“Okay, Emily. Just do exactly what I tell you to do okay? And if something happens, and you can’t find me… just find some place and go to sleep.” Emily just stared back, with a vacant incredulity. “I want you to think really hard about when we were in physics this morning. Remember when the bell rang at the end of the period? Think about that time, and on the count of three, I want you to say, ‘I wish I could re-do this morning.’”
“May…” Emily started to protest, now her face looking seriously worried.
“Trust me, please. Ready? One… two… three…” May grabbed Emily’s hand tightly, wondering if physical contact would be required to go in together.
The two girls spoke the words which would invoke the mirror at the exact same time. Emily’s tone was decidedly skeptical. May could feel the shivery tingling sensation taking over, and just as it got dark, she swore she could hear Emily gasp.
The next sound May heard was the ringing of the school bell, and when there was enough light for her to be able to see, she looked over at Emily. She knew immediately it had worked—Emily sat there frozen; wide eyed, with her hands braced out around her like she had just endured an earthquake. She began to stutter, “Wh-wh-wh… What?!?”
May grabbed Emily’s hands in hers, and knelt down in front of her, looking her in the eyes to try to steady her friend. “Emily,” She spoke very slowly, “listen to me. We have gone back to this morning. That mirror of mine has some kind of special power that allows people to go back and re-visit events. It isn’t permanent, and nothing that happens here will have an actual effect on reality. But if you don’t change anything, things will happen exactly as they did before, and we can find out who took your iPod.” May watched Emily carefully, gauging if she believed what she had just heard. Emily’s response surprised her.
“Oh, my gosh, May. Is this how you got Ethan?!” She looked triumphant at having cracked the puzzle.
“Emily…” May was embarrassed, and tried to look away. Then she gave up the pretense, there was no point in hiding anything from Emily, now. “Well, yes.” Emily looked gleeful. “But we need to focus on you, now. I have a plan… you go to P.E. like usual; I’ll skip my next class and hide in the locker room. Do everything the same as you did before, and I’ll be able to see who the thief was. As soon as I know who did it, I’ll come out and find you… then we can get out of here and back to reality.”
They hurried toward the gym, both with adrenaline pumping hard through their bodies. May was worried that Emily might be so keyed up that the outcome would be different. “Remember,” she said as they got to the locker room, “try to do exactly the same thing as this morning.” Then she slid herself behind a large rolling hamper of soiled towels to watch.
The locker room was full of girls changing into their workout clothes. May knew who most of them were. Emily carefully dialed her locker combination, and opened the locker. She pulled out her clothes, and put her watch, earings, and iPod into the locker. Next, she bent down and started undressing. May scanned the people around her, looking to see who had noticed Emily placing the iPod in the locker. She couldn’t tell if anyone had seen.
Suddenly, she noticed a girl lean over while Emily was bent down tying her shoes. The girl had something small in her hand, and she quickly shoved it into the hole on Emily’s locker where the latching mechanism would catch. May slapped her hand over her mouth to keep from crying out. She knew who this girl was.
It was Alicia-- the same girl that Ethan had flirted with at lunch. His biology chick. May was screaming obscenities at this girl in her mind. Skank! Whore! She wished there were a really awful word for Thief, but she couldn’t think of one.
May tried to compose herself and keep watching. Emily was folding her clothes now, and placed them on top of the other articles in the locker. She closed the door as she was walking away, and didn’t even notice when it popped back open a little.
May waited while the locker room cleared; sure enough, Alicia lagged behind. She looked around herself a few times to make sure the coast was clear, then she opened Emily’s locker, grabbed the iPod, unclogged the latch on the locker and quickly shoved it into her own locker. She closed the door, tightened her ponytail, and walked out of the room.
After having squatted there for ten minutes, May’s knees screamed when she stood up again. That was easier than she had imagined it would be. Now what should she do with the knowledge she gained? Emily could help her figure it out. She was so grateful now to have a co-conspirator in the mirror. May left the locker room to find Emily.
Emily was loitering near the bleachers, watching the locker room door. As soon as May came out, she sprinted over to her. “Well?” Emily asked breathlessly. “Do you know who took it?”
May nodded, “Yes, I saw it with my own two eyes: Alicia.” She hissed the name through her teeth like it was a curse.
Emily gasped, “Really? I never would have thought she was the type to steal!”
May told her exactly what she had seen as the two quietly snuck out the gym doors.
“Now what?” Emily asked.
“Well, we need to get back to the real world. To do that, we have to fall asleep.”
“Ha! Like I could sleep?” Emily was bouncing with joy as they walked.
“True…” They were both actually quite wound up.
They decided to go back to Emily’s house, where they would try to calm down and hopefully nap. As they drove, Emily demanded May give her the full history of the mirror, and everything she had done while in it. She complied, and explained to the best of her understanding how it worked, and added the bit she had uncovered about other’s dreams.
“So that’s how you got those guys so into you!” Emily apprehended. “You got into their heads! If you can get someone to dream steamy dreams about you, it is bound to have an effect on their waking mind, too!”
May bit her lip, feeling guilty. The spin Emily put on things made her feel pretty vile. “I didn’t know that’s what would happen, at the time…” she trailed off. She suddenly realized Emily had turned the car around, and they were going back toward the school. “Emily, what’s going on?”
“There’s something I want to do. I’m not sure if I’ll get another chance…” She looked very focused. The two didn’t say anything else until they got back to the school. “Just a minute, wait here.” Emily instructed.
May obeyed, and sat impatiently, wondering what Emily could be doing. About five minutes later, Emily came dashing back. Her face was red, but she looked exultant. She hopped in the car, and pulled away without saying anything.
“Emily…” May intoned. “Do I even want to ask?”
Emily just beamed at her. “I copied your idea! I kissed him! I walked into the middle of that classroom, walked right up to him, and kissed him! Ha ha!” She was victorious.
“Who did you kiss?” May asked warily, afraid of the answer.
“Jared, of course!”
“Ugh! Ew! Oh, Emily! Yuck! Why?” May tried to control her gag reflex.
“He’s your brother, I wouldn’t expect you to understand why!”
May was still shuddering. “Oh, man. Okay. Please, don’t tell me anything more. I think I just barfed in my mouth a little.”
Emily rolled her eyes, “Oh, stop.” Then she just smiled, a big toothy smile that didn’t leave her face the entire drive back to her house.
The girls decided they would never get to sleep as things were, so they took a little bit of Benadryl to help loll them away. As the Benadryl took its effect, they laid next to each other on Emily’s bed, finally able to talk about the open-ended relationship May and Ethan now found themselves in.
“So, he’ll like, hold your hand and kiss you, but he won’t say you’re his girlfriend? May, that is messed up. You shouldn’t let him do that to you.”
May buried her face in the pillow. “But I like him so much! I can’t stop thinking about him… I feel like if I’m not with him, I might tear in half. I know it isn’t ideal, and it is probably going to give me lots of trouble, but I feel like I have no choice. It’s so hard to explain. It’s like this obsession that overwhelms reason. And I can see that it does it, and I can’t make myself care!”
Emily shook her head, “If I were you, I’d go after Ryan. You know he likes you, and he is so… mature. I can’t imagine him jerking anyone around the way Ethan is doing to you.”
May felt the urge to defend Ethan, “He isn’t trying to jerk me around; he has these weird ideals, and he’s very sure of them. I don’t know what makes him the way he is, but he is honestly good. Oblivious a lot of the time, true-- but he is sincere.” May trailed off, and picked back up again. “But you are right. If I were me, I’d go after Ryan too.”
May had that warm gooey Benadryl-induced sleep feeling starting in her stomach. She could feel her mind drifting, and soon the tingling sensation was taking over.
No comments:
Post a Comment