Everyone now wanted to talk to me. From no one to everyone was overwhelming. Mom let me stay home from school for a few days to try to sort things out. I really was not stable, and I know it. Being home let me do a few things I probably shouldn’t have.
I researched on the computer how to get from home to the coast. I looked up prices of tickets and routes and even places to eat. I packed. I knew I was leaving.
I don’t know if Mom knew what I was doing. We really were not communicating.
I heard Mom on the phone with someone at one point. She was cursing my dad for taking the stability and focus in our lives away. And the insurance. That was when I knew she was scared, too. She just was scared about other things than I was.
I went back to school and tried to be normal. Most people understood that things just were not going well, and since the rumors of my dad coming back after years had made the rounds, it was easy to put most of it onto that. Heather made several attempts to be civil before lunch. At lunch, I was surrounded by so many people trying to be nice and supportive that I just wanted to scream. But it was nice at the same time.
Even Nathan left off being stalker-ish and was just concerned. He noticed the necklace, which I still could not get off. I told him it had been hidden in the table top and he went red. He said, “I guess I should have looked at the thing closer. But it looks good on you.”
The rest of the day was better, but the feeling I got from the kids at school... I can’t really describe it. It was like I knew that they were all pitying me, but were trying to be kind, too. The butch part of me didn’t want to be pitied. The little girl who wanted someone to make everything right for me reveled in the attention.
And I aced the Spanish One test that day.
Mom and dad were on the phone when I got home. It was tense, but they were talking. It looked like everything was getting better.
****
There are times when I think that I accept what is going on around me too quickly. Having dad back. Hearing languages. The table.
I had been asleep. But I had my eyes open. The table was back leaning against the wall and I could see it from where I was on the bed. I was watching a field, gold with little red flowers. There was a wind that moved the grasses and I could almost hear the rustle in the dead of night. The light was as if a sunrise or sunset was on those plants. And then it blurred. There was darkness and a small series of dots that came up, flashing red, and then... nothing.
I sat up and knew I had been, must have been dreaming. I dragged the table away from the wall and set it on the floor. It took up most of my floorspace and I just sat there looking at it for a while. I think I was starting to fall asleep again as I watched the cold, heavy thing. It didn’t do anything. I leaned back against the bed and pulled my blanket over me and slept the rest of the night on the floor.
In the morning, I put the table back against the wall. I made sure nothing was touching it, nothing was leaning on it. I didn’t know what I was expecting, but nothing happened for a few more nights.
Mom complained at me for leaving my lights on when I went to school. That night, I woke to see a night time sky with a glow of a city skyline in the distance coming from the table. I don’t know how long it lasted. There was the blurring of the picture and then the flashing red dots before it went dark.
I am not the quickest, but I figured out the third time it happened that some how, it was light or solar powered. I just left it leaning against my bed with the curtains open the next day. Sounds silly, but I rarely have my curtains open. My view is of the side of the next house. Not really an inspiring view.
I really should have told someone about this whole mysterious picture thing. People were trying to talk to me again, trying to be friends. But I just felt raw inside and did not have the trust in others that I should have to let others know about it. Nathan was clueless... But it turned out that he had given me one of the best things ever. And that was even before... Well, that is getting ahead of myself.
I used the credit card from dad to buy a few more things. If he was keeping track of the things I bought, I am sure that it was a crazy list. I bought one of those daylight lamps to point at the table. I used it as a wake-up light(one of those fancy things with timers and a clock and phone dock), and to light the room when I was in there to study and just be alone before bed. It seemed to power the thing and I was getting more and more shots of different places. A different one each night.
It seemed to happen a little after 1 in the morning every night. I tried to have my computer record it for me because I started to sleep through the different pictures it put up. The little built in camera is o.k. for chatting once in a while. As long as the internet doesn’t go out. Or Mom doesn’t need the computer for something. Thank goodness for multiple user accounts. I set timers and aimed the camera and tried. It didn’t work.
That was when I pulled out ‘responsible Tammi’ and made my Mom get me a phone.
Um, yea.
I know, I was a teen without a phone before then. Strange, but true.
Because of dad’s money, and them coming to a truce, I knew I was going to be dragged to more places with him and his girlfiend, soon. If I had a phone, I told Mom, I could call her wherever I was without her worrying about me. As much. And with a fancy smart phone, we could make it cost as much as possible to get some back from dad.
She liked the last part.
I used my new phone as a camera. Well, I also started to talk to Heather every night before bed and Nathan found my number somehow and would randomly text me and send me pics. My BJJ instructor started sending me links to different YouTube movies, most of them martial arts related. I was so used to having the phone with me in less than a week that I went through technology withdrawl when I left it at home one day.
It was getting to be near the end of the school year and the table and my running away plans and the stress seemed to just get covered and pushed to the side with my friends and I planning stuff for the weekend after the last day of school.
I still took recordings of the table. I made movies of the table when it was dark. I took pics of the edges. I tried to tell about the necklace in little videos, which still would not come off, even in the shower. I cobbled together movies on the computer of what came up on the table at night.
It sounds like one of those fake-camcorder movies, but having the recordings gave me something to do that was just me. I liked all of the places the table showed me. And because of the day lamp thing that was powering it, I had a lot more energy and a better outlook than I had since before dad showed up.
****
This is where things get really strange.
Yes, everything else was strange, in some way or another, but I said I was too accepting.
The plan was to have the herd do a roving party. Yup, teenagers let loose after school is out. Great plan. But fun.
Starting out at Heather’s for breakfast, there were about ten of us who invaded and had waffles and bacon. Those of us with cars and licenses drove the others. (By the Way, I had NOT spent dads money on a car, though I could have. A no limit credit card can be addictive, but I am not stupid.) Heather’s parents drove the rest to the Mall movie theatre where we saw an action flick. I think we gained almost another ten people when we came out, some having met us there, some seeing that there was a crowd and joining in.
Lunch was in the food court and then we rampaged through and to a small park a short walk from the Mall. There were other parents waiting for us with more food and a few silly games. What we ended up doing was a nerf battle with guns and padded sticks and stuff. I think we scared some smaller kids, but it was a blast! And, I am happy to say, I kicked some serious... butt. I was not a good shot with the guns, though I don’t think anyone was. But put one of those q-tip sticks in my hand, and I was crushing skulls. Well, bopping people on the head. And in the stomach. And, well, Tom should not have tried to jump-attack me. I don’t think he will ever live down that I nad-shotted him, making him squeak and roll up into a little ball.
Steve started calling me ‘Tam, Ball Crusher’ after that.
Being teens, more food was required. That had been arranged and we invaded Nathan’s house. His parents had set in a stack of pizza, a bunch of snacks and had some pg movie playing on their huge screen. I don’t think I have seen a house go from clean to trashed in less time. Add teens to any home and we seem to make messes wherever we go.
Not so strange so far? Just wait.
Parents started to come for their kids around ten. Mom didn’t show up. I called her and left a message on her cell phone. Yes, be both bought them, since dad was paying. It was almost eleven when she called back.
“Tam, I... We have a problem.”
Have a Problem is one of the code phrases we have had over the years. My mind flashed through so many possibilities that my head hurt instantly.
I was able to get Nathan’s Dad to drive me home. He asked if I needed help, if I wanted him to go inside and I said no. I had been slightly creeped out by the idea, but I know he was just trying to be protective. I should have let him come in.
Dad’s lawyer was there. Dad wasn’t. Mom was in tears.
It was Saturday night and a high-priced lawyer was in my house. Never a good thing, if drama movies and tv have taught me anything. It was not just not good, it was horrible.
She handed me the paper that he had given to her. I read it and burst out into tears.
Dad had pulled whatever strings he could and used his money, well, the Grand’s money, to have someone declare Mom incompetent as a parent. The asshole.
I don’t know what came over me, but I tore it up. I threw it back in the face of the lawyer and started yelling at him. From one of the best days I had had that year to one of the worst. I let him have it. And his eyes went really wide as I swore and yelled and swore some more and told him to get out and that if my dad ever wanted to see me, he was going to have to come and see me face to face, not have me bundled up and shipped like a piece of furniture.
He showed gaps in his lawyer slime by the time I came up for air. He told me that his client had said that I had been the one to ask for Mom to be declared incompetent. It didn’t stop me cold, but it made my stomach drop. That this put everything in a different light. And that he didn’t know that I knew Italian, like his Grandmother.
I was so upset that I let that slide. I heard what he said and glared at him as he left.
Mom was stunned. She had no idea what I had just said, but she hugged me and wouldn’t let me go.
We cried together. We both needed it, and we hadn’t done anything like that for years. She said that it was a good way to clear things out and refocus us on what we needed to do. There she went with the focus again. She brought up that she had a call into her lawyer, but being late on Saturday, he hadn’t been available. His service was trying to find him.
I didn’t believe it, but then again, I had been thrust into the cynical teen role really fast.
I went to bed. Well, I went to my room. I was so angry and upset I couldn’t even think of sleeping. It was after one, so the table was showing one of the fields of grasses and little animals and things when I went in. I sat on my bed and watched for a while.
I noticed a new set of symbols in one corner of the picture at about the time hell broke loose at the front door. I knew that the symbols meant ‘Transmit’, but I didn’t really know how. The Lawyer was back, with dad, and the police at the front door.
I heard, “Not letting you take her,” and “over my dead body,” and knew that they had come back for me. With official looking paperwork and a pair of cops that had left their lights flashing when they had parked outside. I watched some of it from the top of the stairs, seeing the look that the lawyer had on his face, and the distain he had for what he was being paid to do. I heard a, “... no trouble if she comes quietly.”
This was one thing I was not going to accept.
I locked my door and started to get my stuff together. No, I was not planning on going with the Lawyer and the police. I was going to slip down from my room to the ground and run away. I had been planning it for so long that it was the obvious thing for me to do. Most of the Alice military pack had been packed for almost a month. I had clipped useful things to the harness, had the things I had purchased inside. I dressed in the good jeans, my new boots and several layers of shirts and leathers. I buckled myself into the last of the leathers, hating that I could only take a few of my weapons collection.
The lawyer was at the door of my room, knocking and then pounding to try to get me to open the door. I opened the window instead. I paused as I looked out into the dark night, seeing the flashing lights from the cars and the neighbor’s lights coming on because of the noise. It was still not enough light to be able to see the ground.
I ignored the lawyer, now joined by one of the officers, as I made a sheet rope. It sounds so cliche, but it was what I had. I tied it to my bed and threw it out the window.
I tripped over the stuff I had on the floor and hit the table on the green flashing symbol. The picture changed, slightly. As did the texture of the table. And then I saw that my backpack was being sucked into the picture.
You know, there are times when reason just does not come into anything you do. I should have been scared and terrified and just plain not willing to go into something that, until just a few seconds before had been a plain, flat surface. Nope. I saw the backpack get caught on the picture and the strap ‘fell’ into the table. And then it was pulled in and then I saw it in the pic, flopping down in the dawn-lit grasses. I didn’t even think when I threw my bamboo staff at the table and saw it go through and land on the backpack.
I threw a bunch of stuff through. I took out my phone and made a short text to Nathan before I touched the table myself.
“I am in your table”
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