“Snooping around school in the middle of the dark?” his teen voice cracked.
“Oh, it’s only Divad,” Inot breathed, holding her heart. With the other hand she slugged her brother’s arm. “You scared us half to Mars!”
“What did you do, follow us?” Lyrehc asked.
“Yes, I heard a rustling and peered out my window. Saw Lyrehc standing on the walkway. Odd time of morning, unless you have a paper route. Oh that’s right, they phased those out fifty years ago. And you, dweeb sister, made a racket getting dressed, I suppose. Then I heard a bunch of whispering in the kitchen. So what’s going on? I know you’re not really here to look at an inaccessible time capsule safely locked in a building.”
“For your information, we are meeting a study group,” Inot fibbed.
“Oh really. You?” he laughed, holding his side. “From outside a second-story window? Is it a secret society or something?”
“As a matter of fact, it is,” Lyr vouched. “Surely you’ve heard of the Second Storiers. Being a senior and all.”
“You’re full of spare parts,” Divad scoffed.
“It’s true,” Inot said. “The founder is Janet Marsh. It’s like a sorority. A few days before becoming freshman, if you’re chosen, you meet outside just as the sun hits the flagpole.”
“Bull,” Divad called. “Sororities have been disbanded.”
“Hence the word secret,” Lyr added.
Divad shook his head. “They’re for colleges, not high schools. Tell me what gives or I call the folks.”
“Fine,” Inot sighed. “We’re solving a mystery.”
“Not again. Didn’t the last one put you in enough hot water? Literally,” he chuckled.
“This is different. This is huge!” Lyr exclaimed. “Look.” She pulled out the diary.
“A chick’s book? So what.”
“It was in the time capsule— from a whole century ago!” Lyr clarified.
“Is the mystery how it got into the tomb?” Divad teased.
“Partly. We think she’s trying to tell us something,” Inot shot back.
“Oooh, a message from beyond and you lurking before sun-up. Are you having a séance?”
“If you must know, she lost a diamond brooch and we’re trying to find it,” Lyr blurted.
Inot elbowed her to shush.
“Oh, I get it now. A treasure hunt! Did she leave a map on where to find it?” Divad asked Lyrehc, generally curious.
“No, so far, she doesn’t know either.”
Divad howled with laughter.
“What’s so funny?” Inot demanded.
Lyr frowned. They hated when he didn’t take them seriously.
“Did you even finish reading the diary?” he asked, hands on hips.
The girls looked at each other.
“Well, no,” Inot answered.
“Then how do you know the pin is still lost?”
Inot groaned and Lyr let out a sigh.
Divad muttered, “Girls,” and ruffled Lyr’s hair before jaunting down the street to a caffeine hub.
“How could I have been so dumb?” Lyr sulked.
“You just got excited is all,” Inot reassured.
They trudged up the front steps and finding the lights on, their hearts leapt. They tried the door and it opened.
“The janitors must be in,” Inot whispered.
“Good, let’s go in anyway. Apparently we have some reading to do.”
“Okay, let’s hide in the restroom near the planetorium.”
Levitating to avoid footsteps, they were relieved to find the lavatory unlocked too.
“I can’t help wondering which sink she used,” Inot said, as they flung their bags on one.
“Hmm, most people go to the middle.” She approached the porcelain basin.
“I think a piece of jewelry shaped like an owl would be too clunky to even fall down the drain,” Inot offered. But she plunked a “spelunk-a-light” on her forehead and looked anyway.
“Yeah, something seems off about that.” Lyr wiggled two fingers into the cavity and they barely fit. “The stick might slip by. Did she ever say if it’s an owl body or just the head?” She opened the book to scan ahead.
“Sounds a bit gaudy. But either way, the diamond encrusted eyes would stop the fall.”
“Probably, unless…” Lyr surveyed the u-shaped plumbing. “What if it’s been sitting in the bend all this time?”
“You think it’s the same pipes? They probably upgraded the metal.”
“I don’t know; schools are always on tight budgets. And the olden days had way better quality than the get-it-done-quick-for-less mentality now.”
“True. Some buildings from the eighteen hundreds are still standing in the historical district.”
Lyrehc put the book down. “Let’s take it apart and see.”
“What? Are you crazy? We’ll get busted. I thought you were going to read ahead to find the answer.”
“We’re already here and the curiosity is too great. And, if we get caught, we can say we lost something.”
Inot shrugged and got to work under the sink. “These really might be the originals. They’re too stubborn to budge.”
“Can you cut it off? Wait, I just thought of something. The water is still on. If you take off the pipe, we’ll flood the place.”
Inot ducked out from beneath the fixtures. “We should put a light on. Maybe I can see if there’s a turn off.”
Lyr waved her hand over the sensor and the room was flooded with florescent luminance, something else the education department decided to leave “old-school.”
“Nope, no knob or wireless indicators. It must be universal coming from the boys’ room. Since we hardly have water anyway, what will it hurt?” Inot scooted under and was about to saw the metal when Lyrehc had second thoughts.
“Stop! We’ll ruin the pipe and I’m betting Mr. Naelc won’t be too thrilled with us.”
Inot crawled out and stood, dusting off her pants. “Now what?” She hopped up on the basin, which already held the added weight of her bag. Creak…Bang! The porcelain cracked and the sink sank.
Lyr shrieked as the far left mirror lengthened and a secret passage revealed itself.
Exchanging looks, the girls paused in trepidation, wanting to explore but not sure what they’d find.
“No way the pin is in there,” Inot trembled.
“Maybe Janet mentions this.” Lyrehc rummaged for the diary in her backpack and flipped pages like a card dealer.
“We might as well go in,” Inot decided. “Especially before the janitor find this mess.”
They gathered their belongings and Lyr took her friend’s hand. “Here goes nothing,” she muttered as they disappeared inside the darkness.
As soon as they passed the threshold, the bathroom sealed itself.
“How is this real?” Lyrehc fretted. “And how will we get back?”
“I don’t know, but let’s forge ahead and worry about that later.” Inot rewrapped her cave light around her head as they made their way through what looked like a storage closet.
“We should’ve looked in the broken sink while we had the chance! Was there any jewelry on the floor?” Lyr pulled a book light from her bag. It was a bendable wand and easy to navigate. Perfect for reading under the covers after bedtime and instances like now, lost in the unknown.
Brushing cobwebs aside, the trail exposed paneled wood and the odd odor of sweat and sneakers.
“The old locker rooms must be near,” Inot guessed.
They came upon a double doorway. Lyr nodded. They pushed the swinging entrance and found themselves inside a cafeteria. Tables were pushed to the sides and confetti littered the floor. A banner hung topsy-turvy, slouching an announcement: Class of 1979 Junior Prom.
“This is eerie,” Lyr shivered. “It’s frozen in time.”
“Yeah, like something out of Fright Fest. I expect to see the grim reaper playing air scythe any minute.”
; “I think I prefer the dance in full swing instead.”
As they scanned the stagnant room, they noticed refreshments near the punch bowl and went to investigate.
“Strange. Why isn’t there mold or bugs all over this?” Lyrehc asked. “And don’t eat anything!”
Inot reeled in her hungry hand. “What is that? Do you hear a scratching sound?”
The girls strained their hearing. Something crispy was skipping in place.
“It’s a crackle, like those old movies.” Lyr observed.
Chills ran down Inot’s arms as she pointed to a record player. “Still spinning.”
“Innie, your scar!”
Examining Inot’s left hand, they noticed it was completely healed. The girls hugged each other in fright.
“I guess because you weren’t born yet, the accident hadn’t happened,” Lyr deducted.
“Strange,” Inot whispered, waggling her fingers.
“It’s like the party was in full tilt and then everyone vanished. I wonder why?” Lyr asked.
“Something scared them off. Zombies or you don’t suppose Rose—k-killed them, do you?” Inot gulped.
“No, because then we’d be looking at a dancing card full of corpses.”
Clinging together, they crept around the scene.
“Here’s a box of ticket stubs. Look, only two envelopes not claimed. Toni Brigham and Cheryl Moss. I wonder what happened to them.”
Inot took an envelope and made a slashing gesture across her throat. “Maybe Ms. Winston made off with their heads?”
“Stop convicting her of murder,” Lyr insisted with a nervous laugh. “Nothing in the diary indicated she was capable. Rose sounded more like a boy-stealing kind of gal, not a life stealer.”
“Okay,” Inot agreed, though she wasn’t so sure.
The girls strolled around and didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. They ventured out into the hall.
“Well, I don’t understand anything about this place. It just looks like an abandoned dance. Is it a clue or just a hidden realm?” Inot asked in exasperation.
Lyr shrugged, equally confused. “Maybe we can get back to our time period through the bathroom.”
They entered the nearest girl’s room.
“Hey! This could be the precise place Janet freshened her face. We might have better luck here,” Inot said.
For a second, Lyrehc felt a mix of honor and awe. Although they never met the writer of the teen angst pages, she felt a closeness. Snapping out of it, she returned to the present— or past—or whatever the sole purpose was for waking up so early.
“I’ll aim this wand to snake more light inside. Tell me what you see,” Lyr said.
Inot was still clutching the envelope so she held it between her lips as she prepared to peer down the drain.
Lyrehc caught sight of the paper glowing in the reflection and her eyes bugged out.
“What is it, a ghost?” Inot panicked. “You’re scaring me.”
“My name! Look in the mirror.”
“With your bone chilling tone and words, I don’t think I want to.” Nonetheless, Inot straightened and braced herself. Upon seeing letters spell out lyrehC ssoM, she did a double take and snatched the envelope from her mouth. “Bizzaro!”
“The other one, Toni Brigham, must be you!”
Heart pounding, Inot mentally spelled her name backward and dropped her tools. “What does this mean? We’re really from 1978?”
“Or we are ghosts, reincarnated in 2078! Does everyone’s name run opposite in the future?”
Prickles spiked skin cells as the girls pondered the possibility.
Finally, Inot broke the silence, practical as ever. “Oh, come on. Think about it. There’s about a billion people left in the world. Surely there are duplicate names. That’s all this is. Now let’s focus on why we’re here.”
Lyr shook her head to clear it and sighed relief. “Whew, you’re right! For a minute I almost forgot about the jewelry.”
Following the light path Lyrehc provided, Inot used a hooked wire from her exploration set, sticking it down the hole.
“Almost like unlocking the diary,” Lyr chuckled. “Only a much bigger abyss.”
And just like the key, Inot came up empty. “Clean as a whistle. Should we check them all?”
“We better, just for good measure.”
After the five sinks were declared unobstructed, the girls were baffled even more.
“Maybe it’s not about the pin,” Inot decided.
“Then what, Divad’s right?” Lyrehc threw her hands up in defeat.
“Not necessarily. I’m sure there’s a logical reason why we found the diary. Maybe it’s just a mistake. Or a cruel trick, by Rose, no doubt.”
“True, I wouldn’t put it past her, but the book led us here to this dimension, so it must mean something.”
“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but let’s go back to the deserted dance. Maybe there’s another clue there,” Inot suggested.
“Yes, our tickets—or two people with our exact same names. Come on, what are the odds that another set of us was here a hundred years ago?” Lyrehc’s goosebumps were back.
“Yes, very peculiar. It’s got to be you and me. Let’s get mine and then we might figure out what’s going on.”
As the girls exited the bathroom, they made their way once again to the lunchroom. Silent as ever, nothing in the caf had changed. Inot tried to hover over to the admission box but her boots were grounded.
“No scar, no future technology,” Lyr mumbled.
Scrambling over, Inot snatched her envelope before something creepy snatched her. Suddenly the deep plucking of “Boogie Oogie Oogie’s” bass solo brought the place to life. The girls watched in awe, shielding their eyes from the blinding glints of a disco ball while Taste of Honey’s song spun.
“Constellations! I guess we just needed to claim our voucher,” Inot stated. “Do you think they can see us?”
“This is so surreal. Good question; let’s test it.”
The girls walked around and patted two shoulders. They braced themselves for explanations, but the couple did not acknowledge them. Instead the pair huddled closer, suddenly chilled.
“Well that’s a relief. I don’t feel up to mingling.” Inot admitted.
“Yeah, I don’t want to spook anyone either.” Lyr squinted, looking around. “So one of these couples must be Janet and Grayson! How exciting is this? We can meet her and witness the whole disappearance act.”
“I can’t wait to catch the weasel in the trap,” Inot triumphed, with a little too much gusto. When Lyr gave her a look, she added, “I mean, it will be a relief to put this thing to rest and get back to normal.”
“Okay… now, we have her dress description. Soft lavender gauze with lace tiers,” Lyr recited. “If they would stop dancing so fast, my eyes could adjust.”
“Yeah, wisping around faint as ghosts doesn’t help either. All I see are a lot of mute colors.”
“Pastels and earth tones must have been the trend that year,” Lyrehc agreed, studying the motion. “What about the diamonds and gold reacting to the disco ball? Maybe that will lead us to Janet.”
Inot kept an eye out for refraction but the glass panels on the party globe supplied plenty of its own. “Hard to tell.”
“Let’s split up. Try to get close.”
An energetic number began as the girls weaved in and out of the fast jiving crowd making letters with their arms in the forms of “Y.M.C.A” by the Village People. Thankfully the faint images were like holograms and the girls could scoot right through without bumping into anyone or getting knocked out.
They emerged unscathed but exhausted.
“I didn’t see any fancy stick pin but I think I got whiplash,” Inot said, rubbing her neck.
“That was crazy,” Lyr laughed. “I don’t know why we kept ducking when we could just breeze through them. I didn’t see a dress like Janet’s either.”
“Maybe she�
�s in the bathroom this very minute.”
“Oh, hurry or we’ll miss it.” Hand in hand, the girls rushed toward the restroom.
They burst in like drug-busting cops but the joint was empty.
“Give it a few,” Inot whispered, hearing toilets flush.
Two girls saddled up to the sink, neither wearing jewelry. After handwashing, one brushed her honey-blonde bob, curling the edges toward her face. The other applied lip gloss.
Lyr clutched Inot’s arm, noticing the lavender dress. They walked closer to investigate, getting right up in her grill. If the scene had been real, they would’ve been caught red-handed, smeared in strawberry Lip Smacker.
“Did you see the way Rose was giving you the hairy eyeball?” mushroom cap asked.
“Yeah, what else is new?” Janet asked. “She has Tommy, so I don’t see why she’s being evil.”
“It’s not Tom Tom she wants; it’s money.”
“But Marcie, I already gave her the owl,” Janet said, fluffing out her brunette wedge. “That was the plan.”
Her friend’s green eyes glared. “I can’t believe you’re letting her blackmail you.”
“I’m not letting her do anything. I didn’t want it. I don’t want anything from Daddy’s rotten money.”
“If you no longer wanted it, you could’ve at least given it to me, your best friend. You loved the gift so much. What changed your mind?”
“I found out what his company is really doing. It’s despicable!”
“What are you going to do, move out?”
With that, the 1978 girls left.
Inot and Lyr stared at each other.
“She faked the thievery! I can’t believe it.” Lyr kicked a stall.
“Wow, she sure had us fooled. I feel like an idiot!”
“Me too. I pride myself on knowledge and like a dummy, I jump to conclusions instead of collecting the facts. Your brother was right.”
“Well, don’t tell him that. We’ll never hear the end of it. Something must have been really bad for her to lie about it. We still have plenty of time to read the pages but right now we have the chance to follow her around. I wonder what her father’s company does.”
Lyr cheered up. “Yeah! She must have had a good reason. I doubt she’ll talk about it here, but let’s go see what transpires next.” Lyrehc led the way, half-wondering if the party would still exist when they got there.
The Epochracy Files Page 10
