Chapter 2
As soon as they were safely in their shared room on the second floor, Marie locked the door and stuffed a towel under the door so nobody walking down the hall would hear them.
Em dumped the contents of her new bag on her bed and watched as what looked like bootlegged brandy rolled across her mattress. The foggy bottles had no label at all on them and were sealed with corks.
"Where are we going to put all these?" She asked frantically, waving her arms at her bed. Marie set her bag on her bed and started pulling out bottles too.
"We can stash them in the closet for now…behind that board that comes out." She said sliding the door to their walk-in closet open with her foot and disappearing inside, her arms piled high with sloshing bottles. Em took hers and went into the closet too and kneeled next to her sister.
Marie pried a two by four out of the wall right next to the sliding door and started sliding bottles back into the recess. It was a really tight squeeze, but they managed to fit all sixteen bottles in. Marie replaced the board and put a shoe rack in front of it, than sat back on her heels.
"Now what?" She asked.
"Now we check out those laptops." Em said, going back into the main room. She sat on her bed and opened the laptop, and it automatically turned itself on. She felt Marie sit on her bed just behind her and set her chin on her shoulder.
It didn't take long at all for the front desktop to load. The background was a blue sky with lots of puffy white clouds, and there were already two icons on it. There was one folder labeled "diary", and an Internet Explorer icon.
"Click that one." Marie said, pointing to the Internet Explorer "E". Em did and the Google search engine popped up.
"I didn't even connect to the Internet. It must have a wireless connection." Em said thoughtfully. After a minute she typed into the search bar "waffle iron", the first thing that came to mind. Sure enough, plenty of useless links to waffle iron manuals and the like came up.
"Hm…it actually works." Marie said, going over to her bed. Em closed the Google page, not having much of a personal interest in waffles and their cooking ware, and shut down the laptop, then closed it and put it back in her bag. She lay back against her pillows and tried to clear her head, with all the thoughts ping-ponging around she could barely hear herself think.
"It doesn't say anything about pixie dust or alien teleportation juice." Marie reported, carefully reading the ingredients on her soy sauce bottle, her nose about an inch from the label.
"Well…that's interesting." Em said, folding her hands over stomach, and went back to staring at the ceiling as she pondered. Her eyes wandered to the poster nearest the spot she was looking at, a poster of Ron and Harry on the train in first year, candy piled around them and they were laughing. Less than an inch away there was a sheet of paper, completely black, with a fiery-orange Charter Symbol printed on it. Not far from that was a map of Tortall with several scribblings on it, courtesy of Em. Just south of that was yet another Charter Symbol, an electric-blue triangle.
Every free inch of their bedroom walls were covered in this fashion; with Charter Symbols, maps of Tamora Pierce's worlds, Harry Potter posters, Pirates of the Caribbean screenshots, and printed pictures of various castaways from Lost.
Taking up the wall across from their beds were two floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and a desk. The bookshelf on the left was Em's (respectively) and the one on the right Marie's (respectively). Their books tended to mesh though, so they stopped trying to claim ownership of them after a while. A dozen wooden shelves were covered with the Harry Potter and Pendragon series', the Abhorsen series, and the five quartets written by Tamora Pierce as well as her duo-set. Besides that there were some poetry books, plenty of historical fiction about Colonial America and the rest of the world, the occasional guide to Native Americans, and atlases up the wazoo. The only books they could really claim ownership over were their language books. Em's were Arabic, Marie's Serbian, and they shared the French books.
On the wall farthest from the door that led into the hallway was their walk-in closet and their small bathroom. Between the two doors was a small CD player/radio.
The walk-in closet was supplied with school uniforms, tennis shoes, and your basic jeans and T-shirts. In the far back on the very end of the rack were old Halloween costumes; a Cleopatra dress, a dark faerie dress, three medieval dresses, and somehow they had over the years acquired two tie-died, floor-length robes that had billowy sleeves to the wrist. A rack ran along the floor, lined with countless music CDs.
But their most prized possessions (besides their books of course) lay delicately arranged in an ornate black and gold jewelry box against the back wall of their closet. All of their mother and father's jewelry as well as pictures of them were in there. Their parents' wedding rings, their father's gold martial arts necklace, their mother's moonstone and silver ring were among the many precious objects in there.
Em didn't feel the tears welling in her eyes as she thought about her parents…the best people in the whole entire world and fiercely dedicated parents.
"Em…are you OK?" Marie asked, snapping her twin out of her reverie.
"Oh…yeah. I'm fine." Em wiped her eyes. Marie frowned, knowing exactly what Em was thinking. Besides the fact part of being twins was always knowing. Only one thing could bring tears to their eyes.
"So…anything?" Em asked, trying to divert attention from herself.
"No! Nothing at all! This is the most normal Asian condiment I've ever seen. Not that I've this closely inspected soy sauce before…but you get it." Marie said, making Em laughed.
"Maybe Aseem was just…a bit off his rocker." She suggested, shrugging.
"Quite possibly. I mean, how many waffle iron extraordinaires do you know?" Marie asked.
"Exactly." Em said, rolling over and digging through her bag next to her bag and pulling out her own soy sauce.
They both sighed deeply with boredom and continued to inspect the bottles.
"He said they could get us somewhere." Marie stated, like repeating things aloud would clear them up.
"Yeah…he said wherever strikes our fancy…" Em said, turning the bottle over in her hand.
"Well, Em…what strikes our fancy?" She asked, looking over at her.
"I don't know! Maybe…"
Suddenly a high-pitched sound, like feedback from a speaker issued from their radio, and continued to rise in pitch and volume. The girls clapped their hands to their ears and cringed, not wanting to get up and turn it off because that would require getting closer.
"ALRIGHT, HOGWARTS! ARE YOU READY TO ROCK AND ROLL?"
The entire room went dark, which didn't make sense because it wasn't like somebody could turn off the sun, the only thing lighting the room. It was only a split second of dark though, it was like blinking. The only difference was when their eyes opened again; they obviously weren't in their bedroom anymore.
Outside their bedroom window, the sun had been halfway to setting but here, it was barely rising and they were enveloped in a light fog.
"Uh…Marie…what…" Em stammered, frozen to the spot.
"We…we poofed." Marie said stupidly.
"But where did we poof to?" Em asked, looking around.
They were standing at the edge of a dense wood, a field spread out before them. Marie had her bag over her shoulder, so Em guessed she had been holding it when they…poofed.
"I have no idea…God, this is freaky." Marie said, turning in a slow circle and looking for somewhere to go.
"The fog's clearing a bit and it's getting lighter." She said, trying to squint through it.
"I see a…a house or something." Em said, pointing straight ahead.
"I don't know, let's just walk." Marie and Em started across the field, unable to see anything besides the house thing in the distance.
Out of the corner of her eye, Em saw Marie fall to the ground.
"Ouch! What the hell…" Marie had tripped on something sticking out of the ground to about knee-height. Em tried not to giggle and helped her sister sit up. The fog was clearing more and more by the minute, so they were barely able to tell that the thing was a sign, a crudely made one.
"Argh! Between the fog and somebody having really bad penmanship-" Marie said in frustration, than cut herself off, her nose a few inches from the sign.
"Whoa, Henry." She said quietly an exclamation of surprise they often used.
"Henry, what?" Em asked, furrowing her brows. Marie yanked on her arm so she fell to the ground next to her, and turned her head to look at the sign.
Weezley
"That…that says Weezley!" Em stuttered, her mouth hanging open in shock.
"And we're in a field!"
"And there's woods!"
"And that must be Mr. Robert's cabin!" With each and every realization their voices escalated.
"We poofed!" They yelped with sheer joy. They jumped to their feet and continued to squeal, but tried to keep it to a minimum.
"People, they'll come here! For the Quidditch game! HARRY POTTER!" Em yelled hysterically, shaking Marie's shoulders with the last two words.
"And Cedric! CEDRIC DIGGORY!" Marie shook her shoulders in return.
"Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!" Em said really fast all in one breath.
"What do we do now?" Marie asked frantically.
"We wait! Yeah…we wait for people to show up, than we…we do something!" Em couldn't think beyond meeting Harry and Co. no matter how hard she tried.
"But they stay here for like, a week before the game actually happens. We don't know what day it is." Marie said, her inner fan girl taking control of the situation before Em's became sober again. (The inner fan girl is not far from the surface, mind you.)
"So we just have to find out what day it is! Mr. Roberts!" Em realized. Without another word they started for the cabin, not even caring that him and his family were most likely still asleep.
They ran up the porch steps and pounded on the door with all four fists. It was shockingly quick that a very flustered looking woman opened the door.
"Hi! Are you Mrs. Roberts? I think you are!" Em said at a million miles an hour, sounding like she was on speed.
"Who are you?" She asked, looking very angry in her nightgown and slippers.
"It doesn't matter who we are! We just need to know what day it is!" Marie said, like she had no time to deal with stupid muggles.
"How can you not know what day it is?" She asked, leaning tiredly against the doorframe.
"We…we got lost! And…" Marie started, than looked at Em. They couldn't say anything magic-related…
"Obliviate!" All of a sudden Mrs. Roberts looked rather dazed, and the girls went wide-eyed. They had just observed their very first act of wizardy magic ever. (Unless you want to call the poofing magic. Purely a matter of opinion.)
"I'm sorry, just go back to sleep, ma'am." The ministry man said kindly, than steered Marie and Em off the porch and just far enough across the field where nobody in the house would hear them.
"Now, what do you think you two are doing? Kids your age should know not to go knocking on random muggle doors! What's so important?" He asked brashly.
"We just want to know what the date is…sir." Marie said, still in shock.
"How can you not know what the date is?" He repeated Mrs. Robert's question.
"Oh, we got lost." Em said simply.
"Lost." He repeated. "How in Merlin's name did you get lost?"
"Well, you see; the portkey, it went all wonky and we somehow ended up just outside of Moscow. Those tricky pop bottles." Marie said in an "awe, shucks" way. When the ministry man looked at Em for confirmation, she just nodded solemnly.
"I just don't want to know." He shook his head. "Anyway, today is Monday, August 22. If you need anything else, ask me…not them." he said ruefully, looking at the cabin, then disapparated, leaving them baffled.
"You wouldn't happen to know when they arrive?" Em asked.
"No, I'm pretty sure we're in the correct month though." Marie said optimistically.
"Oh, that's great! How on earth are we supposed to find out…we don't have the book with us." Em asked.
"No, but we do have a laptop!" Marie said slowly. A "light bulb" look dawned on their faces.
"Lexicon!" They said in unison.
"But not here, let's go in the woods." Marie suggested. Now that the fog was totally cleared, they were able to take a straight path to the woods without tripping on anymore stake claims.
They found an opening in the trees and slipped into the woods, for the first time calm enough to realize they were chilly. They both wore blue jeans and tennis shoes, but Marie wore a silver and black tank and Em wore a white one with the American flag on the front. They knew within a few hours they would be roasting, so they didn't complain.
"We're far enough, let's stop here." Marie said, letting her bag slide to the ground at the base of a particularly immense oak tree. She sat down and pulled out her laptop. While she waited for it to boot up, Em eyed the tree her sister was leaning against.
"Www. Marie muttered as she typed it into Google.
Em walked around to the other side of the tree and grinned. Just a foot above her head was a forked branch that led to other very climbable branches. She judged she could climb a good 30 feet before she would run out of branches.
She jumped and grabbed the right fork with both hands, than walked up the trunk and slid her legs into the fork. She pulled herself up into a sitting position then stood. From there it was easy to climb the rest of the branches.
One the opposite side of the tree was another fork about 10 feet above Marie's head. Em swung to that side and lay down on her stomach on the left fork, looking down at Marie.
"OK, I think I found it." Marie said, not looking away from the screen.
"What does it say?" Em asked, trying not to laugh. Marie started to say something then stopped and tilted her head back so she was looking straight up. Marie blinked. Em smiled and waved down at her.
"You were saying?" Marie shook her head and looked back at the computer, not remotely surprised her sister had silently managed to climb a tree right above her head. The girls had the natural tendency climb and/or scale everything they saw, and they had learned to do it with stealth. (It was fair useful for eavesdropping and spying.)
"They'll be here in exactly a week, seven days almost to the minute." Marie said.
"So people should start arriving today. You know, the people from Africa and places that had to reserve a spot two weeks early." Em said, resting her cheek on the branch.
"So we have some time." Marie said, sounding like she was thinking, and closed the laptop.
"To do what?" Marie put her laptop back in her bag than closed it. She lay flat on her back with her head on her bag so her and Em were looking at each other.
"Figure out how to get home." Marie proposed. Em immediately sat up.
"Are you bloody mad? You want to go home? You do realize we're only a week and about a quarter of a mile from witnessing the International Quidditch Cup? And Harry Potter?" Em added the Harry part after a moment. Marie brushed bark from her eyes that had rained down when Em jumped up.
"I didn't mean anytime soon! What do you take me for?" Marie asked, pretending to be shocked and hurt, making Em grin.
"Sorry I offended." She laughed.
"That's what I though." Marie said haughtily, then she too laughed. Out of absolutely nowhere she observed, "That's a very nice tree."
"Indeed. Very climbable." Em said approvingly.
"It's the perfect tree house tree." Marie said, squinting above her sister's head as she visualized it. "Right where it stops being climbable, there's a huge V. We could fit a fantastic tree house there. We could even have a small attached guest house for my squirrelly friends." Em laughed hysterically.
It had been a childhood dream of their since they were nine years old; to have a tree house to call their own. The only problem was, they'd had no trees on their property. And the squirrel lodgings were the result of a family trip to colonial Virginia when they were twelve.
While sitting on a bench in Jamestown waiting for their parents to come out of the bathrooms, a grey squirrel hopped onto the wire garbage bin next to Marie. In the ten minutes it took for their parents to come out of the bathroom, Marie befriended this squirrel whom she dubbed Merle.
When their parents returned, they resumed their tour of Jamestown on foot. Their father was the first to realize Merle was following them. It was still a running joke four years later that Merle had told all of his squirrelly kin about Marie, and they told their friends, and they told their friends. The Dawson family was convinced that some squirrels would one day pay a visit to the infamous Marie they'd heard so much about. The only difference four years later was; the Dawson family was two people smaller.
"You know…we should do it." Em said.
"Build a tree house?" Marie asked in surprise. Em nodded.
"Yeah. Why not? We've always wanted to and this is the absolutely perfect tree."
"And we do have a week to burn."
"And we don't have a tent reserved." Em finished.
"Let's do it!" Marie said. She sat up and Em tumbled out of the tree to land on top of her, unsure of how else to get down since she was sort of on her hands.
"Sorry bout that." She groaned and stood then helped Marie up again.
"We're going to need wood…and nails…and hammers." Marie listed.
"Sounds like a Lumberjack job to me." Em said.
"I have reason to believe there's no Lumberjack Hardware Store around here, chica." Marie said, using a random nickname they sometimes called each other by. (And they aren't Spanish, but French, Serbian, Irish, Native American, and Hillbilly. Their grandfather was from Kentucky.)
"Aseem said something about drinking brandy to get back." Em said and started going through Marie's bag while it was still over her shoulder. She pulled out the cell phone, and to her surprise it beeped. Marie snatched it and flipped it open.
"One new text message." She said, and began to read it aloud. "'M&E, glad to see everything is in working order. Just remember: drink no more than one vial of brandy at a time.' That's all it says."
"I think I get it. We drink a vial of brandy to get back…and the soy sauce magically poofs us automatically." Em said.
"Makes sense to me." Marie said cheerily and pulled a bottle of brandy and the vial from her bag and filled the vial. Once it was full she handed it to Em so she could properly cork the bottle.
"So who goes first?" Em asked after Marie set the bottle down.
"I don't know. Neither of us have drank before." Marie said uneasily.
"Luckily it's just a tiny bit." Em said, wrinkling her nose when she smelled the foul liquid.
Marie and Em were your typical private schoolgirls, goodie two shoes (unlike most of the girls at their school actually…) They'd never drank in their sixteen years of being alive, they didn't party, they were freaking geniuses, and most of all: they weren't hoes. 97 of the girls in their school were well over experienced in that area but the sisters had only had one boyfriend each, and that was in the ninth grade. Talk about failed experiments… (Referring to the act of having a boyfriend…we're NOT experimenting with sexuality here!)
Ever since then, love and fluffyness was a sort of fairy tale…those things didn't exist in real life. They were the kind of girls that didn't get screwed over and used more than once either. They had far too much pride, dignity, and a pesky feminist attitude.
"Aseem said no more than one, so I think we can get away with only drinking half." Marie reasoned.
"All right, that should work. Wait…we're going to blow our babysitting money on lumber?" Em finally realized what they were actually doing.
"Can you think of anything better to spend it on?" Marie asked.
"Good point. And really, who needs to spend money on things like books when they can live the books?" Em asked. Marie grinned and took the vial.
"Cheers to that." And in one quick gulp she drank half of the brandy.
"Oh my God! That is utterly repulsive!" She cried, making quite an interesting face and shoving the vial into Em's hands.
"Gee, thanks for the reassurance." She muttered, than without thinking, downed the rest of it. She practically twitched.
"Oh yeah…good stuff." She said.
The sun winked out again and a second later they were sitting on Marie's bed. The feedback from the radio had stopped, but "Dance like Hippogriff" was still playing. Right away Marie went to the radio.
"It's not on repeat." She said.
"And…?" Em asked, not knowing where she was going with this.
"The song is no more than four minutes long…we were gone way longer than that. I'm guessing a half hour." Em thought about it. She looked at the digital clock sitting on top of the right bookshelf and scribbled the time on a sticky note stuck to the table between their beds. (There was always paper lying around their room.)
"We can keep track of how long we're there and compare it to how much time has passed here." She explained.
"Good idea. Let's hurry up so we can get back." Marie said, then disappeared into the closet. She came back out holding two wads of bills, the babysitting money they had both earned. She gave Em hers and they counted it. Between them they had exactly $210.
Messenger bags over their shoulders and Lumberjack only a mile down the street, they walked instead of driving. They didn't have the slightest idea how much wood cost (despite their logger heritage; their great-grandfather had been a French logger in Canada) so they went straight to the service desk in the middle of the store.
"What can I do for you ladies?" The burly man behind the counter asked. He looked like the deer-hunting, beer guzzling sort.
"How much wood do you need to build a tree house?"
"It depends on how big you want it."
"Well…big. With an attached…house." Marie realized saying "an attached guest house for the squirrels" would sound downright stupid.
"A house attached to a house?" he repeated, giving them a questioning look as he leaned against the counter. He could tell this was going to take a while.
"OK…listen. We need a floor, four walls, and a ceiling. Attached to that we want something slightly larger than a birdhouse." Em explained.
"Do you know the dimensions?" He asked.
"The floor would be about 10x15 feet." Marie guessed.
"Whoa…big tree." The man said; that was the size of your average bedroom.
"So how much will it cost?" Marie asked.
"What sort of budget are you working with?" The girls both laughed at him. He had basically just said, "How much it costs depends on how much do you have."
"We aren't idiots. We may be teenage girls with a very minimal background in carpentry, but we are not idiots." Em said scathingly.
"I'm just saying; it all depends on what kind of wood you want." He said defensively.
"The tree kind! There's only one kind of building lumber!" Em said, annoyed. Her and Marie had helped their father build a shed and two bedrooms; they weren't entirely clueless.
"Fine. Let's go out back." He jerked his head towards the back door and led them out back to the lumber yard.
After 45 minutes of haggling, they got the wood they needed, two bungee cords, and a Red Flyer wagon, all for $210. As they walked back down the sidewalk, Marie pulling the precariously loaded wagon behind her, Em realized something.
"How do you get a wagon up stairs?" She asked. Marie stopped so quickly that Em nearly tripped over the wagon.
"Shit!" She said in frustration. "We'll just have to poof from the library or something." She said.
"Oh, sure! Ms. Wynkoop will never ask why we're wheeling a wagon of lumber into her library." Em said sarcastically.
"There must be somewhere on the ground floor!" Marie said. Em pushed the wagon from behind with her foot so Marie would start pulling again.
"Most people are still out somewhere, we'll just find an empty hall." She said. Marie shrugged, meaning, "we can try".
Cautiously, peeking around corners the whole way, they managed to make their way to the math hallway.
"Whew." Marie sighed. "Let's just go before somebody catches us." She said wistfully. Em pulled her soy sauce out of her bag. They then realized they didn't know how to make it go when they actually wanted to.
"Um…un-accio?" Marie said.
"Poof!" Em said.
"Oh, just go back to the woods!" Marie cried, not wanting to sound any stupider.
"Why isn't it working? What did we do different the other time." Em complained wanting to be back in the woods as to not look so stupid. They would be in big trouble if they were found in the hallway with a wagon full of wood.
They both sighed at the same time and went to sit down. Before they could get to the floor they felt a familiar sensation of weightlessness and Marie dove for the wagon. When they opened their eyes they were once again leaning on the tree where they planned on building this tree house.
Em looked down to see Marie hugging the wagon's handle and mumbling to herself. She laughed and got Marie's attention. The two girls looked around, and then sat down.
"Ok, we have a shit load of lumber, a tree, but we don't have any way to build this luxurious home." Em realized.
"Oh, well that brought me down. Do we have any money left?"
"No, we spent it all on the wood for the tree house that we cant really build now." Em was a bit ticked, she spent a lot of money. Think of the books that they could have bought with that much!
"WAIT! We can go ask Uncle Carl. He owes us; we spent all last summer building his countryside ranch. That man owes us big time, he and his little girl friend of the week spent the whole time sitting in lawn chairs by the road talking. We can leave the wood here and go back, ask Uncle Carl if he can give us some money. I mean we never ask for anything, we are always serving him."
"You see, I have nothing against this idea, but I don't think he will give us any money. You remember how he flipped when we told him that we needed money for clothes. How do you think he's going to react when we tell him we need money for our tree house in Harry Potter land?"
"Em, must you ruin everything?" Marie asked. "So what should we do then, I mean we need money, unless you can think of another way."
They sat there for a few minutes thinking of the possibilities. Em sighed. "Ok, we'll go back and ask him for some money. And if he says no then we'll think about what to do next later."
Marie nodded and they both stood up. "Ok, so now were back to the same problem, we don't know how to get home. Last time we poofed after we hadn't said anything. So I think it's just one of those things where you have to want it enough to go."
Emile nodded in agreement and as they prepared themselves for departure she realized something. "So your telling me that we are just going to leave a wagon of wood here on the ground? It's screaming 'steal me!'"
"Well, you see, I have a theory. When we left here to go back and get wood, it was about 9ish in the morning. If you notice it's about 9:30ish now. I think we have some kind of effect on the time space continuum where ever we go."
Emile stared at Marie in amazement. "I think your right. I mean what else could it possible be? There is no other explanation, and that would explain why the song was all wonky. This is so crazy! Why would a middle aged Hindu man give us the power to stop time?"
"I don't know, but we need money, so we should go back. We can try to figure all that out later." Em nodded again and they both closed their eyes.
When they opened them they were back in their dorm. It was the same time as when they had left, 7:23. There was a knock on the door and Em fell to the floor.
"JUST A MINUTE!"
Marie put the laptops on their respective desks and Em threw their flasks in the closet. With a quick glance around the room Marie opened the door. There, leaning on the doorframe stood Erin, was the twin's nemesis. She was a bit taller than them, with blonde hair and brown eyes.
When they first came to the school they were pals with Erin, she was sporty and seemed like she had priorities in life. Then they started to get older and she started to hang out with other people when the twins took the AP (Advanced Placement) classes. Soon she had gone to the dark side, she was a goner. Many had said that it was Marie and Em's fault for leaving their friend at her time of need. But the truth is they had tried, many times.
She rolled her eyes at their uneasiness and walked into the room as if she owned the place. Marie and Em were standing in the middle of the room watching her like she was an invader of their life. In truth she was, she was a parasite in their sides, every day and every night.
Erin sat down at Emile's desk and looked at the laptop, and made a funny noise. She reached out and attempted to open it, but before she could even touch the computer she was thrown to the ground and the computer was whisked away.
She jumped to her feet and looked offended. "What you don't trust your best friend to touch your new stolen laptop?"
"We didn't steal them! There were given to us by a friend!" Marie glared rather menacingly as she spoke.
"Oh, then who did you get them from? I know that your Uncle would not buy you one, and you don't have enough money from babysitting to buy one. So just tell me where you got them from."
"For your information, we obtained them legally! Not to mention it's none of your bloody business. You're in NO position to tell us what's legal and what's not. You see, when you go about screwing every guy you come across, you really don't get to have an opinion in society anymore." Marie stepped forward and Erin stepped back.
"You just say that because your jealous." She sneered but it quickly fell from her face when she saw the looks on their faces.
"Get out, now. This is the last chance you have to make it out unscathed." Said Em in a deadly tone of voice stepping in front of Marie before she could harm Erin.
And with that Erin turned and walked through the doorway with out a look back.
Both girls sighed and sat down on Marie's bed. They now had Erin on their back, not to mention the people they are going to have to double cross in order to keep their secret safe.
"Em, we need to get going to talk to Uncle Carl. If we don't leave soon then well have to wait till tomorrow to talk to him. And I want this money soon." It was going to take about two hours to get to their uncle's bank, four cities away.
"Alright, then let's leave right now. We should just change into something nice; you know… to make a good impression. It might be a good idea to look professional." Their uncle was one of the most non-paternal men ever.
An hour later Marie and Em were in the car driving to their Uncles bank, Em in the drivers seat, Marie was doing something on her computer. As they watched Fifth Third Bank come into view they began to get nervous. What were they going to say to him to convince him to give them some money? They definitely could not say that they needed money for wands and books to build a tree house in another dimension.
They had nothing planned as they got out of the car and stood nervously in the empty parking lot watching the sun set. Marie turned to her sister, "We should go in… he'll have seen the car. I feel like I'm being watched…it's prolly him."
"Yeah, somebody is. Alright, let's get this party started." She turned and walked towards the door. Marie ran ahead and held the door open, gesturing inside so Em had to go first.
"Gee, thanks." She muttered, walking past.
They walked into the completely empty lobby, their shoes echoing on the hardwood floor. They crossed the room to their uncle's office and Marie slowly raised her fist to knock on the door. Before she could even get her hand to come in contact with the door it swung open to reveal their Uncle. Hoping he had a customer, he had his usual fake grin plastered on. When he saw it was only his nieces, he frowned.
"What are you two doing here?"
"Well actually, we are in a bit of a spot. You see, yesterday night Erin Smith dropped our books into the swimming pool while at practice, and they're all ruined. We don't have proof because we were the only ones in the room at the time. We're hoping you would lend us some money to buy new books." Said Em, Marie nodding at the appropriate times hoping to make this story seem true.
They watched as their Uncle slowly turned red. If not for the expected blow-up, this may have looked rather comical to the twins. Their uncle was a Donald Trump wannabe if there ever was one. His light brown hair was always swept to one side, his skinny body always wore really ugly and expensive suits, and he had mastered the art of fake smiles and gauging innocent people.
"You lost all your books? Do you think money grows on trees? I have to work all day long here to send you ungrateful brats to a private boarding school! I spend thousands of dollars on tuition a year, and you want me to spend more money on you? Have Eric pay for your books!" he roared, breathing heavily. He glowered at them, expecting them to break into tears any minute. That had beenone of his better rants.
Realizing he was finally done, Marie said. "Sorry Uncle, we didn't realize that we were so much of a problem. We'll just leave and try to sort it out with the headmistress."
Without a word he slammed his office door. Marie dragged her sister by the arm over behind the counter and down onto the floor.
"What the-?" Em asked.
"Shhh, he'll hear you!" Marie said.
"Ok, fool! Why are we on the floor whispering?" Em hissed. Marie smiled somewhat nervously.
"We're going to rob a bank. This bank." Em gaped at her twin and got ready to make a fervent lecture.
"Are you mad?" She didn't get much further because Marie threw herself onto her sister and clamped her hand over mouth.
"You have to be quiet! I know it's kind of hard to grasp, but we don't really have any other choice. Now are you going to yell?" Marie asked. Em shook her head; her mouth still covered.
"Good. I'm going to let go now. Please don't yell." Marie let go and Em sat up, wincing.
"I think you just broke my spinal cord, but I think of what you're saying. How are we going to do this without getting caught?" Em asked. She couldn't believe what they were talking about doing!
"You see those cash registers? I know for a fact that he doesn't take the money out of them like he's supposed to. And the camera's are off because Uncle doesn't like them watching him." She sat there and smiled as Em stared at her dumbly.
"Ok, number one, how do you know all this? And this is so wrong; we could end up sending him to jail. Or better yet, us." Em said.
"A few years ago, I found out that our dear Uncle had or has a diary…sorry "man journal" and I read it, and I took a picture. That's what I was looking at in the car. Are you going to really let this opportunity pass? Think of it, we could get back at years of Uncle Carl-ing and get to know Harry Effing Potter!" Marie said giddily.
"Ok! Ok! You've got me, but how are we going to pick the locks and what about our finger prints?"
"Well there are none on the door because I used my back to open the door. And I have our picking sets." She once again snickered at Em's face.
"Why am I surprised? You planned this before we even got here." She grinned.
"Well, yeah. I kind of figured he wouldn't give us anything. Now, how much are we going to take? There are ten registers; there should be about a thousand in there each. And if we take enough, we can get you the marmoset you've always dreamed of, and my squirrel monkey. Think about that." Em was already sliding on a pair of latex gloves from Marie.
"We're takin' it all, chica." They shared a quick smile and Em crawled to the other side and started to work on the first lock. She felt something hit her on the back and heard a soft thump. Turning she saw her backpack next to her and smiled to herself.
A half-hour later they were climbing out the back window. Marie jumped in the driver's seat and pulled out of the parking lot, unnoticed by their uncle. They got back to the school at 9:40 PM, ten minutes after curfew. After being scolded by various custodians, they made it to their room by 10:00. They re-locked the door and set the heavy bags on the floor. Em checked to see if anyone had been in the room since they left. It was safe. They closed the curtains and sat down next to their bags.
After two hours of counting they had a final count of their money. They had stolen $10,139, and they had to spend it all before Carl sent the police after them. This probably meant first thing in the morning, depending on how long it took the police to discern the ranting of Carl. As soon as they woke up, they were going to have to high-tail it to Harry Potter land as Em had called it.
As the twins collapsed into bed, the money safely hidden in the closet with their brandy, they were oddly quiet. What was there to say? They had just robbed their uncle's bank!
"Is this right? Should we have done this?" Marie whispered. But her sister had already fallen asleep, wondering the same thing. As she drifted off, Marie realized they didn't have a pool, and their school didn't use textbooks.