Chapter Two – Trunk Diving
…I guess I have to get on up, Joss thought, accompanying said thought with a heavy sigh. It wasn't going to be an easy day to bear, but she knew the day would only drag on longer if she just laid there. Since her mother's passing, she's dreaded her birthday. It's a time that should be of celebration; growing up one more year and, supposedly, one year wiser should be a glorious time in any child's life. But it seemed that Anne Possible's death just sapped every ounce of joy that the event demanded. No amount of presents nor quantity or quality of fun would nullify the anguish within her mind and heart.
During the previous four years, Joss tried to occupy her time during the day with unusually joyous activities. Slim even surprised her last year with a visit by her cousin, Kim Possible. But nothing could be used as a barrier to the pain of her loss. It seemed that each and every fun activity would just amplify her pain, as she would recollect on the fun times that she would have with her mother. Slim tried as hard as he could to fill in his wife's shoes as he began to spend more time with Joss; he accepted reduced hours, and thusly reduced pay at his job so he could accomplish this, and everything Anne Marie would do with Joss, he did.. Joss wasn't unappreciative of it either – she quite enjoyed the extra attention awarded her by her father, but this would only make things emotionally worse for Joss. Try as Slim might, it just wasn't the same
Joss performed the usual routine, only not with nearly the same enthusiasm, energy or expediency. After prepping up for the day, she went into the kitchen and grabbed herself a bowl of cereal. She ate for about five minutes, and then stopped and looked up. Something was odd. Usually, birthday or not, her dad would give her a warm greeting – usually moreso today. However, this time Slim hadn't entered the kitchen. Surely he knows I'm in here. What in tarnation is going on? Joss thought to herself.
Joss finished her breakfast and put the bowl in the sink. She then started looking for her dad. "Dad? Daaaad?! Daddy, where are ya'?" she called out, with no response. She checked around the ranch, inspecting his office area, the horses pin, Ol' Tornado's shed, but her father was nowhere to be found.
Where could he be? I know dad – he would'a said something if he had went out. Let me check the house again. She went back in and looked around. She checked the kitchen again, the study, the family room, but he was nowhere to be found. She then proceeded upstairs. She first checked the bathroom door. Whenever Slim was in there, he had it locked. The door was open, and thusly unlocked. She checked his room next, assuming he might have slept in late. He wasn't in there either. She sat on his bed, starting to worry.
"Argh, where is he?! He never just disappears like this…No…no, not again…" Fear engulfed her like a roaring fire. Had something happened to her father? She fought off these thoughts desperately as she ran out of the room. As she bolted around the corner, she ran smack dab into a staircase that seemed to come out of nowhere. Upon impact, she lunged backwards and fell, using her hands to break her fall. Immediately following this, Slim was seen walking down these mysterious stairs. Joss was attempting to nurse her wound by rubbing her head when she saw him. A combination of elation and anger seemed to well up inside of her.
"Well wher's the fire, champ? You alright there Joss?" Slim asked, holding back snickers. He found the whole thing funny, but he could quickly tell that Joss was anything but amused.
"Where on earth were you?! I've been callin' and lookin' for ya for 20 minutes now. I didn't know if something had happened…or…"
Joss was starting to choke up. She had feared the worst, and the worst thing that could've happened to her was to lose both of her parents on her birthday. Slim made an effort to quickly deflect the conversation.
"I'm sorry there Joss. I guess I lost track of time. I was checking out the ol' attic; hadn't been up there in a while."
Joss was a bit confused. "…We have an attic?" Joss asked, still a bit dazed from the hit to her noggin. "Well of course, honey. We've always had an attic. Like I said before, I just don't go up there often."
Joss was suddenly intrigued. It was kinda like an adventure, and she hadn't had a hankering for one of those in years.
"Hey dad, do you mind if I go on up there and take a look around, pretty please?" She asked with a pitifully cute voice. Joss armed herself with the puppy-dog pout to dissolve any trace of retaliation to the deal. However, Slim wasn't phased, for unknown to Joss, he knew all about the famous pout. His wife taught it to his sister-in-law, who in turn taught it to Kim, who had taught it to Joss. Slim was a victim of the puppy-dog pouts many times before, delivered by his wife when she wanted to borrow his credit card. Usually, this pout would annoy him and he'd say "no." However, he knew that this was a truly exciting discovery for his daughter. She was beaming like never before. Slim was happy to oblige. "Hun, there's no need for the puppy dog face, you can go on up. Just be careful. The dust can be pretty slippery."
"Don't worry, dad, I'll be careful." With that, she gave her father a brief hug and proceeded up the stairs. When she entered the attic, she noticed that they had a lot of boxes.
"Well, now I know where my clothes go during the seasonal cycles." Joss stated playfully. And sure enough, she saw a bin labeled Joss's Clothes. She saw various bins and boxes, with contents ranging from Christmas lights and ornaments to cooking recipes, to a box full of mirrors. But of all the bins and boxes in the attic, one thing seemed to keep catching her eye. There was a chest of some sort in the middle of the attic. When she walked over to the chest, she could see an elaborate carving which stated "Collector's Chest". "Hmm… I don't think dad ever collected anything- wait, what's that?" She noticed a lot of dust collected in an area right below that text. She blew on it and dusted it off, which of course caused particles to fly everywhere. When the dust began to settle, she saw something that made her heart jump. "Property of … Anne Marie Possible? …this…this is…" Joss couldn't bring herself to say it, but she could think it. This is mom's chest… The chest was wooden with steel bracing. The wood looked weathered and slightly warped; as a result, it looked rather old, and the metal on it was quite rusted. This only helped to peak Joss' curiosity even further. However, her curiosity wouldn't be satisfied so easily, because when she tried to open the chest, it wouldn't budge. "Huh. Thing must be locked…", she deduced. "Well, there must be a key somewhere around this thing." With that, she began looking for that key. She started looking under the chest, then around it. When Joss couldn't find the key around the chest, she slowly increased her search radius. She checked under, around and within the boxes that surrounded the chest. She eventually was searching the walls and the far back corner of the attic, but to no avail. She just couldn't find that key.
Joss returned to the chest, and sat back on it. Okay Joss, think. Where would my mother hide a key to a secret treasure? Joss proceeded to search her memories for clues, something that she usually didn't do on this day…search her memories, that is. She remembered something that her mother had said to her shortly before she passed. '…Remember Joss, the answers to problems won't always be as simple or as complex as they appear. The mind can easily be fooled by what the eye sees.' Another memory entered Joss's mind. After Joss had gotten past the age of being read nursery stories, her mother had started reading detective stories to her. Joss found them … okay, but she soon found out that her mother was enthralled by them - she must've read The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes at least 12 times.
"Okay, Detective Possible, where would my mother hide a key…?" Joss was in deep thought at this point. After some time pondering, she basically ruled out every area in the attic. That only left the chest…
"Maybe she hid the key in some secret compartment within the chest…" She deduced that if there were a compartment within the chest, it'd have to be somehow accessible to the outside of the chest. Also, that area would likely be mostly hollow. Joss started to knock on the chest, moving about two centimeters in any one direction. She did this for about 20 minutes. However, even after this, she had no luck. She didn't see or hear anything close to a hollow compartment. "I must say mom, you are a crafty lil' coyote", Joss said in complement.
"Okay, it's not under or near the chest, nor is it in some sort of compartment… Perhaps she had it in her room… wait a minute! 'The mind can easily be fooled by what the eye sees...'" Joss repeated her mother's saying.
Joss inspected the chest one more time, but this time she paid attention to the lock, looking intently at the design…something seemed very strange about it. Sure, it looked like any old lock with a key slot, but she saw two small buttons protruding from the sides of the lock. They looked like you would have to have somewhat long fingernails to really press them. Luckily for Joss, she happened to have a couple of hair pins on her. She grabbed them out of her hair and placed one tip of each onto each button. Then, she slowly pressed onto the buttons, making sure to keep the hair pins secure in between her thin fingernails. After a few seconds, the lid was unlocked, and Joss lifted it open.
"Elementary..."
When she opened the chest, she was surprised to see a bunch of toys in the bin.
"This is definitely an odd collection…" Joss was quite confused. Of all things, why would her mother want to collect a bunch of toys? As she looked at the toys, she realized that she'd never seen nor played with these toys before. "Wow…these must date back to 1950 or something. These are antiques," Joss concluded. She was mostly uninterested in the toys, but just as she was about to close the chest, something caught her eye. It was a hat, a wide brimmed cowgirl hat to be more precise. It was red and had a very thin white outer trim. "Wow, this looks really nice." Joss liked the hat, but she felt that something was missing. There's no way there's going to be a hat this good looking and there not be someone to wear it. It didn't take long for Joss to find a match. Poking out of the various toys was a strand of red yarn. Joss looked at the strand suspiciously. The way it was sticking out didn't sit right with her, but she shook the thought off as she dug into the toy pile to retrieve the source of the hair.
And that's when she saw her. "Oh my goodness…she's beautiful…" Joss picked up the doll. It was definitely a sight to be seen to be sure. The outfit was quite striking, as she was dressed up in what could only be assumed to be 1940's-1950's western apparel. The shirt was mostly white with a yellow trim at the breast area. She had a fairly thick and long white collar and two big and beautiful white buttons down the middle that seemed to glow from the light bouncing into the attic. Her sleeves, which had the same pattern as the yellow area of her shirt, also had small jeweled cufflinks. "This…this is just…wow! I've never heard of a toy that had actual jeweled cufflinks! This must really be valuable- no wonder my mom picked it up." She had jeans with a decorated belt buckle and cow patterned leggings. The hair on the doll was ruby red colored yarn, done into a beautiful pigtail with a decorative bow at the end. Joss was about to place the hat back on her head when she noticed something. There was something etched on the inside of the hat. She couldn't quite distinguish what it was, so she placed the hat in the sunlight to illuminate it better. "Hm…Em…Emi…Emily?" This was a bit on the strange side. Joss knew full well that her mother's name was Anne, not Emily. She concluded that the doll was definitely a collectable, though she couldn't help but wonder why she'd have a used doll. If she was a toy collector, wouldn't she have gotten the doll fresh from a dealer or something? Well, that wasn't important. Joss placed the hat atop the head of the doll, and with her creation finally complete, it seemed to radiate with the beauty of Eve herself.
"I've got to have this, though I guess I should run this by dad first," Joss concluded with excitement spilling from her voice. She closed the lid of the chest and turned around. She didn't have to look far for her dad, because there he was in the doorway of the attic. "Hey there sport, what'cha got there?"
"Dad, I just found the most beautiful doll in that trunk over there! Look at this! It has a lovely hat and a shirt with all the trimmings, cow pattern leggin's and – look at this – jewelry! Real jewelry! I've never heard of a toy with jewelry lookin' this good! Can I have it, dad, please?"
Slim was shocked. Elated, but still shocked. In all four of the past years, he would've never guessed that a doll would bring his daughter this much happiness. The pure joy in Joss's eyes was a sight to behold for ol' Slim. He was just so glad to see his daughter happy…How could he say no? "Not a problem, dear. But you make sure to take good care of it, you hear?" Tears of joy streamed from her eyes as joy overtook her soul. She couldn't help but bear the goofiest looking smile on her face. She ran up to her father and gave him such a hug that he almost fell backwards down the stairs. "Thank you. Thank you so much, dad…"
Joss woke up this morning dreading the upcoming day, counting the hours, minutes and seconds. When she woke up this morning, she had only one objective: wait out the storm of horrible memories until the day finally ended. Before, she absolutely dreaded this day of birth and death. However, now she felt as if she'd been reborn…yet again. She felt elated, overjoyed and at peace. For the first time in years, she was truly happy. Joss could not have asked for a better present for today. And neither could Slim.