What are the words to the monologue Missing Mandy?

Answer 1

Missing Mandy Last year on the first day of school, Mandy and I walked together. I miss Mandy a lot. It might not be so bad if I could write to her and get letters back from her, but to have her just leave like she did and not know where she went - well, that's the hard part. I always wonder what would have happened if I'd told sooner. Would she still have moved away and not let anyone know where? Last year when school started, I didn't know anything about Mandy's trouble. She never told anyone. I thought she always wore long-sleeved shirts because she liked them I didn't know she wanted to cover up the bruises. One day Mandy came to school with her hand bandaged. She'd burned it baking cookies. That day our teacher, Mrs. Swenson, asked me to stay after school. When we were alone, she asked me if I thought Mandy had really burned herself baking cookies. I told her Mandy wouldn't pretend to be burned if she wasn't. Mrs. Swenson said she was sure the burn was real, but she wasn't convinced it was accidental. I didn't know what she meant. And then one night Mandy was supposed to come over to my house so we could do our homework together, and she didn't come. When I went to her house to get her, I could hear her crying. What's worse, I heard why she was crying. I stood there on Mandy's front porch in the dark and I could hear her daddy beating on her something fierce. I got all sick-feeling inside and I didn't know what to do. Finally, I pounded hard, on Mandy's door and pretty soon her daddy opened the door, and when I saw him standing there, looking down at me with the sweat standing out in little droplets on his upper lip, I couldn't say anything. I just stood there with my knees shaking and stared at him. He told me Mandy wasn't feeling well and for me to go home. I did. I sat on my bed in the dark, but I couldn't stop shaking, even after I crawled under the covers and put the pillow over my head. I stayed home from school the next day. I told Mom I felt sick and that was the truth. Mom asked me what was wrong, but I couldn't tell her. Would things have turned out different if I had? When I went back to school, Mandy was there and neither of us said anything about that night. A few weeks later, Mandy showed up with a cast on her arm. She said she'd fallen down, her basement steps, but there was an odd, faraway look in her eyes when she told me. That afternoon I stayed after school and told Mrs. Swenson about standing on Mandy's porch and hearing her daddy whomp on her. Mrs. Swenson kept nodding at me, as if she wasn't at all surprised, and then she said I'd done right to tell her. I don't know if it was right or not. A police car stopped at Mandy's house that afternoon, but there was nobody home, and when the police car went back the next day Mandy was gone. She and her daddy must have moved out in the night because nobody saw them leave and nobody knows where they went. Mrs. Swenson isn't my teacher anymore, and this year I walk to school alone. I hope Mandy isn't walking alone. Wherever she is, I hope she has a friend to talk with. Most of all, I hope she's wearing a shirt with short sleeves.