Storymania - Disappearing Dossett by Dy Myers

Disappearing Dossett
Dy Myers

Disappearing Dossett
By Dylan Myers 10-17-06

“You know I love you Dylan, right?”
“Yes…I know.”
“Dylan will you give Derek a hug for me?”
“Um…well, he’s right here, would you like to talk to him?”
“Sure, goodbye.”

          “Bye.” I handed the phone over to my little brother. That was the last I ever talked to my cousin. That night was August 6th at 7:00pm. The next day August 7th at 11:00am my cousin Cassie Dossett went missing.

          It isn’t like Cassie just mysteriously vanished. There were numerous events that led up to the tragedy. For me, the events began three days before she disappeared, but probably it all started out years ago.

          When Cassie was still just a little tyke her parents got divorced. Her mom, Karleyne, moved down to the state of Arkansas, while her dad, Tom, stayed here. The only reason Karleyne moved to the sunny state of Arkansas was that she had family living down there. Her family owned a beautiful and successful KOA Campground.

          Every summer, Cassie has her mom pick her up and they go and stay at the campground for the whole summer. Cassie absolutely loves the campground and sometimes has a hard time coming back to Sioux Falls. None of us knew, at the end of this summer, how difficult of a time she was going to have coming back.

          Nobody knows how important Cassie is to Derek and I. Cassie is fourteen, I’m thirteen, and Derek is seven so we all make up a pretty good group when we’re together. Whenever there is extra time and we have nothing going on we’re always with her. When we’re with her we can do anything from, talking about school, to sprinting and laughing and jumping around in my Grandma’s basement. She is one of the most important people in our lives. We never knew how much we’d miss her until she disappeared.

          I remember three days before she went missing. I was in Minneapolis with my Grandma, my mom, and Derek. I melted into the big comfy seats in my Grandma’s van after a long day of walking. That’s when my moms cell phone chirped. My mom answered and she said something like, “Hi Cassie. You don’t sound to good.” I tried to grab the cell phone away from my mom; I thought Cassie called to talk to Derek and me. My mom eventually turned over the phone to me and I started yakking away to Cassie. I guess my mom was right. Cassie didn’t sound good at all. Her voice sounded worn out, angry, and depressed. After around a minute of talking to me she asked for Grandma. That was odd. All summer long she’d been calling and talking to us, but now she wanted to talk to grandma? Something was up. I handed the phone over to my Grandma.

          Right away as my grandma talked into the phone she started talking about how Cassie didn’t sound good. Then, like a bomb, my cousin dropped the bad news; “I don’t want to come home.” My world went spinning. It felt as though someone stuck a knife through my stomach. I had questions. Questions swirling around in my head waiting to be answered. Why didn’t she want to come home? Wasn’t she going to miss, me, Derek, her dad, her step-mom, and her stepsisters? And then I heard Cassie answer all my questions. “I want to stay down here, with my mom. I miss her too much when I’m up there.” Even though if she did stay in Arkansas, I could hardly blame her. I’d probably feel just like her, and want to stay with my mom.

          The reason she wanted to talk to Grandma was because she wanted to know if Grandma would call Tom, Cassie’s dad, and tell him she didn’t want to come home. I couldn’t blame her there either. I’d be a little scared calling up my dad and saying, “Hey dad! Guess what? I don’t want to come home!” My grandma told Cassie to call her back later (Grandma was having bad cell phone connections) and then they’d talk about what to do.

          So later that night Cassie called and she and my grandma seemed to talk forever. Out of all that talking, Cassie finally decided that she was going to call her dad and tell him exactly what was on her mind. Then, out of the blue my grandma handed the phone over to me. WHAT?! I had no idea, whatsoever on what to say. Besides I was feeling a little choked up that she might not come home. Fortunately, Cassie did most the talking. I just kept saying how I understood, and how everything would turn out. I told her I loved her and we thought everything would be all right, Cassie would come back, and we’d live happily ever after. That’s not how it worked out.

          Almost only two hours after we got up and were awake in the morning Karleyne, Cassie’s mom, called. Even though I never talked to her, my mom did and reported that Karleyne was crying. Immediately I asked why and it turns out that Cassie had called her dad and he wouldn’t let her stay down in Arkansas. It’s hard to blame him either, because if I were Cassie’s dad, I wouldn’t want her to stay in Arkansas for the rest of her life!! Right after Karleyne called my mom she called grandma (we were in separate cars). Karleyne had called my grandma, still crying, to ask if she would call Tom and try to make him change his mind. Of course, my grand ma didn’t want to be stuck in the middle of this, but later on she called Tom.

The next day was Sunday. We came back home from the Twin Cities and my whole family was sitting on our big lumpy couch watching a movie. During the commercials my mom blurted out, “I think you and Derek should call Cassie.”

          “Why?” I said petrified. I’d already had a hard enough time talking to her a couple nights ago; I didn’t want to go through that again. “Because”, me mom answered, “We want to make her feel better about coming home tomorrow.” I gave in and slowly dialed her phone number. She picked up. “Hello?”

          “Hi Cassie!” I answered as cheerfully as possible. Our conversation started out smoothly and then Cassie’s voice grew sullen. “You know I love you Dylan, right?”
“Yes… I know.”
“Dylan, will you give Derek a hug for me?”
“Um…well, he’s right here, would you like to talk to him?”
“Sure, goodbye.”

          As I handed telephone over to my little brother I felt something twinge at my stomach. Something just didn’t feel right with the conversation I had with Cassie. Suddenly a scary and horrifying thought buzzed though my mind. Was Cassie planning to run away? I silently laughed. Cassie! Run away!! Ha! Cassie would never do something that terrible. I was wrong.

          The next day was Monday and Derek and me were at our grandma’s house rocketing around our basement. I heard my grandma open the door and come quickly down the stairs. Derek stopped running, and went over to my grandma. “Is Cassie home?” Derek spat in my grandma’s face, “Is she coming over, do we get to play with her?” My grandma didn’t answer. I could see something in her face. Something was wrong. My brother tried questioning her again and she said, “Why don’t you come upstairs. We can play cards. Then I’ll tell you about Cassie.”

          So while Derek jumped up the stairs two at a time to get upstairs, I lagged behind. Something was wrong, and I could tell. But what could it be? After my grandma had dealt the cards and we were sitting at the table she told us what happened.

          My grandma started out, “Jody went to Omaha to wait for Karleyne and Cassie, so she could bring Cassie back. Jody waited for three hours. Cassie never showed up. Karleyne and Cassie’s cell phones are dead.

          As you would expect my world should have been spinning out of control. I should have been screaming and wondering, when will Cassie be back? But I wasn’t. Actually I was thinking, oh no big deal. Somebody is going to give in and Cassie will be back tomorrow. But she wasn’t back the next day. Or the next week. Or the next month.

          I continually called Cassie’s cell phone. Each time I was hoping for the click of the phone and for Cassie to answer. But I always got he friendly computer voice, “The Alltell Wireless user has been disconnected. Please try again later.” I also tried to e-mail her. I’d type and type and type long novels about how much I miss her. But not once did she e-mail back.

          Tom and Jody, Cassie’s step-mom, have been working their backs off trying to find Cassie. They’ve taken several trips down to Arkansas and none of them have been successful. The authorities don’t seem to be much help either. They take their time doing other things and finding Cassie comes in at the end of their list.

          Cassie’s picture is posted on many missing children websites and every night I pray for her. Every day after school I ask, “Any news on Cassie?” And every day it’s been “No.” I miss her so much and I want her back home more than anything in the world. Don’t they know how worried we are? Is Cassie going to school? Does Cassie miss us? I might never know until somebody finally finds her.

          Still to this very day no one knows where she is. I still miss her. I still pray for her. I still e-mail her. I still call her phone. And almost every day I hear our last conversation running through my mind.

“Dylan, you know I love you right?”
“Yes…I know.”
“Will you give Derek a hug for me?”
“Um…he’s right here. Do you want to talk to him?”
“Sure. Good bye.”

          Throughout this whole experience, I’ve learned many things, but one most important one. You never know how much you love someone, till there gone.