It all started in the garden.
Well… I guess it technically wasn't a garden, per se. It was more like a pile of pots in a corner of our deck. My mom had one of those 'moments' where she felt the urge to make one of those beautiful walk-in gardens because she needed to 'do something with her life.'(What was raising two kids, supervising my father, and heading a Law firm?!) She talked about it obsessively for weeks, planning and purchasing the supplies needed. The soil had been tilled and ready to plant with before she remembered she couldn't keep a cactus alive, let alone begonias. The whole thing made me wonder how my brother and I made it past childhood.
I digress.
I was in the garden, doing what I do almost every waking moment of my life.
Homework.
It was math homework, to be exact. Freaking math homework. And I hated it. Normally, math homework was to be done at my desk, but today, my routine was interrupted. My mother forced me outside because it was 'nice'. If by 'nice' you mean a pollen count of 80 million and a humidity of 99%, then yes, it was 'nice'.
It was like trying to breathe sawdust underwater.
Thank you, Floridian springtime. Thank you very much.
I plopped myself down on a large upturned pot and started to work. The homework covered factoring quadratic equations, a task which I had been chided for in class because I used a way that was not only more accurate, but took less time, space, and effort. One would think that would be preferred with the short amount of time allotted in school, right? Mr. Michaels would have none of it. Work hard, not smart. Way to go, school.
I wrote down the last equation of the problem I was on, trying to ignore the way the humidity and my sweaty hands made the paper damp, before a noise that sounded like a cap gun caught my attention.
Pop.
Silence.
Pop Pop.
"What in the hell?!" I muttered under my breath, setting down my book and looking around. Nothing appeared to be moved or changed. Same old suburban back yard. What I did notice, however, was how quiet my surroundings were. There wasn't a birdsong or car engine to be heard. There was no wind, and the grating buzz of the lawn mowers that had been bothering me for the past hour and a half had evaporated. All that was left was unnatural silence.
I didn't know whether to be disturbed or relieved.
There was a final pop, and then more infuriating silence. I sat there for a minute, expecting more and getting nothing except the feeling it was getting closer to sunset. Peeved, I stood up and grabbed my book.
"Ooookay then. This is just a little weird, even for my tastes. I'm just gonna, you know, go inside and—whatthehellisthat?!"
There, where my house should have been, was giant rock.
My math book went clattering to the hardwood deck.
A giant rock.
My brain struggled for words to express itself in this ludicrous situation. It came up with one about thirty seconds later.
"Balls."
I turned around without really knowing why I did so.
The garden vanished and in its place was a vast, sickeningly green forest that spread out as far as the eye could see.
I couldn't have even been doing something cool when this happened.
I guess that's just the story of my life.
I looked around to notice that my math book too was absent, which was probably a good thing because I wanted nothing more that to punt it over the giant mother sucking rock that had once been my house.
The image of my smashed up Algebra book pleased me more than it should have.
Ahem. Right.
Sound had returned once again, but not the same sounds that had enveloped me previously. Unfamiliar and rather enchanting birdsong floated down from above as the wind tickled the trees, making a quiet shushing noise as the leaves brushed together. The air, I somewhat happily noticed, was crisp and blessedly free of any harsh heat, a feeling that stirred up distant memories of my life in upstate New York before Mom decided that a little home in the insufferable West Palm Beach would be better.
Without realizing it, I shivered, my tank top and short shorts suddenly inappropriate for this climate. There was a low whistling coming from deeper in the forest, like the sound of someone blowing over a bottle. I was officially freaked out.
"Chief, this is bad." I winced at the volume of my voice, though it couldn't have been more than a whisper. "I need to be brave about this. I gotta use my razor sharp logic to figure this out so that I can get home and fulfill my life-long goal of graduating high school without getting killed."
Getting an idea suddenly, I closed my eyes and did what any sane person would do in this situation.
"There's no place like home!" I cried out, clicking my heels together. It was then I noticed I was barefoot. "There's no place like home! T-there's no p-place like—like--"
The situation came crashing down on my head.
My house is gone and I'm stuck in the middle of some foreign forest.
Panic bubbled up in my chest.
I did the only thing I could think of to do.
And that was how they found me; curled up in a fetal position bawling my ever-loving eyes out.
So much for bravery.
