"Shes gone? What do you mean shes gone?" Micky asked.
"I don't know." He said. "I got here and this note was here. Who knows how long its been here."
"We oughta wake the others." Micky determined.
"Right." Peter said. Micky ran up the stairs and knocked on the doors to all the bedrooms. Peter sighed and ran next door. He knocked on the glass door, then tried the buzzer. He looked at the other house for signs of life. Chea, in a guacamole mask answered the door.
"What?" She asked. He turned to her and yelped.
"Wha!" He said. He looked at her closely. "Good lord what happened to your face?"
"Its my beauty mask." She said. "It works! You oughta try it sometime."
"I'd rather have it with chips." He said.
"Whats up?" She asked. "Besides me?"
"Livvies gone!" Peter asked remembering the reason for his visit.
"What?" Chea asked.
"Livvie is gone. Splitsville." Peter continued as Brianna and Karen joined them at the door.
"Whats going on?" Karen asked. She looked at Peter. "What are you doing here so early?"
"Yeah. I thought for a minute you were Ed McMahon with my big cardboard check." Brianna said drowsily.
"Check?" Peter blinked. He shook his head. He'll ask her more about it later. "Livvie is gone."
"Gone?" Karen asked. "How do you know for sure?"
"I found a note on the table this morning." Peter said. "It had dried tear stains on it."
"Why would she leave?" Karen asked.
"And when?" Chea asked. "After we looked for her we came back here. When we went to bed, we passed by her room and the door was closed."
"Hmm." Brianna said. She went to the top of the stairs to where Livvie had her room. They had taken what was a utility closet and turned it into a room. It had a small cot that they bought for her, along with dresser that Peter found for her. Brianna opened the door slowly. It was dark in there, the room had no windows, and a single light bulb that dangled from a chain in the middle of the room. Brianna tried to turn the light on by pulling the string attached but she couldn’t reach it. She turned to get a stool but ran into Karen. She reached over Briannas shoulder and pulled the light on. They blinked as the bulb went on. As soon as they adjusted to the light they looked around the room.
"Wow." Brianna said. She said going to the dresser. She opened a drawer or two, but found they were empty. "All her clothes are gone." A small suitcase they had given her was also gone. Livvies bed was perfectly made.
"Everything is normal, except for the fact that a girl is missing." Karen noted dryly.
Peter and Chea, who had been in the hallway bent inside the room and looked around. The "bedroom" was only slightly larger than the kitchen, and only two people at a time could stand inside it.
"Who would want to leave such cozy quarters?" Chea cracked.
"They weren’t going to stay like this forever." Peter said. "The guys were talking about knocking out that wall since its right next to you and Karens room, but it didnt get too far."
"Why not? It would have been lovely." Brianna said.
"Babbitt said that people who pay the rent only get to knock walls out." Peter shrugged.
Chea made a "wha?" face. They were paying the rent.
"I think its time we took a closer look at that note." Karen said. "Come on."
"Shouldn’t we get dressed? De-gooked?" Brianna said pointing at Chea.
"You'll be wanting the recipe when I'm all nice and acne free." Chea stuck her tongue out.
"Karens right. You should get dressed." Peter said. "We can look for her again. God willing maybe she hasn’t gotten too far."
A few minutes later the gang gathered around the kitchen table in the girls place. The sun was up now. Mike served everyone some coffee or juice. Karen held the letter. "Maybe Peter should read it. It is to him after all."
"Its to all of us." Peter said. "She just chose to address the envelope to me."
She handed it to him. "But I'm sure she would like you to read it to us."
"Okay." Peter said. "Maybe it will be a better read the second time around."
He cleared his throat.
"Dear Peter, and my new friends,
I know my departure will be shocking. Especially since it seems like I really liked it here. Part of that is true, I really do love it here with you guys. But
at the same time, I've had a hard time adapting to being
here in what to me is the future.
"I don't know how to describe it. I've had this overwhelming feeling ever since I've gotten here and its only gotten worse.
"So I decided to go. I dunno if I will be gone forever but I have gone to a place where I think I will handle
being here a lot...better I guess. I know you will
wonder where I have gone...lets just say I've gone back
to my homeland. Well not my homeland my grandparents came from this place so long ago. Hopefully it doesn’t
look too different from the last time I saw it or I will
be at a complete loss for words."
"I'm sorry guys, I guess I just wasn’t made for these times." "Goodbye, Olivia "Livvie" Rose Carter"
Peter looked up. He folded the letter in four parts and put it in his pocket.
"Where would she go?" Micky thought out loud. "Where would her so called homeland be?"
"Hmm." Karen said. "Think about her name. Carter."
"Yeah but..." Mike said. "I don't know if a name can indicate a place of origin."
"Have you ever heard of a Nesmith outside of Texas?" Karen asked him.
He thought for a minute. "No."
"Exactly. A Texan name." She said.
"Well Nesmith was a form of Smith sort of, and Smiths are everywhere." Davy said. "Like theres a lot of Jones, here, in England you can't swing a cat without hitting a Jones or a Carter..." He stopped.
"Swing a cat? That’s icky and horrible to the kitty." Chea said.
"Wait a minute." Karen said. "I think I know why he stopped." She went to him. "Is Carter an english name?"
"I think it might be. I knew a girl name Geannie Carter when I trained to be a jockey." Davy pointed out.
"Peter did she ever mention her parents?" Chea asked.
Peter looked at her. Livvie had said that her parents were gone. When Peter took her to her "home" he found out it was a factory that the earthquake had destroyed. She had him promise not to tell anyone. He sighed. He was going to have to tell though, he never kept any secrets from his friend. "Livvies parents are gone." He said. "She was basically homeless. She lost her home in that quake." Peter said. "I think with everything that went on back there, it was a little too soon to bring her here. If I had known she would...if this would happen I wouldn't have offered to bring her. But I couldn’t not ask, I had feelings for her. I didn’t want her to be alone, and now she is alone out there somewhere. I want to be able to talk to her and tell her everything be all right."
"What would you tell her if you could Peter?" Karen asked.
Peter looked at her. "I'd tell her that I thought a powerful force is at hand here. That something stronger
than both of us brought us together. I don't know if
it was god or destiny or both but I want to know...what I think is something brought me and Livvie together for a reason." He said. "That’s what I would say."
"You don't need to say anymore." Chea touched his
shoulder. "That pretty much says it all." Karen nodded.
"We'll find her." Chea finished.
"I somehow think shes been planning this for a while. Even before the birthday fiasco." Karen said.
"Whys that?" Mike asked.
"I still don't know much about this time period but I think you still need a passport to go overseas." Karen said.
Everyone looked at each other.
"She's right." Davy said. "I still have mine."
"If we're certain that she went to England, we gotta know where she went." Karen continued. "Plus we gotta get passports of our own."
"Why not use the gadget to go over there?" Chea asked.
"Cause if we used the gadget to do everything we won't know how to do jack squat if it breaks again." Brianna said. "Plus it might be cool to fly."
"Says you." Chea muttered.
"Passports and tickets are expensive." Mike said. "It will take all the money we have to get there and get a room. Are we sure we want to go all the way overseas just to find out she’s not there?" He looked at Peter.
Peter stood up. "I'm going." He said simply.
"Peter..." Mike said.
"I'm going!" Peter said. "If none of you want to go, that’s fine with me. I am going over there with or without you." He looked defiantly at everyone. Chea looked at him with awe. He had never been this forceful before with anyone, at any time.
"I'll go." Chea said. "I'll just work over time for a while."
"Me too." Micky said.
"Don't forget us." Davy said as Brianna nodded. Brianna hugged Peter. He looked at Mike and Karen.
"What do you think lil darling?" He asked her.
"Sure, what do we have to lose?" She laughed.
"All for one, All for Livvie." Peter said. He put his hand out. Everyone put their hands on top of his.
"All for Livvie!" They said together.
Three days later
It was another one of those times Chea wished she was in the future. In 2001 tickets could be bought online. Since the guys were leaving in such short notice they had to pay more. At the same time, they forgot that
plane tickets cost a lot less in that period. While
Davy got the tickets, the others went for their passport photos. Davy already had a passport so he was free to go pick the tickets up.
Chea looked at her photo. "I look like a surprised monkey."
"At least you look like you." Karen said. "They used
the flash on me twice."
Chea looked at her photo. Karens eyes were half closed. she had to blink through two flashes, and the result was in the photo.
"I look real nice." Mike said. "Something is missing though."
"What?" Karen asked. They had asked him to remove his hat. She looked at the picture with a smile. His hair
was really nice. She sometimes wished he wouldn’t hide
it all under the hat.
"The phrase 'Wanted dead or alive'." He said closing the
passport.
They looked at Brianna’s. They had to put a book under her so she could reach the camera lens. Mickys however turned out to be the funniest one. He was having trouble finding his footing. He stepped forward to make a funny smile at the camera and managed to step on his own foot. The camera took the picture before he had a chance to correct himself. The picture that showed up had Mickys face closeup as he fell toward the camera.
"One of these days we'll laugh about it." Micky said. The others looked at him. "Okay, sometime in the distant future we'll laugh about it.
Davy met them at the house with the plane tickets.
"So when do we leave?" Chea said looking at the tickets.
"Tomorrow." Davy said. "That’s the best I could do on short notice."
"I'm sorry Davy, but if I knew my girlfriend was gonna run away from home I would have planned ahead!" Peter said angrily. Davy sat back. Peters outburst was surprisingly out of character.
"I'm sorry." He said. "I just want to get over there."
"We know what you mean." Karen said. "Let's get some lunch. We'll pack, and kill some time before we leave.
"It'll be fun, right Chea?" Micky asked. She was silent. "Right Chea?" Micky said louder.
"What? Yeah, uh right. It'll be some kind of...yeah it will be fun." She answered quietly. Karen and Brianna looked at her with concern.
"Is there something wrong babe?" Micky asked reading the girls expressions.
"Oh its nothing." Chea said. "Let's go pack."
Brianna went to follow Chea and Karen to their houses when Davy pulled her aside.
"I have an idea." Davy said.
"What?" Brianna asked.
"When we go to England, we'll make a pit stop." Davy said. "We'll say we'll going to be looking in this place but we'll be doing something else."
"We should really be looking for Livvie Davy..." Brianna said.
"I know." Davy said. "But since we'll be there, I thought there we could do this one thing." He continued. "There is someone I want you to meet."
"Who?" Brianna asked.
"Me mum and dad." He said.
Brianna looked at him with interest.
