J. Mitch Hopper |
They finally notified the police around midnight. There were no friends to call, no parents to check with, but Roger's parents made a few phone calls anyway.
"No. Didn't see him." "I don't hang around with him." "Roger who?" The responses were all very similar - very unuseful. No one called her parents - there was no reason to suspect she even knew him anyway. The police would find him wandering sooner or later. He was always a loner. It even occurred to his parents that Roger might be hiding in his own house somewhere. They'd sort it out in the morning.
Roger watched the crescent moon come up. His piss-soaked pants chilled him in the night air and he curled in a fetal position and whimpered and cried until dawn. Throughout the day, he wept and dozed but the shrubbery held his secret. By evening, his parents were sure something was very wrong. He had not shown up at school and he wasn't in the house or in any of his usual hiding places. Although they were concerned, there was little to do but wait for Roger to come home or for the police to call.
The pissed-pants story had made it nearly around the whole school by late morning. The boys were irritated that they couldn't find Roger. The rumor was that he ran away and jumped from a bridge and drowned in the Mauvaistare just north of the city. His parent's phone rang throughout the day with prank calls made from the school pay phone near the cafeteria. The teachers barely noticed his absence. They usually barely noticed his presence.