TERRIBLE TROUBLES AT LINCOLN MIDDLE

 

Chapter 2: Crashing through the Mirror

 

Two little sentences are about to change our lives.

 

“It’s about to happen.” I text Lils and Jamal at the same time. “My closet, right now,” I text.

 

That feeling in my gut, that intuition that Mom says I have as a magical gift, tells me that I’ve figured out the puzzle, how to open the portal within the oval mirror to the future. A portal that might help us save Lincoln Middle School from the terrible troubles that it’s about to face, according to my Grandmother, Witch Viola.

 

Within 5 minutes, Lils, Jamal and I are sitting cross-legged in front of the mirror, staring at an image, flash-frozen in time. I look horrified. I can’t remember it --since it hasn’t happened yet. It’s in the future, my future and Lincoln Middle School’s future.

 

“That’s me,” I say quietly, stomach churning, but knowing what’s about to happen. “See those teal blue sneakers peeking out from behind that stage curtain in the cafeteria? See me hunched down and peeking around the curtain? That’s where we need to be. We need to fix the terrible troubles my Grandmother, Witch Viola, told us was coming. And we need to go now. Through the magnetic force-field into the future.” I see the panicked looks on both Lils and Jamal’s faces.

 

“Now means-- no thinking about it. Now means, now.” I know I isn’t making much sense. In fact, I’m rambling, which is unlike me, and almost incoherent. I’ve spent hours, cross-legged, sitting in front of this oval mirror, figuring out the secret to unlocking the portal to the future.

 

“OK, Danger-Girl,” says Jamal. “But how did you get this image of our school cafeteria on the mirror? And what does it mean?” Jamal’s the question guy. We don’t have much time.

 

“I remembered just where the Witch tapped on the mirror and how she tapped. She had a rhythm and a loud and soft tapping that I haven’t been able to get out of my head. I’ve been practicing, a long, long time, but I didn’t touch the right spot on the mirror, or get the correct rhythm to my touch. My tapping was all wrong.

 

Until, I remembered Viola actually tapped five times. I played it over and over in my mind. I played around with the sounds of her tapping, since I have a photographic memory.  I remembered the tapping was different. It wasn’t as random, as I thought at first. Finally, I figured it out!  Ter-ri-ble troub-les!  And up popped this image of me in the school cafeteria, sometime in the future. It’s the same image that Witch Viola showed us, right before those blood red words she scrawled over the mirror—Terrible Troubles at Lincoln Middle School!

 

Ter-ri-ble troub-les is what I tapped, just like it’s pronounced! Listen! Hard tap, light tap, light tap. Then Hard tap, light tap. The emphasis has to be on the hard taps but they are not of equal value. Hard tap, light tap (ter-ri-ble); Extra-hard tap, light tap (troub-les). That’s what I wasn’t getting, the extra hard tap on the second word. When I adjusted the tapping strengths, that’s when it worked! I’m jumping up and excited about my discovery.

 

Newsflash: You’d think they would have been more excited for me! After all, I am the queen of genius! But I don’t say that out loud—none of it!

 

“OK, genius,” says Lils, and she exaggerates genius, cause she’s sick and tired of hearing it from me. Lils is a fashionista who’s wearing a matching outfit, shoes and jewelry to coordinate. I’m staring at her, incredulously, as she makes fun of me. “So what?” Slowly and deliberately, “So…what?” she asks again. “That image tells us exactly nothing. All I see is our school cafeteria. I see what is presumably your teal sneakers, your profile peeking around the curtain, the hallway, which is empty, and the cafeteria which is also bare. Nobody, nothing going on,” Lils says.

 

“That’s not the point, Lils,” I say, frustration getting the best of me. “Don’t you guys get it?” I figured it out, but before I could get the words out, Jamal, genius-boy, and I’m being serious, has it all figured out, too. And in more detail. Lils is still shaking her head, nodding back and forth with that ‘you guys are crazy’ look!

 

“Yes, Danger-Girl, yes!” Jamal continues, “Don’t you see, this code opens the Portal to a scene of some kind, being played out somewhere in the school. This sequence of tapping opens the Portal to the exact time and place that we need to be. Witch Viola, sorry, your grandmother, was hoping we would see it.”

 

“Soooo….what are we supposed to do now?” Lils is always cautious. “Want me to call my Dad and tell him about this development?” Lils’ Dad is Officer Sharp, the cop in town. He’s always protective of his only child.

 

“NO,” Jamal and I both yell, at the same time. We don’t want to complicate things. Besides, I don’t think it will be that complicated at all. What could possibly be that terrible at our middle school? The worse thing that ever happens is when someone fights over someone’s girlfriend or a locker is vandalized. That’s mostly seventh or eighth graders. Sixth graders lead pretty boring lives, unless you count the end of the year dance that’s coming up in June.

 

“Let’s go on the count of three,” I say. Let’s go forward-- to the future-- to whenever it is, whatever this terrible thing is…that’s going to happen. Jamal, make sure you have your phone; Lils, you too, just in case we get separated!” Remember, Jamal how you got me out of the mirror when I was imprisoned by Witch Viola? Let’s get in that same position. Remember you held the palms of your hands firmly to the mirror?” I think that’s the key. Get our electrical charges stimulating the mirror with our bodies, and the mirror will melt and swallow us into the future. To the exact scene playing out in the mirror.” I am sure of it. Well, I shouldn’t have been such a know-it- all. I’d come to regret that, but I couldn’t help myself.

 

“ Remember, time, itself, doesn’t work the same way it does in the present. Count on a disconnect between seconds, and minutes. Time is all messed up through the portal. Our phones should help. That will tell us “real” time in the current present. Then we will all be synched.  Text if you need help. Video if possible, or audio-record whatever you see or hear happening. It’s probably some kids fighting over something ridiculous,” I say.

 

“I’m in! As long as I’m home before my dad gets off work.” Lils knows she is all her dad has since her mom died several years ago. And she doesn’t want to disappoint him.

 

Jamal reminds Lils just what they had done to bring Veronica catapulting out of the mirror. “Let’s place our palms and fingers securely on the mirror and visualize all three of us on the inside of the mirror, at that exact spot,” says Jamal confidently. 

 

All of us,  Jamal, Lils, and I, place the palms of our hands firmly on the mirror. “Now, visualize, using your Third Eye, remember? Remember how we did it last time, to free Veronica, Lils? But this time, picture us inside the freeze-frame where Veronica is behind the stage curtain. Remember, the mind’s eye is the third eye. Close your eyes and visualize

in your mind’s eye, our being in the cafeteria on this future date--as hard as you can,” pleads Jamal. We stand close together, palms on mirror, for what seems an eternity, but patient and determined to follow the plan.

 All of a sudden, a powerful force-field of energy  hurls us forward, sucking us into a whirling tornado, disorienting us. And I’ll be honest, I puked up my entire stomach of Poptarts.  With a raging force we land—into the future, the one that doesn’t exist yet, the one that will bring us into a terrifying reality, and from a place we might never return.

 Just as before, Jamal, Lils, and I feel a tingling in the  palms of our hands, a searing, burning sensation. We land, face down on the floor, none of us in the same place, scattered about,  randomly! This was something we hadn’t counted on.

 

Turns out, this isn’t random at all. We are each in a different location, each where we are supposed to be on that day, at that moment in time. Our plan worked until we felt like the force-field of this future, baring down on us with an intensity and ferocity we had never felt before. I could barely catch my breathe. And there I am, alone, behind the green stage curtain in the cafeteria. It must have been well after lunch. All the tables and chairs are stacked in order, and the gleaming floor reflect the sunlight streaming in from the front doors of the school beyond the cafeteria and empty hallway.

 

This wasn’t the way I planned it. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be! My gut’s churning like the inside of a washing machine on the spin cycle! What happened to my best friends? I fumble for my phone and realize I had tucked it securely, deep into my jean pocket. But as happy as I am to have my phone, I’m beyond horrified to realize, that the intensity of the wind knocked my glasses into some kind of cyberspace, God knows where they went. Without my glasses, I am literally blind as a bat.

 

I can’t see, and I’m frozen behind the curtain trying to sort out how I’m even going to text when I can’t see a thing. Out of nowhere, I hear the sound of footsteps. Someone is racing through the cafeteria in a panic, as three sounds ring out—Boom, Boom, Boom! I know what that means!

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