The sound of Jenny’s voice

pierced my heart. Her last message was still on our answering machine, saying she’d work late Wednesday night but she had a ride home Thursday morning for Thanksgiving. I played it over and over again. She sounded bright and bubbly.

We see and hear her singing anytime we wanted on a dozen videos from Show Choir.

---

source
Dad hated the twenty dollars per DVD sold after each competition--highway robbery!--but phone cameras didn't do well in dimly light gymmasiums with terrible acoustics. Mom saved up money from those annoying three-dollar rebates (Save your receipts! Might need ‘em for a rebate!) to cover little indulgences like these. Now it might be the only recent video footage we had of Jenny. Our camcorder was so old it only took VHS tapes, and the little digital recorder Jenny got was so tedious to upload to a computer, the thing collected dust on Jenny’s desk. Her room was now a guest bedroom, not that anyone visited, and she left most of her stuff behind when she left to go house-sitting for the cat-lady professor.

Hearing a voice from electronic speakers just wasn’t the same. At home the walls resonated with Mindy on piano accompanying Jenny’s soprano, and the floors vibrated with her dance steps. The energy, the dynamic, was like live theater versus the flat screen and canned noise of the cinema.

Mindy and I constantly checked her Facebook, Instagram, SnapChat, whatever else she was on, but there was zero activity from @JenBen. None of her recent posts left any clue that she might run off with some stranger in the night or pull a disappearing act.

---

source
I stepped into my barn boots and went out to feed the goats, sheep, and cattle, scoop manure, take a five-minute shower, run a comb through my short, mouse-brown hair and let it air dry while I packed my lunch and ate breakfast. A gray 4-H sweatshirt with a picture of a red heeler was my idea of dressing up. This was a custom shirt with a photo of Ted, our 14-year-old cattle dog, a rescue when we got him as a puppy, and a holy terror for his first seven years. That dog was too crafty and willful to deserve the honor of being called a dog. He was a devil until he started mellowing with age. Now he sired a litter or two per year. Rent-a-Stud. And I was often hired to train his progeny as future cattle dogs. One of these days we’d need to keep one as a replacement for Ted. He was going gray in the face and hadn’t caught a rabbit or squirrel for some time now. I couldn’t begin to think of the end of Ted. It’d be the end of the world; since the age of two I’d known life with Ted.

A world without Jenny

was impossible to contemplate. I scratched Ted’s ears while waiting for the bus and gave him a big, long hug because he was too old to wriggle away like he used to, or maybe he’d made up his mind to tolerate my overtures of affection. Never get in a dog’s face was the first thing a trainer taught a new dog owner, but Ted got to where he’d stand beside me, leaning into my leg, until he heard the bus long before I did and started barking. Coming home, I’d see him there waiting. He’d get up on two legs to greet me, tail wagging, and do a little dance until I let go of his paws. He’d lick my hands in gratitude after an ear-scratching. Mindy and Jenny couldn’t stand the dirty little mouth-breather and preferred the company of cats. There was no accounting for taste.

A world without Ted had been looming in my mind for months and I always stuffed it down, but now, a world without Jenny was in my face, and I couldn’t slap it back or make it go away. Jenny had to be found. Alive.

“What are the chances,” I heard classmates whisper or read their comments on social media, “of her being found anything but dead.”

Sara Lacey smiled at me and nodded. She looked good in her tight cop-porn-blue uniform, as the guys called it. I never figured out how she kept herself from getting bored all day patrolling hallways and parking lots and watching for dopers and fist fights. Truman High was a big school, taking in all the small town schools that had closed over the years, but we had our own officer on duty long before school shootings became all the rage.

This was Day Two of a school week with Jenny unaccounted for. I lingered at the trophy case with the show choir photos. Her name, her face, under glass, kinda like Snow White asleep in the forest, but no prince was coming to wake Jenny with a kiss.

“Hey Ben-Butt.” That horrible nickname made my fists clench reflexively until I saw Ethan smiling down at me. Unlike Prince Charming, he always slugged me in the arm to rouse me from my thoughts. Unlike anyone else on the planet, he could get away with calling me Ben-Butt, a name that started in first grade during a game of tag, you’re it.

“Hey Fray Face,” I mumbled in reply, wishing I’d find a name good enough stick as many years as Ben-Butt had.

He leaned in, lowering his voice. “Any news?”

I couldn’t move for what seemed like forever, but I clutched my books like a bullet-proof vest and cranked my head up to meet his gaze. “Looks like she never made it home from work Friday.” I filled him in on the house check. “Jenny would never shirk her job or the cats. Or leave town without packing an overnight bag.”

“Jeez.” He winced a little.

Why was I telling him this?

Because he seemed like he actually cared. And that made it all way, way harder to handle than if he whispered junk about Jenny like everyone else did. If he laid a hand on my shoulder again I might lose it.

In one of the show choir photos, you could see Ethan’s sister on stage with Jenny, and Ethan on trombone in the jazz combo. Like me, he wasn’t a fan of the Las Vegas style song and dance routine with all the glitter, sequins, spotlights, cut-throat competition for solos, and bus trips. Now he steadfastly resisted the band teacher’s guilt-tripping and pleading. Basketball kept him busy enough. Teachers pushed everyone to be in every possible activity, and some girls ended up hospitalized with mysterious ulcers or migraines. I could have told the doctors exactly what it was. Pressure to do too many things in the short little while high school lasts.

“Got anything going after school?” Ethan said.

“Just catch the bus home or catch hell for missing it.” I made no effort to hide my embarrassing plight. I’d never be one of the cool kids, and it didn’t faze me in the slightest.

“Laters.” He nudged me with his knuckles, and it was so close to being a gesture of affection, I about lost it.

That year. Jenny’s last year of show choir. One set was a Civil War theme, and I’d been commandeered to play violin. It was ok while it lasted but afterward I said Never Again to that schedule. If my sister wasn’t on stage, nothing could induce me to spend my nights and weekends being part of that scene.

And just to make sure, I quit violin. No more Orchestra. One less school activity. Dad was pleased.

Science Club was considerably less crazy, calendar-wise, than sports and music. It was weirdly male dominated, in spite of all those free passes for Dads Take Your Daughter to Work days, never Moms Take Your Sons. I never understood why guys didn’t raise a hue and cry about that. If they did, though, who’d even listen? Guys were the privileged ones. I was ticked because my dad took me to work every day. He worked at home, on the farm, and made Mom and us girls work with him, with no regard for whether we might prefer to sing or dance or play piano.

Breeanna Gilbert was the only girl besides me in Science Club. She actually owned one of those talking Barbie dolls that got recalled for saying “I hate math.” Like a witch burning, those math-hating Barbies were rounded up and destroyed. Now I wished I had one.

Jenny had Wheelchair Barbie. I hadn’t seen a farmer Barbie that looked anything like a farm girl, not that I ever played with dolls, but I built a whole town full of dollhouses out of wood scraps and found items, and won a major award for it in 4-H as well. Dad was pleased.

At lunchtime, I carried my zipper-cooler of chopped veggies, cold cuts and cheese to the cafeteria and spotted a space alien alone at a table. Good God. And I thought I was odd looking. The only thing weirder looking than him was a dog I once saw at a Halloween party.

source

His hair was afro-thick and kinky, sticking straight up from his head, and it was orange, so help me God, just like his eyebrows and freckles, while his skin was a light brown. His eyes were the biggest, rounds orbs I’d ever seen in a human face, simultaneously set deep in the sockets yet wide open and protuberant. He had the highest cheekbones on the planet. The Mt. Everest of cheekbones. Those freckles! Like a gust of wind blew a spoonful of cinnamon in his face. He kept looking down at a book, then up, scanning the room, and his gaze landed right on me.

I walked straight over. “You new?”

He nodded. “Ty Christy.” His name was spelled out in black sharpie on his thermal lunch bag.

"Kris Bennett.” I hoped nobody called me Kristy around Ty Christy. I could hear Mindy already: “You can’t marry him. You’d be Kristy Christy.”

No, but I could make sure he didn’t spend his first day alone over his lunch. His textbook was full of equations and schematics, so I knew he was one of ours. I jerked my head toward my table. “Science club. Come join us?.”

He nodded, the way old people do and kids our age don’t. No words, just that nod, before he picked up his book and re-bagged his lunch.

Maybe this would give everyone something else to talk about besides my missing sister.

"Hey look," one of the football players called out. "Ben-Butt found another stray dog."

Dale Zubrod was going down.

I didn't plan it. I just stomped over, reached behind his head and grabbed a handful of his blond hair, then slammed his face into his chicken nuggets faster than a blink.

"Detention!" the principal roared, fast as a blink.

Well shit. Mom would have to pick me up from school now. With all the Jenny stuff that was going on.

I squared my shoulders. "Did you hear what your star quarterback said about our new student?"

"Easy, Kristy," Mr. Cook said in that voice people use on snarling dogs. Jeez.

Dale raised his head and snorted at me with ketchup all over his face and crumbs on his lashes.

Whatever the consequences might be, I had no regrets.

~ ~ ~ ~March Madness!!!! Day 4 - Prompt: Sound ~ ~ ~ ~

Check Out The @FreeWriteHouse Prompt Of The Day By @MarianneWest

• Look For The 5-Min #FreeWrite Daily Prompt On @MarianneWest’s Blog