My mind was racing as I pulled in the driveway. My Monday had went from stereotypical, to boring, to worrisome, to scary. Before, I had been mildly worried Cassie was sick or upset. Now, it seemed like she was in trouble. And she was calling for my help.

I went straight to my room, digging the journal out of my bag. I opened it to the last page, flipping back through it, looking for anything I could have missed the first time. (When proofreading or looking for mistakes, it’s best to do it out of order, because that forces your brain to focus on what you’re looking at.) As I scanned the blank pages, I realized: This was exactly the kind of game Cassie and I used to play when we were kids.

Cassie had always loved imagination games—a slight incline in her backyard quickly became a mountain for us to scale, and the tower of her swing set served as our secret base. She made up all kinds of mystery spy games with me where she would make up puzzles for me to figure out. Back then they were simple. She made a map of my backyard once, leading me to find a treasure “buried” in the sandbox. Another time she scrambled the letters of things she wanted to say into code words I had to figure out.

It was something we hadn’t done since elementary school. We remained close throughout childhood until now, and the childhood games slowly faded as we moved on. But as I held that book in my hands, I realized Cassiopeia Simmons had perhaps created the greatest mystery of them all. And she had entrusted me to solve it.

As much as I wanted to believe it was a mere practical joke reminiscent of when we were children, this one felt much more serious. Childhood games had always been prefaced with laughter and smiles; this was prefaced with disappearance and mystery.

I arrived at the front of the book, with no new information. Information. My eyes unfocused on the introduction page. She left me this book for a reason; it was my responsibility to figure out what to do with it. Information…

My eyes refocused on the words: Information card located inside jacket sleeve. Excited, I tore off the velvety cover. Sure enough, a pocket on the inside contained an index card. I immediately knew I was on the right track; this had Cassiopeia written all over it.

Figuratively, of course, not literally. The card was also mostly blank. It had lines to fill in for Name, Nickname, Crush, Favorite class, Best friend, and so on. Only one of the lines was filled in, and it was in Cassie’s swirly handwriting:

Locker combination: 15-23-42

I let out a breath. I wasn’t sure what to expect. Honestly I was hoping for a postcard or invitation, or something else to give me a sense of relief. “Got you, Ben!” No such luck. But I had my next clue.

It took all of my willpower not to drive back to the school right then. Even if it was unlocked, the upstairs locker area would probably be off limits to the sports people in the building. No way I could sneak up there. I checked my phone; after finding no message from her, I sent one of my own: “Hey, how’s everything going?” I wasn’t expecting a reply, but it put my mind somewhat to rest knowing I had tried. 

No amount of self-convincing can ever trick the mind into sleeping when it’s excited. Despite the stress and exhaustion from the day, my brain kept me up for hours before I was finally allowed to sleep. That night, I dreamt of a long narrow hallway leading to a locked door.

The next day, I, Benjamin Starr, became a beacon to all those who noted Cassie’s absence. People who never took notice of me outside of class projects approached me in the hallways, simply because I was connected to Cassie. Since none of her friends had heard anything from each other, I was approached often, a missing link outside of her circle of regular friends. A teacher would ask “No Cassie again?” and students would glance at me, as if everybody had been made aware of my incomplete map. It was difficult to keep brushing them off, but the journal had been left for me and me alone. I had the feeling that she wouldn’t have wanted everyone else knowing the things I did. I didn’t get a chance to visit her locker until lunch, when the hallways were empty. If she really was missing, it would look suspicious of me to snoop through her personal stuff.

Tentatively, I spun the dial, holding my breath and hoping for good news. I’m not sure what I expected when it opened, but it sure wasn’t what I got. 

Cassie’s locker had been totally cleared out except for a single book that was propped up on the upper shelf. It was a children’s book: Oh, the Places You’ll Go! by Dr. Seuss. After a brief moment to register, I quickly grabbed the book and shut her locker. I didn’t want to get caught roaming the halls during lunch, nor did I want to be caught at lunch reading a children’s book, so I quickly returned downstairs to the photo lab. It was empty, and I could work out the book in peace before class started.

Truthfully, I hadn’t read much Dr. Seuss before then, but I enjoyed the catchy phrases and colorful pictures all the same. The entire story was about different experiences and choices you could have and make in life. There were sections about accepting failure and moving on. How one shouldn’t let life pass them by as they simply waited for better things.

Was Cassie trying to tell me something? It seemed like the message of the book was “get up, move on, and live your life”. The only possibility I could conceive was that she was trying to comfort me after she ran away. But running away was the most un-Cassie thing I could imagine. She was many things, but cowardly and desperate were not among them. Cassie attacked life every single day with a vigor and determination to move onto something better after school.

My heart sank at this thought. Had she perhaps found her better, and seized it?

I read through the book again, and again, and again. No deeper philosophical meaning revealed itself; no hidden pouches contained informative note cards. After what seemed like hours of analyzation and thinking and re-thinking, I noticed something odd. Certain phrases had been boxed in with various colors of highlighter. At first, the boxes seamlessly blended with the childish color scheme of the book, so I paid them no mind. Now, however, it was obvious that the word boxing had been deliberate. I flipped through the book quickly, noting random phrases as I scanned it. “…a place where the streets are not marked…go in…wait for… the rain to go…”

Cassie had illuminated a set of directions for me. I was one step closer to finding her.

A tone rang for the last-minute announcements of the day. Class had flown by. I spent the remaining seconds of school writing down every highlighted phrase in order, until I had a complete list of everything she’d left for me. The bell rang, and I scrawled the last phrase into my notebook; then, I took the back way to my car through the photography room exit, to avoid Patrick or anybody else who would have questions.

Once I got to my car, I immediately drove to the nearest gas station, leaving the engine running for warmth. I checked the clock; five minutes since school had gotten out. I had roughly a half an hour window to get back home. Once, I’d been fifteen minutes late without answering my phone (it was dead, give me a break), and my mom was on the phone with the school when I walked in the door. She’d been pretty ticked at me, and I’d learned out long ago due to a B-studded report card that phrases like “chill out” and “I’m sorry” didn’t sit very well with her.

I studied the list. Read it slowly. Read it quickly. Put phrases together. Rearranged them. No doubt, before me was a set of directions, taken straight from the pages of a children’s book:

head straight out of town

in the wide open air

you’re in a Slump

a place where the streets are not marked

some windows are lighted…mostly they’re darked

go in

turn

right-and-three-quarters

wait for

the rain to go

the snow to snow

I tried to think about the words. “Straight out of town…” I read to myself. I glanced down Main Street; a mile or two away was the “Welcome to Chestnut Falls, IN” sign. There was another one on the highway leading out of town. Both of them were “wide open” but only one area had the dilapidated buildings suggested by the next lines Cassie had marked for me. The highway edge of town was dotted with old, ramshackle buildings. According to a third grade field trip to the surprisingly existent Chestnut Falls History Museum, these buildings had been the original hub of the town. A winding river cascaded down the surrounding hillside, watched over by a solitary chestnut tree that was estimated to be close to 500 years old (i.e. “Chestnut Falls”). Anyway, when the buildings began to fall apart, some architectural prodigy had estimated there chances would be better on the flatter ground a couple of miles away. Steadily, the original buildings had been abandoned, and Chestnut Falls as I knew it today was born.

I knew I had to visit those buildings somehow. They had been preserved (or rather, simply left alone), as a historical landmark. Was Cassie hiding out there?

I gunned my engine, wholly set on checking out the buildings right then. However, a glance at my clock told me I had been sitting in the parking lot for more than twenty minutes, and I was already going to be late getting home.

Resigned, I began making my way in the opposite direction of the highway. As much as I wanted to solve the Cassie mystery, I finally felt confident that she was alright. Something about finding a message in a children’s book had eased my anxiety. If she really had been in trouble, she would have just told me, instead of leaving a maze of clues.

My sense of calm was reinforced when I pulled in the driveway alongside none other than the forest green car that belonged to Cassiopeia. Then I ran inside, hoping that she’d decided to come back from wherever it is that she’d been, expecting her to be sitting at the kitchen table like we were working on a project for class together. Instead I found her parents, talking to my mother, and I remembered that really the car belonged to Cassie’s mom, and all of my hopes and expectations evaporated.

Normally, my mom would have been worried and upset I hadn’t made it back in time; however, she didn’t even seem to notice my lateness. Cassie’s mom broke off, made eye contact with me: “You seen her anywhere?”

I didn’t have much experience talking to Cassie’s parents. “N-no, Mrs. Simmons. I was hoping she’d been home sick.”

The woman scoffed. “Not sick a day in her life. Goes to school every day, doesn’t learn a thing. If I had a dollar for every time I had to make her get her homework done—”

Mr. Simmons put a hand on her shoulder and she paused. “Anyway,” she continued, excusing herself from the table, “you have my number if she tries to contact you in any way.”

My mom leapt up to walk them to the door. “Yes, of course. I’m so sorry, if we hear anything—”

But the woman wasn’t even listening. “Did you remember to get the milk?” she asked her husband. The two of them were already putting their coats on to leave, making their way to the door in their own little world. I just stood as they walked past me to exit the kitchen. In seconds, they were out of the house.

“How are you doing, hon?”

I wasn’t sure how to answer. I didn’t want her to know about the clues Cassie had been leaving me. It would have felt wrong to bring it up with her parents, and it still felt wrong now. Cassie left the clues for me, I reminded myself. “They didn’t even care,” I said, staring at the door they had closed behind them.

Mom came up from behind me and hugged me. “It’ll be okay,” she reassured. “She’ll turn up eventually.”

“I don’t get it. Why would you adopt somebody if you weren’t going to want them later?”

Mom shook her head. “I don’t know, sweetie.”

Soon, I found myself in my room, completing the same ritual as any other night. Homework, tidying the room, a little bit of internet/TV time, double-checking my homework. “Education is the one thing nobody can ever take away from you,” my dad would have said like he always used to. My dad was an incredibly smart man. About ten years ago, he had an accident at work. He worked in construction, mostly roofing. Building things and redoing roof shingles are definite, they have a process to them. Do the right thing the right way over and over, and nothing bad can happen. One day I guess he just didn’t do that. I had been devastated. The man that had taught me to tie my shoes, do my multiplication, and have fun every now and then, just gone. But things were okay now. It was around that time Cassie and I started talking more. We developed an after school playing routine that filled in all the empty spaces he was leaving behind.

And now Cassie was the one doing the leaving. In this moment, I made the tough decision to ditch school the next day. Perhaps the right thing to do, just this once, was to step out of my own comfort zone and get to the bottom of things. Cassiopeia Simmons was leaving me a breadcrumb trail, and if I didn’t follow it, I could lose my chance to find her. Even thought it went against the grain that was my life, I knew that finding my friend was more important than the numbers on clocks and calendars or the letters on a test. This realization made it seem like the easiest decision in the world.