But still…I glanced back to make sure the ladder was still there in case I needed a quick getaway. I tugged the string and the single lightbulb popped on.
“Alright,” I said, looking around. “If I was a box of Grandpa’s stuff, where would I be?”
I started to my right, picking up boxes and opening them just enough to see what was inside. Most of them were filled with old clothes or toys that used to belong to Oliver or me. Other than that, all I found was some stuff that looked like it belonged to Mom and was from years ago.
After about thirty minutes, I’d found nothing except dead bugs, spider webs that kept getting caught in my hair, and one horrible encounter with a mirror that made me scream and jump about three feet in the air.
With my heart still racing from that experience, I planted my hands on my hips and tapped my toe, annoyed. Mom said she had stuff of Grandpa’s, but where was it? Surely I’d be able to find something interesting, but I didn’t have much more time before she arrived home. I was about to give up when I turned and spotted a box shoved all the way towards the back against the wall.
“What’s in that box?” I asked myself curiously as I hurried towards it.
It was a large cardboard box in near perfect condition, except for a layer of dust that had collected on top. Using a t-shirt from one of the other boxes, I wiped it clean and carefully opened the flaps.
“Jackpot.” I grinned as I eagerly pulled back the other flaps. Dragging the box in the direction of the light so that it shone inside the dark depths, I peered inside. Sitting on top was a manila envelope. I picked that up first and sat back on my heels as I opened it. “Photos?”
I dumped them out on the floor and carefully moved them around. Mom was in most of the images, along with younger versions of Oliver and me and a few pictures of our grandparents. All of a sudden, my hand froze in place, hovering over another photograph with two faces smiling back at me. The woman was Mom when she was younger, but the guy beside her, I didn’t know his face. At the same time though, I was certain that I did.
“Dad?” I breathed out the word, and with a shaky hand, picked up the picture.
They looked so happy, holding hands and smiling at whoever had taken the photo. Mom had her head rested on his shoulder, and her eyes seemed to sparkle. The photographer had captured her expression beautifully. My pulse raced. I couldn’t help but smile as I gently ran my fingers over the image.
Tears started to burn in my eyes. What happened? Why had he left her? Quickly brushing the tears away, I looked down and stared at the other photos. There was one of the same man standing on his own, and I took in every detail of the photo in my hand. I knew beyond any doubt that he was my father,
Every other photo was of him with Mom. Or photos of him and…him and Oliver.
And me.
I couldn’t bear to pick up the photo of the man holding a tiny bundle wrapped tightly in a pink blanket. Me. He was holding me. And the pride on his face instantly filled me with warmth. He loved us. In every picture, I saw his love, felt it pouring out of the photos and across time.
The last one I found was of the four of us together. I knew I looked like Mom, but Oliver was the spitting image of our dad. They had the same brown hair and blue eyes and the same complexion. I stared at the image, excited to find a sign that my dad existed. Then intense anger took hold. Throwing the pictures down, I jumped to my feet and paced around the attic, glaring down at the photos as I fought back the tears.
“Why did you leave us?” I snapped. “Why? You’re so happy in those pictures and you just…you just left us!”
My chest heaved from ranting, but as quick as the anger came over me, it began to fade away, until I was at a loss for what I should feel. Mom said he went out one day and never came home. What if something happened to him and they just never found out what it was? Maybe he wasn’t still out there. Maybe…maybe he was…
But no, I wasn’t going to think about that. He was alive, and I wouldn’t let myself think the worst.
I went up there expecting to find things that had belonged to Grandpa and instead, found pictures of a man, a man who was my father, a man who I might never even meet. I couldn’t stay there forever, though and I definitely couldn’t leave the pictures lying around in case Mom made a trip up here. I gathered them up and stuffed them back in the envelope. I couldn’t decide if I was going to pack them back into the box where I’d found them, or take them with me. Setting them aside for the moment, I dug around inside the box, hoping to find more about my dad.
I pulled out a few bulky sweaters that looked like a man’s…a pair of old boots, pocket knives, and a few other random items. I came across awards of Grandpa’s in frames, along with notebooks with his name on the front and filled with his old scribbles. At least, if nothing else, I had something of his to use for my presentation. Down at the very bottom of the box, my fingers brushed across something hard and metallic feeling. Frowning, I reached in and had to use both hands to pull it out.
“What are you?” I asked myself, looking for a way to open the box.
A thin, metal handle rested on top, but when I tugged it, the lid remained firmly closed. I spun the box around and puffed my cheeks out in aggravation when I spotted a keyhole on the front.
“Locked. Typical!”
I dug around in the box, searching for a key, but after emptying it and turning it upside down just to be sure, there was no key to be found.
“That’s not helpful at all.” I drummed my fingers on the top of the metal box wondering how I could get it open.
All the tools were in the basement. Maybe a screwdriver would work? It was the best I could come up with, and just in time. A car door slammed outside, and I jumped. Mom was back! I threw everything back into the box, but when it came to the envelope with pictures, I hesitated. Not willing to leave all the photos behind, I pushed through them and found the image of the four of us, shoved it in my back pocket, picked up the box, and hurried down the ladder of the attic. I got the ladder folded up at the same time the door opened downstairs.
I heard Mom talking to herself and the crinkling of paper bags. Any second now, she was going to call upstairs for us to help, but I had to get this box to the basement first. I peeked around the hall and down the stairs, but her steps trailed away and back outside.
Holding the metal box tightly in my arms, I raced downstairs, slipping and sliding on the hardwood floor as I hurried onwards to the basement. I just made it, closing the door behind me when Mom stomped back inside. I rushed to the workbench and set the metal box down as I heard Mom’s voice calling out for Oliver and me to come and help her. After throwing an old sweater over the box so it would be out of sight, I tried to calm my breathing as well as my racing heart and trudged back upstairs to help.
“Oh, there you are,” Mom said, appearing in the basement doorway and making me jump.
“Gah! Oh, my gosh, Mom!”
She laughed. “Sorry. Find anything useful for your project down there?”
Placing my hand behind my back so she couldn’t see my crossed fingers I nodded. “Yeah, I found a ton of stuff to use. I think my presentation is going to be great.”
“Good, I was hoping I hadn’t lost the few things I’d managed to save.” She pushed the bags across the counter and sighed. “Hey, I’m sorry about earlier. I know I lost my temper a bit.”
“No, I get it, it’s fine,” I assured her and closed the basement door behind me. “Groceries?”
She smiled. “Yep! And go and get your brother, would you? I think he’s got his headphones on and can’t hear me calling.”
I knew he definitely couldn’t hear anything since I’d screamed a few times while I was up in the attic and yelled even more than that. Hoping that Mom wouldn’t somehow magically know I’d been searching in the attic and found the photos she’d kept hidden, I darted upstairs to grab Oliver.
“Hey!” I yelled when I opened his door.
He was hunched ove
r his desk with his headphones on, head bobbing to the rock music blasting out of them. I grabbed his arm when he didn’t respond, and he leaped off his chair with a yell. “Seriously, Holly?”
I laughed at his wide-eyed gaze. “Sorry. Mom’s back from the store. She needs help with the groceries.”
“I’ll be down in a second.”
“Oliver? Could you uh, help me with something later tonight?”
His brow crinkled as he set his headphones aside. “What is it?”
“Something I found in the attic.”
“The attic?” He repeated confused. “Why were you in the attic? We’re not supposed to be up there. Does Mom know?”
“No, and she’s not going to know.”
“Unless I tell her.”
“Well if you tell her, you’re going to get yourself into trouble, too,” I pointed out. “I did it while you were here with me alone so you should’ve known I was up there.”
He crossed his arms and sighed. “Really? You want to play that game?”
“I just need your help opening this metal box I found. It’s locked, and I couldn’t find a key.”
“No way, if you found a box up there that’s locked, then it’s meant to be locked and left alone,” he moved past me towards the door.
Stepping around him to block his path, I pulled the photo from my back pocket and held it out for him to see. He stared agape at the image as he processed what he was looking at. “Where did you get this?”
I let him take it. “In the attic. It was in the same box I found the metal container in.”
“That’s…that’s Dad,” he whispered. “Isn’t it?”
“I think so. There’s a ton of pictures up there with all of us, and he’s in most of them,” I explained. “There are some clothes and other things that I think were his, but I can’t get the box open. There’s no key.”
He ran his hand through his hair and grinned. “I had no idea I looked so much like him.”
I smiled and stared at the photo. “Yeah, you do. Bet you act just like him, too.”
“This metal box,” he said and reluctantly handed the picture back to me, “you think it’s got more of Dad’s stuff in it?”
“You two coming or what?” Mom yelled up the stairs.
“On our way!” I called back and shrugged at Oliver. “Maybe. Help me later? It’s already on your workbench down there.”
“And Mom, what are we going to tell her?”
“Are you crazy!” I hissed. “She doesn’t want us to know anything about our father! We keep this between us, deal? At least for now.” He didn’t appear convinced. “Oliver, please, you know how much this stresses Mom out. Let’s keep it between us. Please? I won’t ask you for anything for six months!”
He tapped his chin, and the mischievous grin that spread across his face had me rolling my eyes. “What else will you do for me?”
“Really?” I sighed.
“Yeah, really. How about you have to do all my inside chores for three months.” He stared back at me, and I could see he was serious.
“Two,” I argued. “And I won’t tell Mom about you almost burning down the house two weeks ago with your experiments in the basement.” I held out my hand knowing I’d won the argument. He took my hand and shook it, hard.
“Ouch!” I moaned.
He winked. “We’ll head down after dinner and see about this box of yours.”
Did we have to wait until after dinner? My feet itched to take him down there straight away, but Mom couldn’t know what we were up to. I’d just have to keep myself busy with something else until we could sneak down there later. All the while though, I wondered what secrets the box had hidden inside.
Dinner was spent with Oliver and me exchanging glances across the table and anxiously waiting for it to be over. Oliver finished eating first and asked if he could be excused to work on something downstairs. I helped Mom clean up, and once she was settled in the living room watching TV, I backed towards the basement.
“I have to go do some more work on my project,” I told her.
“You sure you have enough information on your grandpa? I could always tell you a ton of stories about him and his crazy experimenting from when I was a kid.” She laughed. “I swear sometimes Oliver acts just like him.”
“I think I have enough. My project will be just fine.” I turned and tried not to sprint too excitedly down the stairs.
Oliver was already bent over the box with a screwdriver in his hand, but I could tell he was frustrated. He chewed on his bottom lip so hard I was surprised it wasn’t bleeding.
“You can’t get it open?”
He set the screwdriver down as he shook his head, wiping sweat from his forehead. “No luck yet. I’m not sure I can pick the lock.”
“You think we could smash it open?”
“And if there’s something breakable inside, we’ll wreck it,” he pointed out.
I cringed. “You’re right. Do you have anything else to get it open with?” I tugged on the handle again and took the screwdriver from him to give it a try myself, but after a few minutes of struggling, I tossed the tool aside with a grunt of annoyance.
Oliver took it back to stare at the lock. “I have some better tools upstairs. I might be able to break the hinges and open it that way, but it’s going to take time.”
“Guess I won’t have anything cool to show for my project,” I mumbled. “So much for showing up stupid Jade Nielson.”
“That girl? She still giving you trouble?” he asked.
“Just normal trouble. She was telling everyone all week how cool her great something grandpa was in the Civil War. And me, I don’t even know who my dad is,” I said, pulling out the photograph again and plopping onto a stool.
Oliver sat beside me and looked at the photo. “Maybe you don’t know your dad, but you do have a grandpa who did some pretty neat things with science,” Oliver said. “He was a pioneer of his time, a real genius.”
“Yeah I know; I guess I just hoped this would be the time we’d finally get some answers about our father. Now I’m going to have to give my presentation and announce to the entire class that I don’t know who my dad is.”
Oliver gave me a sympathetic look. We had our typical sibling moments when we didn’t get along, but I knew my brother was always there for me. And when it came to our dad, we both wanted to solve that mystery.
“No, but look what you found today. Those pictures? It’s more than we’ve ever had before. Maybe those photos and the other stuff in the attic will give us some answers. And whatever’s in this,” he said, resting his hand on the metal box, “it won’t be a mystery forever.”
“I hope not.”
“Don’t let that girl, Jade get to you,” he said, nudging my arm. “She’s not very smart.”
“I know that,” I sighed. “But everyone still likes her. She’s the most popular girl in the grade.”
“You think everyone likes her, but they just put on an act.”
I blinked. “How would you know? You’re the most socially awkward person I’ve ever met.”
He laughed loudly as he hopped off his stool and safely tucked the box away. “I might be that, but I pay attention. Now go on, leave me alone in my dungeon of solitude,” he teased. “Don’t you have homework to do on our family?”
I grudgingly slid off the stool and held out the picture to him. “You want to keep this?”
He looked at it long and hard but handed it back to me. “No, you found it. You hold onto it.”
Carefully, I tucked it away again and picked up my papers to head back to my room. I thought about what Oliver had said about Jade. And I spent the rest of the night convincing myself my project would be just as great as hers, even without the artifacts and the medal of honor story that she was planning to present.
But by Sunday night, I’d forgotten all about what Oliver had said to me and was back to feeling sorry for myself.
Chapter 3
For
the first three classes of the day, I worried about history and my oral presentation. Kate tried to cheer me up, but nothing worked. I’d caught a glimpse of her project earlier that morning, and seeing both sides of her family tree filled out only reminded me that only half my tree was finished. I had no information about my dad, not even his name. I considered digging out a picture of his face from the box in the attic, at least, but it felt weird to have that on there and not his name. Jade would accuse me of cutting it out of a magazine or something, and I wasn’t going to give her any more reason to make fun of me.
I tried to think of any excuse not to give my presentation, thinking of the smirk on Jade’s face when she saw the blank space for my father. She’d laugh, I knew she’d laugh. Perhaps I could fake being sick. Mrs. Clarke wasn’t that bright when it came to students finding ways to get out of her class.
There was one kid who was maybe there one day a week. Every other day, he found an excuse to leave the room or simply spent the time in the bathroom. Mrs. Clarke didn’t pay attention to the students she didn’t like. She wasn’t that great a teacher. Faking sick, yeah, I could get away with that.
“Holly? We’re going to be late,” Kate said, and I blinked, realizing I’d been staring intently at my locker. “It’ll be fine, you’ll see,” she nudged me reassuringly.
“Or I could be sick,” I said and coughed harshly until my eyes watered. Kate stared at me with a bland look. I sighed. “Yeah, yeah alright, let’s go.”
We made it to history class right as the bell rang, and hurried to take our seats. I pulled out the chart and the report that I’d spent the weekend working on. I also had the framed picture of my grandpa posing proudly for the camera.
As well, I had the award he’d received for his amazing work in the field of physics.
Over the weekend, when my mom was out of the house, I’d managed to sneak back up to the attic and grab Grandpa’s things from the box hidden against the wall. My mom assumed I’d found them in the basement. I guessed she’d packed them away so long ago that she had no idea where she’d stored them. But at least I didn’t have to admit I’d been in the attic and discovered the box she had obviously wanted to keep hidden.
Time Traveler - Books 1, 2, 3 & 4: Books for Girls aged 9-12 Page 2
