by Melissa Ostrom
We’ve been warned. The kidnapper drives a white van and roves neighborhoods thick with girls, but he’s old, and we’re hard to catch. He’d have to lure us. Candy would work. We always need candy, Swedish Fish, Laffy Taffy, Lemonheads to spoil our appetites and rot our teeth and make up for all the goulash, meatloaf, and stuffed peppers. Dangerous candy, we want, kicking the ball, running to first base. Teeth-cracking candy, we crave, hiding and seeking and running and counting and chasing and tagging; You’re it! Candy that glues our mouths shut and tires our jaws, as we float, light as a feather. Candy, so bad for us. Candy, so good. Oh, that candy. It’ll kill us. Stiff as a board. Candy like vampire teeth, luscious lips, cigarettes, cocaine. Candy for a penny, we chant, jumping to the snap of the rope. Candy for a dime, we sing. Hop, hop, spin, hop. I like coffee, I like tea, I like the boys, and the boys like me. Crack, whistle, crack goes the rope. Where would the kidnapper take us? What would he do? Evil costs a lot of candy, a fortune in sweets. If he caught us, would he strangle us? Stab or shoot us? Would we ever see our families again or jump, race, hide until the fireflies winked and the porchlights shone? Until our mothers appeared in the doorways, hugging themselves and hollering? They shout our names, first, middle, last. Suppertime, sweetheart, they sing into the deepening darkness. Bedtime, honey, they call through the gathering gloom. Come home. It’s time to come home.
Melissa Ostrom is the author of The Beloved Wild (Feiwel & Friends, 2018), a Junior Library Guild book and an Amelia Bloomer Award selection, and Unleaving (Feiwel & Friends, 2019). Her stories have appeared in many journals and been selected for Best Small Fictions 2019, Best Microfiction 2020, Best Small Fictions 2021, Best Microfiction 2021, and Wigleaf Top 50 2022. She lives with her husband, children, and dog Mocha in Holley, New York. Learn more at www.melissaostrom.com or find her on Twitter @melostrom
Emerge Literary Journal 