Lost for Words by Alice Kuipers Page A

having to keep up. The street was pretty, old buildings crowding along it like gossiping women and little boutique shops peeping out. I pointed out a shop to Emily. In the window was a beautiful golden globe. We looked at it for a moment, and then, without telling Mum, we went inside.
    An old woman was sitting on a chair in the back of the room, her legs crossed and her hands folded in her lap. Emily said something to her, but the woman didn’t answer. We took another step closer, and I knew, I just knew, something wasn’t right. The woman’s head was lowered and she was sitting very still.
    I said Emily’s name, but she didn’t hear me or she couldn’t believe what she was seeing, because she walked right up tothe woman and put her hand on her shoulder. She pulled her hand away fast.
    I looked at the old woman peacefully sitting there.
    Emily whispered, “She’s dead.”
    And then the old woman jerked her head up and her eyes sprang open. The pair of us screamed. We fled the shop and thundered down the street. Soon we were in narrow lanes that we didn’t recognize. I started crying. I looked around and Emily wasn’t there. I screamed, “Emily! Emily!”
    Emily ran up to me and seized my hand. “Hey, hey, I’m here. Don’t worry, I’m not going to leave you. I’m not going anywhere. I was just behind you.”
    “I didn’t know where you were.” I sobbed.
    “It’s okay.”
    “Was that woman dead? How did she come back to life?”
    She had her arms around me. “It’s okay. It’s all okay.” She sounded like Mum.
    “Where are we?” I said.
    “It’ll be all right. Don’t worry, Sophie.”
    “But where are we?”
    Emily shushed me and put her arm tighter around my shoulders. She sat me on a bench. She said, “Don’t worry. I’m not going to leave you. Mum will find us.”
    Mum came around the corner then, frantic. She grabbed hold of me and then of Emily. I’d forgotten that: she grabbed hold of me first.
    “I’ve been out of my mind,” she said.
    “We got lost,” Emily replied. “We thought this woman was dead. She can’t have been, though.” Looking back, I realize that the woman must have just been sleeping. The dead don’t come back to life.
    Mum squirreled her eyebrows together. “What woman? What are you talking about?”
    I tried to say something, but I had a sudden urge to giggle. Now Mum was over being relieved, she started telling us off. I squeezed my sister’s hand. Even as Mum was yelling, Emily whispered to me, “Told you it’d be all right.”
     
    But it’s not all right. Not at all.

7
In a puddle of grey
    MONDAY, MARCH 27 TH
    On my way to school I was making a long list of resolutions like I should have made on New Year’s. I resolved to go jogging twice a week even if it was raining. To eat more fruits and vegetables, and do a yoga DVD on Wednesdays and Fridays. To lose a little weight—although not as much as Abi has lost; she looked really thin today—and get toned in the right places. I want to make sure all my underwear matches, just in case I do ever have a boyfriend. (Not Dan,though. I wish I would stop thinking about him.) I want to paint my nails and have them look nice. I want to write more poems and read a book every week. I want to go back to doing something like drama or judo, one of the things I used to do before everything fell apart. And I want to stick to the one resolution I did make on New Year’s Day: to forget all about it, to move on.
    As the morning slid by, I got more and more stressed. I ended up spending the afternoon in the bathroom. Eventually the bell rang for the end of school. I was shaking and hysterical. I watched out the window and saw Rosa-Leigh standing at the stone arch waiting for me, checking her watch. Then, when she’d gone, when everyone had gone and the janitor was about to lock up the building, I escaped and hurried through the park to get home.
    When I’d calmed down, I looked on the internet to see if I could find