ABANDONED. told from one boy's perspective where he gets to know another little boy who has a learning disability and one night a little girl goes missing and the whole town looks for her

[Hannah]

Hello!
I am creating a reading list for my students, and I have been thinking back to when I was younger and a list of books I had to read.

One such book I CANNOT find anywhere. It is a children's/YA novel and it was printed (I think) in 2002-2003. The story is told from one boy's perspective where he gets to know another little boy who has a learning disability and one night a little girl goes missing and the whole town looks for her, eventually finding her asleep in her garage, but the little boy with special needs gets lost looking for her the whole night. I remember that the boy who is narrating the story had a great new perspective of the other little boy by the end of the book.

Help? For some reason the word "stupid" or "dumb" are sticking in my head with the title?

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

Hannah, please provide plot details (no spoilers) and the genre of the book you’re looking for in the Topic header, not something vague like "Help! can't remember this book". Someone is more likely to recognize your book.

[Rosa]

Loser, I’m sure.

[Kate]

I added some detail to your header.

Is Loser your book?

[SamSpayedPI]

Probably not Hey, Dummy by Kin Platt but I figure I'd throw it out there just in case. I don't remember a girl getting lost but the rest of the details match (although in quite a downbeat fashion).

[asha]

Probably Loser by Jerry Spinelli, (see above), but there’s never actually another little boy - the book’s narrated in third person though.

[Kate]

We need confirmation from Hannah before we mark this as solved.
Hannah ~~
Is this your book?

[Kris]

No response, moving to Abandoned folder.

Hannah (OP) was last active on the site in November 2019.