Chapter Six "They said they were coming back," I tell the policeman, "but they didn''t. And they always do what they say. It says in my book that I''ve called them sixty-seven times." The police station is a gray building with an orange tiled roof. It is boring on the outside, and inside it is boring too. The reception area is small, with a little row of three blue chairs by the window. The man who is sitting at the reception desk is being polite, but he doesn''t think my problem is the most interesting thing that will happen to him today. He has a bald head, which is shining under the electric light.

There is a piece of paper in his hand and he keeps trying to read it. I know it has nothing to do with me. "Sixty-seven?" he echoes. He looks up at me with a little frown. "Seriously?" "They always tell me what they''re doing. Always." "Your parents are visiting your brother and have not come home when you thought they would?" "That''s right." "Have you contacted your brother?" "I don''t think so.

" "And they are fully functioning grown-ups?" "Yes." "As are you?" I see him looking at the words on my hand, trying to read them. He looks at my face. He stares into my eyes for a few seconds, and his manner changes. He pushes his papers away. "Oh. I know who you are." I don''t know what to say to that, so I say nothing.

"What are you?" he says. "Sixteen or so?" "I''m seventeen and I kissed a boy on a beach. Before that I was ten and I was going to the amusement park. I met Paige when we were four." I only meant to say the first two words out loud. The rest of it was supposed to be in my head. He looks as if he wants to laugh at me, and I hate that. "Yeah.

You''ve been here before. You''ve met my colleagues. OK. I''ll call someone for you. Have a seat. Do you have a friend? Neighbor? Any other family around?" "Paige is my friend." "Let''s have Paige''s number then. I''ll get her to come and pick you up.

Maybe you can stay at her place." I look at my phone, searching for Paige''s name and number. Paige will pick me up and take care of me. But I know as I say the words in my head that they are not right. There are texts on my phone, but they are all from me. All of them say things like: "Hello Paige. Are you going to be back soon?" She has not replied. I hope she is OK.

I scroll up and up until I find her last text to me. It is from a few days ago, and it says: "Flora. This is the last time I''m going to answer. I am not your friend anymore, not since you kissed my boyfriend. WE ARE NOT FRIENDS. Leave me alone." I stare at the words. I did kiss her boyfriend.

That happened: I can remember it. I kissed a boy on the beach. He was Drake. I love him. That means Paige and I are not friends. I look up. I am in the police station because my parents haven''t come home, and there is a man with a shiny head and a pen and a yellow Post-it note in front of him. He is waiting for me to tell him Paige''s phone number so he can ask her to come and get me.

I stand up. "It''s OK, actually," I tell him, and I walk to the door, and then through it, and then I run down the road, all the way home. I am on my own. It is suddenly exciting. I skip down the road. I dance. I can do anything. *** I scrawl the words on my arm.

Contact Jacob . Maybe Jacob might help me. If the policeman called Paige she might try to help me in spite of everything. I could go and bang on her door and she would probably let me in. Yet I cannot do that because I would not be able to tell her about my e-mails with Drake, and she would find out instantly because his name is everywhere in my world. It is on my hands and arms and a hundred new little notes perching around the house like butterflies. I need to take the new notes down in case my parents get back. I must remember to do it.

There is too much to remember. *** "Hello?" I call. There are no extra shoes on the porch, no coats, no luggage, no voices. I want my parents to be here. "I''m home!" I add, and stand and wait. Contact Jacob. My parents keep paperwork in a filing cabinet and in teetering piles in a bedroom that has a single bed without any sheets on it. I start with the teetering piles.

I write a note: Looking for Jacob''s phone number and stick it onto the edge of the table with tape. There is nothing about my parents'' trip. There are no travel details, no hotel booking, no letters. I would probably find them if I looked harder, on the big computer. I open the filing cabinets and look for traces of my big brother. This involves plowing through lots of boring pieces of old paper, checking each one for his name. I find an envelope that says flora on the front, and take out a sheaf of papers from inside, but words like "temporal lobe," "associated confabulation," and "GCS 8" jump out and make me nervous. I write down some of the strange words and put the piece of paper in my pocket.

Then I shove everything back in its envelope and push it down into the cabinet. There is a postcard with a picture of the Eiffel Tower on it. That is in Paris. I turn it over and see that it is addressed to me, in messy handwriting. It says: "Looking at this right now and thinking of you. You''re amazing. Jacob xx." I stare at it.

I take a photo of it. It doesn''t have his phone number or his address on it. I put it on top of the filing cabinet. Jacob was thinking of me, in Paris. I must have seen this card before. I screw my eyes tight shut and tell him that I am thinking of him too. I hope he knows. I find a passport, and oddly it turns out to be mine.

It was issued two years ago and is valid for another eight years. I leave that out on the side, just in case, and write I HAVE A PASSPORT! in big letters down the inside of my left arm. I think of Drake. He makes me remember. I can remember kissing him. The smell of the sea. The black stone. "We could spend the night.

" "My mom." He is far away. I put the passport into the back pocket of my jeans. After a long time I find a piece of paper with a handwritten address on it, topped with the words " Jacob ." It says, " Paris ," but it does not have a phone number. It does not look like a new piece of paper. It looks like the kind of piece of paper that would fall out of an old book. It says: " Jacob, A pt .

3, 25 Rue Charlot, 75003, Paris, FRANCE. " When I type the address into the computer it appears on a map: it really is in Paris, the capital of France, and it could be where he lives, or it could be a place he lived in once. There must be a better way of getting ahold of him, but since I can''t think what it would be, I write him a card saying who I am and that I am worried because our parents haven''t come home, and I ask him to call me if he''s well enough, or to get our parents to call me, as soon as he can if he gets this. I add my e-mail address, just in case. I read it over. It sounds all right, I think. It sounds normal. I find three first-class stamps in the drawer with the tape and semi-working pens, and I run outside and mail it.

I report it all back to Drake and write it in my notebook. Time passes, and then Drake replies. He''s probably on Facebook, he advises. Have you looked? But there must be tons of Jacob Bankses. I try to look him up, but I can''t log in, because I don''t have an account. I follow the instructions to make one, but when I put in my e-mail address, it says I do have an account after all. The laptop fills in the password with a row of dots, so I click "OK" and look at a part of me that I had no idea existed. There is a photograph of Paige and me.

We are cheek to cheek, smiling at the camera. I miss Paige. She is not my friend anymore, though she is listed as being one of my friends on Facebook. I only have five friends on here, and they are people I remember from primary school. My page has nothing written on it. I don''t know how this works. I remember Jacob being on Facebook when I was little, and I remember pestering him to get off the computer and come play with me. The website was blue then, and it is blue now.

I type "Jacob Banks" into a box, but then it comes up as my status, so I know I entered it in the wrong place. I type it in a different box and see what happens. Many Jacob Bankses show up in a long list. Except it is impossible to see anything about most of the people who appear, and I have no idea what my brother looks like now. In my memories he is big and wonderful. In the photos in this house he is still a teenager, but I think now he is much older than that. Some of these profiles say things like "San Diego" underneath them, so I know they''re the wrong Jacob Bankses, while others show teenagers in their photographs (teenagers who do not look like my pictures) so I know they''re not him either. There is a photo of a man with a big red scar all down the side of his face.

I don''t click on that, because that''s not my brother, and also it says that he lives in Gay Paree, wherever that is. Whenever I click on a likely photo, I get: "Do you know Jacob? To see what he shares with friends, send him a friend request," and a suggestion to "add friend." I do that with everyone who I think could possibly b.