merendinoemiliano Thank you for all of your continued support! Please read the note at the bottom and let me know what you think! If you have any ideas for what else I should do to make this story better or to create others, let me know! Enjoy!
imasurvivor21 Thank you for the review! I hope that you like it!
Chapter 3 (2)
I couldn't help wondering about our stop at Cleopatra's Needle, how Mum had insisted on seeing it. I had thought it was just a random stop, or maybe a sad reminder of Dad. But after what happened at the museum, I was worried it might have been her saying a final goodbye. Or worse, getting ready to meet Dad. The expression Mum had on her face was of steely determination, like she was preparing for her final moments, but I prayed that I was wrong.
Shaking my head, I tried to distract myself. The last thing that I needed was to confirm that my mother is dead. There wasn't much to do in my room. I had piles of laundry on the floor, but I wasn't going to resort to cleaning just yet. The walls were covered in posters and pictures. Slowly, my eyes wandered across my room and fixed on my desk.
No, I thought. Not going to do it.
But I walked over and opened the drawer. I shoved aside a few old magazines, the stash of sweets, a stack of grammar homework I'd forgotten to hand in. There were several pictures of my mates, Liam and Emmett, and I making faces and wreaking havoc at Camden Market. And there, at the bottom of it all, was the picture of Dad.
Gran and Gramps have loads of pictures. They keep a shrine to Reece in the hall cupboard—Dad's childhood artwork, his academic achievements, his graduation picture from university, his favorite music and books. They would even put fresh biscuits on it every day. It was supposed to "feed his soul," but all it ended up doing was feeding the mice.
It's all quite mental. I was determined not to be like them, always living in the past. Dad died when I was six. I barely had any memories of him, so there wasn't much to miss anyway. When I was younger, I would be embarrassed at school. Everyone else had two parents, and I had none. I did everything I could to avoid reminders of the first person to leave me, which included removing pictures.
But I did keep one picture. It was of Dad and I at our house in Los Angeles, just after I was born. He stood on the balcony, the Pacific Ocean behind him, holding a wrinkled pudgy lump of baby that would someday grow up to be yours truly. Baby me wasn't much to look at, but Dad was movie-star levels of handsome, even in shorts and a tattered T-shirt. His eyes were dark blue, with flecks of electric in them. Quite depressing compared to my dull ones. People always say I look like him, but he managed to exuded confidence and maturity while I looked like a stereotypical teen. Rude. Sarcastic. And refusing to grow up. It worked fine for me, but I knew that I didn't come across as fantastic to others.
[Stop smirking, Carla.]
The photo was one of the only connections to my Dad that I had. He had always been at work, so most of my time was spent with Mom. I remembered a few things; when he taught me to ride a bike, the times we would tease the girls for a girly movie, but end up watching anyway. But the main reason I'd kept the photo was because of the symbol on Dad's T-shirt—an ankh. If you've never seen it, it looks like a cross with a upside down tear drop on top. The ankh wasn't that interesting on it's own. It was a common symbol for life and fertility. But the irony of my dead father wearing the symbol for life was enough to make me keep the picture. Nothing could've been sadder. But despite this, he smiled at the camera as if he knew a secret. As if my dad and mum were sharing a joke I would never understand. Maybe it had something to do with the ankh.
Something tugged at the back of my mind. That tall woman in the trench coat who'd been arguing with Mum across the street—she'd said something about the Per Ankh. Had she meant ankh as in the symbol for life, and if so, what was a per? It didn't make sense as a ratio, unless the woman used charms as currency in a barter system. But her clothes looked tailored and expensive, so I couldn't imagine that being true. She definitely didn't mean pear as in the fruit.
There was no way that I would be able to guess what it meant. I couldn't even figure out who the woman was, much less what a word I had never seen or heard meant. I had an eerie feeling that if I saw the words Per Ankh written in hieroglyphics, I would know what they meant.
I put down the picture of Dad. I picked up a pencil and turned over one of my old homework papers. I wondered what would happen if I tried to draw the words Per Ankh. Would the right design just occur to me? Just as I touched pencil to paper, my bedroom door opened.
"Mr. Kane?"
I whirled and dropped the pencil, which clattered loudly across the floor. A police inspector stood frowning in my doorway, his eyes following the pencil. He stooped down and picked it up, inspecting it carefully, as if it was a hidden bomb.
"What are you doing?"
"Practicing language," I said. Technically true. I didn't specify what language it was.
My ceiling was low and slanted, so the inspector had to stoop to come in. He wore a lint-colored suit that matched his gray hair and his ashen face. "Now then, Samuel. I'm Chief Inspector Williams. Let's have a little chat, shall we? Sit down."
I refused to sit out of spite, leaning against the desk with my arms crossed. It must've annoyed him, because he set his jaw and tried his best to look intimidating, which was hard with his head bend to the side and him stooping like Quasimodo. For once, I was glad that I hadn't hit another growth spurt. At least I could stand up straight.
"Tell me everything, please," he said, "from the time your mother came round to get you to when the officers showed up."
"I already told the police at the museum."
"Again, if you don't mind."
So I told him everything. Why not? His eyes widened as I told him all the strange bits like the glowing letters and serpent staff. It sounded like something out of the next adventure movie. Complete with the sin of the "superheroes having dead parents" cliché. Ding.
"Well, Samuel," Inspector Williams said. "You've got quite an imagination on you. How long did it take you to come up with that elaborate story? Certainly you could have founded a better use for your time besides constructing elementary level lies."
I took a deep breathe, steadying myself. The last thing I needed was to get into even more trouble by punching an officer. "I'm not lying, Inspector. And if you open your eyes any more, they'll pop out."
He scowled, furrowing his brow. "Now, Samuel, I'm sure this is very hard on you. I understand you want to protect your mother's reputation. But she's gone now—"
"Yeah. Gone through the floor in a coffin," I insisted. "Not dead."
Inspector Williams sighed, giving me a sad look, and putting his hand on my shoulder. "Samuel, I'm very sorry. But we must find out why she did this act of...well..."
"Act of…?" Don't say it. Stop right there.
He cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Your mother destroyed priceless artifacts and killed herself in the process."
I glared at him. "Are you accusing my mother of being a terrorist? Have you gone round the bend?!"
"We've already made calls to some of your mother's associates. I understand her behavior had become erratic since your father's death. She'd become withdrawn and obsessive in her studies, spending more and more time in Egypt."
"She's a bloody Egyptologist! You should be looking for her, not asking stupid questions!"
"Samuel," he said, and I could hear in his voice that he was resisting the urge to strangle me. I get this a lot from adults. And pretty much everyone else. Except kids. Destructive toddlers really get me.
"There are extremist groups in Egypt that object to Egyptian artifacts being kept in other countries' museums. These people might have approached your mother. Perhaps her single, unwed state made your mother an easy target for a member of these groups. Maybe someone who she was dating? If you've heard her mention any names—"
I stormed past him to the window. I was so angry I could hardly think, my ears ringing from the pressure of my clenched jaw. I was definitely going to have a migraine after this. I refused to believe Mum was dead. I had already lost one parent, and even if she was lackluster at times, I was not about to lose another. Nothing about what happened made sense. But until I saw a body, or someone I trusted told me, I would not believe she was dead. And a terrorist? Or dating one? Give me a break! Mum carries around a picture of Dad in her wallet, and looks at it with all of the love of a gushy high schooler. Why did adults have to be so thick? They always say "tell the truth". If you don't, you get in trouble. If you do, they don't believe you. And then they wonder why kids lie all the time.
I stared down at the dark street. Suddenly that cold tingly feeling got worse than ever. It felt like thousands of spiders were running over me. I focused on the dead tree where I'd met Mum earlier. Standing there now, in the dim light of a streetlamp, looking up at me, was a woman in a black trench coat and the round glasses and the fedora— the woman Mum had called Amos.
I suppose I should've felt threatened by an odd woman staring up at me in the dark of night. She somehow knew where my room was. But her expression was full of concern, like a loving parent looking at a sick child (at least what it looked like in movies). And she looked so familiar. It was driving me mad that I couldn't remember anything about her.
Behind me, the inspector cleared his throat. "Samuel, no one blames you for the attack on the museum. As we understand it, you were dragged into this against your will."
I turned from the window. "Against my will? I chained the curator in his office." And had fun doing it.
The inspector sighed, and shook his head. "Be that as it may, surely you didn't understand what your father meant to do. Or they were coercing you? Possibly your sister was involved?"
I snorted. "Carla? Please. The only thing she would try to coerce me into would be to actually do my homework"
"So you are determined to protect her as well. You consider her a proper sister?"
I couldn't believe it. I wanted to smack his face. "What's that supposed to mean? Because her skin is a different color she's not a 'proper sister'?"
The inspector blinked. "I only meant—"
"I know exactly what you meant. You assume that because I'm 'white' that my terrorist of a sister and mother managed to corrupt my poor, innocent soul. News flash! We have the same parents! She's my sister! Just because I looked lighter than her doesn't mean that she's a bloody terrorist!"
Inspector Williams held up his hands apologetically, but I was still seething. As much as Carla annoyed me, I hated it when people assumed we weren't related, or looked at my mother odd when she said the three of us were a family. At first they assume that we have two different fathers, or that I'm adopted. I never understood why that would be a problem for anyone. It's not their family! But people acted stupidly about things that didn't concern them all the time. Stupid Dr. Martin at the museum. Stupid Inspector Williams. It happened every time Mum and Carla and I were together. Every. Bloody. Time.
"I'm sorry, Samuel," the inspector said. "I only want to make sure we separate the innocent from the guilty. It will be so much easier for everyone if you cooperate. Any information. Anything your mother said. People she might've mentioned."
"Amos," I blurted out, just to see his reaction. "She met a woman named Amos outside the house before we went to the museum."
Inspector Williams sighed. "Samuel, please stop lying. She couldn't have done. We spoke with Amos not one hour ago, on the phone from her home in New York."
"She isn't in New York!" I insisted. "She's right—"
I glanced out the window and Amos was gone. Bloody typical.
"That's not possible," I said.
"Exactly," the inspector said.
"But she was here!" I exclaimed. "Who is she? One of Mum's colleagues? How did you know to call her?"
"Really, Samuel. This acting must stop."
"Acting?"
The inspector studied me for a moment, then set his jaw as if he'd made a decision. "We've already heard the truth from Carla. I didn't want to upset you, but she told us everything. She understands there's no point in protecting your mother now. We are only trying to confirm what she said. You might as well help us, and there will be no charges against you."
"You shouldn't lie to children!" I yelled, hoping my voice carried all the way downstairs. "Carla would never say a word against Mum, and neither will I!"
The inspector didn't even have the decency to look embarrassed.
He crossed his arms. "I'm sorry you feel that way, Samuel. I'm afraid it's time we went downstairs...to discuss consequences with your grandparents."
It was about damn time.
Hey guys! Hope you like the new chapter. Was listening to intense music while writing this, so sorry if you think that Samuel is OOC. Personally I think Sadie is a bad***, and really wanted to bring out that side of her in Samuel. On a more serious note, I always enjoyed how Rick challenged racial profiling in this scene. I left that in (and added more to it), but also played up the stereotype that women are incapable of committing crimes or making major decisions. Obviously, Julia is not a terrorist, but I wanted to make the point that women are capable of making extreme decisions with and without the influence of men. Let me know what you think of it. Please review, and give me any suggestions for this story or others. Thank you!
Cat
