Lor Mandela - Destruction from Twins (27 page)

Once more, she felt herself slipping back
into a daze, a nauseating fear twisting and churning inside her
stomach.

“Clo . . . clo . . . clothes!” She huffed,
grabbing a bright yellow t-shirt from the laundry basket.

The fight to stay alert was now very much a
battle between her mind and her body. Her movements were jerky and
wild, as she bounced back and forth between subconscious thought
and conscious will. It took every ounce of energy she could muster
just to get dressed.

Finally, after several
minutes of exasperating effort, she managed to finish dressing, but
not before knocking her alarm clock off the nightstand and kicking
over her butterfly shaped CD rack, sending CDs crashing and sliding
in a plastic
screeeeech
across the wood floor.

She staggered out of her room and climbed
down the stairs.

“Where’ve you been, Smaggs? We gotta leave
in two minutes! What in the world have you been doing up there?
Aren’t you gonna eat anything?” Nathan quizzed without taking a
breath, as he ran around trying to gather up papers he needed to
take to the Pratt and Miller Accounting Firm where he’d been
working for the last thirteen years.

He didn’t wait for Maggie to answer. He
grabbed his car keys off of a hook in the kitchen, and ran out the
front door yelling back at her, “C’mon Smaggs! If I’m late again,
Mr. Pratt will have my . . . . ” He jumped into the car and shut
the door before finishing his sentence.

Maggie slowly picked up her purse and book
bag and followed her dad out to the car. She was still very queasy,
and drained of all her energy. Walking was almost more than she
could manage at the moment because her legs were wobbly and heavy.
She clutched the rusty car door handle, and fell into the front
seat of their old silver sedan.

The car door had been dented a couple of
months ago when Nathan ran into a pole in the grocery store parking
lot. Ever since, it had to be slammed hard to get it shut all the
way.

When Maggie attempted to close the door it
made a swishing sound against the rubber strip on the door frame
and bounced back open; she didn’t have the strength to get the
stupid door closed.

Nathan glanced over at her with a puzzled
expression. “What’s up with you?” he asked, tilting his head to one
side. “Still weirded out by your dream?”

Maggie just stared blankly at him.

“Yoo-hoo? Ya in there?”

“I’m . . . I’m kinda tired, dad. I don't
know what's goin' on,” she answered in a dazed mumble.

Nathan shrugged his
shoulders, shook his head, and got out of the car. He sprinted
around to Maggie’s side and kicked the door with the bottom of his
shoe. It slammed shut with a
bang
which made Maggie nearly jump out of her seat,
and then he ran back around to his side of the car, jumped in,
shoved it into gear and backed quickly out of the
driveway.

The dented car door, in addition to being
quite ugly, had the tendency to rattle loudly when the car was
driven over 40 miles per hour.

This morning, the clattering was even more
unnerving to Maggie than usual. She covered her ears with her hands
and closed her eyes.

That’s when she noticed it. She wasn’t
fighting to control her mind anymore; she was actually feeling much
better.

She sat still for a minute just to make
sure. “It’s gone,” she blurted, not realizing she had said it out
loud.

“Wh . . . what’s gone?” Nathan quizzed.

“Um . . . uh . . .” she stammered, trying to
think of something intelligent and believable to say to her dad.
“Oh! The billboard of the guy with the . . . uh . . . striped
suit.” She glanced out the window to hide the disgusted face she
was making over her lame answer.

“Oookaaay,” Nathan looked at her like she
was perfectly insane.

Despite her idiotic comment and her dad’s
thinking she was losing it, she was incredibly relieved that she
was back in control of herself again. She took a deep breath and
sighed loudly.

Misreading Maggie’s sigh as left over
tension from her troubling dream—or the alarming disappointment
that her favorite billboard was missing—Nathan tried to joke around
with her. “Hey homey, ya wanna boogie down to the super groovy mall
later and catch a flick?”

Maggie rolled her eyes and couldn’t help but
smirk. No matter how hard he tried—and he seemed obsessed with
trying—her dad just didn’t get how to be cool. He took great pains
to be cool, though. He was constantly checking out what the guys at
Maggie’s school were wearing, how they were styling their hair, and
what the latest cool “lingo” was. The problem lied chiefly in his
interpretation. It was always just a little—no, a lot—off.

If the guys were wearing baggy jeans, he’d
wear baggy jeans that were too short or way too long. If the “in”
style was to grow a goatee, his would be complemented by a big,
furry black mustache.

His latest attempt was his hair. He’d grown
it out to about eight inches all over, but instead of letting his
straight dark hair hang naturally—which Maggie thought would look
really good—he would slick the sides back and let the top flop all
over the place.

Maggie knew that if he ever let go of his
eternal quest for cool, he would be quite handsome, but she’d given
up on that a while ago.

“No, Dad,” she answered. “I think I’m okay
now. It's just . . . well . . . it's been a really weird morning!”
She frowned slightly and added, “Hey, have you noticed that you
always ask me out when you’re trying to cheer me up?”

“Oh, what! Am I not good enough for you?”
Nathan teasingly protested, “Wha-ell, I never!” he sniffled as
though he was truly hurt by his daughter’s rejection.

She rolled her eyes. “Okay, Dad. Give it a
rest!”

He chuckled and mussed the top of her hair.
“And you say your life is boring.”

Maggie just shook her head and looked away.
As she stared out the window at the passing fields, she thought
about what had happened to her that morning and tried to make some
sense of it. This was more bizarre than anything she had ever
experienced, or even heard of.

What were those lights? How could her dad
not have seen or heard anything? Why did she keep seeing them over
and over again? And—Heaven forbid—what if it ever happened
again?

What Maggie was unaware of was that this
morning's strange event was only the beginning—this unexplainable
experience would definitely not be her last.

N
athan dropped Maggie off in front of the school at 8:15—about
ten minutes later than usual. She was feeling better—now that she
wasn’t fighting the demons in her head—but was still not entirely
back to her normal energetic self. Nonetheless, she was able to get
up the “oomph” to lean across the car, kiss her dad on the cheek
and, in one swift move force the dented door open and lift herself
up and out on to the sidewalk. She knew that she would be late if
she didn’t hustle.

“
Bye, Smaggs!” her dad
yelled after her as she dashed up the school steps and disappeared
behind the large brown doors.

“Margaret Amanda Baker! Where have you
been?” Bridgette was waiting just inside the school. “I’ve been
worried sick!”

Bridgette’s braces gleamed under the
fluorescent lights as she giggled at her own humor. Her big brown
eyes twinkled and her pretty face glowed. It was amazing how she
could find happiness in every situation. Everyone in the school
seemed to be drawn to her, not only because of her beauty, but also
because of her optimistic outlook.

Together, she and Maggie were quite the
photogenic pair, Bridge at five foot ten, deep brown eyes and
shimmering, straight blonde hair, and Maggie—who looked tall, even
though she was three inches shorter than Bridgette—with shocking,
electric blue eyes and long black curls.

“Bridgey . . . you wouldn’t believe it if I
told you.” Maggie dropped her book bag right in the middle of the
hall and started digging around in it frantically.

“Look at you, Maggs!
You’re a mess!” Bridgette observed, still grinning widely and
playfully tousling Maggie's curly ponytail. “What
are
you looking
for?”

“I need my math book, Bridge . . . ah ha!
There you are!” Maggie pulled a large red book out of the bag,
picked it up with a jerk, and started running down the hall toward
her class.

“Okay, Miss Marge,” Bridgette yelled after
her down the now-deserted corridor, “but ya owe me an explanation
later!”

“At lunch, Bubbles! Mr. Lee will be uglier
than usual if I’m late again!”

“Ewwww! Not possible!” Bridgette whispered
to herself as Maggie swung the door to her classroom open and
vanished. She made it to her desk with no more than ten seconds to
spare.

At the front of the room, Mr. Wilbur H. Lee
sat hunched over, flipping through several papers that were piled
messily on his desk. Everyone in the school un-lovingly referred to
him as the “Math Nazi.” He was a frightening looking man, nearly
bald on the top of his head, but with a mangy brown beard, and a
tiny, Hitler-like mustache that earned him his title. He was
average height, but horribly skinny and frail looking. His clothes
never matched and usually looked like they had never been washed.
In addition to his unfortunate looks, he was, without a doubt, the
strictest, nastiest, most unfair teacher in the entire school.

He adorned his desk with
cute little snippets like ‘
Children should
be seen—not heard!
’ and
‘
Stop talking to me like I
care!
’ and—Maggie’s personal
favorite—‘
If at first you don’t succeed,
that’s what I expected.
’
He’d arranged these niceties in such a way that
if any of his fellow educators happened into the room, he could
hide them quickly by simply shuffling some of the hundreds of
papers that were always present on the desk.

Generally, Maggie somewhat enjoyed school,
but this year, she found herself dreading first period every day.
It seemed that no matter how hard she tried she could not please
this terribly cruel and tragically ugly man.

“Open your books to chapter eighteen and
read the review.” Mr. Lee’s gravelly monotone voice made Maggie,
and everyone else in the class, cringe. For some reason, he always
sounded like he had rocks in his mouth and when he spoke his nose
would scrunch, his eyes would blink abnormally, and his beard would
twitch spastically, which made it look like he was chewing on
something foul.

“Miss Baker!” he shrieked, glaring at Maggie
with his blinky little eyes. “Book open!” Maggie had only paused
long enough to shudder at his creepiness, but Mr. Lee had very
little patience for hesitation once he had given an order.
Normally, everyone in the class jumped the second he spoke, but
Maggie’s energy was still a little depleted and apparently she’d
been kind of slow. She plopped her book open, flipped a few pages,
and started reading.

Michelle, the freckle-faced, red haired girl
who sat next to her glanced over, rolled her eyes, smiled
pleasantly and shook her head. Michelle was constantly getting
picked on by the Math Nazi, too.

As the class read quietly, the door creaked
open and in sauntered a boy about Maggie’s age. Glenhill is a very
small community. Everyone knows everyone, but Maggie had never seen
this guy before.

He was tall and lanky with shoulder length
wavy blonde hair and a dark tan. His clothes were—to say the
least—a little odd. He had on a vivid orange and green, short
sleeve, Hawaiian print shirt, which he wore over the top of a navy
blue long sleeve t-shirt. His khaki shorts looked at least four
sizes too big and hung down to the middle of his tanned calves. He
had on short black socks and bright red high-top basketball
sneakers. More than one of the students in the class chuckled
quietly at the sight of him, but that didn’t seem to bother him in
the slightest.

“Well?” Mr. Lee frowned and tapped the ends
of his long, bony fingers together, waiting for some explanation as
to why this person had just interrupted his class.

“Name’s Holden, dude! Holden Guarlo.” Holden
virtually skipped over to Mr. Lee’s desk and enthusiastically shook
his hand.

“Do
not
touch me!” Mr. Lee hissed as he
ripped his hand out of Holden’s and quickly jumped to his feet,
grabbing a bottle of hand sanitizer from under some papers and
squeezing a generous blob into his hand.

“Whoa! Someone needs to relax!” Holden
chuckled, pointing at Mr. Lee with his thumb and talking to the
other students as though he were on stage. Several of them gasped
at Holden’s audacity — or blissful stupidity.

“What do you want?” Veins in the Math Nazi’s
forehead bulged and his face turned purple with rage; beads of
perspiration formed on the top of his bald head.

“Dude, you are totally, like, gonna blow a
fuse if you don’t chill out!” Holden—who had a solid four inches
and at least thirty pounds on Mr. Lee—practically picked up the
livid teacher by the shoulders and sat him down at his desk.

At this point, the room sounded like a tire
with a leak. Everyone was trying as hard as they could not to
explode into laughter.

Holden patted Mr. Lee on his sweaty head,
wiped his hand on the front of his shirt, and said, “That’s okay,
man. Someone obviously forgot to take his meds this mornin’. I’ll
just find my own seat.”

He strolled toward a row of empty desks and
looked across the room, right at Maggie. “Hey, Blue Eyes!” he
shouted with an enthusiastic wave. “You look different than you did
down at the pond. Oh . . . dude! It’s ‘cause you’re dressed!”