Three weeks had passed since the incident at Took Manor House. A mere twenty-one days after nearly being murdered, and I found myself... bored. Bored out of my stark raving mind. That crazy little part of my soul, which was in fact the majority of my soul, wondered if I secretly liked being in danger.
The rest of me knew that was nonsense. I liked normality more than anything else in the world. I just had this awful, unstoppable habit, of putting myself in dangerous situations, no matter where I might be.
In a city full of houses, I would always find the one that was haunted. In forests filled to the brim with pettable deer and hopping bunnies, I would always be the one to find the Big Foot. And in a world full of generally kind and honest souls, who only wanted to fit in, it would always always be me who found the serial killer in the creepy alleyway. I was born for it.
And thus I found myself pleasantly surprised, when something not only normal happened to me, but unexpectedly pleasant.
I was zoning out in my Mythology Class, too tired and bored with life to be paying attention, on the very verge of nodding off into a daydream about... well, about a guy I wasn't sure if I liked or not.
When I heard that glorious, sacred rustling sound, that any true-blooded american knows by heart. The sound of a Ruffles Sour Cream and Onion Chip Bag being withdrawn from a backpack, the stretch and then pop as it was pulled open, and the satisfied, liquid ruffle of two questing fingers as they grasped the first chip. That's why they were called Ruffles, afterall.
My sleepy head lifted, my petite nostrils flared a little, and I scented prey.
The poor, unsuspecting student seated in front of me, a freckled young lad named Jethro, suddenly found himself with a companionable arm thrown around his shoulder, and my face about two inches from his.
"So..." I said in my best 'friendly' voice, which I'd always been told made me sound like a psychopath. "That's a nice bag of chips you've got there. A large, very shareable bag..."
He leaned his head back as far as he could, trying to get as far away from me as possible while still remaining in his seat.
"Neems," my teacher said sternly, from where she lounged, feet up on her desk and looking about as bored as I had been. "Don't cause a scene. I've got chips in my desk."
"Are they Ruffles?" I asked, not moving.
"They're Pringles, idiot. Now get over here, I have something I want to talk to you about."
Sighing, leaving Jethro to his chips, I made my way slowly over to Melany's desk and took a seat on the corner of it.
She eyed me for a moment, in that special, disconcerting way that only Melany Took could manage.
"I never thanked you for going to my uncle's mansion for me."
I shrugged.
"It didn't really work out how anyone intended, Melany. I nearly got murdered you know."
Now it was her turn to shrug.
"Not my fault. But I wanted to tell you, Neems, that the Last Will and Testament of Silas Took has finally gone through."
I raised an eyebrow.
"He turned into a creepy plant monster."
"And yet he still died, and just like I sent you out there to do, his money and estate had to go to someone. And that someone was me, in point of fact."
I eyed her curiously, trying to figure out what she was getting at. She spoke in her usual clipped and emotionless tone, making it difficult to tell if she was angry, happy, or annoyed. Though Melany Took was rarely happy.
"You know, I only burned the mansion down because I had to," I said, trying to keep a defensive note out of my voice and failing. "It was either the mansion or me."
Melany waved one irritated hand.
"I don't care about the damn mansion, Neems. If you hadn't burnt it to the ground I would have just sold it. And I can sell the land anyways."
"So... you're not mad?"
"No, you idiot. What I'm trying to tell you is that I've inherited all of his money as well as his land. And as thanks, I bought you this."
With her free hand she withdrew from one pocket a slip of paper. Hesitating only a little, I took it. It was a plane ticket.
I raised an eyebrow. Melany actually smiled, a thing I'd only seen her do once or twice since we'd become friends.
"You told me last semester that you've never had a vacation without your parents."
I felt the first stirring of severe misgivings. What Melany said was true. I'd only traveled out of San Diego a few times, always with my parents, and the few trips we had taken had been disastrous. Twice to DisneyWorld in Florida, where on the first trip I'd accused Donald Duck of being a murderer, and on the second trip I'd gotten lost in the sewers beneath the park somehow and gotten into a tustle with a crazed homeless man who was also an escaped convict.
Trips after that had been a little more hesitant, to safer and smaller locales, but in each and every one of them, our family vacations had ended with the police being called. Whether to arrest whatever villain I had encountered, or to arrest me after causing a scene, it was always the same.
My parents had never dared to let me take a trip on my own. And yet now, here, was one of my only friends, my Mythology Teacher Miss Melany Took, offering me a plane ticket.
And what was more, I noticed she had handed me more than just a plane ticket. There were other papers in the sheaf that she'd given me, from hotel stubs to some kind of resort brochure. I turned my strangely-colored eyes up towards hers.
"All expense paid vacation, Neems. And I've given you some, ahem, 'traveling money'." and she passed over a thin little wallet made of alligator skin.
I didn't dare open it, but even so I could see a thick wad of cash on the inside. More than one of the bills had the cheerful visage of dear Ben Franklin peering out at me, a grin on his face.
"Melany..." I said breathlessly, unsure how to continue.
She shook her head, her smile actually quite beautiful now and rather unlike her.
"Neems, I got quite a lot of money from dear uncle Silas. This is my way of saying thank you," her face darkened a little, to something more like it's regular scowl. "Now take it, you idiot, and don't you dare think about giving it back. Or I'll flunk you."
Silently, I stuffed it all in my pocket and went back to my seat in a daze. It never even crossed my mind that no one had given me any chips. I was too dazed for chips at this juncture.
The rest of the class passed like a dream. They usually did. Melany had long since reached an arrangement with her students that as long as they didn't bother her, she wouldn't bother them and would give them all high grades.
I only really came to once I got on the bus headed back home. Slowly, I pulled the plane ticket out of my pocket, thinking it would all turn out to have been a hallucination, and that I'd find myself holding a random receipt or a shopping list or something.
But it was still the ticket. Still the brochure, for some kind of resort. Still papers for limousine rides and some kind of golf thing. I held the whole bundle out to the guy seated next to me, my eyes wide.
"Do you see this?" I asked.
He gave me a curious look.
"Yes?"
I looked down to the documents, then up into his eyes.
"Does this look like a vacation to you?"
He glanced once more at my random paperwork and nodded. Then, as quickly as possible, got to his feet and moved down to another seat. I didn't mind much for once.
No. My mind was taken up by more pressing matters, matters almost too horrible to contemplate. Telling my parents. I shuddered at the thought.
All too soon, not even aware of having gotten off the bus, I stood before the front door of my house. It was then I began to shake, nerves almost overwhelming me as I thought about telling my loving, over-protective parents, who were more used to me putting myself in life threatening situations than they should have been, that I was planning a vacation. Or that one had been planned for me...
I knocked, stood on the doorstep for a full thirty seconds, then remembered that I in fact lived here and possessed a key. Putting it into the lock with shaking hands, hoping my parents never heard my knock and I could sneak upstairs to my room, but then hoping maybe they did and I could just get it over with, I stood in indecision for far too long, maybe minutes.
It was the cold of the night that finally snapped me back to some degree of sanity, and I realized I was standing on my own doorstep, probably looking like some kind of creeper.
Turning the key, panicking for half a second before I realized the door was, in fact, unlocked, I opened it, crossed the threshold, and was halfway towards the stairs leading up to my room, tip-toeing like a cartoon character, when my Dad called out to me.
"Nil!" he said cheerfully, and I swiveled around on my foot, the other still half in the air. His slightly bushy eyebrows lowered just a little.
"Did you get in trouble at school?"
I shook my head frantically, one foot still in the air, body half-bent in a cartoonish pose of sneaking.
"It's not the police, is it?"
I shook my head harder, still completely frozen. His expression grew ever more worried yet.
"Amelia!" he shouted, and in a flash my mom was by his side, both of them eyeing me in alarm.
I tried to back up, realized too late that I was, in fact, still standing on only one leg, and toppled over backwards into a crouch.
"Jerry, she's on drugs!" my mom screamed. Things only went downhill from there.
"No, I was just sneaking!" I replied frantically from where I lay on the floor.
Dad's eyes darkened.
"Sneaking! Sneaking from what, Nil!?"
"Um, um, from you guys. Cause I didn't want to wake you. Not that I'm trying to hide anything. Well, not hide as such, just, you know, not exactly tell you..."
Both parents hard me cornered now, and I still lay on the floor, as unable to get to my feet as a tipped over beetle, little beetle legs waving helplessly in the air.
Silently, realizing the jig was up, I reached into my pocket, pulled out the sheaf of vacation papers and brochures, and held them up to my dad.
He took them just as silently, handed half to Mom, and I endured an agonizing thirty seconds waiting for them to explode.
"All expense paid," Dad muttered under his breath.
"Jacuzzi," Mom said quietly.
"Illinois?" Dad voiced in not quite a question.
After a while, they both looked at me. I realized I was still on the ground, so hauled myself upwards, hoping my case would look better if I was standing and not acting weird for once.
"Um, you know my friend, Melany?"
Dad's eyes looked blank. Mom's expression darkened and she whispered something in his ear. Dad's frown soon matched her own.
"Your teacher? The one with the dark hair?"
I took a deep breath, steadying my nerves.
"Um, yes. Well, you remember when I said I was helping her, um, with her inheritance? From her uncle?"
Dad shook his head, his frown deepening.
"Um, well, I guess I forgot to tell you. And remember how I was kind of... scratched and banged up a while back, and said I fell off my bike?"
Mom's expression darkened.
"Um, um, um, well, I sort of lied about that..."
And the whole story came out in a rush, I think my mind was so overwhelmed I kind of blanked out a little, but the next I heard myself I was horrified by the nonsense coming out of my mouth.
"-and her was all slithery, and then there was Sabin, who was like, a traitor, and the rapper guy, but he wasn't that scary honestly, and the whole house was on fire- well, I guess that happened later, at first there was me hiding under the pool table with the Colonel- well, not actually with him, he was outside, but he was nearby, and um, anyways, there was this whiskey cellar, and, and, uh, well basically the whole thing burnt down and I saved the day and Melany gave me part of her inheritance and I'm sorry."
I took a deep, hitching breath, sucking in air like a vacuum cleaner. Mom and Dad were both staring at me, and I realized my words had probably made little sense.
Trying my best to sound rational, I tried to simplify things into a single sentence.
"Basically, I helped Melany cause she's my friend, and she just inherited a boatload of money from her rich uncle and gave me this as thanks."
At that, both of their expressions calmed in an instant.
"That's all you had to say, Nil!" Dad said at last. "You know I don't care much for your friend, but that makes sense. More sense than all the nonsense you just spoke. Why didn't you say that to begin with?"
I shrugged, not knowing what to say.
"Cause I'm me? Sorry, Dad, Mom. Um. Could I look at the brochure again?"
Dad handed it back to me. Something he had said had caught my attention, and sure enough, there it was. I'd never really taken a close look at the brochure, or even the plane ticket for that matter, but now that I was seeing it for the first time, I found myself wondering why Melany didn't get me a vacation to Hawaii or somewhere else expected.
No, she had picked Illinois of all places. Some kind of resort that bordered on farm country, with wine tasting, horseback riding, and some other random activities that I didn't care much for.
I shared a glance with my parents, who now that we had all calmed down a little, looked just as confused as me about why Melany had chosen perhaps the least appealing vacation spot in the world.
What was I getting myself into?