Dad led me back into the living room, not bothering to look back to see what expression Mom wore now. I followed him up the stairs. I guessed that he was heading back to Rebecca's room.

"She left her phone in there," I told Dad as he entered the bedroom.

Dad nodded. "Then she must be around here somewhere."

That made sense to me. While my sister didn't act as if her phone was glued to her hand like almost every other girl I knew, she almost never left the house without it.

Dad picked up her phone, which was silent now, and looked it over. He didn't look at what was on the screen, just at the entire phone. I don't know what he was hoping to find—fingerprints, maybe?

He frowned and let out a short, monotonous hum. He put the phone back down and looked around the bedroom. Like me, he didn't see anything that seemed to be out of place. He walked over the window, which was closed, and looked out over the rooftop that ran across from it.

Dad played with the latch. I hadn’t noticed it before, but it had been fastened. That meant that, wherever Rebecca was, she hadn't snuck out the window. There's no way she could have locked it behind her. I know, because we had tried to unlock it before from the outside. That was not one of Mom's happier moments to discover us on the rooftop shortly after midnight—even if it hadn't been a school night.

"We’d better check the basement," Dad said.

"I already did."

He looked at me for a moment and then must have decided that I was telling the truth. His frown deepened.

"Where's Buster?"

As stupid as it sounds, I looked around for him. It was only then that I realized that he had not been following on our heels and getting in the way as we searched for Rebecca.

I shrugged. "I dunno."

He made that sound again, the one he makes when he's trying to think hard about something.

"We'd better tell your mother," he finally said. He didn't look any happier about it then I did.

Mom did not take the news well. She mutters things about how hard she had worked on dinner, the lack of respect child had these days, and some other things I didn't entirely understand. It almost sounded like she was more upset about the roast beef than about Rebecca.

Dad just looked sympathetic, but didn't try to soothe her. He even held the door for her as the three of us headed out to begin searching the neighborhood for my stupid sister and the even dumber dog.