OMG, A CUL8R Time Travel Mystery (3 page)

All of the downstairs
area appeared to have already been remodeled.  Aunt Jane had chosen to replace the tile with oak flooring, accented by large rugs.  Her color scheme brought the outdoors inside with its shades ranging from aquamarine to a dark cobalt blue.  Although they were blocks from the Gulf of Mexico, Kelly felt like she was right on the beach.  It was a warm, friendly house . . . which seemed contradictory to Aunt Jane’s cool, collected attitude.  The tranquil blues carried over into the kitchen and breakfast area, but the formal dining room was all in whites with a few cobalt blue accent pieces.

Kelly knew she had delayed as long as she could.  She punched the button and the garage doors rolled up, allowing the
sunlight and the oppressive humidity to come flooding in.  But it did make the garage appear a little less congested. She looked around again and decided it would be easier if she dragged some of the stuff outside and cleared a wall so she could start the piles.  She carried eight dining room chairs outside, then pulled out the matching dining room table.  Sweat beaded up on her forehead, sticking her bangs to her skin.  Her shirt was saturated, and she could feel the sweat running down her arms and legs as she alternately pushed and pulled a large couch.

“Jeez, h
ow do these people survive here?” she muttered as she stopped to catch her breath.

“We grow gills,” a masculine voice spoke behind her.

CHAPTER TWO

Kelly whirled around, startled.
  Her heart leaped into her throat as a tall young man was silhouetted against the bright sunshine.  The sexual predator discussion with her aunt flashed through her mind, and she mentally measured the distance between her and the kitchen door.

“Hey, need some help?
”  The person stepped forward, and once inside the shadows of the garage, she could see he was just a teenage boy. He was several inches taller than she was and had medium-length dark-blond hair.  Although he wore a tank top and baggy cargo shorts, his legs and arms were pretty white and boney, especially for someone who lived so close to the beach. His shoes were untied, the style of today, and he had a nice smile.  Most importantly, he looked totally non-threatening.

She wiped her brow
with the back of her hand, then regretted it because she knew she had probably left a dirty smear across her forehead.  “Hey,” she greeted him neutrally.

“
I live next door, and I noticed you were working pretty hard,” the boy said as he pointed to his house. “I’m Scott.”

Kelly
’s lips relaxed into a smile.  She was thrilled for any excuse to take a break. “Hey Scott, I’m Kelly.”

“
Are you moving in or just visiting?”

“
No, not visiting.  I’m moving in.  Actually I’ve already moved in. Today. It’s my aunt’s house.  I got all my stuff unpacked this morning.  I told her I would help straighten out her garage.  She wants to have a garage sale.”  Kelly felt self-conscious and knew she had a tendency to talk too much when she was nervous, so she forced her mouth shut and started pushing the big couch again.

Scott immediately grabbed an arm and
pulled.  With his help, the couch moved easily, and they were able to position it against a bare wall.  “What’s her name again?” he asked.  “Your aunt?”

“Jane.”

“I’ve never met her.  I’ve seen her around, but she always seems to be in a big hurry.  She’s not home much anyway.”

“Good to know
that she’s not just avoiding me. I haven’t seen her much yet either.  In fact, I’ve met her maybe six times in my whole life . . . usually on holidays and at funerals.”

“
What’s next?”

“I thought we’d stack all the furniture up against th
at wall.  I think it’ll all go in the
sale
pile.  Then we can stack boxes up against them.”  She pointed toward an empty corner.  “The
maybe
keep
pile goes over there, and stuff that is obviously garbage goes up front by the doors.”

“Got it.  Let’s move the dining table back in against the couch.”

It was much easier with him lifting one end.  Scott spread a layer of flattened cardboard boxes on top of the table, and they stacked several end tables upside down on the cardboard.

“You’ve done this before?”
Kelly asked.

“Nope . . .
just naturally careful.”  He smiled.  “My mom calls it mild OCD.”

“My aunt will definitely approve.  I think she’s borderline OCD herself.”

They used more boxes to cushion the edge of the table, then stacked a bedframe and a mattress set vertically and shoved a dresser against them to keep them upright.  “There, now we’ve got some room.”

“Thanks.
That went a lot quicker with help.”  They turned their attention to the boxes, opening them and sorting them into the appropriate area of the garage.

“
Are your parents living here, too?”

Kelly
hesitated.  She had just met this guy.  This was all still new to her.  How much or how little should she tell him?  She could feel the tears building, but she knew she would always have to deal with this question, so why not now?  “My parents died in a car accident and my aunt Jane is my guardian.”  She felt strangely relieved just blurting it out.

“Oh wow
, I’m sorry,” Scott rushed to say.  “I didn’t mean to get into your business and all.”

“No . . .
it’s okay.  You’re just curious.  I’d probably ask you the same thing if our situations were reversed.”

“I can’t
even imagine what that would be like.  I’ve lived in the same house with the same parents and the same stupid little sister my whole life.”

“I always wanted a sister
,” she said wistfully.

“You can have mine.”

“I doubt your mother would agree.”  Kelly’s smile didn’t really disguise the sadness she was feeling, but maybe under all the dirt, he wouldn’t notice.

Scott
was obviously uncomfortable.  He shifted from foot to foot and looked away as he thought about what to say next.  Kelly hoped this conversation wasn’t going to be repeated with every person she met.

Kelly
tried to shrug it off, both to make him feel better and to change the subject.  “Hey, we’re going to be neighbors, so of course you should know something about me.  But I should know stuff about you, too.”

“I’m really boring.  Ask anyone.”

“I doubt that.”  There was something in his tone that touched Kelly and instinctively made her rush to defend him.  “I’m not bored.”

“Yeah, but you’ve
only known me about an hour.”

“Who’s to say that wasn’t the most exciting hour I’ve ever spent?” Kelly teased.

Scott looked at her and grinned.  “Wow, that’s really sad.”

“
And you thought you were boring!”

Scott laughed out loud.  They turned back to the task at hand and continued to open boxes. 
“This is all dishes, really old looking dishes . . . it says Mary on the side,” Scott said as he lifted out a fragile china plate.

“Th
ey were my grandmother’s.  I put a marker on the table by the door. Put that over there as the start of the
keep
pile for now,” Kelly ordered, pointing toward the front corner.

Scott complied and returned to
open another box.  “More dishes, but these have Betty on them.”

“My g
reat-grandma,” Kelly told him.  “
Keep
pile.”

Scott
marked the box and carried it over next the first one.  Within a few minutes more of her grandmother and great-grandmother’s dishes were in the
keep
pile, and a couple boxes of kitchen utensils were in the
sale
pile.

“
Okay, you’re right,” Scott said.

“About what?”

“Here’s something about me.  I’m kind of a geek which translates into not cool.  I don’t have many friends in the neighborhood or school, but I’m okay with that.  There are hundreds of things I’d rather do than just hang out with people who have nothing intelligent to say.”

“
What are some of the hundreds of things?”

“I read a lot
and research . . . mostly on-line.”

“Anything special?”

“Yeah . . . history and technical stuff.  I invent things . . . mostly cell phone apps and electronic stuff.  How about you”

“
That’s a tough question.  I used to go to the beach a lot, and I had a horse.  That took up a lot of my time.”

“Horse wouldn’t work her
e, would it?”

“Nope.
  I gave her to my best friend, Gina.  She and I used to ride together, so I know Scarlett will be well taken care of.”

“That must be hard on you.”

“Yeah, it sucks.  But I don’t have a lot of options, you know?”  She busied herself looking through a box of clothes, then marked Mary’s Clothes on them and pushed them to the
sale
pile.

“
What grade are you going to be in?”

“My mom
home schooled me, but I decided I wanted to go to public school in the fall.  Every year I had to take an achievement test, and I tested out to senior level.”

Scott frowned.
“I’m going to be a junior.”

“That’s great. 
I already told Aunt Jane I wanted to go in as a junior so I could have a couple of years to get ready for college. I’m sure there will be a lot of adjustments going to a public high school.”

“High school can be brutal.  Not the classes, but the kids.”

Kelly had to admit she was a little intimidated by what sort of people she would be around every day.  She’d seen the movies and TV shows about mean girls.  That was something out of her range of experience.  But she knew that it was part of the socialization process she needed to prepare her for college.  Now, hopefully, she would be starting with a friend.  The fact that Scott was a little geeky and not part of the popular crowd didn’t bother her at all.  He was funny and sweet and cute in a taller Josh Hutcherson sort of way.  And she felt comfortable around him.

“
Let’s look inside these big boxes next,” Kelly suggested.

Scott opened the top
of the biggest one.  “Looks like blankets, pillows and towels . . . all flowered.”

“
Label it old linens, and I’ll help you slide it over to the
sale
pile.  I doubt if anyone will buy them.  If not, they can go to the Salvation Army.”

Together they sta
rted another row and within twenty minutes they had stacked up six boxes neatly along the wall.

Finally, Kelly and Scott stood, surveying the
now orderly area with a real sense of accomplishment.  “We made a lot of progress, thanks to you,” Kelly smiled and stood with her hands on her hips.

“Yeah, all we’ve
got left is all the stuff on that old workbench and the boxes underneath it.”

Kelly hesitated, not sure if she wanted to attack that project.  There were lots of tools, most really old and probably valuable to someone who knew something about tools.  Kelly didn’t
.  Scott was poking around, looking at a few items with interest, but Kelly was too tired to dig into the mess.  There were dozens of little jars filled with screws and nails.  Nothing on top of the workbench was boxed which meant a lot of item-by-item sorting.  But underneath were two rows of boxes that they could probably easily be allocated to the appropriate pile.

“Why don’t we just do the boxes today?” Kelly suggested.  “The stuff on top will take longer.  That is, if you’re up for it.”

Scott shrugged.  “I’ve got nothing better to do.  Besides some of those boxes look really old.  I’m curious what’s inside.”

The first row of boxes was just more really old household goods, some probably collectible, that were quickly moved to the sale pile. 
Kelly pulled out a small cardboard box labeled Mary’s Records.

“Hey, look at this.”  She opened the box and took out a handful of small vinyl records with large holes in the centers. 
They were still lovingly stored in their original colorful paper sleeves.  She flipped through them one-by-one and read the labels aloud.  “
I Saw Her Standing There
by The Beatles,
And I Love Her
and
We Can Work it Out
, also by The Beatles,
California Dreaming
by the Mamas and the Papas,
Sounds of Silence
by Simon and Garfunkel,
Last Train to Clarksville
by The Monkees,
Good Vibrations
and
Barbara Ann
by The Beach Boys and
Daydream
by the Lovin’ Spoonful.  Wow, these are so cool.”