As Told By Ginger doesn't belong to me; although I wished I had come up with it.
Chapter 6: A Message From Mom
Dodie left the principal's office with both tears and hope in her eyes. What an odd combition, Ginger thought. But Dodie was clearly in pain. "Is there anything I could do for you, Dodie?"
"Not unless you can find the missing, Ginger."
"Oh, I might just think of a way." Ginger might have said too much. But she didn't think that her best friend had heard of the Flying Saucer.
Dodie studied her intently. Ginger was afraid that she would see through her thin subterfuge, but instead she just said, "My Aunt Harriet. She's gone missing."
Ginger inhaled suddenly. "When did she disappear, Dode?"
"Late last night." Dodie closed her eyes. "You had better go in, Ginger. Principal Milty wants to see you now." They held hands for a second. "We can talk about it later."
Dodie left. And Ginger took in a deep breath before going into Principal Milty's office. She turned the knob and took a hestient peek in. The principal was sitting behind the desk shuffling some papers on his desk. "You wanted to see me, sir?"
Principal Milty looked up. "It's your mother."
Ginger's heart froze. "Is she missing too?"
"I see that you have been talking to Dodie. No, she isn't missing." He picked up a tiny envelope. "She left this for you."
What was this about? Frowning, Ginger stepped forward and closed the door behind her. "Mom left a message for me?"
"It would seem so," Principal Milty shrugged. "But your mother wouldn't tell me what was in the envelope." Ginger was quite sure that he had tried his darnedest in asking that very question.
She reached out and took the envelope out of the principal's hand. "Thank you." She examined it. Only one word was written on the envelope. Ginger. It was written in her mother's handwriting. "She came into your office just to drop this off?"
"Actually no. She had come over to talk about Carl. He's moving up to the Junior High next year as you know." Ginger nodded. "And when she left, this was left on my desk. And you are the only Ginger in this entire school district."
Yes, that was true. For all she knew, she was the only Ginger in the entire town. Ginger wasn't the most common name, but surely there were more girls with that name. There was even one on that Giligan's Island show.
She opened the envelope. And took out the paper it had contained. It read:
He's okay.
P.S. this paper would make excellent kindling.
Ginger looked up, smiling apologetically. "You got a lighter, Principal Milty?"
Principal looked positively horrified. "A fire? You can't start a fire in here. I'm surprised at you, Ginger. I thought you were better than that." He reached for his phone. His hand stopped. "Oh, wait. I'm overreacting again, am I?"
"My mom told to burn the note."
"Mind telling me what this is about?"
"Believe, Principal Milty, I would if I could. But I had promised a dear friend of mine that I wouldn't tell anyone." Would Courtney agree that she was a dear friend of hers, she thought. She knew that none of Courtney's other friends would.
"Is this dear friend of yours your mother?"
"No, she's not."
Shrugging, Principal pulled open a drawer under his desk and got out an ash tray and placed on top of his desk. Then he reached into his coat and retrieved a book of matches and handed it to Ginger. "Be careful."
She nodded. Well, of course she was going to be careful with the matches. She took one out, lit the note along the envelope it came in just as a precaution, and threw the match into the smoldering remains in the ash tray.
"I hope that you know what you are doing, Ginger."
She swallowed. "So do I, Principal Milty."
Soon she back in class with Dodie and Macie. Dodie looked at her like she knew that Ginger was a keeping the secret from her, but Ginger couldn't divulge the secret and she couldn't to her best friend either, so she said nothing. Besides they were taking a pop quiz. Ginger hadn't expected a pop quiz after they had just handed in their papers. But she guessed that was why they called them pop quizzes. But when this quiz was over, she would have one less excuse left not to talk with her best friends Dodie and Macie. Maybe she could talk more with Courtney about this. And she certainly didn't understand why she hadn't brought up the subject of telling them. Maybe it was because she was sure that Courtney would say no.
Ginger dropped her head unto the table. She suddenly had the thought that she had yet to experience trouble.
"Question ten," the teacher was saying. "What was Herman Melville's main message in Moby Dick?"
Ginger wrote her answer down. Some people are obsessed, she wrote, to the point of killing themselves and everyone around them.
She hoped that nobody she knew was that obsessed. But she could think of a few candidates.