Penelope Grit was a lovely girl with a terrible habit of losing things. It started with her pencils in the third grade. The hair ties started disappearing soon after that. And then of course the occasional sock would vanish in thin air, but who’s never lost one of those? When she started freshman year at Union High, she started losing friends. I suppose a lot of people lose friends in high school, but not like this. Penelope’s friends disappeared. Sammy Gilman was the first. She thought he’d just been avoiding her in the hallways, until she spoke with Miss Quig in homeroom. “There’s no-one by that name at this school. Never has been,” Miss Quig said and looked over her half-moon glasses. “Are you feeling alright, Penelope? I can schedule a meeting with the school counselor if you like.” Penelope didn’t like that at all. She didn’t like her shrinking pool of friends either. Sammy wasn’t the last friend Penelope lost. There were eight of them in total: Sammy, Victoria, Ben, Jake, Timber, Kylie, Nathan, and Tom. Completely lost from the world and erased from the memories of the not-lost. Except for Penelope. She remembered them all. And by remembering, she kept them alive in a dark place that no-one knew existed: the place where lost things go. That was her theory. Her friends were still alive, they were just out of reach. And if she reached far enough in the right direction, she just might find them again. But which was the right direction? Where do you search when you don’t know where to look? A week ago, Penelope disappeared. She stopped showing up for school, so I went by her house to check on her. Mr. and Mrs. Grit said I must’ve had the wrong house - they didn’t have any children. If her theory holds, I think my friend Penelope is in the place of discarded things - forgotten along with everything else she struggled to keep hold of. She reached far enough into the emptiness and finally found her friends, but she lost herself along the way. Do I look for her? Do I risk losing myself in the process? I don’t know. But her only connection to our world now is me. If she’s still alive, I need to keep it that way. So for now, I’ve lost her. There’s no telling when I’ll find her again, but it’s better this way. One day, perhaps I’ll stumble upon her unexpectedly walking down the street. One day, she’ll find her way back home, and we’ll see each other again.