The Other Side
Part Seven
It was an unusually quiet day at the clinic, Joel thought to himself as he stared at the empty waiting room. Normally they would be swamped around four thirty, but today they were simply empty.
He stood up and began to straighten up the magazines that were scattered about the waiting room. He stacked them in neat piles and glanced out the window.
To his great enthusiasm, he spotted a boy and his dog come running up the street. When he looked closer he saw that it was Mark and Peanuts.
'I hope nothing's wrong,' was Joel's first thought. Mark rushed into the clinic.
"Have you seen my brother?" he gasped as he fell into a chair, out of breath.
"Hold on there, now, have some water," Joel told the boy, heading for the water cooler in the middle of the room. He poured the boy a cupful and handed it to him. "What's the matter that made you run down here in such a hurry?"
"My brother's missing," Mark replied with urgency. "I can't find him anywhere."
"Your brother?" Joel repeated. An image of the bouncy blond boy popped into his head. Buddy was missing? "How long?"
"About an hour," Mark replied, explaining how he'd been unable to find the boy after school. "He's never this late!"
"Did you tell your mom? Call the police?"
"I called mom at work. She said she'd call the police and meet them at home. I couldn't just...sit there, I had to come looking," Mark explained, taking a gulp of the water.
"Well, he's got to be around here somewhere," Joel assured him.
"Who?"
Both he and Mark turned to see Theresa enter the room. "Who's missing?" she repeated.
"My brother," Mark replied.
"He's been gone for about an hour," Joel explained, filling in the details.
"Well, I say we start a search party!" Theresa decided, slamming a fist into her hand in a gesture of decisiveness.
"N-now?" Joel stammered. That didn't sound like Theresa at all!
"Yeah!" she replied. "No time to loose."
"But..but what about the clinic?" he asked.
"Joel, there's no one here," she told him. "We close in a half hour...," she glanced at her watch, "...make that fifteen minutes, anyway!"
"Um...okay," he replied, seeing no reason not to.
"Go around and round up some people. Go through the phone book and call everyone you know. We'll meet at Mark's house as soon as possible," Theresa ordered, taking charge.
Joel looked a bit bewildered, but agreed, heading for the phone.
"Don't worry," he heard Theresa tell Mark. "We'll find your brother before you know it."
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