The Man in the Box (The Box book 1) Read online

  Chapter Three

  “What?” My brain is moving too slowly, especially for Cindy who’s already hurrying around the room grabbing stuff, examining it, and tossing it onto the bed. “What? No! Cindy, Gran’s house? Are you serious? It’s a six-hour drive. Six hours. I thought you could fix this. Why do we need to go to Gran’s?”

  “You agreed. Do as I say or else you’re stuck with Al forever.”

  My mouth hangs open as I watch her dig through each of my drawers only to slam them shut and move on to the next. If she’s trying to pack my stuff for the trip, she’s doing a terrible job. Not like it matters because I’m not going. There’s no way.

  Yet, if I don’t trust her, I’ll have to deal with the guy on my own.

  Gran’s house. Mom is not going to be happy. I highly doubt she’ll let us go. Besides which, I have a rehearsal tomorrow at 7 a.m. and I cannot miss it. Not if I want to keep the lead in the show in two weeks.

  Except of course Cindy won’t care if Mom lets us leave. I can already tell, she’s not even going to ask. If I want her help, I can't even protest.

  Cindy tries to shut the top drawer on my desk and it gets stuck as it always does. Instead of shifting it carefully until it slides in, she shoves it with all her strength, forcing it in at a bit of an angle. I cringe at the resulting cracking sound and jump into her path before she destroys anything else.

  “Maybe if you tell me what you’re looking for, I can find it for you.”

  She shoves past me. “I don’t know.”

  “How can you not know what you’re looking for?”

  I follow her as she makes a full circle around of my room.

  “I don’t know specifically.”

  I place myself in front of her again and this time I don’t let her push past. She makes a sound more like a growl than a sigh and steps back.

  “I’m looking for something we can fit Al in. It’s not like we can shove him in a pocket after all.”

  “Why not?” I ask while considering his size. He’s certainly small enough.

  “He’d get crushed,” she says with another roll of her eyes. She has a knack for making me feel like an idiot.

  Her gaze must have landed on something useful, because instantly her sneer turns into smile. She reaches around me and grabs one of my lipsticks. She tosses the actual lipstick back onto the dresser after pulling off the top.

  “You don’t expect me to get inside, do you?” Al asks.

  “Think you can?” She moves closer to him so he can better see inside the cover. I still don’t completely understand how she thinks she’s helping. What I do know she’s removed the top from my favorite lipstick and it’s going to get all dried out and filthy if she doesn’t put it back soon.

  “It’d be tight. Uncomfortable for sure.” He looks the container over and his frown deepens. “I doubt I can sit in there.”

  I can hear the refusal in his voice, but obviously Cindy can’t. Or else she doesn’t care. She’s already headed across the room focused on one of the paintings on my wall.

  “We’ll let you out as often as we can, promise,” she says with only half her attention on what she’s saying.

  Cindy pulls the painting down and sets it on the floor. Before I can tell her to stop, she yanks the hanger nail out of the wall, dusting it off on her pant leg.

  Too late I realize what she’s doing. She twists the nail into the plastic lipstick lid and manages to create a hole, rendering it completely useless as an actual cover. I clench my teeth together, but stay quiet. There’s no point shouting at her now, the damage is already done. Not that shouting ever works with Cindy anyway. She always manages to be louder, which means ‘instant win’ in her mind.

  Cindy blows away the dust, checking her handiwork before rifling through my jewelry box and pulling out one of my necklaces. She opens the clasp and lets the tiny pink heart slip off the chain and clatter onto the dresser. The chain easily goes through the hole in the lid, leaving it to hang upside-down so the open end points up.

  She holds the container against the table and gives the mini-man a look clearly indicating he should get inside. Now.

  He leans further away and says, “I’d...rather not.”

  “Well, I’d rather not squish you.”

  “You two truly are sisters, aren’t you?” he says.

  He makes a face, but after a single drawn out exhale, he walks over to the lid Cindy’s holding. When he’s lifting his foot to step inside, her hand slips a barely noticeable amount on the table, and I suck in a gasp. I take a step forward to help the little guy before he falls to his death, but his balance is admirable as he steadies himself. In an instant is safely within the container.

  I don’t know what I expected Cindy to do next, but it is definitely not wrap the chain around my neck and lock it into place.

  “I’m not wearing this.” I touch a finger to the lid softly enough so I’m sure I don’t jar him too much. “You’re the one who wants to carry him around, so you can be the one who wears him.”

  “You probably want to be careful climbing out the window,” Cindy says, ignoring my protests. “If you fall, you’ll probably break a leg. If he falls, he’ll probably die. Just saying.”

  My hand instinctively wraps around the lipstick tube and I stare at Cindy with huge, frightened eyes. Of course she put him on my neck. She doesn’t want the responsibility of his life. Not surprisingly, Cindy doesn’t check to see what kind of reaction her warning gets from me. Instead, she grabs her purse from the floor where she dropped it and stretches out the window, reaching for the closest branch.

  As she grabs hold of the tree, she calls back, “Don’t forget the box. We’ll need that.”

  I stare at the window for a few seconds, then at my bedroom door. A large part of me wants Mom to suddenly burst through and stop us before this goes any further.

  There’s a soft thud outside as Cindy drops the last couple of feet to the ground. She doesn’t call back to me, but her impatience is there in the silence. One more glance at the door. This is really happening. I’m going to sneak out of the house. With Cindy. And a miniature man.

  I can still go to Mom. Get her alone and beg her to help. But Cindy is already outside waiting for me. Despite everything I know and loathe about her, she didn’t freak out when she saw the mini man. That has to mean something.

  There’s no choice, not really. I grab my purse and stuff the box inside. It fits easily since the bag is huge, though there’s enough junk in there already, I don’t know how easily I’ll be able to find it again. Then I lean out the window to find the same branch Cindy used.

  Climbing down the tree is harder than I expect. The bark is rough and rips at my hands and clothes. Tiny branches keep poking me, especially around my eyes. Plus, I’m climbing one-handed since my other is wrapped securely around the necklace with my thumb covering most of the top to keep the little guy safely inside while leaving enough room for air.

  I dangle from the lowest branch for a couple of seconds and then drop, landing easily on the balls of my feet and bending my knees to absorb the impact. I hope I made the landing light so he doesn’t get too banged up.

  “Are you okay?” I ask.

  “I—um...” He seems surprised I asked. “Yes. Still miniature, and a little bruised, but it could be worse I suppose.”

  “Good.” I attempt to think of something else to add, something reassuring like a promise everything will be okay, but I can’t find the words. Instead all I say is another, “Good.”

  I follow Cindy’s shadow as she expertly dodges around the lights from windows of ours and the neighbors’ houses. We make it to the car and close the doors as silently as we can. Cindy does a quick check of the mirrors, then in the same moment starts the car and guns it out of the driveway. I lurch in my seat and desperately fumble with my seatbelt.

  “Are you trying to kill us?”

  “Can’t give Mom time to come out and stop us by being slow. She always comes r
unning out the door the second she hears the car start. See, there she is.”

  I glance first at the mirror, and then twist around in my seat. She’s right. Mom has run out the door and is staring at the car with a look she’s never given me before. Disappointment. We turn a corner with a screech and lose I sight of the house and Mom. Before we do, I see Stewart step out of the house, and could swear he smirked at us. It must be my imagination.

  I turn back around and we drive in silence for a while. Well, as silent as a car can be with Cindy’s music blasting away. I can practically feel myself going deaf. And the car smells like cheap cologne.

  Suddenly there’s a weird sensation from my lap and I would have jumped if I weren’t strapped in. I look down in fear. It’s the box. It has to be. And it moved.

  My purse gently vibrates again and I relax. Of course it isn’t the box. It’s only my cellphone. I always keep it on vibrate so it doesn’t go off during a recital to embarrass me and annoy everyone else.

  I turn down the music and answer my phone without checking to see who it is. Before I can say more than “hello” Cindy grabs it and smashes her thumb against the ‘end’ button. Does she not know how much the phone cost?

  “Hey!”

  “Are you an idiot?” Cindy says. “We’re running away from home, and obviously Mom is calling to tell you to come back. What were you planning on saying? ‘Oh, yes, of course. I’ll be home in a minute. So sorry I left without asking. Please ground me for three months for my disobedience.’”

  “First, I do not sound like that. And second, you don’t know it was Mom.”

  “Yeah I do.” Cindy says as though it’s so obvious even a child would know.

  “How can you possibly? I didn’t have time to look at the caller display, so how could you have seen it while driving.” I stroke my phone and attempt to rub away the thumb smudge on its otherwise shiny case.

  “Oh please. Who else would it be? It’s not like you have any actual friends.”

  She nods toward my hands as though cleaning my phone is proof she’s right.

  I sit there with my mouth gaping open for a few seconds before turning away to stare out the window. I have friends. I have lots of friends. I mean, they might not call all of the time, but only because we see each other almost every day at recital. I might not have a reputation like Cindy, but I’ve even had a couple of boyfriends.

  Grade seven there was Casey. We held hands every day at break for a week. And last year Pete—or Pirouette Pete as the girls in my advanced ballet class call him—and I went on at least half a dozen dates. Kissed a bunch of times and everything. Of course now he’s going out with Sean, but not because of me. He was always gay; he just didn’t realize it until after we went out.

  But because I don’t need to spend every waking moment with my friends, Cindy has the nerve to say I don’t have any. Yeah, we’re always competing with each other for the lead in the next show or for the first place trophy in the latest competition, but we get friends.

  Friends who don’t talk much. Or hang out. Or like each other.

  “Hey Al, how old are you?” Cindy asks over the music, which thankfully she left down.

  “Nineteen.”

  “Hot. College student?”

  “Cindy!”

  I pull a face. Really? She’s going to hit on a guy the size of her thumb. That’s messed up.

  “College.” He repeats the word carefully, as though there’s some hidden meaning behind it. “I don’t think it’s the same thing here as in my world.”

  “Your... world.” Cindy mulls over the idea for a minute while I very carefully try not to. Miniature men are hard enough to deal with. Add in magic and now other worlds, I’m surprised my brain hasn’t exploded. “Of course!” She slams her palm against her forehead. “It explains the clothes. And the accent.”

  I turn back to my window and pretend the conversation between my sister and the man in my necklace isn’t happening.

  “Gran would sometimes tell stories about another world, remember Lou?”

  I do, but I don’t acknowledge the fact. I tried to block those stories from my mind a long time ago.

  “Another world,” Cindy says more to herself than either of us. “Where all the things from myths and legends are real and life is dangerous and exciting and amazing. Gran told us she was from another world, remember? I wonder if it’s the same one.”

  “Gran wasn’t exactly in her full mind,” I say. “Mom said Gran has always been a little strange. She should have been on medication.”

  “Of course you’d believe Mom over Gran,” Cindy says. “But I remember when you were a kid you used to love her stories. You’d act like an idiot, running around her house with a cardboard sword saying you were a knight on a quest to save the princess. Until Mom convinced you to be the princess instead.”

  I watch the buildings flow past, and don’t argue. It wasn’t only Mom who wanted me to be the princess. I did too. Mostly.

  “Please tell me you’re a knight,” Cindy says. “Or a pirate. I love pirates. Especially the Johnny Depp kind.”

  “I’m not sure what you mean, but I’m not a pirate.”

  “So you’re a knight?”

  He hesitates. “No.”

  “Okay, so you don’t go to school, you’re not a knight, and you’re not a pirate. What do you do?”

  He doesn’t say anything for a long time, until Cindy makes an irritated sound and honks her horn at some poor pedestrian who has the right-of-away.

  “Sorry,” he says, though he sounds more worried than sorry. “I work in the field with my father. It’s kind of embarrassing.”

  “Ooh,” Cindy smiles and gives him a sidelong glance. Or actually, she gives my necklace a sidelong glance since she can’t actually see him inside the container. “A farmer. Sexy. Bet you have awesome abs.”

  So wrong.

  “You sure you know where you’re going?” I’m pretty positive she’s headed in the right direction, but I want her to stop flirting, so a subject change is necessary. “I could set the GPS guide on my phone, you know. If you didn’t break it.”

  “I remember the way to Gran’s house. It’s only been a week since she died after all.”

  She adds something else under her breath and turns up the music. Ten minutes in and I already have a headache. This is going to be fun.