Still Missing

Noor had kept the folder under her arm all the way home. At the front door she dropped it anyway. The maps slid out, straight into a wet shoeprint on the mat.

‘Oh, no.’

She lifted the top map by one corner. One pencil line had gone darker. At least the receipt was still between two dry sheets.

Daan held the door for her. ‘Shoes off first. Then we’ll look at the damage.’

There was a baking dish on the kitchen table. Noor could smell melted cheese. She put the maps on the worktop and pulled out a chair.

‘Hands,’ her dad said.

She got up again.

As she ate, she told him how the little cardboard roof had fallen over in the tub. Daan had just missed the test. He moved his chair closer to the table.

‘Back to that landing stage tomorrow, then,’ he said.

‘Yes. It might still be there in the narrow channel.’

‘With Wim?’

‘Yes. At ten, when it opens.’

She prodded a piece of cauliflower with her fork. It broke in two.

‘I hoped we’d have it back today.’

‘I know.’

Daan passed her the dish. She helped herself to a little more. He didn’t ask why they’d gone the wrong way twice. The second way hadn’t been wrong, anyway. They just hadn’t been able to see under the boards yet.

After dinner Noor wiped the table. A ring of sauce had dried under the dish. She had to rub it three times before it came off. Her dad loaded the dishwasher and moved a pan out of the way.

‘Can I leave the map here overnight?’ she asked.

‘As long as there’s room for a sandwich tomorrow.’

Noor spread out the sheets and put a coaster under the wet corner to let it dry. She unfolded the receipt. The yellow circle was hardly bigger than a pea. She smoothed a crease with the side of her finger.

‘And you saw the red bit too?’ Daan asked.

‘Yes. But I didn’t know what it was then.’

She showed him the new lines on the map. Some were dotted; others had a question mark. Her dad bent over the paper.

‘So we were standing here.’ He pointed beside the little square.

Noor nodded. ‘The pumping station. I hadn’t got that bend right before.’

‘Then we went on there.’

‘Yes. All the way to the barrier.’

Daan picked a piece of cheese off the edge of the map. It had been stuck to his sleeve. Noor moved the receipt further from the plates.

She emptied her school bag to make room for the folder. At the bottom was a sock she’d been missing since Thursday. There were two bits of rubber and a book she’d meant to finish, too. She propped it against her plate.

‘I’m going to the library at nine tomorrow,’ she said. ‘Farah still needs help. Are you coming?’

‘I’ll take you. And give Farah a hand with the photos.’

‘Good.’

They agreed what time Daan would see her afterwards. Then he rang Sami’s house. Noor drew her book closer. When her dad put the phone down, she was still reading the same sentence.

‘What if we don’t find it tomorrow either?’ she asked.

Daan took a clean tea towel from the drawer. ‘Then you come back to the library. You don’t have to save the exhibition all by yourself.’

‘I know.’

Even so, it was easier to turn the page after he’d said it.

At nine the next morning the library was still closed to visitors. Farah let them in with a roll of sticky tape round her wrist. Her name badge was back to front on her cardigan.

‘Morning. If anyone’s looking for my name, it’s on the inside.’

Sami was already at the reading table, trying to hold a rolled-up photograph flat with two clean mugs. Whenever he lifted one, the corner sprang up again.

‘This one won’t cooperate,’ he said.

Bente offered him a box of drawing pins. ‘That’s what these are for.’

Together they pinned the photograph to a soft noticeboard. Noor waited beside them until there was room to put her folder down. She didn’t push Bente’s box aside.

The picture showed the full-sized ferry in the middle of the water. There were bicycles on it, a pushchair and a man holding a long pole. Noor searched the faces for Wim.

‘He’s behind that window,’ Bente said. ‘That little head. That’s Grandad.’

Farah brought a pile of cards. One had an arrow pointing to the toilet. Another said the exhibition opened at two. She put the empty blue river board on the big table.

Noor looked at the rectangle where the boat belonged. So did Bente.

‘If you come back without the boat, we can still use these pictures,’ Farah said. ‘But I won’t put anything about the search on display until you’ve seen it.’

‘This one can go up,’ Bente said. She took a different photograph from her folder: the whole boat with its white roof, her hand beside it. ‘You can see how big it is here. Not the close-up where my fingers are in front of the windows.’

She left the close-up in her folder and passed Farah the picture she’d chosen.

Noor was given a stack of cards to place beside the exhibits. An old ticket punch wouldn’t sit properly on its stand. Sami found a lower block to stop it tipping over. Bente checked the labels and turned round a card that was beside the wrong photograph.

Wim arrived with the long boat hook. He stood it in a corner where nobody needed to walk. Under his other arm was a crate.

‘Coffee first?’ Farah asked.

‘Half a cup. Or it’ll be half past ten before we leave.’

Noor fetched a towel for the crate. She made a soft hollow in it and glanced at Bente before folding the edges over.

‘Like this?’

Bente pulled one corner higher. ‘Then the roof can rest against that.’

At quarter to ten Noor put her book bag behind the counter. The receipt and map went into her coat pocket. Sami carried the crate to the door; Bente walked beside him, keeping the loose towel tucked inside. Wim picked up his boat hook.

Daan stayed to help Farah pin a photograph higher up on the board. Noor waved and pushed open the door. They took the path towards the windmill, with the water on their right.