Small as an Elephant - Jennifer Richard Jacobson [1]
There were no concession stands in the campground, no restaurants — not even a convenience store — so Jack jogged out to the registration hut and asked the woman behind the counter (who was reading a fantasy by Robin McKinley, the same one his friend Nina had read earlier this summer) where the nearest market was.
“Tired of Dinty Moore?” she asked. “Seawall Camping Supplies. Right down the road.”
Jack knew all about Dinty Moore stew — not from camping, but from the nights when his mom had to work late and he made his own dinner. “Do you know if —” He was going to say, If a woman with short blond hair and a light-colored Prius has come through, but a feeling in the pit of his stomach made him change his mind midsentence. “If that store you just mentioned has those bright — those neon-red hot dogs?”
The woman laughed. “Red snappers! Absolutely!”
Jack smiled. As least one of the things his mom had promised on the drive to Maine was going to happen. He was going to bite into a glowing red hot dog and hear a snap.
The first thing Jack did once he’d left the park and was on Route 102A was pull out his phone again. There was a single bar — he had a tiny chance of reaching his mother. He punched in the number. Yes! It was ringing!
But she didn’t pick up. He wished they hadn’t argued in the car last night. He wished he’d tried to be a little more understanding.
He hung up and tried again, this time listening to her voice-mail message: “Becky Martel here — or not here, to be exact. Don’t leave any old message. Wow me!”
He waited for the beep and then shouted, “Where are you?”
Seawall Camping Supplies didn’t look like any store Jack had ever visited. It was a cabin — with a porch and everything — and had signs all over it. HOT SHOWERS AND LOBSTER POUND, read one sign. Another said, IT’S COOLER ON THE COAST. He would have felt nervous about walking into the strange place if not for a third sign that read, COIN-OP SHOWERS INSIDE STORE. CHANGE AT THE COUNTER. The sign made him laugh, and he wished his mother was there to share the joke.
A rack of stuffed animals greeted him just inside the door: lobsters, seals, moose, and black bears — but no elephants. The decklike wooden floor creaked as he ambled — among maps and maple syrup, fishing line and Goldfish crackers, all jumbled together — to the counter, where a woman in an apron was waiting to take his order.
“How much are the hot dogs?” Jack asked.
“You can have two dogs, chips, and a small soda for four dollars,” she said.
“Red ones?”
“Of course. What do you want on ’em?”
“Mustard,” he said, taking a five out of his pocket and then, before handing it over, asking, “Can I buy a paper, too?”
The woman nodded at the pile of newspapers by the door and added the price of a Bangor Daily News.
Jack sat down at a table on the porch to wait and scanned the headlines, barely giving himself enough time to read the words. Breathe, he reminded himself after a moment, the way his mother would. What’s the worst that could have happened?
Car accident. Definitely. The only thing he knew for sure was that his mother had taken the car. She’d taken the Prius and had headed off somewhere this morning (Last night? As soon as I fell asleep?) and, although she was a good driver — in fact, that was her job, driving a shuttle for the Intown Inn — he figured anyone could speed off these twisty island roads.
BLACK BEARS caught his eye, but it was an article about a football team and not wild animals. Another headline, about a missing nine-year-old girl, stopped him. (Did adults get kidnapped?) Jack was reading this story when the woman brought his food.
“Scary, isn’t it?” she said, glancing down at the paper. “Sure hope they find her safe and sound.”
Jack nodded, thinking about his mom and pushing the paper away. He took a bite of his hot dog and heard the