Bec

Book 2: Thanksgiving

by barbar

It is the week of Thanksgiving and Bec's family is gathering. But Bec has discovered a mystery - a puzzle she is determined to solve. Just when Bec is starting to come to terms with her own issues, how will she manage when she uncovers this new secret?

Bec is a differently brained thirteen year old English immigrant living with her family in USA. Some might call her neuro-divergent. This story is set in the first decade of this century,

This is Book 2 of the Bec: Lost in the Maze series. Please read Bec Book 1: Lost in the Maze before reading this.

We have skipped forward by three weeks from the events described in Bec Book 1.

Chapter 1: Tuesday November 23rd

So I’ve been writing these journals for three weeks. Now that I look back through what I’ve written, I realize that for the last week and a half absolutely nothing happened. I filled up an entire exercise book with my description of nothing. I feel a bit bad for having made you read all of it. You said the first week of my journal was a bit exciting with everything that happened. Well I must have crammed a whole year’s worth of stuff into that week because my life went back to being ordinary after the fallout from Little Miss Hand Grenade died down.

What do you think, Doctor K? Is it weird that I can ramble on and on so much when nothing was actually happening to me? Or is it another thing like you were saying, where it’s pretty normal but it seems weird because it’s happening to me. You didn’t say it, Doctor K, but I got the impression that me thinking everything is weird when it’s actually normal is a different type of craziness.

So anyway, nothing happened. Oh sure, I went to school, I did some drawing, I started a new painting, I did all the usual stuff. But nothing special happened. Nothing worth making a fuss about.

Nothing apart from getting into college, that is. I haven’t been to a class yet, but I have the letter. They said I can start next week if I want to – how awesome is that? I thought it was going to be harder than that. I had one interview with Arbena Satiri – the artist who runs the class I’m interested in. There was a nervous time while she flipped through my folio of drawings – including photos of the two paintings on my closet doors. There was another official from the college at the interview, but all he did was flip through my school reports and ask a couple of questions about transportation. Then Dad was signing some papers and they told me the letter would be in the mail (which it was) and that was that. Like I said – awesome!

Today’s counseling session was a bit confusing. We seemed to spend most of the time talking about what is normal. Half the time you seemed to be saying there’s no such thing as normal. The other half of the time you seemed to be saying that a lot of what I’ve been going through is normal for someone my age. You can’t have it both ways, Doctor K. I know you’re trying to help me. I know I came to you asking for help. But if you keep going back on the things you say, I don’t know how much help you’re going to be.

As I was leaving from your office I waved at Joseph Edmond Philips who was arriving for his session. We differently brained types need to stick together. I didn’t stop to talk though, I wanted to get out of that hospital – it still makes me feel all creepy. Joseph actually smiled when he saw me. Actually he smiled when he saw my shoes – I don’t think he looked at the rest of me.

Mum was waiting in the car – she’d done some shopping while I was in my session – and I talked to her about my session while she drove. We stopped at the DiMartino house on the way home to collect Melissa. Of course, we had to speak into the little box to get the gate opened. Mum drove around to the front door where Melissa was already waiting beside the new housekeeper. I forget her name, but Melissa says she’s a bit of a Nazi. I think Mr DiMartino deliberately hired someone a bit strict after the last one let Laura get away with so much.

Frederick, the older of Melissa’s two younger brothers, came running out the door when we stopped. He abruptly halted and stood a bit behind Melissa – looking awkward and uncertain.

I jumped out of the car and opened the back door for Melissa. I smiled and called out hello to Frederick but that made him blush and stare at the ground. I don’t know who was more embarrassed – Frederick because I’d spoken to him or me because he’s behaving all love-struck around me. I don’t know what to do about Frederick. If I tell him I’m not interested in him – not in that way, anyway – he’ll be crushed. He’s only eight years old and … well, eeew, but I don’t want to hurt him.

The housekeeper spoke to Mum to make sure Melissa would be returned by nine. She seemed determined to explain to Mum that tomorrow was a school day and that late nights before a school day were unacceptable – as if Mum didn’t already know that. After the housekeeper started to explain it for the third time, I saw a half-smile start to appear on Mum’s face that told me she was getting angry. Mum interrupted with a curt comment about needing to get moving. She hustled the two of us into the back seat and got back behind the wheel.

I think the housekeeper wanted to start again on the ‘have her back by nine’ speech but as soon as she started pointing at the watch on her wrist, Mum smiled at her and drove us away down the drive. Fortunately the gates open automatically or we probably would have bashed right through them.

Melissa wanted to talk to me but I reached out with my hand and hushed her. We sat silently in the car as Mum drove.

Melissa leaned over and whispered into my ear, “Why are we being quiet?”

I bit my lip as I figured out what I should say and then I leaned back to her.

“Mum’s mad at your new housekeeper right now,” I whispered into her ear. “Mum doesn’t much enjoy being treated like an idiot. If we sit back here and do the ‘brainless teen chat’ thing, she might redirect her mad in our direction and we don’t want that.”

Melissa looked at me thoughtfully for a moment and then leaned close to me.

“Brainless teen chat?”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m quoting from last time Mum got mad at Tara and me for being so thoughtless as to sit in the same room as Mum and talk to each other when she was busy being mad at someone.”

Melissa nodded at me. “Would it help if we discussed something brainy like the political and economic differences between the U.S. and England?”

That made me giggle, and Melissa giggled too. That was unfortunate because it made Mum turn around and snarl at us.

“For heaven’s sake! Must you whisper and giggle like a stereotypical pair of idiot schoolgirls?”

I sat back in the seat and hung my head a bit. “Sorry, Mum.”

“Sorry, Mrs Freeman,” added Melissa.

We sat in silence for the last few minutes of the drive to our house. Mum parked the car and everyone clambered out. Looking at Mum’s face, I decided the storm was nearly over and it was safe to start trying to patch things up.

“Mum, did I tell you that Melissa learns dance?”

“Oh, really? What type of dance do you do?”

Mum and Melissa walked up the drive talking about dance styles. I followed, smiling to myself.

Inside the house, I was hit by another storm in the form of Angie. She took a flying leap into my arms so hard that I staggered back into the edge of the door.

“Save me, Becky, save me.”

“Who am I saving you from?”

“Tara! Tara’s tickling me.”

“Oh, really? We’ll have to do something about that. Let’s go.”

I let her slide down to the floor and together we set off hunting for Tara. Mum disappeared towards the kitchen, so we were free to search around through the living room. Melissa followed the two of us with a smile on her face. Tara wasn’t there, but I made a big deal about looking under the cushions and behind the paintings. Melissa joined in by looking behind the curtains. Angie liked that game and started looking under the sofas and behind the chairs. After that game was exhausted, I pointed towards the hallway and we crept on tippy-toes towards the doorway.

At that point, Tara launched a surprise attack from the rear. She’d gone out into the hallway, around through the kitchen and back via the entrance into the living room. Tara came running up behind us, grabbed Angie up under the arms and lifted her high in the air. Angie squealed in that half-delighted, half-terrorized sort of way. The rest of us were squealing too. Tara lifting Angie up in the air like that left her ribs exposed. I reached out and dug my fingers into her ribs.

Tara squeaked and dropped Angie. Angie screamed as she found herself falling. All three of us lunged forward to catch Angie before she hit the floor. We ended up in a pile. I guess you could say we succeeded because Angie landed more or less on top of the pile. The rest of us weren’t quite so fortunate. I bashed my head on someone’s elbow and someone else’s knee was sticking into my lower back. Angie lay spread over the top of the pile and kept screaming.

Mum appeared suddenly, glowering down at us.

“What did you do to Angela?” she demanded.

We lay in our tangled heap and looked up at Mum. Nobody answered her. I was about to confess that I’d caused it by tickling Tara when Angie’s screaming cut off with a hiccup and she started giggling up at Mum. Mum scowled at us.

“Look after your sister!” she snarled.

She turned and stalked away back towards the kitchen.

There were a few ouches interspersed with giggles as we untangled ourselves. The four of us ended up sitting cross-legged on the floor in a tight circle. I introduced Melissa to Angie and they said “hi” to each other. Tara and Melissa already knew each other – at least well enough to recognize each other, anyway.

“Angie and I have been cooking,” said Tara. “Dinner’s in the oven. It will be ready in about half an hour.”

“Awesome!” I replied. “Dealing with an angry mother really builds up the appetite.”

“Our new housekeeper, the Nazi, was explaining to your mother that I have to be back home by nine,” explained Melissa. “Your mother didn’t seem to appreciate being told the same thing three times.”

“Yup! That would do it,” said Tara.

I looked at Tara and caught her eye.

“I have to show Melissa something,” I said.

I flicked my eyes towards my bedroom and then back to her.

“Can you keep Angie with you for a bit?”

Tara looked at Melissa then back at me.

“Sure. We better get back to the kitchen. We might not have cleaned up as well as we should have, and with Mum stewing …”

Tara scrambled to her feet and took a few steps towards the kitchen before calling for Angie. Our little angel had been sitting quietly in her place in the circle. I think she was pleased that she was being treated as one of the girls. Now she bounced up and raced after Tara towards the kitchen.

I stayed sitting and looked at Melissa, trying to carefully word what I was about to say. Melissa looked back at me and after a moment, she raised her hands as if to say, “Weren’t you going to show me something?”

“I’m going to show you something, but you can’t talk about it – apart from with my family, that is. I think you’ll realize why when you see it. It’s not bad – not really. Some people wouldn’t understand and my family could get into trouble. I’m trusting you not to tell people. You can talk to Liz about it, obviously – she knows everything about me.”

Melissa’s eyes went a bit wide.

“Now you have me fascinated. What is it that could get your family into trouble when it’s not really bad?”

I stood and held my hand out for Melissa. She took my hand and stood up smoothly – her years of dancing make her every move seem like a glide. As I led her towards my bedroom, my mind raced over the pitfalls of making new friends. It had seemed so easy two weeks ago when I’d announced to Liz that Melissa was going to be our new friend and Liz had agreed. I’m not very experienced at making friends. It hadn’t occurred to me at the time that having a new friend would mean having someone new that I would have to share a whole lot of secrets with.

The closer I got to my bedroom, the more I started to worry. It was like I was wading through a deep bog – a swamp made of worries instead of mud. They kept piling up in front of me as I tried to push through them. What if Melissa didn’t understand? What if she hated the pictures? What if she were offended? What if she told her father? What if she told her sister? Laura would make my life miserable if she found out about this.

None of these worries were new. I’d already spent more than one sleepless night wandering around the house as I worried about what to do. In the end I decided I had to show Melissa and find out how she reacted. That was pretty much the reason I’d invited her over for dinner this evening. If she didn’t like it, then that meant I wouldn’t invite her around for a sleepover anytime soon.

I took a deep breath, opened my door and turned on the light.

“This is my bedroom!”

I ushered Melissa into the room. Everything seemed to pause. I stopped breathing. My heart stopped beating. The entire house seemed to go silent. Melissa was standing in the doorway – her eyes flicking around all the paintings on the walls. I think I saw a faint blush appear in her cheeks as she realized that the paintings were all of a naked girl – or maybe she was realizing they were all pictures of a naked me.

I steered Melissa further into the room and stood her in front of the first picture we came to. It was the picture of me standing beside the mirror – life-sized, full frontal, naked me. It’s not the real me, of course. It’s Mum’s idealized version of me – a beautiful, strong, confident, defiant version of me that doesn’t really exist except in Mum’s head, and maybe a little bit in mine. I’m not really that beautiful. I’m definitely not that confident. I hope that one day I will be that strong.

I gently pushed Melissa past my desk to the next picture of me. This was the picture of me in the middle of a jump shot, throwing a basket with the ball above my head. Again it’s an idealized version of me, only this time it’s an energetic, athletic, lively version of me that’s actually a bit more realistic. Except, of course, that I have never – and will never – played basketball without any clothes on. I gestured at the image of a nude Liz sitting on the floor with her back against my bookshelf and a book in her hand as she watched me play basketball. Melissa’s cheeks tinted again as she saw a picture of someone else she knew without any clothes on.

“Did you paint all of these?”

“I wish I was that good. Mum did these. I’ll show you the ones I painted in a minute.”

“I always thought you were shy. I don’t know how you could have stood there and modeled for these.”

“I didn’t! Not really. Mum doesn’t use models. She sees an image in her head and paints it. She did get me to model a little bit for this one so she could get the muscles looking right. That was embarrassing.”

As I talked, I pointed out the detail from my shoulders, down my back, across my butt and down my legs. I’m still impressed at how well Mum had done that. My skin looks smooth and tight and clear, but everywhere there’s a hint of muscles rippling under my skin.

  

I gestured at the image of Liz.

“Liz saw all this happening and said Mum could do her as well. Liz didn’t have to model at all for that, but it looks perfectly like her.”

The next painting I showed her was the one above my bed of me sitting on a flying carpet, holding on tight and clearly flying fast because you could see my hair flowing out behind me and the look of sheer joy on my face. Near that was the rear view of Liz and me sitting on a wall and leaning against each other, looking out into an English garden. I pointed out to Melissa the theme running through all these paintings.

“These aren’t really me as I am now. They all show different parts of what I could be like in the future. The one next to the mirror is me if I were more confident. It shows me being strong – defiant even. The basketball one is about me being athletic, the flying carpet painting is me having fun, the one with Liz is about me having friends and being a caring and loving person.”

Melissa turned and looked between the paintings. She smiled and nodded.

“On the closet doors are the two that I’ve done so far. The one with me in a prom dress is kind of the same theme because it’s about me looking elegant and grown up. Except I put myself behind the mirror because that’s the only way I get to see myself. I often feel like the girl behind the mirror isn’t really me – especially when she looks like that.”

“It’s a gorgeous dress.”

“It’s based on a real dress I saw in a shop. I tried it on and everything.”

“You should have bought it. It looks awesome on you.”

I shrugged. “We can’t afford it.”

Melissa blinked a couple of times as if she had to adjust her thinking and then nodded.

“I can see this painting looks different from the other paintings.”

“I’m just a beginner compared to Mum. I still have a lot to learn.”

I guess I thought she was criticizing it, but now that I think about it, she wasn’t really.

“I don’t mean it’s no good, I mean it’s different.”

“Oh! Um! Okay!”

I had to force my brain away from that thought and make it think about something else.

“I think you saw the drawing I did when I was worried about what would happen if I couldn’t turn into the person – the one of me trapped behind the mirror.”

“I remember.”

“Well the painting on the other closet door is about me breaking through and climbing out of the mirror.”

“I get that. And I can see breaking through the mirror has like a cost for doing that. The pretty dress gets all torn and you get cut on the glass. That’s kind of deep. I like it.”

“Thank you.”

Up to this point, I’d been carefully steering Melissa around the room so that she wouldn’t see the naughtiest (and most embarrassing) painting until last. I gently turned her to face the wall with the door in it and there it was. The painting showed me naked and draped over a red-velvet couch. One of my hands was touching my boob and the other covered the private place between my legs. The look on my face clearly showed that I was enjoying touching my boob.

“Continuing the same theme as the rest of the room, this one is about that part of me that is growing up and becoming a woman.”

Melissa’s eyes went wider and she took a half step back.

“Oh!”

“Yeah! It’s a bit like that, isn’t it?

I could see Melissa’s cheeks going red.

“I still can’t get over how Mum took plain little me and made me look so sexy.”

I was trying to play down the painting a bit. Treat it as casually as I could so that Melissa wouldn’t think it was too big a deal.

Her eyes flicked sideways to me and then back up to the painting.

“You aren’t plain. You might not be as sexy as that, but you aren’t plain.”

I licked my lips while I tried to figure out how to respond to that.

“I see why you said I shouldn’t tell people about this. I don’t think this is very normal for a teenager’s bedroom.”

I hid a smile, thinking of the long discussion about what is and isn’t normal that I’d had in my counseling session that afternoon.

“I think you’re right. But I like it. It makes me feel good to come in here and see all these pictures. They remind me of who I want to be.”

“I don’t think I could sleep every night in a room covered in paintings of me.”

I shrugged. “It only took me a few nights to get used to them. They disappear when I turn the light off. I know they’re there but I can’t see them.”

Finally I showed her the back of my bedroom door, where I’ve started my latest painting. Angie had seen my room and demanded I do one of her. I have it sketched out in pencil on the back of the door and I’ve started blocking in the background. It looks like an archway through the wall but instead of opening out into the hallway, this one opens out onto a city park with green lawn and scattered trees. In the foreground, the penciled outline of Angie stands right in the doorway, one hand holding onto the doorjamb, the other hand waving. I’m pretty happy with my pencil sketch. I think I really captured Angie’s energy and bubbling enthusiasm. I’m a bit nervous about whether I can do the same with paint.

By then it was nearly time for dinner so we went into the kitchen and sat down. Since Dan was at work, Tara could sit in his place, leaving her usual seat next to me free for Melissa.

Tara was bustling around doing the last of the dinner preparation, so we waited quietly for everyone to arrive. Once the whole family was ready, we stood in a circle – shoulder to shoulder – and did our welcome ritual for Melissa. It’s so much easier for me to do that now my family has learned to make sure they don’t look at me when I’m talking. I managed to introduce Melissa in a nice clear voice. I’m quite proud of how well I did. Mum and Dad said their bit to welcome Melissa as a guest in the house.

Finally it was time for dinner. I guess it was a fairly typical dinner for us – a sort of controlled chaos. Tara had cooked pasta and a bolognese sauce for us and there was freshly made bread and a bowl full of garden salad to go with it. As always, we helped ourselves from the various plates of food in the center of the table. We made sure Melissa went first so she had her plate full of food and was sitting watching the rest of us serve ourselves.

I leaned over to her and whispered in her ear.

“We don’t normally say grace or anything like that before we eat. But we’ll wait for you to say something if you want us to.”

I could see Melissa hesitating, unsure of what to say, so I made the decision for her.

“Dad, Melissa’s family usually says grace before they eat. Can we please wait for a moment while Melissa says something?”

Dad nodded at me and got everyone to sit still once they’d finished serving themselves. We waited while Melissa ducked her head and her lips moved in a silent prayer. The prayer was a short one and we did not have to wait long before Melissa looked up and nodded to us. Everyone started talking at once and we all started eating.

Mum and Dad caught up with each of us – including Melissa – about our day at school. It hadn’t been a very exciting day so that didn’t take long. Dad had found a new set of brain teasers on the internet so for most of dinner he challenged us to solve them. Melissa joined Tara and me in some fairly lively arguments as we tried to figure out each one. There was a fair bit of laughter as different people threw out silly ideas in between the sensible suggestions. Even Mum joined in with a couple of ideas. As well as the table-wide attempts to solve Dad’s puzzles, there was never less than one other conversation going on, often there were two and sometimes three.

In other words, dinner was noisy, cheerful and friendly. I’m sure Melissa was a little nervous at first, but I could almost see her relax as she realized that everyone was being friendly and accepting her without any trouble.

I was also pleased to see that Melissa was easily able to contribute to Dad’s brain game. I always thought she was pretty smart. Her brain seems to work differently from mine – more like Tara’s in a way. My brain tends to jump around from one idea to another like a beetle jumping randomly from leaf to leaf. Melissa’s brain seems to be more like a stream of ants. She started at the trunk and then split up and followed each branch in turn until she found the leaf we were looking for.

Dad didn’t announce that he was satisfied we had solved all his puzzles until after we’d finished dessert and had worked our way through a pot of tea. We even got Melissa to try a cup of tea – she didn’t hate it but I don’t think we converted her. It was nice to sit around the table like that, we do it sometimes and it always feels good to be together as a family.

Mum and Dad volunteered to do the dish-washing for me, and they volunteered Tara to get Angie ready for bed, so that I could spend more time with Melissa.

Back in my bedroom, we relaxed on my bed and chatted. Melissa gushed a little about how much fun dinner had been. I think she was comparing it to the stiff and formal dinners at her house. After a bit, Melissa made the comment that Tara had been really friendly to her this evening.

“It’s almost like she’s a different person from the one we see at school,” she said.

I shrugged. “She is. I don’t much like the version of Tara that shows up at school. I think it’s a thing about the way Tara is. She likes to be among the popular people – people like your sister. It’s almost like she’s addicted to it. I think she behaves like that at school because that’s what she thinks she has to do for her to stay in with that group.”

Melissa nodded. “Laura probably encourages her. When they’re all together, they act like complete bitches – and Laura’s the worst.”

“I think they’ve been better since that business with the party two weeks ago. They’re all back to hanging out with each other around school and ignoring us but at least they’re being a bit nicer to everyone else.”

“I agree. I think that’s because Laura isn’t so much in charge any more. Tracey and the others don’t seem to follow my sister as blindly as they used to. That’s one good thing that came out of that whole mess.”

“Yeah!”

We kept chatting about that for a while, mostly repeating what we’d already said and swapping stories of things our sisters had gotten up to at school. Then the conversation came back to Mum’s paintings – I suppose that wasn’t too surprising, we were sitting in my room where we were surrounded by paintings, after all. Melissa asked if there were any other paintings by my mother that she could look at.

I took her back out into the living room and showed her Mum’s family portraits that hang at each end of that room. Then back through the hallway where some smaller paintings hang, plus some prints of paintings that she’s sold over the years. That reminded me to take Melissa into The Parents’ room and show her the collection of prints that hang in there, including the one of my dad wearing jeans and no shirt and holding a very young and very naked version of me. Mum always said it was a study in the differences of skin tone between Dad and me. Up until Mum did all those paintings in my bedroom, all I could see was my naked bum which features in the middle of the painting, much to my embarrassment.

Melissa was taking her time and looking carefully at all of the paintings. That made me stop and look more carefully at them as well – more closely than I had looked at them for ages. Melissa asked some questions about the stories behind the various paintings, but I was a bit distracted because I was starting to notice a pattern – something I hadn’t really noticed before.

I did answer when Melissa asked if Dad was really as rugged with his shirt off as Mum had painted him. I told her that as far as I could remember, I’ve never seen Dad with his shirt off. Our family doesn’t walk around half-dressed and Dad doesn’t swim, so he even keeps his shirt on at the beach. I think that Melissa might have said that Dad looked hot but by then I was kind of absorbed in checking out if my theory was correct.

My brain was racing as my eyes swapped from one print to the next. In my brain, I compared them to the ones in the hall and then finally back to the two big ones in the living room. I could almost see myself standing in front of Mum’s family portrait and staring at it in shock. I had just made an amazing discovery – something that had been right under my nose all the time. I guess when you see something every day you stop noticing it and it becomes part of the background.

Artists change their style from time to time. They start using new techniques. They focus on different subjects. The mood of their art changes to reflect changes in their lives. It wasn’t a surprise that Mum’s style in her older paintings was quite different from her current style. What was surprising was that Mum had changed her style suddenly – almost overnight. At the same time, she had changed her painting technique – even the brush strokes looked different. Even more surprising was that she had totally changed her signature at exactly the same time. Why would an artist suddenly change her style, her technique and even her signature all at once? I could only think of one reason.

What’s more, I could identify exactly when it had happened. Every painting she had done back in England was in the old style and was signed Louise S – carefully printed and easy to read. The very first painting Mum had done after arriving in the U.S. had the entirely different style and was signed LFreeman – except that most of the name was just an illegible scrawl so it looked more like LFzxxnm.

Why would an artist moving to a new country suddenly change her style, her technique and even her signature all at once? I could only think of one reason. She didn’t want anyone to know that she was the same artist as the painter back in England called Louise S.

In fact, as far as I know, the only copies in America of Mum’s old paintings hang in The Parents’ room or at the far end of our hallway where only members of the family would see them. She’s never put them on show in America. She’s never tried to sell her old paintings since we arrived here. Mum was – and is – deliberately hiding for some reason. I don’t know why.

But there’s more …

My thoughts were interrupted by a blast of cold air. Dad was leading me by the hand out through the front door of the house. It was dark outside and a light, misty rain was falling. I didn’t resist as Dad led me to the back door of the car and pushed me in. He leaned in through the door and clipped the seat belt around me before backing out and shutting the door. Melissa was already sitting in the seat next to me and I think she said something to Dad, but I don’t know what.

My brain circled back around to my new discovery. I decided that if Mum was deliberately hiding then she would have needed to change her style like she had done. Paintings by even a relatively unknown artist like Mum tend to circle around the world as they get bought in one place and then a few years later they get sold somewhere else. Also buyers for galleries tend to travel long distances to look for work to add to their collections. And these days, with the internet, photos of paintings can be seen from anywhere around the world in a matter of seconds. That means in these days if an artist wants to hide, simply moving countries isn’t going to do the trick. They also have to either stop doing art altogether or they have to completely change their style, their technique and their signature – like Mum had done.

And, of course, they have to change their name …

A screech of brakes and a blast on a car horn right next to my window made me jump. I blinked and looked around. We were nearly back to the DiMartino house. I looked over at Melissa who was looking out the window at the passing traffic.

“Thanks for coming over to dinner,” I said. “I hope you had a good time.”

She looked at me and smiled. “I did. Thanks for inviting me.”

She hesitated. “You suddenly blanked out. You were staring at the paintings and then suddenly it was like you were a zombie – standing there and blinking. I was a bit worried so I went and got Tara but she said not to worry.”

Melissa leaned closer to me.

“She also said you were just being a freak,” she whispered. “But I don’t think she was serious.”

Then she was back to using her normal voice.

“Was that the thing you got Liz to tell me all about – the brain thing you have?”

“Not really, I was thinking about  … well, yeah, sort of. I guess.”

I looked away from her – out through the window at the roads glistening in the rain.

“Sometimes my brain goes a bit weird,” I admitted, quietly. “Sorry about that.”

It was easier to say that without looking at her. I didn’t want to see the expression on her face. My brain was busy making her look all sorry for me or something and I didn’t want to see that.

Dad pulled into the DiMartino driveway and wound down his window so that he could speak into the little box. The gates opened and we drove through and up the driveway in silence.

When Dad stopped the car outside the front door, Melissa leaned over and took a hold of my arm – almost forcing me to look at her.

“Thanks again for inviting me over. I really did have a good time. Your family is nice. I’ll see you tomorrow at school, okay?”

“Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Half-day! Yaay!”

“Yaay!” I echoed. A half-day at school is always worth a cheer.

Dad looked at his watch. “We’re actually four minutes and twenty seconds early. You can sit and talk for a few minutes more if you want to. In fact, I’m tempted to let you sit and talk for ten minutes, just to annoy a certain housekeeper, but I suppose I shouldn’t.”

“That’s okay, Mr Freeman,” said Melissa as she undid her seat belt and opened the door. “We’ll see each other tomorrow. Thanks for having me over, Mr Freeman. Thanks for bringing me home.”

Without waiting for a reply, she closed the door and dashed up the steps and into the house.

I sat in silence and stared at Dad’s profile as he drove us back home. I was trying to remember something that happened way back when I was six. Way back when we were traveling from England to America to start a new life in a new country. I hadn’t thought about it for ages but back then, our name wasn’t Freeman.

Now that I thought about it, I had a clear memory of sitting in a railway carriage – a little enclosed one, with just us inside. Dad had leaned back and casually said, “Oh, by the way, since we’re going to a new country, it seems right for us to have a new name. From now on, we’re going to be the Freeman family.”

My little six year old brain hadn’t found anything strange about that. After all, the whole thing about moving to a new country was an exciting adventure. Changing names seemed to be a natural part of that adventure.

For the last six and a half years of my life, I’ve been Bec Freeman and until that moment in the car, I’ve never questioned that. But when I was born, and for the first six years of my life, my name was Rebecca Stone – Rebecca Louise Stone.

I have no idea why we changed our name. I have no idea why Mum worked so hard to hide herself – and us. I always believed that we had moved to the U.S. because of Dad’s job, but now I’m starting to doubt that.

I sat in the back of the car and stared at the profile of Dad’s face – lit up by the passing traffic as he drove.

It’s a mystery. Why did we change our name and travel half way across the world to start a new life? Did something happen that we ran away from? Why is our whole family hiding? Because it’s not only us – it’s Aunt Penny and Aunt Ally and Nana as well.

I have no doubt that Mum and Dad are deliberately keeping it a secret. I wonder what the truth is. I wonder why they feel the need to keep it secret from me. I’m kind of worried. They’ve kept big secrets from me before. The last secret they kept from me was that my cousin, Sam, is really my half-brother – that was a big surprise. The other big secret they kept from me was Lambrecht’s Syndrome. Finding out about Mum’s condition – and mine – nearly blew my mind apart. Is it going to be as devastating when I find out the truth this time?  I hope not – because I will find out.

What is the real reason we came to America? And why are they keeping it a secret from me?

It’s a mystery.

It’s a mystery and I’m determined to solve it.

I only hope I survive the experience.

Chapter 2: Tuesday Evening November 23rd

I sat in the back seat of the car and stared at the profile of Dad’s face. He had that look of relaxed concentration that he always has when he’s driving and not thinking about other things. I was thinking of other things – big things.

I wanted to ask Dad a big question. My problem was that I wasn’t sure how he was going to respond. That’s never good. Usually when I have a question for Dad I have some idea how he will react, so I can make sure I ask it in the right way. This time I had absolutely no clue. That made it hard to find the right words.

Also I wanted to see his face – his whole face. Important questions should be asked face-to-face. How else can you figure out the meaning behind what they say if you can’t see their face? Sometimes I wonder how blind people manage. How can they possibly figure out what someone means if all they can do is listen to the words?

Text messages and emails are worse of course because you can’t even hear the person saying the words – all you can do is read what they’ve typed. It’s really hard for me to understand people over the internet. A few times I’ve gotten all upset because I thought someone meant one thing but they really meant something completely different.

That can happen to me in real life of course, but it doesn’t happen as often. Except when my brain decides to go all weird on me – then it seems like all bets are off. What I mean is – during those freaky times when I can’t even tell what’s real, how can I possibly expect to understand what other people around me are thinking?

Before I’d fully decided what I wanted to say to Dad, we arrived back home and the opportunity was gone. Dad told me I should start getting ready for bed and I nodded. As I got out of the car, I looked around for Dan’s car but it was still missing – Dan must still be at work. I sighed and followed Dad inside the house.

Mum heard us come through the door and immediately called out that she was in the kitchen. Dad headed for the kitchen and I tailed after him. Mum told Dad that she’d just made a new pot of tea and then she turned to me and told me to start getting ready for bed. I dragged my feet, hoping to delay long enough that Dad would take his tea into the living room and I could talk to Mum. Annoyingly, she shooed me out of the room and towards my bedroom, completely wrecking that plan.

I changed into pyjamas, put on a robe and ducked back out of my bedroom. Mum had disappeared from the kitchen and I couldn’t find her anywhere, maybe she’d gone into The Parents’ room. Dad was sitting in his usual chair in the living room with his feet up as he sipped on his tea. I slipped into the room and sat on the low coffee table in front of Dad.

He looked at me with an eyebrow raised as he took another sip of tea. I bit my lip.

“I thought you were getting ready for bed.”

“I’m kind of ready.”

“Brushed your teeth?” I shook my head.

“Been to the bathroom?” I shook my head again.

“Well you’re not ready for bed, then, are you?”

I rolled my eyes at Dad.

“I didn’t say I was ready – I said I was kind of ready.”

That annoying eyebrow went up again. Okay – now that I’ve thought about what I said, maybe I wasn’t using very good logic.

“So what did you want?”

I hesitated. “Can I ask you a question?”

Dad looked at me. He never answers that. He thinks it’s stupid to ask if you can ask. I suppose he’s right.

Just then Mum arrived and perched herself on the arm of Dad’s chair.

“Ask your question, honey,” said Dad.

Mum sat there with a patient sort of look on her face.

I hesitated again. I’d really wanted to ask each of them separately. I figured I had more chance of getting useful information that way. But that plan had been effectively wrecked. I licked my lips again. I figured I may as well go for it.

“Why did we really leave England?”

They both stared at me in complete silence. Dad blinked a couple of times but apart from that, they gave me nothing but stone faces.

Then Dad forced out a kind of breath-laugh.

“We came here because of my job, honey. You know that.”

I glared at him. “If that were true, we wouldn’t have had to change our name.”

I looked at Dad, then at Mum, then back at Dad. They both kept looking at me. They were sort of leaning towards each other a little bit – not a lot, it was tiny bit of a lean. It was as if they were supporting each other – or maybe they were each waiting for the other one to say something.

“So what’s the real reason?”

Dad shook his head. “Why are you suddenly asking about this now?”

“I’m asking because about two weeks ago I found out that my parents have a habit of waiting until I ask about stuff – important stuff – before they tell me anything.”

They looked at me in silence.

“I’m not sure how that’s supposed to work. How am I supposed to know to ask questions about something if I don’t know that there’s something I don’t know about? Am I supposed to keep asking random questions until I ask one that you have an answer for?”

I trailed off as I figured something out.

“You’re trying to distract me. I have a question right now that I know you can answer. Why did we leave England?”

They didn’t say anything.

I could feel emotion bubbling up inside me as I got more and more frustrated with their stalling tactics. I should have known they wouldn’t simply start talking. That would have been too easy.

“Has it occurred to you that there are some things that you don’t need to know?” asked Dad.

I glared at him. He gave me back his stone face. I turned to Mum.

“Are we in witness protection or something?”

Mum smiled. “That’s right, sweetie. We’re in witness protection or something.”

She said it with a light, careless tone of voice. She didn’t even try to hide that she was lying. I felt my face go cold and blank. I was filled with a mixture of fury and frustration. I sat looking at the space between my parents as I tried to control the feelings racing through me.

Eventually I stood and turned my back on The Parents. Without saying a word, I walked away from them and out of the room. I walked into my room and closed the door – carefully and slowly so that it wouldn’t make any noise. Then I walked over to the bed and lay down on top of it, staring up into the darkness at the place where my ceiling should be.

It wasn’t there of course – my ceiling I mean. All I could see was a gaping black hole full of nothingness. I lay there cursing myself for not following my plan. I shouldn’t have asked my questions when they were both in the room. It was stupid. It meant they could back each other up. I should have made up some other question about something else. I should have asked some sex question, they usually answer those. I cursed and cursed. Sometimes I can be so stupid.

Some time passed. I’m not sure how long. Then I started to hear muffled voices – raised voices. The Parents weren’t actually shouting, but they were definitely exchanging strong words. I can’t say that The Parents never fight, but it’s rare enough that we notice when it does happen.

I couldn’t make out what they were saying. I rolled off the bed and pulled my robe tight. My socks whispered across the carpet as I crept through the darkness of my room. Carefully I opened the door and slid out into the hallway. The muffled voices were coming from The Parents’ room. I still couldn’t make out what they were arguing about. I was making all sorts of guesses though and a lot of them started with me.

It was like I was being pulled along – dragged sideways down the hallway by the sound of those muffled voices. I was entranced. Maybe I was hypnotized. I found myself standing in front of their closed door. Behind the door, the argument still raged.

I heard Mum’s voice say something about England.

Dad’s voice replied. I still couldn’t make out most of what was being said, but I distinctly heard my name in the middle of it. Even without hearing the words, I could hear the anger. They were clearly trying to keep their voices down. They were also clearly arguing furiously. Most clearly of all, they were arguing about me. Obviously they were arguing about what, if anything, they should tell me. I hated myself for making them argue. I knew too many people who only had one parent. I didn’t want my parents arguing. Arguments lead to divorce. Divorce means only having one parent. Having one parent sucks. I was starting to wish I was living in some giant video game and that I could press reset and start today over.

Tara appeared at my shoulder, also wrapped in a gown.

“What’s going on?”

“Shhh!”

There was silence in the room and then the door burst open. Mum stood in the doorway with Dad looming over her shoulder. They both looked pissed.

“What are you two up to? Are you spying on us now?” Mum was almost hissing she was so mad.

“This is none of your business,” echoed Dad. “Nosey-parkers aren’t welcome.”

“Go to your rooms, both of you,” thundered Mum.

Tara turned and fled. The bit of my brain that had spent thirteen years doing exactly what Mum told me – especially when she used that voice – wanted to do exactly the same thing but my feet weren’t listening to that bit of my brain. Instead they planted themselves into the carpet. Angry Bec was suddenly fully in control. My hips must have little magnets in them because my hands snapped onto my hips and stuck fast. I glared back at Mum and Dad.

“Go to your room!” Dad yelled at me.

He actually yelled at me. It was so unusual that a bit of my brain went “Huh?”

Sadly the rest of me wasn’t listening.

“Why? So you can go back to arguing about me?” I yelled back at them.

“This is none of your business.” hissed Mum.

“You said that before! It is my business. I know you were fighting about me. I’m not stupid. When are you going to stop treating me like a little kid?”

“Just go to your room,” said Dad in something closer to his normal voice – except it had a cold steel sound to it that I wasn’t used to hearing.

I felt like a cliff face being bashed by wave after wave during a storm. All those waves were bouncing off me but each one took away little bits of me as it did so. I knew that eventually I would collapse into the ocean and be swept away if I kept this up.

I think I said something more but I don’t remember what. My feet turned me around and started walking me down the hallway. I stopped and turned back. They were still watching me.

“I’m sorry I asked the stupid question, okay?” I flung it back at them as I retreated.

They didn’t say anything. Mum pulled the door closed with a thud. I didn’t hear another sound from them.

I stopped outside of my bedroom door and rested my head against the solidness of the wood. Having been sent to my room, the pig-headed part of me was refusing to let me go inside.

I was still seething with anger. I’m honestly not sure what in particular I was so angry about. Maybe I was angry about all of it – them lying to me, them arguing about me, them shouting at me, me mucking up how I asked about it, me causing my parents to fight. Most of all, I think, I was angry about them forcing the six-year-old version of me away from a home where I felt comfortable and safe and dragging me to a strange, new country where I knew nothing and nobody and where everyone laughed at me because of my weird accent and my weird ideas and my weird ways of saying things – without ever once giving me the real reason why it all had to happen.

I love my parents, I really do, but sometimes I hate them as well.

My feet carried me into the living room, seeking that other safe place. The painting that usually gives me so much comfort didn’t want to help me this time. I was mad at Mum and there she was – her face glaring down at me like a stern and angry headmistress, glaring down at her misbehaving students. Trapped in that glare, I stood and shivered.

Breaking free, I scooted through the kitchen, down the hallway and into Dan’s room. He wasn’t there, of course, he was still out for the evening. I threw my robe over his computer chair and crawled under the blankets – curling up into the smallest ball I could manage and burying my face in the faint scent of Dan that clung to his pillow.

I lay there, squeezing my knees up to my chest and shivered as my mind raced around and around and around and around.

My brain blacked out on me and held me suspended in nothingness until Dan crawled into bed beside me.

“Hey there, princess,” Dan whispered as he wrapped an arm around me. “What’re you doing in my bed?”

I didn’t answer. I snuggled into his arms and sighed happily.

“And why is there a huge wet patch on my pillow?”

I guess I must have been crying.

I tried to whisper to Dan – tell him about my fight with The Parents – but my voice had gone away. I gave up and lay there and tried to absorb Dan’s strength. After a bit, I felt Dan’s hand start to stroke down my hair, then down my arm. I sighed and snuggled even tighter into the warm embrace of his arms.

Slowly, ever so slowly, Dan’s body heat warmed and comforted me. The shivering slowly stopped and I drifted away on a soft and fuzzy cloud.

****** ****** ******

“Wakey-wakey, rise and shine!”

The voice speared into that soft warm cocoon and shattered it, leaving me blinking in the sudden light. Mum smacked me lightly on the bum through the blankets.

“Come on you three, get out of bed. It’s time to get ready for school.”

Three?

I propped myself up on my elbow and looked across the large lump of Dan. I could just see the top of Tara’s tousled head peeking out from under the blankets. She hadn’t stirred despite Mum turning the light on and making all that noise. That was typical. I was surprised to see Tara there. I couldn’t remember her coming into Dan’s room during the night.

I rolled my legs sideways away from Dan and allowed myself to slide out of the bed. My sock-covered feet landed lightly on the rug. Mum cheerfully whacked Tara on the bum as well, which produced a protesting bleat from under the blankets. Mum was amazingly happy this morning. I wondered why.

I padded around the bottom of the bed and stood beside Mum. I watched as she grabbed the blankets and dragged everything down to the bottom of the bed. Tara’s nightie was all tangled up around her hips and her knickers were showing. Dan’s shorts had a big bulge in the front where his thingie was trying to stick out. I giggled when I saw it but then I remembered Mum was standing right next to me so I covered my mouth with my hand and tried to swallow the giggle. Dan yelled at Mum and covered the front of his shorts with both his hands. Then he rolled over until he was face down and groaned into the pillow.

Mum looked down at me and I blushed a bit, my hand still over my mouth.

“I should’ve guessed I’d find the two of you in here this morning. Things got a bit wild last night, didn’t they? But everything’s calmed down now.”

I nodded up at her dutifully because she seemed to expect me to.

Mum grabbed Tara under the armpits and heaved her out of bed, standing her upright on the rug beside me. I reached out and tugged at Tara’s nightie until it fell down and hung properly.  Tara stood there blinking, obviously still mostly asleep.

“How come you were in Dan’s bed?” I asked Tara.

“Huh?”

“How come you were in Dan’s bed too?”

“Same reason as you, stupid!”

“You’re stupid!”

“You’re stupider!”

I poked my tongue out at her.

She poked hers back at me.

Dad burst into the room. “Everyone get dressed, quickly. Grab a bag and throw in a change of clothes and ONE favourite toy or doll or whatever. We’re leaving in fifteen minutes. Louise, throw some food in a bag. I’ll pack for both of us.”

“What?” said Mum – as surprised as the rest of us.

“But Dad, it’s way too early for school. What’s going on?

“You’re not going to school. We’re leaving. Come on everyone, move!”

And then he ran out of the room.

At that moment, we heard shouting down in the street. I went to the window and peered through the curtain. It looked cold and foggy and miserable out there. Down on the street below us, I could see a group of men running along the street with guns in their hands.

Mum had been looking over my shoulder. As soon as she saw the men with guns, she gasped and pulled me back from the window. Tara was still standing beside the bed. I think she’d gone to sleep standing up. Is that possible?

Mum looked at me.

“Bec, will you look after your sister and help her get ready. Hurry!”

I took Tara’s hand and tugged. Tara automatically started walking so I kept a hold of her hand and the two of us ran out of Dan’s room and straight across the hallway into our room. Inside our room, Mum had already laid our school uniforms out on our beds. Since they were already laid out, it was easier to put them on than to think of something else to wear. Besides, I like my school uniform. It makes me look more grown up. I grabbed my backpack and pulled some clothes out of my chest of drawers to throw into the bag. I picked Lucy up off my bed, kissed her and laid her on top of the clothes in my bag before zipping it closed. Then I grabbed my hairbrush and jammed the handle into my pocket so that I could brush my hair as soon as I got the chance.

I had to keep reminding Tara to keep moving. I even pinched her a couple of times. When I did that, she came awake enough to try to punch me so I backed off and reminded her of what she was supposed to be doing.

A little while later, Tara and I held hands again as we ran out of our room and down stairs. I caught a glimpse of us in the hallway mirror as we flashed past it. In our matching school uniforms of black trousers, white blouses and royal blue pullovers we may as well have been the cute little pair of twins that people sometimes thought we were.

In the kitchen, I was surprised to see Aunt Penny and Aunt Ally. Aunt Ally had Sam on her back in a harness. Everyone was standing around and eating sandwiches which Mum was throwing together.

“We’re waiting for Nana to get here then we can leave,” Mum told me as she thrust a sandwich into my hand. “Eat this. Why did you put your school uniforms on? Dad said you weren’t going to school.”

“Why not? What’s happening?” I asked.

Mum took my brush out of my pocket and started brushing my hair. Dan saw what Mum was doing and holding the last bit of his sandwich in one hand, he started brushing Tara’s hair with the other hand. The normality of having my hair brushed helped calm me down. I hadn’t realised until then how fast my heart was beating in my chest.

Tara glared at Dan.

“Don’t get crumbs in my hair. And please make my ponytails even. Last time you did my hair, one was higher than the other.”

“Sorreeee!” he muttered.

He jammed the last piece of sandwich into his mouth and wiped his hands on his jeans.

At that moment, a key rattled in the front door and it opened. Nana came in with a small carry bag in one hand.

“I’m here!” she called out.

“How did you get here? There were men out there with guns. What happened to them?” asked Dad.

Nana shrugged.  “I suppose the soldiers chased them away.”

“Soldiers? What soldiers?” Dan wanted to know.

We could hear a rumbling from out in the street. We crowded into the front room and peered through the curtains. A tank – a real, live, full-sized army tank with the little red, white and blue circle painted on the side – was rumbling up the street. Two lines of soldiers carrying packs and guns filed along behind it.

“Cool!” breathed Dan.

I didn’t see what was so exciting about it. Boys are so weird – especially thirteen year old boys.

“Away from the window!” ordered Dad.

Dad turned the telly on and we crowded around it as he switched channels to the BBC. There was a man in a suit standing in front of a smoking building. I thought I should recognize the buildings – they seemed somehow familiar – but I couldn’t place it. Then I figured it out. It was the Houses of Parliament at Westminster – only there was the jagged stump of a ruined tower where Big Ben should have been.

I gaped at the telly.

“Downing Street has announced that martial law is in effect,” said the man. “All schools are to remain closed. All businesses except for emergency services are to remain closed. Stay in your houses. Take cover in your basements. Listen for instructions from your local authorities.”

At that moment, the picture split and lines raced up and down the screen. The man in the suit was talking again but the sound dissolved into a noisy hiss. Then the lines broke up into little white specks which scattered and spread and multiplied until the whole screen was completely filled with snow.

“Damnation!” exclaimed Dad.

“What the heck is going on?” asked Dan.

“It’s an invasion,” Aunty Penny replied.

All three of us kids had our mouths wide open as we looked from one adult to the next.

A loud WHUMP sounded somewhere out in the street followed by a large explosion the next street over. All the doors and windows rattled in their frames.

Then there was this enormous trumpeting sound – so loud it made our ears hurt. That was followed by a crash upstairs. We all ducked and Mum and Dan shielded Tara and me as debris fell around us.

When that stopped, we stood and stared up in stunned amazement at the grey clouds we could see through the hole in the ceiling where our top floor used to be.

“Out! Everyone outside!” yelled Dad.

Mum jammed my hairbrush into my backpack and shoved it into my arms. Then she pushed me towards the front door. Tara was being hustled along by Dan. We piled out the front door, then down the three steps and onto the pavement. Our house crumbled and collapsed behind us – we’d got out just in time.

Frantically, we packed ourselves into Dad’s car and Aunty Penny’s car and drove off as soon as we were ready. Getting out of Preston wasn’t too bad, but from then on we were joined by more and more cars all going in the same direction.

A couple of times everyone had to pull over as columns of army trucks raced past. Each column was escorted by armoured cars bristling with guns. Cars that refused to pull over got pushed out of the way. There were lots of places along the roads where buildings had been replaced with shattered and smoking ruins.

“So that wasn’t just a storm, last night!” I muttered as I stared with wide eyes at a blackened hole in the ground right next to the road.

“Apparently not!” growled Mum.

Eventually, we came to a road block and a group of policemen with guns waved all the cars off the road and into some farmer’s field. We parked the cars and walked from then on, carrying our little bags with us. There were thousands of people all walking in the same direction.

Finally we made it to a dock where the crowd all shuffled onto a container ship. Some of the containers were empty. The crew were opening other containers and throwing the contents overboard to make space to put people. There was a lot of yelling and the ship pulled away from the dock.

Our family was packed in with others near the side rail, waiting for a container to be emptied to make room for us.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“We’ll go to America. If we change our name, they won’t be able to find us,” replied Dad.

“Who won’t be able to find us?” asked Tara.

Mum and Dad simultaneously pointed over our shoulders and back towards the shore.

“They won’t,” they said together.

I turned back and looked towards the slowly receding docks. Silhouetted against the skyline were two tall machines, each perched on three legs. As I watched, laser beams burst from one of the machines and hit a tall building which exploded immediately. A howling siren sounded from across the water.

I stared at the alien machines in amazement.

“Oh for crying out loud!” I called out. “That’s just silly!”

I sat up suddenly in the darkness of Dan’s room and cursed under my breath.

Stupid dreams!

“What is it?” Dan’s voice came to me softly through the darkness. “What’s just silly?”

“A silly stupid dream!” I whispered. “And it’s your fault!”

I reached out and slapped him. I think I hit him somewhere on his chest.

“Ow!” he said in a complaining sort of voice.

I think I heard a rustling sound as he rubbed his chest as if I’d actually hurt him – which is ridiculous because I hadn’t hit him that hard.

“Why is it my fault?”

“You told me I should read War of the Worlds. I dreamed that the reason we left England was because the Martians invaded. How stupid is that?”

I felt the bed heave as Dan rolled over onto his back and stretched out. Dan’s hand found my back and rubbed up and down my spine.

“Was it scary?”

I shrugged. “A bit.”

I turned around and draped myself over Dan’s side, tucking my head in underneath his chin. I was lying over the top of one of Dan’s arms. He curled it up and around me and hugged me tightly to himself. I could feel Dan’s other arm rearranging the blankets over the top of me, pulling them back up to cover my shoulders.

“So why did we leave England?” I asked quietly. “I know it wasn’t because of Dad’s work.”

Dan’s hand stopped moving for a moment, but then he sighed and finished tucking the blankets around me.

“To be honest, I don’t really know. I’ve always known it wasn’t Dad’s work and I’m pretty sure it wasn’t Martians. Why do you ask?”

“I asked The Parents and they dodged the question. Then they had a huge row about it in their room. Then somehow I ended up fighting with them.”

“You got in a fight with Mum and Dad?” I think Dan was surprised.

I didn’t answer. I lay there and clung to Dan. My body shivered a few times as if it was remembering the fight.

“I guess that explains why you were curled up in my bed when I got home.”

“So why did we leave England? Or did Dad make you promise not to tell me, or something?”

“There were no promises. I simply don’t know. I remember working out that the story about Dad’s job was a lie when we suddenly had to change our names and we were absolutely forbidden to make any contact with friends back in England. I remember asking Dad for the real reason and he flatly told me that he didn’t want to talk about it.”

I lay there and listened to Dan breathing for a moment. His chest and arms moved up and down and I realized that he had shrugged.

“At the time I was thirteen and angry. I was angry about having been dragged away from my friends and told I could never see or talk to them again. I was angry about having been dragged to a country that had never heard of rugby. I half-believed they’d done it all to make my life miserable. I had quite a few fights with Mum and Dad myself in those days.”

We were both quiet for a moment.

“So did something happen before we left England? Did you notice anything? I can’t remember very much.”

I could almost hear Dan rummaging around in his brain as he tried to find something to tell me. Then he started talking.

“There was definitely something that happened. Probably about six or seven weeks before we left, suddenly everything went from relaxed and happy to totally stressed. All the grownups went around with serious faces. There were quite a few late night meetings at Nana’s house while I baby-sat you girls and Sam at our place. Then suddenly we were moving to Australia because of Dad’s job.”

Australia? That’s right! Now that memory came back to me. For all the weeks before we left home, we’d all been convinced we were going to Australia. I’d even done a project about kangaroos for school.

“Then all three of us got accused of doing something we hadn’t done – breaking a window, I think. We were grounded for weeks. They drove us to and from school and none of us were allowed to go anywhere without one of them. I missed the best party of the year because of that. Now that I think about it they probably wanted some excuse to keep us in the house and supervised during that time. I think they actually eased up a bit for the last couple of weeks before we left. Then we were traveling, and suddenly we were coming here instead of Australia and we were changing our name. And that’s pretty much all I know. Oh! Except that was the first time I heard about Uncle Stan. Up until then I’m pretty sure Mum never mentioned having a brother.”

I lay there on Dan’s chest and stared out into the darkness, letting all that new information sort itself out inside my brain. I had no memory of being grounded, but I guess when you’re six you don’t get to go anywhere without adults anyway.

I felt as if I’d found out more stuff, but the mystery had gotten more complicated instead of easier. Clues are supposed to make things easier, aren’t they? I guess it was sounding more likely that we had to leave England, rather than the other option which was that we had to come to America for some reason.

In my head I wrote out a list on a big poster of all the questions I had now. Why did we change our name? Why did we have to leave England?  What had happened six weeks before we left that sent all the adults into a frenzy? Why did the plans change from us going to Australia to us coming here to America? Why did Mum keep her brother a secret for all those years? And why didn’t she continue to keep her brother secret when we arrived in America? Did that secret not matter any more? How is Uncle Stan linked to what happened in England?

I stuck the poster up on the inside of my skull and stepped back so that I could look at it. So many questions! I had very few ideas about how I was going to find out any of them.

The sound of Dan’s soft, regular breathing told me that he had gone to sleep while I was thinking.

Dan probably had the right idea with that. I turned out the lights inside my skull and closed my eyes. Slowly, Dan’s gentle breathing rocked me to sleep.

 

“Wakey-wakey!”

Mum’s voice jerked me out of the warmth and comfort of deep sleep.

I felt a double tap on my backside as Mum whacked me through the blankets.

I blinked in the sudden light.

“Come on, you three, get out of bed. It’s time to get ready for school.”

Three?

I lifted myself up on one elbow and peered over the bulk of Dan’s body. Sure enough I could see Tara’s head, face-down on the pillow beside Dan. Mum turning the light on and calling out hadn’t woken Tara, but that was normal.

“Wait a minute! I’ve already had this dream,” I told the room – my voice still creaky from having just woken up.

Mum glanced at me as I spoke but didn’t reply. She leaned over me and put one hand down on my hip so that she could stretch across the bed and slap Tara on the low lump that represented her backside.

“Ow!” Tara’s voice was muffled by the pillow.

“I might have known the two of you would be in here after that business last night.”

Mum looked and sounded unhappy. She turned and walked out of the room without saying another word. In my first dream she’d been a lot more cheerful.

I clambered out of bed. I felt old and awkward compared to that memory of the way I used to spring out of bed when I was six. A quick check of my body and my brain revealed that this time I was dreaming about being thirteen-year-old Bec instead of six-year-old Bec.

Or maybe I was awake this time.

Dan groaned and crawled out of bed after me. Remembering his condition in the last dream, I glanced down and – sure enough – his boxers concealed a noticeable lump. I smiled quietly to myself about that and then I stretched up on my toes to kiss Dan’s cheek.

“Good morning. Thanks for the cuddle.”

Dan looked at me through bleary eyes.

“If you aren’t going to claim the bathroom, then I will,” he muttered.

He stumbled out through the door, veering to the side at the last minute in order to avoid crashing into the door-frame.

I stood in Dan’s bedroom and looked around. I was feeling a little lost. This dream was way more confusing than the last one. In the last dream, everything that happened seemed to follow naturally from the thing before. Maybe that should have been my clue that I was dreaming – real life doesn’t work that way. This time, things weren’t making sense. I had no idea what to do next. Maybe that was a clue that I was actually awake.

I looked at Tara. She was sitting up in bed and rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.

“So how come you ended up in here too?”

She peered at me through a curtain of unbrushed hair.

“Probably the same reason as you.”

“I came in here because I had a fight with The Parents and I didn’t want to be alone.”

“Well I came in here because The Parents shouted at me and I couldn’t sleep, so it was more or less the same reason. I stayed in my room and tried to get to sleep for ages before I gave up. You were both fast asleep when I came in so I squeezed in. I went to sleep pretty quickly after that.”

I nodded. “Dan has magical sleeping powers.”

She pulled her tangled hair apart so she could stare at me, but she didn’t say anything.

“I call dibs on the bathroom as soon as Dan is finished,” I said.

I turned and headed for the door, but I stopped and turned back to her.

“Don’t take too long getting ready this morning. There’s a good chance that Martians are going to blow up our house before we get to finish breakfast.”

Tara didn’t reply until after I’d left the room. I didn’t hear exactly what she said then, but I think it was something about me having gone completely nuts.

Breakfast was a cold and silent affair. Neither of The Parents were in the mood to talk. Tara hardly ever talks at breakfast. Even Angie was unusually quiet. I quickly changed from thinking I might be dreaming to wishing that I were dreaming. If this was a dream, I’d be able to wake up and get my normal happy family back.

I kept my head down and focused on eating my own breakfast. I also had my usual task of making sure Tara stayed awake enough to keep eating hers. I’m quite sure sooner or later she will go to sleep in the middle of breakfast and land face first in her bowl of cereal. Every morning Tara looks like she could do it any second. Just because it hasn’t happened yet doesn’t mean it won’t happen. To be perfectly honest, I don’t really want it to happen. Thinking about it makes me laugh, though.

Tara was more or less fully awake by the time the two of us walked out the front door and headed down the road to the bus stop. She walked beside me, mostly watching the pavement but occasionally glancing at my face as she spoke.

“I never found out why The Parents were yelling at each other. I came to see what all the noise was for and as soon as I arrived, they opened the door and started yelling at us. So what was the fight about?”

“I asked them for the real reason why we migrated here and changed our name.”

“Oh!”

Tara walked in silence for a moment. We arrived at the bus stop and seated ourselves on the bench.

“They told us that it was because of Dad’s job,” she offered.

“Yeah! But that has to be a lie.”

“Why?” she said, then her expression changed. “Oh! Because if that were true, we wouldn’t have to change our name!”

“Yeah!”

“Oh! So why did we come here then?” asked Tara.

“I don’t know. That’s what I asked The Parents.”

“So what did they say?”

“Nothing!” I said. “They told me that I don’t need to know. Then they went into their room and started fighting.”

“Oh!”

“Dan says that something happened about six weeks before we left. He doesn’t know what happened but obviously it’s connected to us moving. Before that time, nobody was talking about moving.”

“Oh!”

“Is that all you can say? Oh?”

“I’m thinking! It never occurred to me not to believe The Parents. They told us we were moving because of Dad’s job and that was that.”

I sat and let Tara think.

“Hmmm! All I remember is that suddenly they told us we were moving to Australia. Round about then was the time you broke Mum’s favorite vase and wouldn’t `fess up so all of us got grounded.”

“I don’t remember breaking any vase,” I said.

“You did it. I know you did it. Seven years later and you still deny it! Once a brat, always a brat.”

The school bus chose that moment to arrive so Tara stomped up the steps and sat away from where we normally sit. I rolled my eyes at her back and sat in our usual seat. Two stops later, Liz got on the bus and sat next to me. She asked me why Tara was sitting off on her own, but I shrugged. As far as I was concerned, Tara was being stupid and she’d get over it soon.

Liz and I chatted about our plans for the Thanksgiving holiday and I talked a bit about having Melissa over for dinner the night before. We arrived at school and joined up with Melissa at the lockers.

The three of us exchanged brief hugs and chatted while we waited for the start of homeroom. Melissa and Liz did most of the talking. Melissa was filling Liz in on her visit to my place. I hadn’t realized how much of an impression our relaxed and casual family meal had on her. Liz agreed with her that our meals were always friendly and relaxed. I was glad that neither of them had been at breakfast. If they had been, they might have changed their minds.

At one stage in the conversation, Melissa said, “I didn’t realize how good a painter Bec’s mother is.”

Liz nodded and glanced around to make sure no one was listening.

“So what did you think of Bec’s room?” she asked quietly.

“It’s awesome! It’s amazing! I must admit, I found out more about Bec than I was expecting to.”

Liz grinned. “And me too, I guess.”

“Yes! There were two paintings of you as well. That was a surprise, too!”

Liz kept grinning. “Maybe Bec’s Mum would do one of you, if you asked her.”

Melissa shivered. “I don’t think I’m ready for that yet.”

“That’s okay!” I spoke up for the first time in quite a while. “You don’t have to.”

I glared at Liz to reinforce the notion that she wasn’t to pressure Melissa into something like that.

Liz shrugged at me and grinned.

“Oh, and Bec did one of those zoning out things that you told me about.”

“She went zombie on you?”

“Yeah! I see what you mean about it being a bit freaky. One minute we were talking normally, the next minute she’s staring into space. She was completely oblivious to everything. Of course, her family told me not to worry about it. Then they started leading her around by the hand like she’s a three year old.”

“Ah, hello!? I’m standing right here!”

They both turned to look at me and laughed in a friendly way. The bell sounded to summon us to homeroom just then, so they each linked an arm with me and we headed down the hallway together.

Our first class of the morning was English with Mrs Stone. I sat in my usual seat and watched her moving around the room. I wondered for the first time if perhaps she was a distant relative. She was a Stone, we were Stones – at least we were before we changed our name to Freeman. She didn’t look anything like anyone in our family so I decided it was probably a coincidence. There must be an awful lot of people called Stone – just like Freeman is a fairly common name too. There’s even that famous actor – Dad always calls him Uncle Morgan. I’ve always assumed that was Dad trying to be funny. I’m fairly sure that Morgan Freeman isn’t my uncle – not even a distant relative.

Mrs Stone was handing back our assignments about what Thanksgiving meant to us personally. She’d given me an A+ grade which I thought was pretty awesome because Mrs Stone had a reputation for being a bit tight about giving A+ grades. She’d also written a little comment about my report, picking out some things she thought were good about it and also pointing out places where I could have done better. One thing she highlighted was a few places where I should have started new paragraphs, or places where I had started new paragraphs and shouldn’t have. It’s one thing I really like about Mrs Stone, she keeps helping me get better, even when she gives me good grades. Not all the teachers do that.

Mrs Stone was continuing her crusade about getting members of the class to write in full sentences. It wasn’t a problem for me but quite a few people in the class didn’t seem to be able to do it. She congratulated those who had improved and encouraged everyone to keep trying.

While Mrs Stone talked to those people, I relaxed and read the opening paragraph of my report:

Every year, for nearly four hundred years, individuals, families and even whole communities have left Europe and made their way across the ocean to start a new life in America. Many were fleeing persecution or famine or war. Some were seeking new opportunities in a brave new world. When my family joined that exodus six years ago, we were continuing a centuries-old tradition. However, the only thing we were escaping from was the English weather. We came here, like so many others before us, so that my father could find work and so that our whole family could have a better life.

I sighed to myself. I should tell Mrs Stone to take back the extra high grade. My report was simply wrong. Wrong reports shouldn’t get the maximum grade. I felt as if I should probably rewrite it. But I couldn’t – I can’t. I won’t be able to rewrite the report until I solve the mystery of my family. And once I have solved it, I may find that I can’t tell Mrs Stone anything anyway.

A little part of my brain was telling me that I shouldn’t talk about my family mystery with other people until I know more about what’s going on. My whole family is hiding for some reason. It would be fairly stupid of me to run around telling everyone that my family name was really Stone and that we were in hiding. Especially since I don’t know what’s going on. What if we’re illegal immigrants? Me blurting out stuff like that would get us found out. We’d get rounded up and thrown onto the next bus to Mexico.

Until I know more, I’m determined not to talk about it with anyone outside the family. I can’t even tell my best friends. That will be hard for me, but I have to do it. I feel safe writing it here because you promised. You said I’m a patient, so it’s against the law for you to tell anyone about what I tell you. But I can’t tell anyone else.

All of that ran through my mind as I sat in English class and stared down at my report. I had drawn little cartoons every so often to illustrate it. I was pretty pleased with the way the cartoons had worked out. The cartoon that went with that first paragraph was a whole bunch of different people all packed into a little rowboat that was halfway between a little map of Europe and a little map of America. The people were in clothes from lots of different time periods – all the way from the first Pilgrims through to someone in a Manchester United shirt. Some of the people weren’t as clearly belonging to their particular group as I had hoped – my starving Irish peasant looked more like an anorexic harem girl from Arabia. I had fixed that by putting little speech bubbles above everyone’s heads with a word or two in different languages or dialects. That way you could tell who they were supposed to be by what they were saying. I think the overall message worked.

I sighed quietly to myself again and focused my attention back on Mrs Stone. She had written some simple sentences on the board with blanks and wanted us to copy the sentences and fill in a suitable word or phrase. I entertained myself by using phrases to make the sentences as silly as I could manage.

Later in the lesson, Mrs Stone told us that our next assignment was to be a short talk to the class next Monday or Tuesday. I could feel my heart sinking as I listened to her explanation. We could base the talk around our report about Thanksgiving, or we could talk about the life story of one member of our family.

I felt totally sick in the stomach. I hate class talks. I don’t mind listening to other people. That can be interesting. I loathe having to stand up in front of people and speak. My mouth dries up, my tongue swells and clogs my throat, my brain shuts down and my voice reduces to a little squeak if it doesn’t disappear altogether. The result is that I end up standing in front of the class mumbling to myself. Most of the class stare and snicker. Hannah Fargo jeers and calls out smart-ass comments. I end up completely embarrassed – completely humiliated. The teachers make me do it anyway. They say it’s a part of the course, so I have to. They say that I will get better if I keep trying.

That seems pretty stupid to me. If you’re allergic to peanuts, do they say you should keep eating them because you’ll get better if you keep trying? I don’t think so. It’s like I’m allergic to public speaking. Every time they make me do it, I get more allergic. One day, I’ll be like those people that are so allergic to peanuts that if they get a tiny bit of oil on their skin, they swell up and die. My pencil started doing a sketch of me standing in the front of class. I’m all swollen up, like a balloon, and I’m gasping for air like I’m choking. I put a little speech bubble over the teacher’s head, saying “Keep trying! You’ll get better!” I made sure the teacher didn’t look anything like Mrs Stone. I don’t blame her. It’s not her fault.

At the end of the class I made my way to the front to talk to Mrs Stone. She smiled when she saw me coming – we’d been through this routine before. She knew what I was going to ask. Liz and Melissa hung around nearby and watched as I spoke to Mrs Stone.

“I don’t think I can do the talk.”

“I’m sorry, Rebecca. You have to. It’s a part of the course.”

I sighed and shrugged.

“Is there something I can do for extra credit?”

This is how I maintain my A average. Every time I’m supposed to give a talk I either get a lousy grade or fail completely. So every time I offer to do some extra credit assignment to balance it out. The teachers are kind of used to it now.

Mrs Stone was looking at me through slightly narrow eyes.

“Have you read any interesting books lately?”

I bit my lip as I thought. I’d read a few books lately, but there was only one book in the front of my brain.

“I read The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells. That was pretty interesting.”

A smile welled up from the depths and burst out all over Mrs Stone’s face.

“A wonderful story – rich with metaphor and social commentary.”

I gaped at her and frantically tried to remember any metaphors or whatever in the book. I had a nasty feeling she was going to ask me to identify some off the top of my head.

“What did you notice about the book? What was different about it compared to other books you’ve read?”

“Er …”

The question caught me by surprise. I had to suddenly change my brain around from thinking about metaphors to thinking about differences.

“Um … he always used long sentences with lots of big words. I knew some of them but I had to keep stopping to look the others up in a dictionary.”

“Yes! Yes! Wells had an extensive vocabulary. He was writing for educated adults and didn’t dumb down his writing the way so many authors do these days. What else?”

“Um … I noticed that the Martians only invaded England. The people only had to escape from England and they were safe. Why would he write as if only England was important?”

“An excellent question. An Anglo-centric viewpoint. Very much a sign of his times. For extra credit, you can write me a report about The War of the Worlds. I don’t want you to tell me the story. Give me a summary of the plot in one paragraph. After that, I want you to focus your report on the evidence in the book that tells you about the author. Who was he and what was the context in which he was writing? Do you know what I mean by context?”

I nodded at her. I’ve had enough conversations with Mum about the context behind paintings so I knew exactly what she meant.

“The two points you’ve raised with me should be featured prominently, but you should also be able to find other evidence.”

I gave her a half-smile and thanked her before walking away. This assignment sounded hard. Mrs Stone’s extra credit assignments for me have been getting more difficult as the year goes by. The first one she asked me to do was to write a simple story about an encounter between two very different people that I know. I had written a story about Nana playing Nintendo with my cousin Sam. Every extra credit assignment since then had gotten harder and harder.

I joined up with Melissa and Liz and we started walking towards Math. Liz looked at me with one eyebrow raised.

“I think somebody is going to be doing some Googling in the near future.”

“Huh?”

“Googling! As in – Google for HG Wells to find out about the context in which he was writing.”

“Oh! Yeah! I expect I’m in for some serious Googling time. Sometimes I wonder how people found out anything before they had Google.”

“They read books – lots and lots of books,” said Melissa.

“And libraries had those funny old index catalogs that had everything written out on cards telling you which books to look up for whatever subject you wanted,” added Liz. “You see them in old films all the time.”

I sighed. “Google is my friend.”

“So what did you get on your Thanksgiving assignment?” asked Melissa.

I suddenly felt all shy and shrugged at her.

“We both got As,” said Liz. “We were showing each other while you were talking to Mrs Stone. Did you get an A too? You usually do.”

I shrugged again. “More or less.”

“More or less? What does that mean? More or less!”

Liz sounded offended. I didn’t mean to offend her. I didn’t want to sound like I was boasting or anything.

We had to move aside for a bunch of boys who came charging down the corridor in the other direction. Liz took the opportunity to snatch my English book from my arms and open it up to the place where I’d tucked my assignment.

“Hey!”

I guess it was only a half-hearted objection. I should have expected Liz to do something like that and I was annoyed with myself for not preventing it much more than I was annoyed with Liz for trying it in the first place.

“A+! You got an A+! That’s awesome, Bec.”

“Thanks, Liz,” I said. “You didn’t have to yell it so loud! I’m sure the people in Ecuador didn’t need to find out what grade I got.”

“Congrats, Bec! Mrs Stone hardly ever gives A+s,” added Melissa. “That’s pretty special.”

“Thanks!” I said. “Liz, can I have it back now, please?”

“Hold your horses. I’m looking at your pictures. They’re pretty cool!” said Liz.

“She did pictures? Show me!” said Melissa.

Melissa and Liz walked down the corridor with their heads together as they looked through my assignment. All I could do was trail along after them like some little lost sheep while they giggled and snorted and pointed things out to each other. I always get nervous when other people look at my pictures. I know those two are my friends, but still …

To make matters worse, they were still looking at the last one when along came Mikael and Phil. They were walking towards the same class and called out to say hi, but Liz and Melissa waved them over. As if she were deliberately looking for a way to humiliate me, Liz insisted on showing the boys my assignment. I started looking for a hole to crawl into.

I don’t know if I can explain what I was feeling, or why. You’re the doctor. Maybe you can explain it to me. I know I’m okay at drawing. I know that my drawings are fairly good – especially when compared to what most other people my age can draw. But any time people see my drawings, I find myself panicking. I have this terrible fear that they will point out the mistakes and the flaws and laugh and jeer. I have this terrible fear that they will walk away, saying things like, “I thought she was supposed to be good.” It terrifies me.

I was getting angry at Liz. She knows how I feel. She sometimes gets excited about something and forgets. I don’t blame her. That’s the way she is. But I was still getting angry.

I sidled up to the little knot of four people – all closely crowded around my assignment as they slowly turned the pages and moved from one picture to the next. I poked Liz in the ribs hard enough to be sure of getting her attention. Her head lifted up out of the crowd and spun around until she was glaring at me.

“Hey! What was that for?” she said.

I looked at her with big eyes and gestured at the little crowd around my assignment. I tried to tell her without words that what she was doing was upsetting me. She was too hyped up with the excitement of sharing. She didn’t get it.

I turned and ran.

I ended up sitting in the little alcove at the end of the hallway. In the alcove there’s a set of stairs that lead up to the roof. The door at the top of the stairs is always locked – as far as I know. That means the stairs never get used except as seating when it’s too cold or wet to go outside. There’s a little open space under the stairs where Liz and I sometimes go. We call it our little Harry Potter hideaway.

The bell for the start of class rang, and doors slammed down the hallway as the last stragglers scurried into the classrooms. I hugged my legs to my chest and wiped my face dry on my denim-clad knees.

I briefly thought of making a frantic dash to class. I was supposed to be in Math and Mr Palu likes me, but then I decided I was comfortable where I was and it was too late anyway. I’d never actually had a detention for not going to class before. I guess there’s a first time for everything.

Things were quiet for a few minutes and then there was a scraping sound as someone else crawled into my little space. I couldn’t see who it was because my eyes were closed but I had a fairly good idea who it was. My guess was confirmed when I felt an arm wrap around my shoulders and a head rest again mine. Now there were two heads resting on my knees. Fortunately, I was pretty confident which head belonged to me and which head belonged to Liz. My life is confusing enough with only one head.

We sat like that for a short while, then I felt Liz stir and thrust a rolled up tube of paper into the small space between my legs and my stomach.

“Here you are, Ron,” she whispered in her outrageous idea of a posh English accent.

Since this place was clearly Harry’s cupboard under the stairs, we sometimes hid in here and pretended to be Harry and Ron or Harry and Hermione taking on Voldemort or avoiding Professor Snape. Who was who swapped around regularly, depending on the mood we were in at the time.

“I got your wand back from the twins,” Liz continued. “It’s a bit dinged up, but I stuck it back together with tape and now it’ll be as right as rowing.”

I lifted my head off my knees and gave her a thin smile.

“Thanks Harry. You’re a good friend. I don’t know what I’d ever do without you. But it’s rain, not rowing.”

“What?”

“Now it’ll be as right as rain!” I explained.

“Oh! That doesn’t make any sense either. What does it mean?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. That’s just the expression.”

Liz shrugged. “Whatever!”

At that moment, an extra person clambered into our little space – it was Melissa.

“What are we doing under the stairs?” asked Melissa.

“Hiding from Dudley,” said Liz.

Melissa looked back and forth between the two of us as she tried to decipher that bit of code.

She looked carefully at me.

“Are you okay? Why did you run off?”

I waved my rolled up assignment at her.

“Harry rescued my wand from the twins and fixed it up with tape. Now we’re hiding in the cupboard under the stairs.”

I could see the understanding grow in Melissa’s eyes as she put all the bits together. Then the corners of hers got all crinkled as she tried not to laugh.

“Ah!” she said, with her best attempt at a serious face.

“Shhh!” whispered Liz. “I can hear Dudley coming.”

It was the student hall monitor. We all sat quietly and looked at each other as he walked past the alcove and then turned and went back in the other direction.

“I’ve never cut class before,” whispered Melissa, once he was gone.

I rolled my eyes at Melissa.

“Trust Hermione to be upset about cutting class.”

“She has a point,” offered Liz. “Dumbledore will be upset with us.”

“Shouldn’t that be Professor McGonagall?” asked Melissa.

I shrugged. “Miss Webster used to be McGonagall, but lately she’s been more like Dumbledore.”

“Besides,” added Liz with a quiet enthusiasm, “Neither of them is here right now so it’s up to us to solve the mysterious riddle that will help us defeat Voldemort and save the world from a fate worse than Middle School.”

“That’s right, Harry,” I agreed. “We have to save the world! Hermione, we’re going to need your help.”

“Okay then, so what’s our first clue?” asked Melissa.

She leaned forward with a gleam in her eye.

“Well,” said Liz. “So far, we have a word – a strange and foreign word.”

She leaned across me and plucked my new math book from the top of my pile of books sitting on the ground beside me. It’s the textbook for my new college math course that I haven’t started yet. It’s not really a proper book. It’s more like a stack of photocopied notes that are stapled down one side and then some tape wrapped around the spine to make it into something like a book. The book is effectively a primer that covers everything that’s taught in all the various high school math classes – the important stuff, anyway.

Since I’ll be starting the college course quite a while after the start of term, I have a fair bit of catching up to do. Mr Palu agreed to let me sit in his math classes and work through the start of my college book. Melissa and Liz found its contents a great deal more interesting than what the rest of the class are doing. With the approval of Mr Palu, we’ve formed a little study group in the back of class, where the three of us stick our heads together and work on deciphering the notes. It’s fun.

“It’s the name of a strange and arcane spell that’s hidden here, inside of Ron’s Book of Spells. The spell is full of weird symbols and mystical glyphs.”

Liz put the book on the floor between the three of us and started flipping past the first few pages.

“So Harry, what is this mysterious foreign word that we have to decipher?” asked Melissa.

Liz found the page she wanted and pointed to the heading dramatically.

“Algebra!”

We huddled around the book and stared down at the closely written pages. Soon we had paper spread around us and pens in our hands as we deciphered and practiced the mystery that is algebra. We kept the Harry Potter comments going, except that by unspoken agreement, we swapped roles. Because I’m the best at math, I got to be Hermione, Melissa became Harry and Liz became Ron.

“Well, this is new!” The sudden loud voice made us jump and squeal. It was Miss Webster, leaning down with her hands on her knees so that she could peer into our little hidey-hole.

“After thirty years in education, I thought I’d seen it all. Congratulations! The three of you have proved me wrong.”

All three of us blinked up at Miss Webster in stunned surprise.

“Would one of you please explain to me, why three of my top seventh graders have suddenly decided they should cut math class so that they can … do more math?”

The three of us looked at each other. I think all three of us were feeling pretty guilty. We should really have gone back to class.

“It was time for math class,” I blurted out. “Math seemed like … the right thing to do – even if we weren’t actually in class.”

Miss Webster sighed and squatted down, keeping her knees together and twisting her legs to one side so that we wouldn’t be forced to stare up her skirt. This allowed her to look into our little nook without actually crawling in there with us.

“Am I to understand that if you three had decided to skip English class, I would have found you here writing essays?”