Charlotte I'm trying hard to focus on Algebra but my mind is elsewhere. I can hear Mrs. Seagull's chalk tip-tapping on the board quickly and I can see chalk dust floating around her. Then a tall woman with black-rimmed glasses in a long, red skirt and a striped, black and white blouse knocks and walks into the room. Her hair is made into a bun at the top of her head. She walks over to Mrs. Seagull and hands her a yellow slip of paper then leaves the room.
"Charlotte, you're wanted in the principal's office," Mrs. Seagull says. A fat dork behind me starts snickering. I put my pencil down, breathe a sigh of relief (for I don't have to figure out the answer to that problem after all), and walk out.
I see that the principle seems extremely busy scaring the crap out of another student so I quietly take my seat on a black chair while the seconds pass. It's 12:27 and looking on the attendance sheet on the reference desk I see that it's March 11th, 2003. Good God! March 11th? That means today is my father's birthday. For some reason, I suddenly grow very fond of my dad and I try to think of what to offer him for his birthday. I can't think of a good present but something in the back of my mind tells me to go to the auditorium. All of a sudden I notice that the people in the office look like they're frozen. Nobody's moving and everyone's standing in a fixed position. I feel it's safe to leave the room and go to the auditorium now.
In the auditorium I see my best friend, Rita, and a bunch of other kids laughing like crazy. And there was my dad, Benjamin Levi Madden, tattoos, piercing, and all, sitting in the middle of the stage and telling jokes and stories about his band.
"Yeah. So then Joel looks at me and goes, "Dude, are you wearing my boxers?""
The auditorium's door is made of a chain of black roses. A redheaded midget is standing near it.
"Password," she says as I try to push the door open.
"What?"
"Password, dear," she repeats with a phony smile on her face.
"What if I don't know it?"
"Would you like to guess?"
"Gift," I blurt. She tears down the roses and the thorns cut into her fingers and she smiles broadly while her hand bleeds.
"You may go through, dear," she says, then wipes her hand on her dress and wipes the blood off.
I walk out of the auditorium. In the hallway I see Chris holding a guitar. He is wearing a black coat, which goes down to his ankles, and dark sunglasses. His black hair is spiked up and he is putting bright red lipstick on. Seeing me he stops and turns, saying:
"Hey, Charlotte, I love my dad!" I laugh at him thinking he's some sort of idiot.
"Um, yea, me too."
Walking out of the school I feel my feet burn as they touch the ground. I realize that the field has turned into a massive, hot desert. I turn to go back in when I see the redheaded midget yet again.
"Password," she says.
"Gift," I blurt out once more.
"No, dear," she says with a teasing tone. "This time the password is not a word."
"Then what is it?"
"A gift."
"Where am I going to get a gift in the middle of the desert?"
"Password, please."
"Answer me."
"Password, dear."
This is no use! What happened to my shoes? I was wearing them until I stepped out of the building. I hop on my feet but they burn anyway. I must have walked for miles but then I saw a grand ocean in front of me. I could no longer take the heat and I dived into it headfirst. At the bottom I saw a gift shop. That's it! This is where I get the gift. Then I can go back to school, which leads me to my dad, which leads me home!
Behind the counter of the gift shop stands a dog, and yes, I mean literally standing.
"Oh, it's you!" he yells as soon as he sees me. Does he know me?
"Hello," I say politely.
"May I help you?"
"Yes, please. I would like to buy a watch for my father's birthday."
"Oh how special. How kind of you." He seemed to be bowing to me as he says this. "Well, we have a wide selection of watches as you can see." There were no watches in the whole shop.
"Where are they?"
"You mean you cannot see them?"
"No sir."
"Ah, yes. You're right. My mistake," he says. Then he walks to the corner wall and pushes with all his strength and I expect the door to budge but come on, we're talking about a small, wimpy dog here!
"Do you need me to help you, sir?"
"Yes, please. Walk over here and try to push this wall open, will you?"
"Yes sir." I go up to the wall and push with all my strength. It's much easier than I thought. The wall budges and I fall forward. I turn the wall 180 degrees and come back to the counter. The dog follows.
"Yes, well, sorry about that. It wasn't supposed to take that long."
"That's alright."
"Yes, of course. Now, watches. Let's see." He runs over the collection with his eye. I spot a stunning, picturesque, black and silver watch near the bottom.
"I want that one, sir."
"That? Oh, my, that is a very special watch indeed," he says in an eerie tone.
"How so?" From the way he looks at it and speaks I expect him to say something like it can shoot bullets or acid or can be set to explode but I am surprised to hear:
"Why, because it looks nice, don't you think?" he suggests as he looks up at me with a 'please-buy-this-it's-so-cute' expression in his eyes. I breathe a sigh of relief thinking this dog has a lower IQ than.what? A dog?
"I'll take it, sir," I say. Then I think why am I calling a dog 'sir'? See what the world has come to?
Swimming my way out of the ocean was very hard especially after I noticed that I was wearing a 1700/1800's style dress. You know, the ones with the big butt thing sticking out of the back. I never realized how many layers there were and how heavy they would get when wet but after a long time of struggling I finally managed to pull myself up.
This time, though, the whole surface of the land was covered with a vast mirror. My heels cracked into a part of it as I pulled myself out of the ocean and it broke to pieces. I fell down forcefully and into a dark whole right beneath me. Inside, I was surprised to see Rita and all the vampires from Anne Rice's vampire chronicles having a huge party. (Did I mention I was still wearing my big butt dress thing?) Suddenly Rita comes up to me.
"Where have you been?"
"Oh.around. In the ocean mostly," I replied. "I was buying a watch from this dog for my dad's birthday." Oh my God. That made sense to me! I'm going crazy!
I felt so suffocated in this small burrow. I felt drunken by the crowdedness of the room and the denseness of the air. Through blurred vision I saw four men dressed in black. They jumped into the room and started pouring bright green acid on everyone. My first thought was: run away! My second thought was: keep running! Hey wait, where's Rita. I grabbed her hand and ran as fast as I could and found myself in a sewer. Rats nibbled at my shoes and I screamed in fright. Rita stomped them with her foot.
"They're coming after us!" I screamed to Rita.
"Shush! Here. Follow me." She grabs at the walls of the pipes and tries to climb up only to slide back down again. She then lets her fingers float on the water on the ground. Immediately long claw-like nails grow out from under her nails. I do the same and we climb up and out a hole.
Outside we are surrounded by houses all of the same size and shape. In the middle of the street is a hot air balloon. We hop in.
"Who were they?" I ask.
"How would I know?"
"I'm starving. Is that a rabbit?"
"Yeah. Wanna eat it?"
"No!" Ew! Eat a live rabbit? "I want a picnic with sandwiches and everything, right here," I say as I bang on the small round table in the center of the balloon. Like a flash of magic a picnic basket appears on the table. I am too hungry to think about how it got there but when I start to eat I see the rabbit wink at me as it nibbles on a carrot.
"We got to get down sometime," I say with my mouth full.
"Yea," Rita says as she leans back on the balloon. "But get down and go where?"
After two days we still hadn't finished all the sandwiches, which seemed to be reproducing over night, and the men in black were no in sight so we decided to get down. Neither of us knew how to 'land' a balloon so we just threw ourselves out. Oddly enough we managed to land as smoothly as cats.
"Hey, I'm gonna go find the nearest bathroom, okay?" Rita asked.
"Al right." She then seemed to disappear into an alley. After about half an hour of waiting I decided to go see what se was up to.
I turned into the alley and saw Rita bending down to pick up a knife. In front of her was her arch enemy Ashley.
"I have respect for everyone on this planet," Rita said. "Everyone from the poorest to the richest person. Everyone but you and me."
I felt so frightened. Was she really going to kill her? She raised the knife.
"Rita, no!"
"Charlotte? Get out of here!"
I felt so drowsy and tired yet so strong. The three past days had been the weirdest of my life. I just ran as fast as I could. Just ran and ran and ran until I found myself in a beautiful, dark forest. After all that running, which must have been hours, I could not fee tired at all. Nothing in this world made sense anymore.
"Oh, here you are!"
I turn around to see the dog from the gift shop walking behind me. He is wearing a black suit with dark sunglasses and is holding a gray suitcase.
"I forgot to pay you," he shouts and runs on his hind legs to catch up to me.
"Pay me? For what?"
"For buying my watch," he replied.
"You mean I forgot to pay you," I corrected.
"Why, no! What would you pay me for? Oh, dear, is this your first time purchasing something? That's alright but let me tell you how it's done. You honor me by choosing my watch and I pay you as a way of gratitude for coming into my shop rather than another's, understand?"
"Yes, sure." This is all very confusing. So I'm guessing business isn't very good around these parts? He unlocked his suitcase and pulled out a dog treat.
"Here you are," he said. "Now we're even. Now, what are you doing here, anyway?"
"I'm not sure. Actually, I'm lost."
"Lost? Well where do you want to go?"
"I have to go back to school and find my father."
"Oh, that's right! It's his birthday today."
"Yes."
"Well, let's see. To get out of this forest you have to walk across that bridge over there," he says as he points to a silverfish bridge over a rather wide river. Pink, glittered water is flowing slowly and quietly in the river. "And to get to Jade's Castle you have to go around that mountain right there." The mountain looks rather small; More like a hill actually.
"Jade's Castle," I repeat dreamily. "Who's Jade?"
"Jade? A girl. Probably around your age."
"And she lives in a castle all alone?"
"Why not?"
"I want to see her."
"You know where to go."
* * *
Jade's Castle stands behind a beautiful garden. In the center of the garden is a small fountain. I walk up a stone path and knock on the big woken door. A girl around the age of 15 opens the door.
"Good afternoon," I say.
"Afternoon." Jade has light brown, curly hair and dark green eyes.
"A dog gave me direction to your castle," I say to chase away the confused look on her face.
"Oh, him! Well, what can I do for you?"
"Truth is, I'm lost."
"Ah, I see. Come in." She motioned me in with her hand. The castles is filled with stuffed animals and dolls that look exactly like Jade. She turns around swiftly and faces me.
"How old would you say I am?"
"Fifteen or sixteen." She stars chuckling.
"Yes. Unfortunately that's what my age seems like it is. I'm ninety three years old, Charlotte." My heart starts to race.
"Ninety three? But you look.how do you know my name?"
"Your name is on the back of your T-shirt." She's right. I am wearing my basketball uniform for some reason.
"And my age.is magic!" She chuckles again. This was puzzling.. Here's a girl who looks 15, acts 5 and is actually 93 years old!
"Now, let's see. I'm going to help you find your way home. Don't you worry about being lost. Make yourself at home for now while I contact the stars."
"Do you need to know where I'm headed?"
"No. That's what the stars are for. Help yourself to supper and I'll be back soon. You can look around if you wish." She stars to walk away and somewhere from the side of the table to the staircase she seemed to be floating or flying. I walk to the table and lift the silver cover of a big plate. In the center of the plate lays a big roasted chicken (perhaps the biggest I've ever seen) surrounded by French fries, lettuce, green peas and carrots. This looks good enough so I don't even bother to check the other plates. I sit down to eat and by the time I am half way done with the chicken Jade walked down the stairs and floated over to me taking a seat on the opposite side of the table.
"So.Charlotte. The stars tell me many things about you. All I can tell you now is.well, basically I can tell you how to get home."
"How?"
"Go back to Rita." So the starts had told her about my friends, too? I gotta meet them stars sometime.
"Then what?" I ask.
"Your way home is in her home and that's all I know."
"The stars are playing a little game, Charlotte. They have told me that you should start your journey from the front of my fountains. From there you should follow the tuberoses," she says as her eyes glow and she throws her arms up from joy. She then snaps back to normal.
"Tuberoses? You mean the white flowers?"
"Exactly. Follow them and you will find Rita and her home which take you to your home. Make sense?"
"Doesn't everything?" She smiles politely.
"Oh, and by the way; if you happen to see our little friend (the dog) send him my regards, will you?"
"Of course."
She leads me to the door.
"Follow the white beauties, Charlotte."
I walk to the fountain and start walking from there. After many twists and turns and by the time I'm about halfway into the forest I see another bunch of tuberoses and start walking in their direction. I want to pass them and continue walking but when I do they turn dark red. I stop and turn around. Behind some trees stands a lively yet dark caste. All the flowers around it turn to white tuberoses. I follow them and walk to the gate but there seems to be no bell anywhere. Neither is there anything for me to knock on the gate with. I stand there for a few minutes trying to figure out what to do next when the door opens. There stands Rita. Her hair has become the darkest black and she is holding a candle under her face.
"Please do come in. I have been expecting you," she says.
I life my right foot and step in and all of a sudden I can feel my insides turning inside out. I feel like someone is pulling my hair and stretching my arms. I try to scream out to Rita but there's no sound. Rita's face is changing. Dark rimmed glasses fly to her face and her hair is going slowly up into a bun at the top of her head. The candle falls from her hand and quickly lashes at the floor. I turn around to the door but it's locked. I can't move. There's fire all around me. Rita's clothes transforms. Her black dress burns and melts into a long red skirt and a black and white, striped blouse. I feel the fire burning my feet and my ankles. The heat moves upward and soon I cannot feel my knees and.
"Charlotte Madden?" the woman calls. She has a wicked smile on her face. "The principle will see you now."