Part 7 (1/2)

”I should call home, too,” said Mary Anne. ”Kristy was supposed to come over for supper tonight. I better tell them we'll be late.” She stood up to join me.

”I'm hungry!” Brenda wailed all of a sudden. ”I want dinner.”

”Shhh!” whispered Mara. ”We'll eat later, when everybody's gone.”

”In the kitchen at Casa Grande?” asked Kristy. ”I had a feeling you guys were the burrito banditos.” She was trying to keep the tone of the conversation light, but Mara still blushed a deep red.

”We used their kitchen because it was the easiest to get into, out of all the places on the food court. We were going to pay them back as soon as we could,” she said earnestly. ”And we always cleaned up after ourselves.” She looked down at her hands.

Mary Anne touched her shoulder. ”It's okay, Mara,” she said. ”Everything's going to be okay.” Mara gave her a timid smile.

”Let's get these kids something to eat,” said Charlie, springing to his feet. ”Do you like cheeseburgers, Kyle?”

”Oh, wow,” said Kyle, grinning. ”I love them.”

”Great,” said Charlie. ”And I bet you like fries, don't you?” he asked Brenda.

She nodded shyly. ”With ketchup!” she said.

”You don't have to do this,” Mara said to Charlie. ”We'll get by. Really.”

”No way am I missing out on a cheeseburger,” said Kyle, frowning at her. ”I'm sick of burritos. Come on, Mara, please?”

”Okay,” said Mara, nodding to Kyle. Then she turned to Charlie. ”But we'll pay you back as soon as we can. That's a promise.”

Charlie stuck out his hand, and they shook. Then he looked at me, and I knew he knew I was planning to call the police. ”Why don't you and Mary Anne go make your calls,” he said, ”and we'll meet you at Friendly's. In, say,” he checked his watch, ”fifteen minutes?”

He gave me another Look, and I nodded. He wanted to be sure I would let the police know where to come and when to get there.

”See you!” I said, waving to everybody. ”Better order me a grilled cheese. I'm starving. Oh, and Jessi, I'll call your aunt Cecelia for you,” I added.

”And I'll have a cheddar burger,” said Mary Anne. ”Well done.”

Kristy pretended to write our orders on an imaginary pad. ”Coming right up!” she said. ”See you!”

Mary Anne and I took off toward the phones near the main entrance. On the way, I explained what was up. She wasn't surprised. ”That's what I thought,” she said. ”I hate to do that to the kids, after they've put so much energy into surviving on their own. But the fact is, they need help.”

When we reached the phones, we both called home first and explained that our dinner plans were off. Then I called the Ramseys, and then the police, which was one of the hardest things I ever had to do. ”We'll send somebody right out,” said the person who answered the phone. After that, Mary Anne and I ran over to Friendly's.

We found our friends and the three kids at a big round table. Kyle was taking huge, hungry bites out of a cheeseburger, Brenda was loading fries with ketchup and wolfing them down, and Mara was taking tiny, polite bites of a tunafish sandwich, the cheapest thing on the menu. She looked up at Mary Anne- and me and smiled - and then she looked past us and her body stiffened. I turned around and saw a policewoman approaching the table. Mara looked as if she wanted to take off running, but she held her ground. She shot fierce looks at Brenda and Kyle, as if warning them to let her do the talking. The policewoman pulled up a chair. ”Are you Mara?” she asked. I had given the police her name. Mara nodded, looking frightened. ”Don't worry,” said the policewoman. ”I'm Lieutenant Shay - you can call me Irene - and I'm here to help you.” Mara didn't look convinced. ”Why don't you tell me your story?” Irene asked gently. ”And then we can figure out what to do next.” She took off her hat and stuck it on Kyle's head, which made him grin. Mara started talking, slowly at first. Then she built up steam and the words spilled out. My friends and I leaned toward her, listening as eagerly as we had the first time. I had never heard anything like the story Mara told. She added some details we hadn't heard the first time: about how she and Brenda and Kyle had only moved to the area a few months ago, and hadn't enrolled at school yet. That was one reason n.o.body had missed them. And how they hadn't had a phone put in yet - because they couldn't afford it - which was why their mother couldn't call and had no idea that they weren't in the apartment where she'd left them. They'd visited her a few times, using coins fished from the fountain for bus fare, but they never told her where they were living. ”She was just so, so sick,” said Mara. ”I couldn't stand to add to her worries.”

It turned out that the strongest force driving Mara to do what she did was her fear that if the child welfare people got involved, she and Kyle and Brenda would be separated. ”But I guess now that's going to happen anyway,” said Mara. She looked at me, and I knew she felt betrayed. She had probably figured out I was the one who had called the cops.

Once she had finished telling Irene how she and Kyle and Brenda had survived in the mall, Mara stopped talking. Brenda filled in the silence with a little made-up song about her french fries.

”Isn't there something else you want to tell me?” asked Irene, after a minute or so. She had been taking notes while Mara talked, and now she looked Mara in the eyes. ”Something about the expensive merchandise that's been disappearing at night? We know you didn't take it - none of you looks strong enough to carry away a microwave, much less a treadmill. So what about it?”

Mara looked trapped.

”Don't worry. n.o.body will ever find out who told us,” said Irene.

Mara mumbled something about Mr. Morton, and then began to speak more freely. Irene listened closely and took some more notes. Then she took her hat back from Kyle and stood up. ”Time to go find Ted Morton, I think,” she said. A woman who had entered the restaurant a few minutes earlier and sat at a nearby table, stood up also, and came over to our table.

”I'm Mrs. Peabody,” she said to Mara. ”I'm a social worker with Stoneybrook Social Services. We want to help you. We have a car waiting outside. Will you come with me, please?”

And that was the last we saw of Mara, Brenda, and Kyle. As the social worker led them away, Brenda waved a french fry at us, Kyle gave us a ketchup-smeared grin, and Mara looked at us with accusatory eyes.