Nine in the morning never felt later than it did Monday. Unable to sleep, I went for a run, showered, fixed waffles, brushed, flossed, trimmed my toenails, and Googled How to become a seer, all before 8.
Mamá hovered nearby all morning. Not long after breakfast, she ambushed me in my bedroom with hair gel.
“You should wear something nicer,” she said as she fussed with my hair. “How about your new polo?”
“Heaven forbid he look grungy while knee deep in weeds,” James said from his bed without looking up from the script he was supposedly studying.
“You would never have gone to your first play dressed like some sewage rat, would you, James?”
“I would if I were playing a sewage rat,” James said without missing a beat as I threw her a glare. I didn’t look that bad . . . did I?
Mamá apparently couldn’t argue with his logic, so, after a pause, she changed the subject.
“It reeks in here much less than it used to,” she said.
I glanced at Bess’s plant sitting serenely next to the window.
When 8:45 finally rolled around, I made a big show of leaving. “Here I go! Off to my first day!” I yelled. This ended up being a mistake as Mamá wanted to take pictures of me on the front porch. She even made me get a shovel to pose with, taking eight precious minutes.
To make things worse, she watched me go as though I were leaving for war. It wasn’t until after I rounded the corner of our cul-de-sac and paused for 15 seconds that I glanced back around the Reeds’ fence and saw her retreating into the house.
I sprinted back home. I quickly peeked through the living room window to make sure the coast was clear before slipping through the front door and hurrying upstairs. My bedroom door was ajar and I could see James was still on his bed, reciting lines aloud now.
“Picture this! A rustic hunting lodge. My latest kill roasting on the fire.”
I glanced at my watch—9:01. I was already late. I pushed the door open. It squeaked, but James kept reciting lines. I dropped to the floor and crawled in.
“My little wife, massaging my feet,” I swallowed back a snort as he wiggled his toes. “While the little ones play on the floor with the dogs.”
Oh, the irony.
“We’ll have six or seven.”
James paused and my heart skipped a beat. I looked up nervously at him and saw his eyes looking down, but I couldn’t tell if they were focused on the script or me. My mind scrambled for an excuse as to why I was on the floor. Maybe I lost my contacts? Except, I didn’t wear contacts. . .
“No, Belle! Strapping boys, like me!”
I let out my breath and slunk closer to the chest at the foot of the bunkbed, where I hoped I was out of sight. I retrieved the golden key from my back pocket where I’d stashed it earlier and stuck it into the lock. It clicked open and James paused for a moment as though he’d heard, but then kept reading.
“You are face to face with destiny. . . .”
And that’s when I realized it—James was wearing headphones. I sighed with relief as I stowed the key, opened the lid to the chest, reached into it, and pried up the false bottom.
“Escape me, there’s no way. . . .”
Now blocked from James’s view by the open lid, I got up on my knees and maneuvered my body into the chest, trying to keep my butt down. Once my head reached the invisible threshold between the two chests, I took a deep breath.
“You know that Belle, always playing hard-to-get.”
And then I pushed down into the chest until my shoulders were on the other side. Gravity reversed and my thick black hair, which had been hanging upside down, fell back into place. James’s voice immediately quieted, and I could feel the warm outdoor air of Flamingo Springs on the other side.
It was much more of a struggle than I expected to get the rest of my body through. My foot caught the lid of the chest and I felt it slam shut behind me as I pulled myself out the other side. Although I couldn’t hear it, I could tell it had been loud.
I pulled myself out of the chest and dropped onto the cobblestone street then spun around, sticking my head back through the barrier. James was no longer reading lines. I could hear footsteps right next to the chest as I fumbled around for the false bottom. My finger finally caught on the edge of it and yanked it down as I heard the chest start to squeak open. I waited nervously. Had James seen the false bottom shut? Would he open it and come through?
Luckily, he didn’t. I heard a brief “Hmmm. . . .” before the lid shut once more.
Once I felt certain I’d made a clean getaway, I pulled my head out of the chest and looked around. I was in an alley with a lot of rundown furniture and other odds and ends.
A deep male voice spoke, startling me. “What a charming posterior,” it said sarcastically.
“Wh-who said that?” I asked.
“I did, of course, laddie,” the elderly voice said with a strong, Scottish accent.
I whirled my head around but all I could see was an old Grandfather clock.
“I must be going crazy,” I said.
“I don’t doubt it,” the clock said.
“Wait, you talk? You the clock I mean.”
“Obviously.”
“Sorry, I’ve never met a talking clock before,” I said. “You don’t know where Bess is, do you? I was supposed to meet her at 9.”
“It would seem you are eight minutes and twenty-nine seconds late and counting.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said.
“Best hop to it then. No sense dilly-dallying.”
“Um, thanks, Mr. Clock,” I said, uncertainly.
“You may call me Mr. Chronshaw.”
“Thanks, Mr. Chronshaw,” I said. “I’ll be going now.”
“As well you should.”
With a nervous glance over my shoulder, I jogged down the alley toward the street.