The School Gate Survival Guide by Kerry Fisher

had sent me loop-de-loop. How did people cope when their kids were missing for days, years even? I tried Colin’s mobile again. Never, ever there when I needed him.
    I went back inside, peering out of the front window for a forlorn shape lurking. I wished Mum was still alive. She was so capable, she’d have known what to do. I shook my head, trying to connect two thoughts together. Bronte really liked Clover. She might have gone there. I dialled her number and left a madwoman message on her answerphone. I paced about sifting through my little conversations with Bronte, where I’d been scratching away for information among her sulky grunts. Had I missed something? Was this really over a disco evening? Why had I let her get out of the van to walk this morning? Images of perverts pretending to be respectable-looking men in shiny cars outside the school filled my mind. Maybe she hadn’t run away at all, maybe someone had taken her. No. This was about the disco. It had to be. Little monkey was probably sitting under a tree somewhere enjoying how worried we’d all be. Anything else was too horrible.
    I kept looking at the clock. Nearly three-quarters of an hour since Mr Peters had called. How long did it take to whizz round a school? Finally, the phone rang. I snatched it up.
    ‘Ms Etxeleku, I’m sorry. We’ve searched everywhere. The next step is to call the police and I think we should do that now,’ Mr Peters said.
    The word ‘police’ moved me from worried to imagination overdrive. I couldn’t seem to make my mouth form any words.
    ‘Ms Etxeleku? Are you there? Try to stay calm. The police react to Stirling Hall calls very swiftly.’ I knew he was right. Authority dealing with authority would get a search party moving more quickly than me not knowing who to speak to and getting fobbed off with some pen-clicking clerk who ‘couldn’t do anything until she’s been missing for twenty-four hours’. I was sure that the police were much quicker off the mark for burglaries in SD2’s neighbourhood than missing children in SD1.
    I put the phone down and ran next door to Sandy. All the curtains were still shut. I thumped on the door. I saw her bedroom curtains move, but she didn’t come down. The drizzle was gathering force, stingy, sharp darts pinging off my arms. I shouted through the letterbox. ‘Sandy, I need to speak to you. Bronte’s missing.’
    There was a pause, then the upstairs window scraped open and Sandy’s head poked out, her bright red hair sticking up in all directions. She hauled up the strap of something satiny. ‘Blimey O’Riley, can’t a girl get a lie-in round here? What was you yelling at me?’
    The sympathy on her face as I shouted up to her broke the last little stitch holding me together. Denim and Gypsy often bunked off school so I’d been expecting her to tell me she’d turn up, to shut up with my mithering and that I was lucky Bronts had never done it before. Instead she ran her fingers through her tufty hair and looked worried. I was trying to force my tears back, shoving against that gathering speed feeling, which started off as quiet, miserable leaking and ended with me howling as though my heart would heave itself out of my chest.
    ‘Did you see Colin leave this morning? I can’t get hold of him,’ I said.
    ‘No, I ain’t seen him. I’ve been on night shift. Hang on, I’ll come down.’
    Sandy opened the door, all floor length leopard skin, lace and baggy boobs. Fluffy tiger slippers peeped out underneath. We ran through the sort of places Bronte might have gone: the rec, the shopping centre, KFC, McDonald’s, the sports hall. Sandy kept getting side-tracked by stories of Denim and Gypsy’s truancy. She pulled me into a big hug but I was too stressed to let myself be looked after, too many people to phone, too many places to search.
    I wriggled free and turned to head home, just as a black Audi drew up. The door opened and Mr Peters got out.
    ‘Mr Peters! Have you