There's No Place Like Here PDF
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There’s No Place Like Here Cecelia Ahern For you, Dad—with all my love. Per ardua surgo. “A missing person is anyone whose whereabouts are unknown whatever the circumstances of disappearance. The person will be considered missing until located and his/her well-being, or otherwise, established.” An Gardaí Síochana Contents Epigraph 1 Jenny-May Butler, the little girl who lived across the road… 2 My life has been made up of a great many… 3 I was born and reared in County Leitrim in Ireland,… 4 When Jenny-May Butler went missing, her final insult was to… 5 Wait a minute. 6 Jack Ruttle trailed slowly behind an HGV along the N69,… 7 The porch light was still on when Jack arrived home. 8 Jack slugged back his third cup of coffee and looked… 9 For almost two days I’d stayed in the same wooded… 10 When I was fourteen, my parents talked me into seeing… 11 I went to see Mr. Burton every week while I was… 12 Helena was watching me curiously through the amber blaze of… 13 Helena added another log to the dying fire and its… 14 Only a week before Sandy’s no-show, Jack had quietly closed… 15 Jack woke up earlier than Gloria, as usual. Her head… 16 I tapped my shoe against the plate that once held… 17 Jack paced alongside the red Ford Fiesta, feeling a mixture… 18 Helena and I stepped out of the darkness of the… 19 “Sandy.” I could hear my name being called and felt… 20 Jack sat on the gravel surface beside what he assumed… 21 I awoke, I wasn’t sure how many hours later, to… 22 “So Joseph is a carpenter. What is it that you… 23 I spent the next half hour searching the road for… 24 On Tuesday morning, exactly two days since Sandy’s no-show, Jack,… 25 I was sixteen years old, in Mr. Burton’s office. I was… 26 Oh, Dr. Burton.” Jack sat up in the car seat and… 27 Missing person number one, Orla Keane, entered the great Community… 28 I stared up at the ceiling, at the point right… 29 Hello, I hope I’ve called the correct number for Mary… 30 Leading away from St. Stephen’s Green, Leeson Street was a fine… 31 It had been three years since I’d seen Mr. Burton. From… 32 Bobby closed the door of Lost and Found quietly behind… 33 I don’t know how long I’d been in the storeroom. 34 Mr. Le Bon, I assume,” Dr. Burton addressed Jack, leaning back in his… 35 Bobby stood at the door of the stockroom, arms folded… 36 Come on, we can walk and talk at the same… 37 Jack slept in Bobby’s box bedroom that night, surrounded by… 38 I went to the OCA meetings every month. I went… 39 After returning from an afternoon rehearsal at the Community Hall,… 40 I have found that the many imbalances within our individual… 41 Despite Dr. Burton’s threats and protestations, Jack had decided to continue… 42 Bobby was in no mood to discuss hearing his laughter… 43 Barbara Langley hadn’t much in the way of clothes suitable… 44 After Jack had left Sandy Shortt’s family home, he drove… 45 I stood up from my chair and the eyes of… 46 Jack felt the anger pumping through his veins. The muscles… 47 The week that Jenny-May Butler went missing, the Gardaí came… 48 Jack, is everything OK?” Alan asked, as soon as Jack… 49 Hello, Sandy.” Grace Burns smiled at me from behind her… 50 Come on, Bobby!” I yelled, poking my head in the… 51 Jack,” Garda Graham Turner said with surprise, “what are you… 52 I have thought about that moment with Jenny-May long and… 53 Helena had to get back to the village for the… 54 I don’t think she’s here.” Graham walked toward Jack in… 55 Sometimes, people can go missing right before our very eyes. Acknowledgments About the Author Other Books by Cecelia Ahern Copyright 1 Jenny-May Butler, the little girl who lived across the road from me, went missing when I was a child. The Gardaí launched an investigation, which led to a lengthy public search for her. For months every night the story was on the news, every day it was on the front pages of the papers, everywhere it was discussed in every conversation. The entire country pitched in to help; it was the biggest search for a missing person I, at ten years of age, had ever seen, and it seemed to affect everyone. Jenny-May Butler was a blond-haired blue-eyed beauty whose smiling face was beamed from the TV screen into the living rooms of every home around the country, causing eyes to fill with tears and parents to hug their children that extra bit tighter before they sent them off to bed. She was in everyone’s dreams and everyone’s prayers. She too was ten years old and in my class at school. I used to stare at the pretty photograph of her on the news every day and listen to them speak about her as though she were an angel. From the way they described her, you never would have known that she threw stones at Fiona Brady during recess when the teacher wasn’t looking, or that she called me a frizzy-haired cow in front of Stephen Spencer just so he would fancy her instead of me. No, for those few months she had become the perfect being and I didn’t think it fair to ruin that. After a while even I forgot about all the bad things she’d done because she wasn’t just Jenny-May anymore: she was Jenny-May Butler, the sweet missing girl whose nice family cried on the nine o’clock news every night. She was never found, not her body, not a trace; it was as though she had disappeared into thin air. No suspicious characters had been seen lurking around, no CCTV was available to show her last movements. There were no witnesses, no suspects; the Gardaí questioned everyone possible. The street became suspicious, its inhabitants calling friendly hellos to one another on the way to their cars in the early morning but all the time wondering, second-guessing, and visualizing dark, distorted scenarios implicating their neighbors. Washing cars, painting picket fences, weeding the flowerbeds, and mowing lawns on Saturday mornings while surreptitiously looking around the neighborhood conjured up shameful thoughts. People were shocked at themselves, angry that this incident had perverted their minds. Pointed fingers behind closed doors couldn’t give the Gardaí any leads; they
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