Summary: Nineteen-year-old Lois is in charge of her sister Lucy while their mother is out of town. So when Lucy doesn’t show up at home after school, Lois goes into panic mode…that is, until a kind stranger offers to help.

Author’s Note: Thanks to my daughter for brainstorming and to KSaraSara for help with smoothing out a few lines! This is a response to the Title Generator Challenge (https://www.lcficmbs.com/ubb/ubbthreads.php/topics/291078/title-generator-challenge). And happy Ficlet Friday!



My Lost Sister
By Bek
Rated: PG


“No, it’s not—”

Argh. I want to scream, but I manage somehow to bite my tongue, hold back the very inappropriate words I’m thinking. Instead, I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and then start over.

“It’s been six hours, Detective.”

The man sitting on the other side of the desk nods, but otherwise looks uninterested. I bite back more scathing words as he shuffles some papers around on his desk.

“Six hours is not eight hours, and eight hours is how long a teen must be missing before I’m going to send my officers out on a wild goose chase when chances are your sister—”

“Lucy,” I correct him. “Her name is Lucy Lane, and she’s not a teen. She’s only twelve! And she’s never done anything like this before. She was supposed to be home six hours ago.”

I’m standing now, and I’ve definitely raised my voice more than I intended.

“And you’ve been down here how long, Ms. Lane? Your sister is probably home right now, waiting for you. I’d advise you to head home and call back after the eight hours have passed. Then, I’ll be happy to send an officer out.”

There are tears on my cheeks again, and I hastily reach up and wipe them away as I spin around and storm out toward the building’s entrance. My vision is blurry, and I stumble along, barely noticing as I bump into a tall, dark-haired man about my age on my way out of the police station. He mumbles a quiet “Sorry, miss,” but I just keep walking, pushing out through the double doors into the pouring rain of the early spring evening.

In addition to the pouring rain, it’s also freezing cold, and I forgot my umbrella. So I pull my jacket up over my head as I jog to the bus stop, but it doesn’t do much to keep the rain out, and within minutes, it’s completely soaked through. However, to be honest, I’m much too worried about Lucy to be concerned about being soaking wet.

I’m much more worried now than I was four hours ago when I’d gotten home from my class at Met U and found Lucy had never made it home from school. And I’m much more worried now than I was two hours ago, when I’d finished interrogating every single friend, relative, and acquaintance I could, looking for her. And I’m much, much more worried now than I was one hour ago, when I first called the MPD or a half hour ago, when I marched in, demanding to speak with someone who could help me.

I don’t even realize my teeth are chattering until the rain suddenly stops and a kind voice from behind me says, “Here, don’t want to catch a chill.”

Shivering, I turn to see the same man I’d run into in the police station, holding an umbrella over me while he stands uncovered, his dark hair plastered down over his forehead and his glasses dotted with droplets of water. His kind eyes study mine as I let my jacket drop back down, and despite my best attempts to hold everything in, I start crying again. I turn away, but I feel him shift just enough to keep the umbrella over me.

“Th-thank you.”

He doesn’t answer right away, but then, in a quiet voice, he says, “I hope you find your sister. Her name is Lucy?”

I nod. “Lucy Lane. She’s twelve. She’s…about this tall…” I turn back toward him for just a moment, holding my hand up just past my shoulder. “Brown hair and eyes and… And…she… She was supposed to come right home after school. She promised she would, and I told her I’d be home at five, and it was just five thirty, not that late. My professor made us stay late to finish an assignment. But no one saw her come home. None of our neighbors or anything. And—and I’m responsible for her while Mother is out of town, and I can’t believe I let her—”

His hand takes mine, which I hadn’t realized I’d still be holding up, and he gently coaxes it back down as I shake my head.

“If anything happened to her…”

“Shh, now, I… The best thing you can do—” He blinks and looks down for a moment, then shakes his head and lifts his eyes to mine. They are filled with…resolve? “I know you don’t know me, and I’m…just some strange, soaking wet guy with an umbrella, but…do you have a picture on you? Of Lucy? I…might be able to help find her.”

I hesitate briefly, but then my hand reaches into my pocket, and I pull out the photograph I’d brought from home to show the police. It’s Lucy, grinning ear to ear, her hair pulled back into a high ponytail and her eyes shining as she holds a soccer ball up over her head. I’d taken the picture for her at one of the last games of the season, when she’d scored the winning goal for her team.

The man nods and glances up at me with another kind smile, and for a moment, I can’t tear my eyes away from his; they are an intense, deep brown, and as he nods gently, I feel a surge of hope.

Behind me, the bus pulls up to the stop, and the man follows me, holding the umbrella over my head. He doesn’t shift it back to himself until I’m all the way on the bus, protected from the downpour. Then, he smiles at me again—filling me with more reassurance, somehow.

The bus doors close, and the bus pulls away. By the time I’m seated and glance back out the window toward the bus stop, he’s gone. I curl up into the seat, pulling my knees up to my chest, and desperately try to hang onto that hope…

Twenty minutes later, I hop off the bus and sprint the rest of the way home. The rain still pounds down, and I’m soaked and shivering again as I take the steps two at a time, pulling my keys out of my pocket. However, as I reach the top step, the front door bursts open, and Lucy jumps into my arms, crying.

“Lo! You’re home! I’m so, so sorry! Please don’t be mad!”

“Luce! Oh my God, Luce, what—”

I can’t even finish my sentence as tears begin streaming down my face. I hug her to me as tightly as I can, and she hugs me back just as tightly. After a moment, I realize we’re still standing only partway under the overhang outside the house in the pouring rain, and I lift her into my arms—sort of—and drag both of us inside.

She still clings to me when we stop in the entryway, and I feel her shaking. “Luce…”

“I’m so sorry, Lo! I…didn’t—I just went to Jen’s for a couple hours,” she begins, and I step back from her just enough to see her crying as she continues in a long-winded ramble that would make any normal person’s head spin. “Then I knew I was late, and it started raining, and so I decided to take a shortcut through those woods along Jackson Avenue, you know, right? But I—but it was getting dark, and I tripped and twisted my ankle and then I must have gotten turned around or something, and it hurt to walk, and it was so cold, and I know you’d told me I should bring my heavier jacket to school this morning, but I didn’t. And anyways, when it got dark and I couldn’t really walk too well and…I got so scared, Lo… I was so scared, and I found this bush and tried to hide under it to just wait out the storm or something… And then this nice man with an umbrella, he found me and said…”

My eyes widen as I stop hearing her continued explanation. I’m stunned. Not only that she’s home but also that somehow, the man with the umbrella had found her? In the woods? Miles from where I’d left him at the bus stop?

Suddenly, she launches into my arms again.

“Oh, Lo! He said you were looking for me and that you were so scared. And I know I’m not supposed to trust strangers, but…I needed to get home, and I was so scared too. And he seemed so nice. He carried me out of the woods and then helped me walk home and he held his umbrella over me the whole time so I wouldn’t get wet. I’m so sorry, Lo! I didn’t know what else to do!”

I shake my head and hold her to me tightly. “It’s okay, Luce. It’s okay. We should…get into some clean, dry clothes, and your ankle, is it—”

“It’s okay! The man who helped me, he said it wasn’t broken, just sprained, and—”

“How did he know that? Oh, never mind, it doesn’t matter, as long as you’re okay now?”

“Yeah, it doesn’t even hurt anymore.”

I nod, still trying to process the impossibility of it all. But then I hear her stomach growl, and I decide to just forget about it and be grateful that she’s home and fine and… “Sounds like you’re hungry? Let’s order—”

“Pizza?!”

“Yeah, Luce. Whatever you want.”



The End.