Vanished by Sheela Chari

entire time.
    Only this time Lynne was there to defend her. How Lynne even knew about bindis was another story. But that didn’t matter. What mattered was that Neela had said nothing while Lynne had stood up to Amanda, even though she was the one with the feather shirt and funny glasses and…
    Neela noticed then that Lynne’s chair was empty. She looked up just in time to see Lynne slip quietly out the door of the classroom. No one was allowed to leave without a hall pass. But apparently no one, including Mrs. Averil, had noticed Lynne slip out. And there at her table next to the unfinished papier-mâché dragon, Lynne had left her notebook behind.
    Neela leaned forward to get a better look. Just as Matt had said, the back of Lynne’s notebook was covered with dragons, each drawn in varying levels of detail. The largest one was remarkably good, with raised wings and scaled legs. And each dragon had a pointy tail, a beaky face, and two legs, just like the dragon on her veena and the one on the teakettle in the church.
    When she was sure no one was watching, Neela reached for the notebook. Her conscience jabbed at her as she flipped through the pages under the table. Yes, she was going through Lynne’s private things, but maybe there was something important about the dragons.
    As she looked through, a magazine clipping fell out of the notebook and fluttered to the floor. She picked it up and saw it was an ad for cameras on sale at a local camera shop. One was circled in thick black ink: Amazing images! Outstanding performance! State of the art SLR! A lot of exclamation marks, Neela thought. She remembered the photographer at yesterday’s concert. The fancy camera in the ad looked like something she would use. Neela stuck the clipping back into the notebook.
    By now, Matt had returned, his forehead washed off. “Mission—terminate all animal forms,” he said, and pretended to swoop his space alien over Neela’s frog puppet.
    â€œStop it,” she said, turning away to shield the notebook on her lap. She didn’t care about the frog, but she didn’t want Matt to see what she was doing.
    â€œMust seek others,” he said. Behind her, Neela could hear Penny and Amanda squealing in annoyance at him.
    Neela continued flipping through the pages, seeing mostly homework assignments and notes from class that Lynne had scribbled. But then she came to a page with a drawing that made her stop. It wasn’t a dragon. It was a veena.
    Lynne had drawn it very carefully, including the frets, a resonator, all seven strings, and a dragon peg box. Next to it was a date, and a list:
    In very good condition
    Initials still visible, though faded
    Approximately four feet in length
    not a single mark or scratch except for the neck
    The date at the top of the page was from last week, the same day Neela had brought her veena to class. This was a drawing and description of her veena. Even the peg box was identical, with a full dragon body, tail, and wings. Then Neela remembered all the photos Lynne took of her veena in class. It was as if Lynne was keeping track of her veena because she knew something Neela didn’t. And now Lynne had disappeared in the middle of class. Before Neela could change her mind, she made her way to the front of the classroom. She looked back once at her teacher before ducking out the door, Lynne’s notebook tucked under her arm.

The library was just outside the art room. It was also Neela’s favorite place in school. Except for kindergarten, all the other classrooms, including the art room, opened to it, with the library at the center like a hub. Even though the library wasn’t enclosed, the air felt different there. Maybe it was the scent of books that made it so special. At any rate, Neela didn’t mind sneaking out of Art if it meant going to the library, especially when she saw Lynne on a computer at the information center, busy copying something