In the Image of Grace by Charlotte Ann Schlobohm Read Free Book Online Page B

seemed to of twisted
themselves up.
    “What are you girls doing here?” He immediately
asked.
    “We’re here to see you,” Clarissa blurted out.
    “Does your father know you’re here?”
    “No,” she responded. “Why should that matter
anyways?”
    “Why did you lie to us?” I asked wanting to cut right
to the chase.
    “What do you mean?”
    I looked around the lecture hall with my eyes. Rows
of desk and chairs were tiered to the top of the room. A white film
screen hung down in the front of the room.
    “Oh, because I didn’t tell you girls I was leaving to
teach college. I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye. I
had to start right away.”
    “But you’ve been working here all along,” I pointed
out.
    He nodded. “Yes, your father just didn’t want me
intermingling any of my personal life into your school work. He
didn’t think it was necessary for you to know.”
    “That means you probably knew our mother,” Clarissa
surmised.
    “Girls, this isn’t the place to be talking about
this. You should ask your father.”
    “What, we should ask our father if you knew our mom.
Why, when you can just answer us,” I retorted.
    “I don’t mean that, just about your mother in
general. It’s a very touchy subject. All he wants to do is protect
you girls.”
    “By keeping us in the house our whole lives and never
mentioning a word about her,” I said. I could see we weren’t
getting anywhere. I looked over at Jeremy. He was standing off to
the side pretending to be interested in the surface of a desk.
Isabelle stood defensively with her arms crossed.
    “Girls, I have to get across campus,” Mr. Carl
croaked looking at his watch.
    “Wait, let me ask you one thing,” I pleaded pulling
off my bag and sticking it on a desk. I unzipped the front zipper
compartment and pulled out the picture I got from the internet. “Is
this her,” I asked holding the paper up to Mr. Carl with my finger
near Grace Fernando’s head.
    “Where did you get that?” Mr. Carl asked with bug
eyes.
    “The internet,” I quickly responded. “Well,” I said
raising my eyebrows.
    He nodded his head yes.
    “So you did know her,” Clarissa said a little too
loud.
    He nodded again. “Girls, just leave well enough
alone.”
    “What!” It was my turn for my voice to get too loud.
“Why didn’t you ever say anything to us? Where is she? What
happened to her?” I could feel my face warming and turning
pink.
    “Girls, I can’t answer these questions now. I really
have to go.” He started walking across the lecture hall. We
followed right behind on his heels.
    “That’s it?” Isabelle asked taking her turn to speak
up.
    He stopped and turned. “I honestly don’t know what
happened to her. One day she was just gone. I have to go.”
    “But we have so many more questions,” I cried
out.
    He ignored me and walked out the door. We all
somberly looked at each other and left the building.
    “Well, that could have gone better,” Clarissa
groaned.
    Nobody said anything after that for a while. We
walked back across campus in silence. While waiting for the train I
started thinking out loud. “At least we know who our mother is,
right, so we just have to find out where she went and why she
left.”
    “How do we do that?” Clarissa asked.
    “I don’t know.”
    “How about missing persons?” Jeremy suggested.
    “Huh?” Clarissa, Isabelle and I all seemed to say at
once.
    “If she just wasn’t there one day maybe somebody
filed a missing person report. That professor guy made it almost
sound like a mysterious disappearance or something, ya know.”
    “Yeah, that’s a good idea, but what if nobody did?
What if it was just something between our father and her?”
    “Doesn’t hurt to try,” Jeremy said giving me a half
crooked smile. I knew he was just trying to help. I gave him a meek
smile back.
    The whole way back on the train I looked at that
picture, at Grace Fernando, our mother. Our mother now had a