Her One Mistake(8)

“Oh?” I doubted she’d noticed which children were getting on and off. She’d barely lifted her head when I’d placed the coins in her outstretched hand. “Sorry, I don’t know,” she said. “What does she look like?”

“About this high.” My hand hovered at the top of Molly’s head. Alice was tall for her age. “She’s only four, though. She’s wearing a white T-shirt and a pink frilly skirt.”

The woman shook her head as her friend stared at me blankly. “No, sorry,” she said. “I don’t remember seeing her. I’ll keep a lookout, though.”

“Oh God.” I felt sick. This couldn’t be happening.

“What do we do?” Jack looked at me, biting the edge of his thumbnail as he waited for an answer. He wasn’t worried, why would he be? He assumed I’d sort out the problem and then, when we found Alice, we’d move on to the next activity.

“We start looking for her.” I took hold of the girls’ hands again. “We’ll search the whole field. She has to be here somewhere.” But my pulse raced a little faster as we started walking, Jack close behind us, weaving through the crowds across the field, back toward the car park. And the more time that passed, the quicker it beat.

We stopped at every stall, looked under trestle tables, between the long legs of the adults, all of us calling Alice’s name with varying degrees of panic. Past Hook-A-Duck and the soccer shoot-out, the lines of dads cheering when one of them missed. The tombola spitting out raffle tickets, the cake stall again. As we passed each one, the grip on my daughters’ hands tightened, my head constantly swiveling around to check Jack was following.

“Have you seen a little girl?” I stopped just past the cake stall and called out to a mum from Molly’s year who was manning the toy stand. My voice was louder than I’d intended. “Blond hair to here.” I pointed to just below my shoulder. “White T-shirt, pink skirt.”

Her expression was grim as she shook her head. “Where have you looked?”

“Everywhere,” I cried out in a tight breath.

For a moment I couldn’t move. My hands started to tremble, and I didn’t realize how tightly I was gripping on to my girls until Molly yelped as she tried to pull away. I needed to do something, but what? Put out an announcement? Call the police? I’d lost track of how long it had been since I’d seen her. Didn’t every second count in these situations?

“Why don’t you see if they’ll make an announcement?” the mum said as if reading my thoughts. She pointed to the far end of the field. “Mr. Harrison’s usually over there somewhere.”

I stared back at her, not knowing how to answer. The truth was I didn’t want to. Because as soon as I did, I would be admitting this was serious. I would be admitting I had lost a child. And someone else’s child, at that.

“Charlotte?” A hand clasped my shoulder and I turned, coming face-to-face with Audrey.

“Oh God, Aud.” I dropped the girls’ hands and clamped my own over my mouth. “I’ve lost Alice. I can’t find her anywhere.”

“Okay,” she said calmly, automatically looking about. “Don’t panic. She’s got to be around somewhere.”

“What do I do? I’ve been around the whole field.” I needed Audrey to fix it in the no-nonsense way she’s so good at.

“We’ll find someone in charge,” she said. “Maybe they can close down all the exits.” She looked over toward the car park and I followed her gaze. Streams of cars continued to meander in. The fair was getting busier.

“Who?” There was no one in charge. I’d not once seen the headmaster, Mr. Harrison, with his loudspeaker. He was supposed to be here today. He always attended the fair. But apart from Gail, no one was acting as security or even manning the gates to the car park and the perimeters of the field. Alice could have gotten out in any one of four directions had she wanted to. Is that what she had done at the back of the inflatable? Had she, for whatever reason, climbed over the fence and headed toward the golf course?

“We’ve lost a little girl,” Audrey called out to anyone who would listen. “We need everyone to look for her.” She turned to me. “Maybe we should call the police.”

I shook my head as a couple of other mums came up to us. “Are you okay, Charlotte?” one asked. “Who have you lost?”

“My friend’s daughter,” I cried. My hands pressed the sides of my face, fingers stretching to cover my eyes. “Alice. Her name is Alice. She’s only four. Oh God, this isn’t happening.”

“It’s okay,” Aud said as she took my arm and eventually pried my hands away. “Everyone can help look. Don’t worry, we’ll find her. How long has it been?”

“I don’t know,” I said, my heart beating rapidly as I tried to think how long it was since I’d last seen her. “Maybe about twenty minutes.”

“Twenty minutes?” one of the mums asked.

“Okay,” Audrey announced. “I’m calling the police.”

? ? ?

THE NEWS OF a missing child spread rapidly. A whisper passed through the crowd, kicking up a burst of activity as everyone looked around them. The threat of danger, an unspoken murmur of excitement that everyone had a role in finding her, no doubt had people wanting to be the one who could call out that she was hiding beneath their stall. I doubted any of them were imagining the worst. Children get lost and it was never long before they were found and the terrified parents gushed their thanks to the person who happened to come across the child.