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Black Seconds

'Do you remember Mary Pickford?' he asked.

They were back in the car. From the mirror he saw the house of Eighteen slowly disappear. Her friend Bulma had returned. Yamcha looked at him with a dumbfounded look on his face. He was far too young to know the stars from the days of the dumb movies.

'Marron looks like her', Tien said.

Yamcha didn't ask for elaboration. He wanted a smoke, but it was forbidden to smoke in the surveillance car. That's why he searched his pockets for some candy and found a box of pastils.

'She would never step into a car of a stranger', he said thoughtfully.

'Every mother says that', Tien said. 'It depends on who you ask. Adults are a lot smarter than children, it's that simple.'

That answer didn't sit well with Yamcha. He wanted to believe that kids had an intuition that enabled them to tell danger a lot faster than adults. Just like dogs. They could smell it. However... dogs weren't especially smart. He started to get despondent of his thoughts. The pastil in his mouth had turned soft and he started to chew on it.

'But they step in when they know that stranger', he said aloud. 'And most of the time it is someone they know.'

'You talk as if we are dealing with a crime', said Tien. 'It is rather premature for that.'

'No,' Yamcha said hesitantly, 'I just try to prepare myself for it.'

Tien looked at him from the side. Yamcha was young and ambitious. Extravert and enthusiastic. His talent was well hidden behind his dark eyes and his black, wavy hair which gave him an innocent outlook. The people felt comfortable around Yamcha. They relaxed and talked, and that was exactly what he wanted. Tien drove the surveillance car at the permitted speed torough the landscape. He kept in constant contact with the patrols. They had nothing to report.

The dial pointed at sixty constantly and later on eighty. Their eyes searched almost automatically over the landscape in order to miss nothing. But they saw nothing out of the ordinary. No little girl with blonde hair, no yellow bike. Tien saw her face in front of her. The small mouth and the wavy curls. Then a couple of gruesome images entered his mind. No, he said it inside himself. It isn't that way, not this time. This girl is just coming home. They almost always come home, I have seen it happen before. And why in Dende's name do I love this work?

Eighteen sucked in a large quantity of air and started to breath irregularly. Bulma took her friend by the shoulders and spoke loudly and exaggeratedly clear to her.

'You have to breath calmly, Eighteen. Breath!'

She breathed in violently a couple of times, but nothing came out and the slender body on the couch fought to get her breathing rate under control again.

'What if Marron walks in and sees you like this!' Bulma yelled desperately, she didn't know what else to say. 'Do you hear me?' She started to shake her friend. Eighteen managed to finally breath normally again. Then she fell in a strange sort of apathy.

'Rest a bit', Bulma said imploringly. 'I have to call home now. Then you have to eat something. At least drink something.'

Eighteen shook her head. Vaguely she heared the voice of her friend on the other side of the room. A soft mumbling she couldn't understand. A bit later she was back.

'I have told Bra that she had to go to bed and lock the doors', Bulma told her.

When she said that, she immediately felt a huge fear. Bra was home alone. Then she realized her worries were misplaced. All words became dangerous, all the remarks explosive. She went to the kitchen. Eighteen heared the rinkling of glasses. A drawer was opened, bread, she thought. To have to eat now. She couldn't right now. She stared with painful eyes at the window. When the phone ringed she was so scared she yelled. Bulma stormed in.

'Shall I pick up?'

'No!' Eighteen snatched the receiver and yelled her name in the microphone. Then she collapsed. 'No, she isn't back yet', she cried. 'It's nearly half past eleven and she left at six. I can't take it anymore!'

Marron Chestnut's father became quiet on the other side of the phone.

'And the police?' he asked fearfully. 'Where are they?'

'They are all gone, but they are searching. They would call the Red Cross and round up some volunteers, but they haven't called anymore! They can't find her!'

Bulma waited near the kitchen door. The gravity of the situation hit them simultaniously. It was dark outside, almost night. Marron was out there somewhere, unable to come back home. Eighteen couldn't talk. Food was unthinkable. Not moving, not going anywhere. Only waiting, the two of them, with their arms wrapped tightly around each other and the fear like a raging storm in their ears.

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