Lor Mandela - Destruction from Twins (32 page)

She glanced sideways at her dad. He looked
miserable. In fact, it looked like he was trying not to cry.
Maggie's mood slightly shifted from anger and a sense of injustice,
to a tiny twinge of concern for what her dad had been through. It
occurred to her that he must have been pretty scared when he
couldn't find her. Then, to discover her battered and beaten—after
three hours, no less—only to be lied to? It was no wonder that he
was upset.

Nathan turned the corner onto their street
and pulled into their long, flat driveway.

“Dad?” Maggie tried.

Nathan didn't answer. He slid from the car
and slumped up the small walkway that led to the front porch.

“Dad, c'mon! Really. I'm sorry,” she called
after him.

Nathan climbed the rickety old porch steps,
head bowed and shoulders sagging, and pulled open the white wooden
door.

Why don't you just tell
him?
Her conscience
urged.
Tell him everything—about the
little lights, and disappearing at your locker, and the attack of
the two-headed snake-horse
.

She followed him into the house.

Two-headed snake horse? Yeah, he’s gonna
believe that!

Nathan switched on the living room light and
tossed the car keys half-heartedly onto the small hall table just
inside the door. He glanced back at Maggie with sad puppy-dog eyes,
and then dragged himself towards the kitchen.

“Dad, please wait. I need to talk to you.
Table talk?” she suggested.

Over the years, whenever they needed to
discuss something serious, Nathan would make his special peppermint
hot cocoa with miniature marshmallows, and they would sit at the
kitchen table and talk. Somehow the whole ceremony of it, combined
with the cocoa, provided comfort, no matter how uncomfortable the
subject. They now referred to these father-daughter chats as “table
talks.”

“I think that's a relatively good idea,”
Nathan agreed, although this was one table talk he was dreading. He
was convinced that Maggie had been out rolling around with some
hormone-crazed teenage guy, and that she was “madly in love” and
soon to be engaged to the next future pig wrestler of America. “Why
don't ya go change out of those wet clothes, and I'll put on the
water.”

Maggie nodded and headed upstairs.

Nathan went to the kitchen and pulled out a
dented red teapot. “I'm not ready for this,” he mumbled to himself
as he filled the pot from the tap and placed it on their old gas
stove. “Only last week she was starting Kindergarten,” he muttered
as he waited for the battered kettle's melancholy whistle.

A few minutes later, Maggie came into the
kitchen and sat down at one of the mismatched chairs around their
garage-sale, metal dining table. Her black curls were smoothed back
into a tame ponytail, and she had changed into her comfy pink and
white polka-dotted flannel pajamas, puffy white bath robe, and
fuzzy pink slippers.

Nathan brought the cocoa cups to the table
and sat down across from her. He poured the steaming water into the
small white cups, stirred the contents of each a few times, and
then plopped a small handful of marshmallows in.

Maggie breathed in a deep whiff of the
heavenly peppermint-chocolate aroma as she reached for her cup and
slid it toward her.

Nathan took a slow, slurping sip, and began
with, “Well?”

“Okay, first,” she started, “I didn't mean
to lie to you. It's just . . . I didn't think you'd
understand.”

“Oh man, I knew it!” Nathan blurted. “Listen
Smaggs, I know you think you're old enough to know about these
things, but you're still young! You don't wanna make decisions now
that you'll eventually regret! You have to think about the future.
You can't just dive into things without standing back and thinking
about the future! And pig wrestling isn't all it's cracked up to
be.”

“What? Da-ad! What on Earth are you talking
about,” she frowned. “You don't have any idea what I was going to
say! Wait! Pig wrestling?”

“Oh . . . um, sorry,” Nathan stammered, “I
just . . . well, I was thinking that maybe . . . .”

“Yeah, I know what you were thinking. Yikes!
I was not out with a guy, Dad . . . and give me a little credit!
I'm not gonna marry a pig wrestler!” She grimaced and shook her
head. “Honestly.”

Nathan took a sip of cocoa and smiled
sheepishly. “Yeah, I guess I got a little carried away.”

Maggie picked up her cup and giggled. “A
little.”

“So, what’s on your mind, Smaggs?”

She drew in a big breath and started.
“Remember that dream I had this morning? Well, it wasn’t a dream.”
She told him about the incident in detail, and about what had
happened at her locker. “I felt like something was pulling me, and
then I was in this field. I wasn't at my locker anymore.”

She paused to check her dad's reaction.

He was staring at her blankly.

“Dad, I know this sounds . . . .”

Suddenly, she stopped
short. Her eyes widened and she held her breath. It was back! The
low, pulsating,
whoosh. . .whoosh. .
.whoosh
.

It surged in and out behind her, growing
louder with each whoosh.

Her pulse raced; she grabbed the sides of
the kitchen table and closed her eyes. Oddly though, the sound only
whooshed three times and then stopped; nothing happened.

“What was that?” Nathan walked over and
looked out the screen door, searching for the source of the strange
sound. “I wonder what those blasted Harrisons are up to this
time.”

“You heard that?”

“Yeah . . . shouldn't I have?”

Maggie felt frantic as she realized that, at
any moment, she could be pulled away again. “Dad! Listen! I keep
hearing that whoosh, and then I end up somewhere else! It's
happened to me twice already,” she yelled. “I go somewhere . . .
somewhere I've never been before. That's what happened at my
locker, and that's what happened after school! Don't you see?
That's why you couldn't find me! I was somewhere else!”

Nathan frowned. “Smaggs! Calm down! You're
kinda freakin’ out here.”

“No, Dad! I'm not freaking out . . . I mean,
yeah . . . I sorta am, but it's because I keep leaving! I can't
control it! There's a whoosh and then a lasso and then 'pop' and
I'm outta here!”

She barely finished her sentence when it
started again.

Whoosh. . .whoosh. . .whoooooooosh!

“Oh, no . . .
Daaaaad!
”

Nathan grimaced and looked around the room.
“What is that?” he asked again, “it's kinda annoying!”

Maggie's eyes were wide with fear. The
familiar tugging was back. Nathan glanced over at his
panic-stricken daughter, who was panting heavily and clutching the
table so hard that her knuckles were white.

“What’s the matter with you, Ma . . .
.?”Suddenly, there was a deafening crack and a bright blue flash,
and Maggie was gone!

Nathan shrieked hysterically and started
spinning around in spastic little circles. “Maggieeee!” he
screamed, “Maggieeeee! Margaret Amanda Baker! I am not amused!”

He dropped to his knees
and looked under the table. Then he started frantically opening
cupboards, the pantry, and the refrigerator. “
Maggieeeee!
”

He ran to the back door
and out into the dark yard. He looked around the corner of the
house behind the big maple tree—and then up
in
the big maple tree. His eyes were
bulging, and his black hair was flopping wildly as he jumped up and
down, looking over the fence.

“Maggie! This isn't funny! Where are you,”
he shouted desperately.

His back fence neighbor, Mr. Harrison, stood
at his flaming barbecue, holding a long spatula, and staring at him
like he was crazy.

“Margaret,” he squealed again as he ran back
inside and started madly searching the house.

But Maggie was not there. She had, once
again, been taken to an unfamiliar place.

M
aggie stood in a strange meadow that she didn't recognize,
and although it had been late evening in Glenhill, it was broad
daylight here.

At first she thought that this was the same
place she had been earlier. There were certain similarities. It was
a vast field, with a forest in the distance, backed by a tall,
narrow mountain, but there was nothing scary about this place. It
was warm, peaceful, and gloriously beautiful. The lush green field
was blanketed in soft waving grass, punctuated by tiny frills of
yellow and purple blossoms.

Breaking up the rolling ocean of green were
tall outcroppings of twisting brown rock, jutting up boldly at
sharp angles from the ground. Tiny bits of crystal in the rock
glistened in a myriad of sparkling, jewel-toned colors as the sun
danced across the unusual formations.

The sunlight itself was also unusual. It
glowed brightly, but seemed to be filtered and softened somehow.
Its soothing warmth flooded over Maggie, dissolving into her, and
made her feel both sleepy and energized at the same time.

In the distance was a forest, bordered by a
grove of stately swaying trees. Their long leafy branches hung to
the ground and flowed softly in the gentle gusts of cool air that
wafted through them.

The sky above the forest was brilliant
blue—bluer than any ocean Maggie had ever seen in pictures. A
steep, majestic mountain rose high behind the trees and into the
azure sky. It was covered in a blanket of luxurious velvet green,
except for the contrasting white snow caps that topped its highest
peaks.

“Wow!” Maggie breathed as she took in the
view, “this place is awesome!”

She fiddled with her hair and smoothed her
clothes just in case she should meet up with a handsome stranger
again. She was wishing that she had a mirror and her makeup bag,
when a horrible realization struck.

“Oh, perfect,” she moaned as she looked down
at herself. “I'm still in my pajamas! This is just great!” She
pulled her bathrobe around her tightly and cinched the tie, as if
that would help somehow.

She glimpsed across the field and realized
that she was not the only person presently occupying it. “Just
great!” she repeated.

Near the grove of trees across the field,
and apparently unaware that Maggie was there, a woman sat, quietly
reading on one of the smaller rock formations.

Maggie's first reaction
was to scope out cover, but the woman didn't appear to be much of a
threat.
Hmmm, she thought, she looks
pretty harmless . . . only one head and all. Maybe she can help
me.
Maggie started across the
field.

The woman was completely engrossed in her
book and unaware that anyone else was near. In fact, the entire
time it took for Maggie to cross the large field, the woman didn’t
budge or look up.

“Ahem,” Maggie timidly cleared her throat
when she was a few feet away.

The sudden break in the silence startled the
lady so, that she nearly fell off her rock. “I’m trying to read
here!” she snipped, and shot an agitated look in Maggie’s
direction, but then slid quickly off of the formation and—much to
Maggie’s surprise—dropped to her knees. “Forgive me, Majesty.” The
woman was shaking like a leaf and obviously quite unnerved by
Maggie’s appearance.

“I uh . . . I . . . .” Maggie stammered.

The woman looked up, but not directly at
Maggie’s eyes. “How? I mean . . . I . . . I thought you were dead!”
Tiny tears dropped from the woman's eyes and slid down her face as
she spoke.

“Wait a sec, what?” Maggie blurted in
response to the morbid comment, “what do you mean? We . . . we
don’t even know each other, do we?”

The woman timidly looked at Maggie’s face
but did not rise. “Oh, you're not . . . but I thought . . . forgive
me.”

Maggie could hardly imagine what needed to
be forgiven. “Please, you really don’t need to stay down there.”
She felt awkward about the recent rash of people bowing down to
her.

“Oh yes, Majesty . . . of course.” She wiped
the tears off of her cheeks and rose to her feet.

This was the first look Maggie really got of
her. Up close, she was younger than Maggie had first thought,
perhaps about twenty years old or so, with long, curly auburn hair
and slightly freckled skin. Her features were graceful and very
refined. She was sprite-like in her overall appearance, which
intrigued Maggie greatly.

“I’m sorry,” Maggie apologized, “I didn't
mean to upset you. It's just . . . well, you're the second person
to kneel down and call me Majesty. I don’t think that I’m who you
think I am.”

The woman stared at her blankly. Obviously,
Maggie's comment didn't compute.

“Okay,” Maggie gave it another try. “My name
is Maggie Baker.” She smiled and dipped in a small curtsy. “From
Glenhill, Iowa.”

The woman continued to stare, but nodded
affirmatively as Maggie spoke.

“I’m just, um . . . you know. I’m not
royalty, or anything. I’m just an ordinary teenager.” She tilted
her head as if to say, do you get what I’m saying to you?

“Oh, I see, Your Highness.” Clearly there
was a gap in the communication somewhere. “I can’t believe it,” she
burst out suddenly, “a Borloc . . . still alive . . . Maggiebaker
Borloc . . . Where is the house of Glenowa, or was it
Glenohiowa?”

“Uh . . . I . . .” Maggie let out an
exasperated sigh. “Maybe we should start over. Please, call me
Maggie.”

“As you wish, Maggie.”

“And you are?”

“My name is Kahlie. I am . . . I mean, I was
the Ator’s Companion Servant.”

Maggie had no idea what she was talking
about, but at least she had a name to work with.