Read Online Jakarta Missing by Jane Kurtz - Free Book Online Page A

to hand her a fat, fleshy banana for breakfast?
    She opened her eyes. “I don’t know,” she said. “I live here now. Let’s dig through the box, okay?”

SEVEN

    S unday morning Dakar woke up with princesses dancing in her head, and she couldn’t get them out, even though Melanie’s mom served omelets for breakfast. Where did Melanie get her genes from? Dakar looked back and forth between the two of them as they bent over a catalog. Melanie’s mom had broad shoulders and a generous, practical face. Melanie was like a river sprite, delicate and small with almost white hair and river-colored eyes. Maybe she was a changeling. A jinn baby.
    As if she had read Dakar’s mind, Melanie looked up and gave her an elfin grin. “Come on,” she whispered into Dakar’s ear. “I want to show you the most magical spot in Cottonwood. I’ve never showed anybody else.”
    â€œWhat would you do,” Dakar said as they started to walk, “if you were a princess trapped in a high tower, and an evil hen gave you three impossible tasks you had to solve or you could never, ever get out and go home?”
    â€œWell, what would the tasks be?” Melanie asked.
    â€œOne would be to turn that tree over there into a pomegranate tree,” Dakar said. “And the next would be to pick a pomegranate from the very heart of the tree and count its seeds.”
    â€œFirst, she’d have to know what a pomegranate was,” Melanie said.
    â€œWell, she’d know that,” Dakar said impatiently. “All princesses do.” She imagined that she was holding a pomegranate seed lightly between her front teeth. She loved the way the seeds felt—all smooth and self-contained—just before you bit. Just before that sweet and bitter pomegranate taste came into your mouth.
    The third task would be to find the three magic seeds and take them with her on her quest once she got out of the tower. What if the princess failed at her tasks? Then she would be frozen. The cold would creep upward, starting at her feet. Or downward, starting at the top of her head. Either way, when it reached her heart, she would be done for. Maybe the princess had to find a true friend. Only a true friend would know the answer to the pomegranate problem. Melanie could be the true friend.
    â€œI love that story you told last night,” Melanie said. “It’s so perfect that you’re not from here. And it’s so obvious. Because people from here don’t talk in paragraphs. I wish you would tell me more about Jakarta.”
    Jakarta! “She’s incredibly smart,” Dakar said. “If she were the princess in the tower, the evil hen wouldn’t be able to hold her more than a few hours at most.”
    â€œWhy?” Melanie said. “How would she get out?”
    Dakar kicked a stone down the sidewalk and wondered if she’d be able to pick out that same exact stone when they caught up with it again. It seemed terribly important that she recognize it. “I don’t know,” she said. “I’m not nearly as smart as Jakarta. Oh, also, she’s beautiful. She’s like Donbirra. Boys fight their way through dark and miry bogs to touch the edge of her cloak. And she’s a soccer star.”
    â€œWill she like me?” Melanie asked.
    â€œSure.” Dakar bent down to study the pile of rocks. If she could find the exact stone, what she had just said would be true. Jakarta would like it here. “Thanks for coming on ahead of me,” Jakarta would say. “I’m eternally grateful.” There. That was the stone. Wasn’t it? Dakar felt a flutter of panic. “Stop it,” she told herself. You made that test up. There is no evil hen. Switch off the imagination. How long would it take Jakarta to fly back to the U.S.? “You know,” Dakar said, “I think I should go home.”
    â€œHey! We were going to the