"Alright, on three. One, two, three!"
Henry and Charlotte heaved the last section of the overturned couch back to its normal position. Everyone in the house had a lot to explain, so they might as well be comfortable.
Piper was in the kitchen, sitting on her knees on top of the counter. She rummaged through everything- this cabinet still had its contents, just overturned- and finally found what she was looking for.
"Aha!" She held it up in victory: a box of hot chocolate powder. This particular kind was about 99% caffeine, which is why Mr. and Mrs. Hart don't like Piper and Henry having it.
Obviously, they didn't care right then.
"Great," said Henry from the other room. "You make some and we'll… we'll do something."
Henry and Charlotte spent the next few minutes making a small dent in the huge mess that littered the house. Piper made the hot chocolate.
She picked out the mugs carefully. For Charlotte, she picked out a colorful tye-dye one. For Henry, she dug out a really funny one of Santa Claus and Mrs. Claus pulling the sleigh while a reindeer with a broken leg sat inside it. (Piper knew it wasn't Christmastime, but ultimately, she didn't care.) For herself, she found one that was just like Charlotte's but was different shades a blue.
Everyone took their mugs and sat down on the long part of the couch in a triangle. Silence.
"So…" Charlotte started. "Who's talking first?"
"I guess me," said Henry. He straighten up a little bit. "So… you know how we've been keeping you-know-what a secret from Piper?"
Oh, boy. "Yes?" It was both a question and a statement.
"Well… she kinda knows now."
"I kinda figured. How?"
Henry kept taking to Charlotte but was looking at Piper. "I don't know."
She took that as a cue. "Uh, okay… so Saturday morning when you were still asleep, I went to your room to borrow your charger-" Henry's first instinct was to yell "Hey!" but he was dying to hear Piper's explanation. "-and I was about to leave when I heard you talking."
"Talking?"
"Yeah, apparently you talk in your sleep."
"Oh. What was I saying?" Then it hit him. "Oh." He looked at Charlotte, who had also put the pieces of the puzzle together.
"So basically," she said, "you got dream busted."
Henry was too tired to roll his eyes. "I guess that's one way of putting it." He thought of the Dream Beam. "Dream busted" was probably what the others had called it when they rescued him. (They did, actually, on the rare occasions the subject came up.)
"And then?" Charlotte asked Piper, interrupting Henry's thoughts.
"So then I started investigating. I followed you guys around some, and…." Piper was about to say that she peeked under Henry's mask, but she didn't want to say it. "And I eavesdropped some, and, well, things happened. Long story short, I know." She took a sip of hot chocolate and attempted to look both her brother and Charlotte in the eyes. "Are you gonna tell Ray?"
"No," said Henry before he knew it. He looked over at Charlotte. "There's no way Ray will accept this. And Piper figured things out for herself and didn't tell a sole. I think we can trust her."
Piper smiled. She leaned over and gave her brother a hug.
"I agree," said Charlotte, looking directly at Piper. "A few days ago, the thought of you knowing scared every cell in my body, living and dead. But now-" She reached over and put a hand on Piper's knee. "-now, I believe you will keep this secret."
Piper smiled and leaned in the other direction to hug her friend.
"So…" Henry said slowly after like a minute of hugging. "I hate to interrupt this nice moment of acceptance, but…." He waved his arm to indicate the trashed house.
"Oh, right." Charlotte let go. So did Piper. The older girl stood up. "Hold on a minute."
She left her friends behind and walked around the house, counting the number of rooms that needed to be cleaned. She came back, picked up a sticky note and pencil, and started writing down what appeared to be math. Henry and Piper exchanged a look. How that girl could do so much math without having a mental and emotional breakdown was beyond them.
Five minutes and three sticky notes later, Charlotte finally looked up.
"Alright," she said. "Here's the game plan."
Charlotte's "game plan" turned out to be splitting up the work to get as much done as possible in about five hours. Truthfully, the house didn't look so bad now. The only room that still needed work was Henry's room, but it was mostly clean.
The progress was amazing, but exhausting.
Henry, Piper and Charlotte were more tired than they've ever been before. (Well, except maybe Henry.) By the time six A.M. rolled around, Henry and Piper were whining that they didn't want to go to school. Charlotte didn't back down and insisted, but even she wouldn't have minded spending the day napping.
Instead of walking or driving (which wasn't an option anyway), all three kids found bus stops near the house. Piper got on her own bus a block away while Henry and Charlotte texted Jasper to just walk without them, saying they overslept and would just take the bus. That explanation had some holes in it, but he bought it anyway. The bus finally pulled up, and they climbed on.
They both sipped from their disposable coffee cups, which were filled with more caffeinated hot chocolate. Piper had one, too. All three of them kept getting refills throughout the wee hours of the morning. They had to wash the mugs and put everything away so Mr. and Mrs. Hart wouldn't find out.
"You know," said Henry quietly, balancing his cup, "you never explained how you found us."
"I guess not." She glanced over her shoulder at the other kids. "But not here."
Henry nodded. He figured she would say that.
The school day went by very slowly. Henry and Charlotte skipped lunch and took a nap in the empty school auditorium. When Jasper asked them about it later, they lied and said that Charlotte was helping Henry with math.
Charlotte never got around to telling Henry how they found him and Piper out of paranoia- until after school.
Jasper was actually the one to bring it up. "Hey, Charlotte did you tell Henry how we found him and Piper?"
Charlotte looked over her shoulder before answering. "No, I forgot."
"Ooh, can I tell him?!"
"Sure," said Charlotte. "Just make it quick, we've only got about a block to go until we get to Junk N' Stuff."
Okay, I'm taking a guess here, so keep that in mind: I think- THINK- that there will most likey be fewer than five chapters left. Again, this is just a guesstimate. I really wish I could be more certain about it, but I really can't be as sure as last time when Shot Down was ending ladt summer because I don't have a lot of extra time to write. I'll do my best, though.
Ciao, and Reading!