Lor Mandela - Destruction from Twins, page 20
Nathan expected to find her still in bed, not in the fetal position on the floor. “Whatayadoin'?” he half-chuckled. “Have you lost something? Are you okay?”
Maggie sat up shakily—tears streaming down her cheeks—and turned toward her dad who was standing in the doorway. She tried to speak, but was completely unnerved. A shaky “Wh-aat was that?” was all she could manage.
“Um, Princess, you all right?” Nathan asked again. He walked over to help her back to her feet. “What was what?” he asked, puzzled by his daughter’s peculiar behavior.
Maggie couldn’t believe that her dad was messing around with her like this when she was obviously traumatized.
“Dad, come on,” she pleaded as she took his hand and pulled herself to her feet. “Why are you playing with me? That was totally freaky!”
“Smaggs . . . look at me. Are you sick?” Her dad put his hand on her forehead to see if she had a fever.
Maggie stared at him in disbelief. His face was concerned and serious, and she realized that he really didn’t have any idea what she was talking about. But how on Earth could he have not seen the lights, or felt the ground shaking, or heard that awful noise?
She felt faint and leaned into him to keep from falling down again.
“Whoa! Hey, c’mon, Sweetie! Come sit down.” Nathan walked her over to her bed and sat next to her. She was so shocked that she couldn’t speak at all. As strange and frightening as the lights had been, her dad being oblivious to them put her into a stupor.
“Maggie,” Nathan spoke softly, “what is it, honey?”
“You . . . you didn't hear that?” she tried.
“Hear what, sweetheart?”
“Did we, um . . . maybe have a tornado or something?”
Nathan chuckled, but then realized that she was being completely serious. “Smaggs, I think maybe you mighta just had a bad dream, or somethin’.”
“B . . . but I . . . there,” she stuttered, “It . . . I mean, it was really, really real, Dad!”
“Oh . . . well, sometimes dreams feel that way, Sweetie,” he replied. “Maybe you just had a doozer!” He wiped a stray tear from her cheek.
Maggie stared at him. She knew she hadn't been dreaming, but her dad had obviously experienced nothing. After a few silent moments, she whispered a resigned, “Okay.”
Nathan sat with her for a while to make sure she was all right but after about fifteen minutes, he stood and kissed her on the forehead. “You feelin' better now, ‘cause we'd best get goin', or we'll be late.”
Maggie nodded and her dad backed out into the hall. She glanced around her once again normal room and got up and walked to her dresser; she ran her hand over the top of it and sighed. She really wanted her hiding seeker right now.
As she stood staring at the top of the dresser, Maggie’s thoughts drifted back to the odd little lights and her own personal tornado.
The harder she tried not to think about it, the more the images flooded through her, until finally she found herself reliving the whole crazy incident all over again. It wasn’t like she was just thinking about it, either. It was as if it were happening again.
She saw and felt every detail.
First, she watched as two little lights started bouncing around outside the dark window. She felt herself stand and walk, but she was not moving. She heard the floorboards creak and then watched two additional lights join the first, followed by thousands of them zipping around with ear-splitting volume. She felt the ground shake and her knees smack against the hard floor, even though she remained on her feet. Then, just as before, it stopped suddenly when, in her mind, she saw the door open.
She'd no sooner come out of this trance, when the whole thing started again. A nauseating fear swelled in the pit of her stomach, paralyzing her movement, and with it, her ability to think about anything else other than the pictures flashing vividly before her eyes.
This episode ended and she managed to make her way across the hall to the bathroom.
Once more, she found herself watching the scene again…and again…and again. She was caught up in what she now knew was no dream for about the tenth time, when Nathan called from downstairs.
“Smaggs! We have to leave in fifteen minutes! If you’re gonna eat breakfast, you’d better get down here and do it!”
“Oh . . . breakfast . . . yeah . . . .” Her dazed response was hardly audible.
Suddenly, she snapped back into reality. “What? Oh, no!” she shouted, jumping as she realized that she hadn’t even started to get ready for school yet.
She took a couple of quick steps toward her room, but was instantly tugged back by a strange, inexplicable force. Her insides lurched and a sickening, paralyzing fear washed over her.
Again, she saw the lights, heard the noise, felt the ground shake, and felt the burning pain of her knees slamming against the floor. She was cold, but sweating profusely. Her head was spinning, and she was sure that this time she was actually going to pass out.
“C’mon! Stop it!” she scolded herself. “I . . . have . . . to . . . get . . . ready!”
Every word was a struggle to get out.
She took several deep breaths and with great effort, haphazardly lifted her long black hair up into a curly, messy ponytail.
Again, the lights danced before her in her window.
“No!” she insisted, taking three or four more deep breaths and spastically flinging herself into her bedroom.
Once more, she felt herself slipping back into a daze, a nauseating fear twisting and churning inside her stomach.
“Clo . . . clo . . . clothes!” She huffed, grabbing a bright yellow t-shirt from the laundry basket.
The fight to stay alert was now very much a battle between her mind and her body. Her movements were jerky and wild, as she bounced back and forth between subconscious thought and conscious will. It took every ounce of energy she could muster just to get dressed.
Finally, after several minutes of exasperating effort, she managed to finish dressing, but not before knocking her alarm clock off the nightstand and kicking over her butterfly shaped CD rack, sending CDs crashing and sliding in a plastic screeeeech across the wood floor.
She staggered out of her room and climbed down the stairs.
“Where’ve you been, Smaggs? We gotta leave in two minutes! What in the world have you been doing up there? Aren’t you gonna eat anything?” Nathan quizzed without taking a breath, as he ran around trying to gather up papers he needed to take to the Pratt and Miller Accounting Firm where he’d been working for the last thirteen years.
He didn’t wait for Maggie to answer. He grabbed his car keys off of a hook in the kitchen, and ran out the front door yelling back at her, “C’mon Smaggs! If I’m late again, Mr. Pratt will have my . . . . ” He jumped into the car and shut the door before finishing his sentence.
Maggie slowly picked up her purse and book bag and followed her dad out to the car. She was still very queasy, and drained of all her energy. Walking was almost more than she could manage at the moment because her legs were wobbly and heavy. She clutched the rusty car door handle, and fell into the front seat of their old silver sedan.
The car door had been dented a couple of months ago when Nathan ran into a pole in the grocery store parking lot. Ever since, it had to be slammed hard to get it shut all the way.
When Maggie attempted to close the door it made a swishing sound against the rubber strip on the door frame and bounced back open; she didn’t have the strength to get the stupid door closed.
Nathan glanced over at her with a puzzled expression. “What’s up with you?” he asked, tilting his head to one side. “Still weirded out by your dream?”
Maggie just stared blankly at him.
“Yoo-hoo? Ya in there?”
“I’m . . . I’m kinda tired, dad. I don't know what's goin' on,” she answered in a dazed mumble.
Nathan shrugged his shoulders, shook his head, and got out of the car. He sprinted around to Maggie’s side and kicked the door with the bottom of his shoe. It slammed shut with a bang which made Maggie nearly jump out of her seat, and then he ran back around to his side of the car, jumped in, shoved it into gear and backed quickly out of the driveway.
The dented car door, in addition to being quite ugly, had the tendency to rattle loudly when the car was driven over 40 miles per hour.
This morning, the clattering was even more unnerving to Maggie than usual. She covered her ears with her hands and closed her eyes.
That’s when she noticed it. She wasn’t fighting to control her mind anymore; she was actually feeling much better.
She sat still for a minute just to make sure. “It’s gone,” she blurted, not realizing she had said it out loud.
“Wh . . . what’s gone?” Nathan quizzed.
“Um . . . uh . . .” she stammered, trying to think of something intelligent and believable to say to her dad. “Oh! The billboard of the guy with the . . . uh . . . striped suit.” She glanced out the window to hide the disgusted face she was making over her lame answer.
“Oookaaay,” Nathan looked at her like she was perfectly insane.
Despite her idiotic comment and her dad’s thinking she was losing it, she was incredibly relieved that she was back in control of herself again. She took a deep breath and sighed loudly.
Misreading Maggie’s sigh as left over tension from her troubling dream—or the alarming disappointment that her favorite billboard was missing—Nathan tried to joke around with her. “Hey homey, ya wanna boogie down to the super groovy mall later and catch a flick?”
Maggie rolled her eyes and couldn’t help but smirk. No matter how hard he tried—and he seemed obsessed with trying—her dad just didn’t get how to be cool. He took great pains to be cool, though. He was constantly checking out what the guys at Maggie’s school were wearing, how they were styling their hair, and what the latest cool “lingo” was. The problem lied chiefly in his interpretation. It was always just a little—no, a lot—off.
If the guys were wearing baggy jeans, he’d wear baggy jeans that were too short or way too long. If the “in” style was to grow a goatee, his would be complemented by a big, furry black mustache.
His latest attempt was his hair. He’d grown it out to about eight inches all over, but instead of letting his straight dark hair hang naturally—which Maggie thought would look really good—he would slick the sides back and let the top flop all over the place.
Maggie knew that if he ever let go of his eternal quest for cool, he would be quite handsome, but she’d given up on that a while ago.
“No, Dad,” she answered. “I think I’m okay now. It's just . . . well . . . it's been a really weird morning!” She frowned slightly and added, “Hey, have you noticed that you always ask me out when you’re trying to cheer me up?”
“Oh, what! Am I not good enough for you?” Nathan teasingly protested, “Wha-ell, I never!” he sniffled as though he was truly hurt by his daughter’s rejection.
She rolled her eyes. “Okay, Dad. Give it a rest!”
He chuckled and mussed the top of her hair. “And you say your life is boring.”
Maggie just shook her head and looked away. As she stared out the window at the passing fields, she thought about what had happened to her that morning and tried to make some sense of it. This was more bizarre than anything she had ever experienced, or even heard of.
What were those lights? How could her dad not have seen or heard anything? Why did she keep seeing them over and over again? And—Heaven forbid—what if it ever happened again?
What Maggie was unaware of was that this morning's strange event was only the beginning—this unexplainable experience would definitely not be her last.
CHAPTER XXII
THE MATH NAZI AND THE NEW KID
Nathan dropped Maggie off in front of the school at 8:15—about ten minutes later than usual. She was feeling better—now that she wasn’t fighting the demons in her head—but was still not entirely back to her normal energetic self. Nonetheless, she was able to get up the “oomph” to lean across the car, kiss her dad on the cheek and, in one swift move force the dented door open and lift herself up and out on to the sidewalk. She knew that she would be late if she didn’t hustle.
“Bye, Smaggs!” her dad yelled after her as she dashed up the school steps and disappeared behind the large brown doors.
“Margaret Amanda Baker! Where have you been?” Bridgette was waiting just inside the school. “I’ve been worried sick!”
Bridgette’s braces gleamed under the fluorescent lights as she giggled at her own humor. Her big brown eyes twinkled and her pretty face glowed. It was amazing how she could find happiness in every situation. Everyone in the school seemed to be drawn to her, not only because of her beauty, but also because of her optimistic outlook.
Together, she and Maggie were quite the photogenic pair, Bridge at five foot ten, deep brown eyes and shimmering, straight blonde hair, and Maggie—who looked tall, even though she was three inches shorter than Bridgette—with shocking, electric blue eyes and long black curls.
“Bridgey . . . you wouldn’t believe it if I told you.” Maggie dropped her book bag right in the middle of the hall and started digging around in it frantically.
“Look at you, Maggs! You’re a mess!” Bridgette observed, still grinning widely and playfully tousling Maggie's curly ponytail. “What are you looking for?”
“I need my math book, Bridge . . . ah ha! There you are!” Maggie pulled a large red book out of the bag, picked it up with a jerk, and started running down the hall toward her class.
“Okay, Miss Marge,” Bridgette yelled after her down the now-deserted corridor, “but ya owe me an explanation later!”
“At lunch, Bubbles! Mr. Lee will be uglier than usual if I’m late again!”
“Ewwww! Not possible!” Bridgette whispered to herself as Maggie swung the door to her classroom open and vanished. She made it to her desk with no more than ten seconds to spare.
At the front of the room, Mr. Wilbur H. Lee sat hunched over, flipping through several papers that were piled messily on his desk. Everyone in the school un-lovingly referred to him as the “Math Nazi.” He was a frightening looking man, nearly bald on the top of his head, but with a mangy brown beard, and a tiny, Hitler-like mustache that earned him his title. He was average height, but horribly skinny and frail looking. His clothes never matched and usually looked like they had never been washed. In addition to his unfortunate looks, he was, without a doubt, the strictest, nastiest, most unfair teacher in the entire school.
He adorned his desk with cute little snippets like ‘Children should be seen—not heard!’ and ‘Stop talking to me like I care!’ and—Maggie’s personal favorite—‘If at first you don’t succeed, that’s what I expected.’ He’d arranged these niceties in such a way that if any of his fellow educators happened into the room, he could hide them quickly by simply shuffling some of the hundreds of papers that were always present on the desk.
Generally, Maggie somewhat enjoyed school, but this year, she found herself dreading first period every day. It seemed that no matter how hard she tried she could not please this terribly cruel and tragically ugly man.
“Open your books to chapter eighteen and read the review.” Mr. Lee’s gravelly monotone voice made Maggie, and everyone else in the class, cringe. For some reason, he always sounded like he had rocks in his mouth and when he spoke his nose would scrunch, his eyes would blink abnormally, and his beard would twitch spastically, which made it look like he was chewing on something foul.
“Miss Baker!” he shrieked, glaring at Maggie with his blinky little eyes. “Book open!” Maggie had only paused long enough to shudder at his creepiness, but Mr. Lee had very little patience for hesitation once he had given an order. Normally, everyone in the class jumped the second he spoke, but Maggie’s energy was still a little depleted and apparently she’d been kind of slow. She plopped her book open, flipped a few pages, and started reading.
Michelle, the freckle-faced, red haired girl who sat next to her glanced over, rolled her eyes, smiled pleasantly and shook her head. Michelle was constantly getting picked on by the Math Nazi, too.
As the class read quietly, the door creaked open and in sauntered a boy about Maggie’s age. Glenhill is a very small community. Everyone knows everyone, but Maggie had never seen this guy before.
He was tall and lanky with shoulder length wavy blonde hair and a dark tan. His clothes were—to say the least—a little odd. He had on a vivid orange and green, short sleeve, Hawaiian print shirt, which he wore over the top of a navy blue long sleeve t-shirt. His khaki shorts looked at least four sizes too big and hung down to the middle of his tanned calves. He had on short black socks and bright red high-top basketball sneakers. More than one of the students in the class chuckled quietly at the sight of him, but that didn’t seem to bother him in the slightest.
“Well?” Mr. Lee frowned and tapped the ends of his long, bony fingers together, waiting for some explanation as to why this person had just interrupted his class.
“Name’s Holden, dude! Holden Guarlo.” Holden virtually skipped over to Mr. Lee’s desk and enthusiastically shook his hand.
“Do not touch me!” Mr. Lee hissed as he ripped his hand out of Holden’s and quickly jumped to his feet, grabbing a bottle of hand sanitizer from under some papers and squeezing a generous blob into his hand.
“Whoa! Someone needs to relax!” Holden chuckled, pointing at Mr. Lee with his thumb and talking to the other students as though he were on stage. Several of them gasped at Holden’s audacity — or blissful stupidity.
“What do you want?” Veins in the Math Nazi’s forehead bulged and his face turned purple with rage; beads of perspiration formed on the top of his bald head.
“Dude, you are totally, like, gonna blow a fuse if you don’t chill out!” Holden—who had a solid four inches and at least thirty pounds on Mr. Lee—practically picked up the livid teacher by the shoulders and sat him down at his desk.
