Missing Sisters -SA by Gregory Maguire Page A

the bedspread.”

    “I’ll get grass stains all over your face if you don’t watch it.”

    “Oh, yeah?”

    “Yeah.”

    Garth considered. “Oh. Boy, we didn’t get very far with our plan, did we.”

    “Not yet,” said Miami, “but just wait.”

    On Saturday morning Miami finished her chores early and said, “I’m going outside.”

    “Don’t go far,” said Mr. Shaw, turning the pages of the Times Union . He lost himself in the columns usually, chuckling out loud at the funny ones. Miami was surprised he had even heard her. “We have a family outing planned as soon as your mom gets up and has her breakfast.”

    “Oh, no!” said Miami. “Why doesn’t anybody tell me these things? What’re we doing? I don’t want to go.”

    “We’re taking a drive over to Troy,” said Mr. Shaw. “We’re going to go see Alice and have a chat with Father Kevin and Sister John Bosco.”

    “What time?”

    “About midmorning. When we’re ready.”

    This was awful! This was a disaster. Alice might be sneaking away just as they were driving over to where she lived. But Miami couldn’t really say she didn’t want to go. Maybe they were going to make an offer to adopt Alice. Maybe they’d listened to Miami. Taken her seriously. For once.

    If Alice showed up in a taxicab before they left, well, they could just drive her back.
    Miami went out to wait at the foot of the steps.

    Mrs. Jenkins was there scrubbing her sidewalk with a brush and disinfectant. She was so weird. “Miami Shaw,” she said in her raw voice. “Where in the world were those clergy taking you the other day?”

    “It wasn’t me,” said Miami. “It was my sister, Alice.”

    Mrs. Jenkins had to know everything. And Miami was so nervous, waiting for Alice, that she told her the whole story. “Well, that’s one for the papers, that is!” said Mrs. Jenkins. “Your folks going to call a press conference?”

    “What’s that?”

    “Where you call the newspapers and radio and TV channels and tell them all to come at a special time. Then they hear you make a speech and tell the world your unusual story. And yours is a doozy, it is. A lalapalooza.”

    “Well,” said Miami, “I don’t know about things like that.”

    “It’d be front page of the papers, I bet,” said Mrs. Jenkins. “Did you ever hear the like?”

    “I better go in now,” said Miami. “Garth needs help tying his shoes.”

    “Such a nice sister to Garth, you are,” said Mrs. Jenkins. “I know. I see what I see. Well, you’ll get over it.”

    Oooh, the witch. Miami ran up to the house.

    Then adult forces took over, pushing the kids this way and that, the way they always did.
    The babies howled. Garth was goody-goody, eager to see this Alice again. Miami kept running to the tower to stare down into the street, looking for a taxi. But none stopped, and before too long the family had bundled into the Rust Queen, Mr. Shaw’s name for the ’61 Chevy deathtrap they risked life and limb in, or so Miami thought. Alice was not in any taxi they passed so far as Miami could see. She dreaded the scene when they got to Troy.

    But despite herself, she grew interested in seeing where Alice lived. She hadn’t been to Troy before, or not that she could remember. In school they called Troy the armpit of America. It didn’t look so bad to Miami. And with Mrs. Shaw craning for landmarks and Mr. Shaw cursing (or as near as he came to cursing) at the one-way signs, Miami had ample opportunity to imagine that she lived in Troy, and Alice was her sister in Albany somewhere.

    The Sacred Heart Home for Girls loomed like a redbrick office or factory. The area around it seemed slummy. Miami had been expecting a private house with a picket fence and gaily painted shutters, a garden with big floppy flowers. But the home shot up three solid floors into the air like a fortress, like a massive land formation. It was flat-topped, with iron grille in the lower windows and bars on the