Total pages in book: 159
Estimated words: 149301 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 747(@200wpm)___ 597(@250wpm)___ 498(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 149301 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 747(@200wpm)___ 597(@250wpm)___ 498(@300wpm)
“Hey, sweetheart, are you okay? Do you need help?” Poet questioned as she approached the youngster, getting on one knee so that they could be at eye-level. The little girl with curly dark brown pony-tail puffs adorned with red bows stared at her. Her chin trembled, and that was all she wrote. Then, suddenly, a loud bellow gushed from the child’s mouth like an angel sounding out her alarming distress. The sobbing was in stereo, and she was falling apart at the seams. So much so, her little chest was puffing in and out as she slid closer and closer to the glossy floor. She’s hyperventilating.
“Ohhhh, no, no, it’s okay. It’s going to be okay, baby. It’s going to be fine.” She took her wrists and squeezed them.
“It won’t. They’re gone,” the little girl managed between choppy, harsh breaths. Poet moved her fingers down to the child’s hands, and gave them too a gentle squeeze.
“Were you with a class, or someone else?”
The girl sniffed and wiped her tears on the back of her hand. “My auntie and brother.”
“Okay, we’ll find your aunt and brother. I know this place so well, and am so good at findin’ lost things, sweetheart. I could find a tiny marble hidden inside of a piece of pottery from the China display if I needed to.” The little girl’s cheeks plumped ever so slightly at that. “My name is Poet, and I work here at the museum. What’s your name?” she asked as she stood back up, but kept the little girl’s hand close.
“April.”
“April? What a pretty name! I love your outfit, too.” The little girl looked up at her, still sniffling, but slightly calmer.
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome, honey.” She looked into the girl’s eyes and recognized her fear. Her distress. Her helplessness. An unpleasant recollection crawled into Poet’s mind of a time when she too was around the little girl’s age… but she pushed it aside, determined to stay focused. She glanced over at the men’s restroom, and the family one that was down a little ways.
“April, baby, how old is your brother?”
“Four.”
“You know what? Your aunt may have taken him to go potty while you used the bathroom. He’s not quite old enough to go in by himself. At least not in this day and age.” The little girl’s expression changed to confusion as she directed her gaze to the men’s bathroom—as if that were truly an idea she hadn’t considered. A calmness came over her. Poet then spotted one of the security guards and waved him over.
“Hey, Teddy!”
The man trotted over, his gray uniform clinging to a rather prominent gut. His keys rattled as he jogged in her direction, a smile on his wide, shiny face.
“Hey, Ms. Constantine. What’s up?” he asked, a bit breathlessly, after he reached her.
“April here can’t find her little brother and aunt. Can you go into the men’s bathroom and check for me while I walk down with April to the Family restroom?” She pointed in the opposite direction. “I doubt that the aunt is in there since men would be comin’ in and out, but I want to be doubly sure. You just never know.”
“Yeah, no problem. Hey, little lady,” he said to the child with an even bigger smile. He bent down, causing his ring of keys to jangle once more, and the gun and walkie talkie on his hip to shift forward. “What’s your aunt’s and lil’ brother’s name?”
“She’s my Aunt Clara, and my brother’s name is Michael. We call him, M&M.”
“Okay, gotcha.” Ted disappeared inside the men’s restroom. She could hear him faintly calling out, “Aunt Clara and Michael? M&M? Y’all in here?”
She headed down towards the family restroom. They were halfway to the restroom when a tall, finger-waved hair, wide-hipped woman in a denim jumpsuit that was splattered with water or perhaps something worse, was coming out the door.
Her face was ruddy, her expression twisted and grim, and she was tugging on a little boy’s wrist.
“Auntie!!!” the little girl squealed, then broke free from her grip and raced to meet her aunt and brother. Poet kept walking towards them until she caught up, the little girl now hugging her aunt around the legs.
“Hi, I take it you’re Aunt Clara?”
The woman looked her up and down, grimacing as if bracing herself for something she didn’t want to hear.
“…Yes.”
“My name is Poet, and I work here. I’m an educator, exhibit designer, and taxidermist. April was outside of the bathroom crying, and concerned that—”
“Look, before you start, April was doin’ number two and this here boy started gettin’ jiggle legs talkin’ ’bout he had to pee. We couldn’t wait no longer, and I called out to April, lettin’ her know that I had to take Michael to the bathroom but she musta not heard me. He ain’t make it.” She sighed, showing a bit of her front gold tooth. “Soon as we got in there, he treated me like he was a firehose, and I was a building on fire. I been in there tryna clean both him and me up.”