126 The Pontis—Steven （52）， Jill （48）， Marco （20）， Richard （16）
128 The Ottomanellis—Dominick （44）， Linda （44）， Mark （12）， Michael （12）
130 The Atlases—Bethany （37）， Fred （30）
132 VACANT
134 VACANT
TOTAL: 42 PEOPLE
From Newsday, July 12, 2027, page 7
A local thirteen-year-old fell through the Sterling Park sinkhole Saturday morning. Rescue teams were immediately called to the scene. Says Kirsten Brandt, spokesperson for the Nassau County Office of Emergency Management, “We’re looking and we’re going to keep looking. That’s all I have for you right now.”
The Maple Street sinkhole is about 180 feet deep, penetrating Long Island’s water table. Hofstra University geology professor Tom Brymer says, “The complication with this kind of thing is that the underlying aquifers extend through the length of Long Island. If she hit her head or anything like that, it’s very possible that she traveled.”
Authorities at the Garden City zoning office, which had the Maple Street sinkhole scheduled for sand fill beginning today, have postponed the work until the child, whose name has not yet been released, is found.
A spokesperson at the EPA reiterated today that the air remains safe. In addition to the bitumen seen upswelling throughout the area, it is believed that the sinkhole’s high metal content is interfering with radio and satellite reception.
From the TMZ website, December 6, 2014:
Arlo Wilde of Fred Savage’s Revenge was taken into custody last night for attacking his manager and father, Hawshawn Wilde. He is charged with felony assault and battery. Hawshawn is in critical condition at New York–Presbyterian Hospital. The Wilde men have a notoriously rocky relationship, first reported here, when Arlo sued his father for back wages.
It’s a fall from grace for Arlo, who won a Best New Artist Grammy last year. Sources say that as part of his plea agreement, Arlo plans to enter rehab for heroin addiction.
Click for mug shots!
From Believing What You See: Untangling the Maple Street Murders, by Ellis Haverick, Hofstra University Press, ? 2043
Investigators have researched Rhea Schroeder’s past exhaustively. We all know about the event at the Hungarian Pastry Shop. Franklin and others have tethered this incident to the subsequent Maple Street Murders. But that connection is tenuous at best.
We’ve not looked as much at Gertie Wilde, whom we might argue arrived at Maple Street with the most troubled history of all. Gertie’s parents were drug abusers. She was shuffled through the foster system until her father’s wife, Cheerie Maupin, agreed to keep her. Cheerie was problematic. She freely admits to having loaned Gertie out to men. It’s not so surprising, then, that Gertie would have missed all the signs of sexual abuse. It’s equally possible that she did recognize them, but chose to cover for her husband. Potentially, she even participated.
Maple Street
July 11–21
The search for Shelly Schroeder began at the moment of her fall, when parents and children shouted her name down the mouth of the hole: Shelly Schroeder! Shelly Schroeder! Where are you? It continued through the day, when police sectioned off the periphery and rescue workers attached to thick ropes belayed down. Oil-slick footprints tracked a reflective sheen all over the park until no grass was left. The day turned to night and into the next day without sign of life. The weekend passed. The oil and bitumen spread to the street.
As if fed, the hole grew. A gaping, excavated wound.
The media picked up the story, and quickly, blogs and streams unleashed news of the missing child, lost down a hole. “I can’t understand it,” Rhea told NBC’s local affiliate, and Maple Street watched on static-filled screens, her bereavement seeming worse, somehow, when pixelated in their living rooms. “She knew she wasn’t allowed out there. It doesn’t make any sense.”
Shelly Schroeder! Shelly Schroeder! Where are you?
Two more families left the block, for a total of seven gone. Those who remained felt the burden to represent. To support this lost child and her family. They doubled down, canceling trips to the beach, forgoing summer museum nights in the city. They stayed on Maple Street like sentries, as if Shelly, and the horrible sinkhole itself, belonged to them.
Never comfortable with uncertainty, the people of Maple Street struggled for explanations. They reviewed the events of that morning with their children, and they contrived reasons among one another, their voices respectfully soft. Why had Shelly been out there? Whose idea had it been?