--Anne Lamott

I am ten years old and Mom and Dad are out shopping with Frank, buying him a birthday present.

Aunt Gertrude is downstairs somewhere dusting already spotless surfaces and generally being super-efficient.

I’m in bed, bored. I have the flu, apparently, although it just seems to be a ploy to stop me having fun.

It’s a really hot day, oppressive, it feels like the sky is on the ground, there seems to be no air anywhere.

I am alone and bored. I want to be in town with the others, looking at baseball bats and new skateboards, or over in Chet’s house eating ice cream sodas.

Aunt Gertrude is no fun, she just tells me to stay in bed and sleep.

Sleep! Huh, in this heat. So I make a decision, a spur of the moment, extremely silly Joe Hardy decision. I decided to sneak out and go over to Chet’s for a while, and sneak back before anyone notices.

Just slip out the back door, cycle over to Chet’s and cycle back in a couple of hours. Simple.

Except that a man stands in front of my bike and stops me when I’m cycling down the road.

He wants to know who I am, where I’m going. Dad always told us not to talk to strangers. The man is funny looking, his eyes keep looking in all different directions and his shoulders are kind of twitching.

I don’t like the look of the man. I start to cycle away but the man runs after me and pulls me off the bike and into his car, leaving the bike on the sidewalk. I yell and kick the man, but he ignores me, just throws me into the back seat and takes off.

We drive for hours and hours and I fall asleep. When I wake up I am in the bedroom of a house, and my hands are tied together.

I’m alone, but I can hear movement in the room next to me. Then the man comes in and asks me am I alright. He tells me that he’s not going to hurt me, he just wants to talk to my Dad, and he has some ‘business’ to sort out with him.

I know that I am scared, I know that this man isn’t nice, that he has kidnapped me, but I don’t want him to know that I am scared so I nod, and ask the man for a drink of water. He brings me in water, and a sandwich, and unties me while I eat.

Then he stands up and says that he has to go away to ring my Dad, but he’ll be back later. He ties me to the bedpost and leaves.

At first I’m not too afraid, I try to get out of my ropes, but I can’t, so I just sit and look around me. Its still daylight and I can see the cobwebs in the ceiling of the room, and the crack in the window where the glass was broken and never repair. I sit there and wait for the man to come back.

And I wait….and wait… and wait……

He doesn’t come back, and now it’s getting dark and I am alone. I’ve never been alone in the dark, not like this, usually Frank is there or else the door is slightly open and I can see out the hall and hear Mom and Dad next door.

But there is no light, and no Mom and Dad, and no Frank. And then I remember the cobwebs, and the spiders. And I’m still alone…………………

I don’t know how long I was tied to that bed, maybe only for three or four hours. Dad found me somehow; he came crashing in the door. I remember crying and crying for hours afterwards, and only Frank could get me to stop.

That was what, 11 years ago? I thought that I had forgotten about it, buried it, but I haven’t.

I was so scared back then, and in the end Dad was there, Dad rescued me. Why don’t I think that he will rescue me now?

Something inside of me keeps telling me that Frank, Frank is my hope; Frank will find me, not Dad. I don’t understand it.

Sometimes I think that I can hear them; that they are nearby, outside even, but they don’t know that I am here. I feel like if I shout loud enough then they would hear me and come crashing through the door.

Don’t give up hope Joe. That’s what Aunt Gertrude would say. She is a great believer in hope; she always said that she wouldn’t be here today without it.

Maybe she’s right. Maybe I should hope; hope that someone will come, and hope that I will get out of this and that things will go back to normal.

Normal is getting up in the morning and going for a swim, normal is sitting and eating breakfast with Frank on the veranda, normal is the twice weekly phone call from Aunt Gertrude wanting to know if we are eating and taking our vitamins.

Did you ever wake up suddenly at night and think that you are falling? I think that I am falling now. My mind keeps racing, keeps thinking about people, about past events, about individual moments.

Like I keep thinking about the time Phil moved to Bayport. He and Frank shared a lot of classes together on his first day, and they found they had a lot in common. Both of them are interested in technology, in computers, both of them are reserved, neither are very willing to share their emotions.

Phil is quiet, he doesn’t speak unless he has something important to say and when he does speak you know to listen, because what he says usually makes sense.

In the beginning, I think I almost hated him.

He took Frank you see. In my mixed up kids head, Phil took Frank away. Suddenly it wasn’t all about me. Suddenly Frank had a friend of his own, like Chet and I. But it wasn’t ok for Frank to have a friend as far as I was concerned.

I know now that I was wrong, that I was being unreasonable. I know that Phil is a good person, a good friend. I knew it then too, I just wouldn’t admit it. I couldn’t admit it. Suddenly Frank wasn’t around at the weekends anymore. He was over at Phil’s or they were out somewhere.

Suddenly I didn’t come first anymore. I knew that wasn’t true, I knew that Frank was my brother and that brothers always come first.

But there was something about Phil; he seemed to have a silent longing, a need for companionship. It was palpable. He is an only child, his parents aren’t very close. So naturally he was lonely, moving to a new town, a new school, he had no-one to talk to, to share things.

When Frank offered his friendship, Phil grabbed it with both hands. He grabbed it and held on.

And I was jealous.

I was jealous of Phil because Frank liked him; they had so much in common, more than Frank and I. Who did he think he was? Taking my brother away from me……

In the beginning I was so hostile to him, I’m ashamed now even thinking back on those times. I ignored him, or glared at him, depending on the situation. I never talked to him, and always went up to my room or over to Chet’s when he called around.

One day I met him when I was coming running out the front door and he was climbing the steps to call for Frank. We collided, well, I collided into him really, and we both fell onto the grass in front of the house. I stood up to keep going and looked back at Phil. He was sitting on the ground, rubbing his arm where he had obviously hurt it.

I wanted to run on, to leave him sitting there. After all, he was the enemy, the interloper who was taking my brother’s attention away from me.

But he was hurt, and he looked so despondent, and I couldn’t just leave him. So I walked back and asked him was he ok, and then apologized for running into him.

Phil was still sitting on the grass, a small, thin figure, glasses perched haphazardly on his nose, elbow bleeding.

Suddenly I began to understand why Frank was drawn to him. There was something so forlorn, so lost and lonely

He never complained, never really showed what he was feeling, not to anyone, but I could feel it that day. I could feel his loneliness, his longing to share a bond like Frank and I, and his disappointment at realizing that he never would.

Phil wasn’t stealing Frank away from me, he knew he couldn’t. He was just borrowing him, taking comfort in Franks presence, catching the tail end of all the time and emotion Frank put into me.

And then I realized how much of a strain I put on Frank at times, the big brother tag generally comes with a lot of responsibility but in my case it’s a pretty pricey tag. Frank needed a break from me, needed an easy, open friendship, and that’s what he had, still has with Phil.

I told Phil everything a few years after that, but I think he already knew, and had already forgiven me. He and I are friends now. Vanessa and he are in college together and I’m glad, glad that they have each other for company, glad that Phil is there to keep Ness company, to look out for her.

I wonder who’s with Ness now, where is she. Have they told her that I’m gone again? It’s only been 3 days or so I reckon. Has Frank rang her? Or Dad? Where are they all now?

Where are you Frank? I’m here, I’m waiting for you. But I’m getting tired.