Chapter 22: Close Call
The Miss Delight of Homeroom Class shuffled through a bunch of papers on her desk until she found one that she presented to Mommy. "Our school counselor sister did a psychological evaluation of Elli based on her last visit, and it's clear Elli has been under a lot of stress in the past few weeks which started around the time Kayla got adopted."
Mommy briefly looked at the paper before staring down at Elli. "Why didn't you tell Mommy you were still troubled about Kayla's departure? Don't you trust Mommy anymore?"
Feeling both Mommy and Homeroom Miss Delight's eyes on her, Elli struggled to come up with an answer when she heard a shuffling sound above her.
"Did you hear that?" Mommy said, abruptly looking around.
"I thought I heard something, but I don't know what it is," Homeroom Miss Delight responded.
"You heard it too, right, Elli?" Mommy asked Elli.
Realizing the sound had to be from Nathan sneaking around the school vents, Elli claimed, "Not really. I was too busy trying to come up with an answer to your earlier question."
Unconvinced, Mommy looked around the room before her eyes settled on the vent above them. She stretched one of her hands up into it, and after feeling around for a couple minutes she retracted her hand.
"Maybe Mommy was just imagining things," Mommy shrugged with a casual smile on her face. "Do you have any suggestions for how Elli can improve her grades, Miss Delight?"
"Maybe an after-school activity would help ease her stressful mind," Homeroom Miss Delight suggested. "Do you have anything in mind, Elli?"
Elli paused before saying, "Well, I did have fun playing tag with my friends two weeks ago."
"That sounds fun!" Homeroom Miss Delight smiled.
"Would you mind if Kissy monitored your tag sessions after school?" Mommy said.
"No, not at all," Elli responded, sensing Mommy wouldn't like it if she refused.
After Elli was escorted back to Home Sweet Home by Mommy, she immediately went looking for Nathan and Rez. She found them in the Secret Closet with Nathan looking exhausted wearing the GrabPack.
"Sorry we took the GrabPack without your permission," Rez said to Elli. "Nathan didn't want to disturb you while you were crying in the bedroom, and waited until you and Mommy left to take the GrabPack from the vent."
"I only did it so we could move the plan forward without waiting for Elli to finish crying," Nathan said. "Plus if I did get caught, you wouldn't be held accountable for my actions."
"Like an alibi," Rez interjected.
"Exactly!" Nathan confirmed.
"An alibi?" Elli knew she heard that word before, but couldn't remember what it meant. "What is that?"
"Remember that book we read about the detective kid?" Rez said.
"Yeah?" Elli vaguely recalled the book.
"The criminal in that book used an alibi, meaning he had an excuse for not being near the scene of the crime. But the detective kid found out he was lying, which got him busted," Rez explained. "So Nathan didn't tell you when he took the GrabPack and left, because he could give you an alibi for not knowing what Nathan was planning in case he got caught by either Mommy or Miss Delight."
"So how did you get out of the School without getting caught?" Elli asked Nathan. "I heard you moving around in the vents. Or at least, I thought it was you."
"No, that was me," Nathan confessed. "I had just left the library and stopped when I heard your voice. Then something else was moving in the vent, but it was too dark for me to see what it was. And so I lay still as Mommy's hand stretched through the vent, waiting for it to retreat before leaving quietly."
"That must have been Poppy," Elli guessed. "She deliberately moved through the vent to distract Mommy so you would have a chance of getting away."
"Maybe, though I couldn't see anything," Nathan said.
"I really think me and Nathan should meet Poppy ourselves," Rez insisted. "That way, you won't have to keep things from us and give us the chance to see if she's trustworthy."
"Could you arrange a meeting with her?" asked Nathan.
"Yes, I probably could," Elli said. "Mommy took my DogDay plushie to the Toy Store today, so I could easily sneak out of bed without going to sleep from that scent those plushies produce."
"It's like the red smoke that came out of CatNap's mouth when we stayed up late reading that book," Nathan realized. "Could the scents in the plushies be made from the same stuff as CatNap's smoke?"
"Possibly, based on what you guys told me about the red smoke," Rez said.
Thinking about CatNap's red smoke reminded Elli of the room Kissy was in that had the pipe in the wall and she remembered what Kissy was trying to tell her.
"When I went to distract Kissy, according to your plan, I found out something," Elli told Nathan. "Kissy was holding a picture of a girl in her hand, who looked about our age. I asked her who it was, and she pointed at herself which seemed to imply that she was saying the girl in the picture was her."
"But how can that be?" Rez said in a disbelieving tone. "Kids don't just turn into gigantic toys! Where would their organs go? And what would they eat?"
Nathan nervously took out some papers that he had folded inside his yellow shirt. "These papers I found in the locked room of the library might answer that question."
Using the orange GrabPack hand that produced a small flame on the end, Nathan was able to show the papers. Rez and Elli read the papers, but the more they read the more horrified they became from the implication of what one of the papers said:
Subject Name: Makayla Hyssop
Assigned Toy: Candy Cat
Trial 1: Musical Memory (4 out of 5)
Makayla is very accurate and fast. Few mistakes were made.
Trial 2: Wack-a-Wuggy (3 out of 5)
Her accuracy with the GrabPack is subpar. Special awareness is subpar. Reaction time is fast.
Trial 3: Statues (4 out of 5)
Completely lacks focus. Makayla was very engaged with the previous tests, however something within Statues is drawing her attention away from the obsta
To be continued…