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Pete steeled himself, mindful of the fact he would be traversing his path to freedom without a safety net—more specifically, without the benefit of his sketchpad, his official 0.9 inventing pencil, or his T-square, all of which were in his confiscated backpack. He tried writing on his hand with the lone pen from his desk. It was out of ink. He shut the drawer with a huff, cursing Sally Daniels for taking his best pen.
In the absence of his cassette player, he turned on the television for background noise.
It took all of three minutes for his father to catch wind of the activity and put a stop to it. “Have you lost your mind, Junior? A blaring television could attract attention!” Without further comment, he removed the television from the room. A moment later, the lieutenant returned, flipped Pete’s light off, and locked the door again as he exited.
Pete was past the point of being disturbed by his father’s actions. The more the lieutenant took away, the more Pete resolved to get away. After all, he would be doing it for the good of the family, since most of the turmoil at home revolved around him. Plus, he was needed.
He walked in circles, trying to focus on his objectives while avoiding tripping over the long cable his father had detached from the television. First, he would have to get his mother’s signature, even if he had to put a pen in her hand and guide it over the paper himself. As for breaking out of his confinement, he’d need to find a means of getting the door open—no way could he remove the layers of thick boards blocking the window.
If only he had some sort of door-unlocking apparatus. His father had jammed shut the pinhole on the doorknob inside the room—the hole designed to allow for emergency escapes—so that option was out.
Pete was accustomed to making ridiculous, elaborate devices designed to do basic tasks. This was different. In fact, it was the opposite. He needed to create something simple that would go undetected while being highly effective. And he needed to do it fast.
The prospect sent a surge of invigorating adrenaline through his system.
Again he paced, and again he nearly tripped over the annoying cable that served as a reminder of his father’s punitive conduct. As he knelt and rolled the cable to store it out of the way, an escape plan popped into his head. The plan was fully formed and possibly doable—and the key was in his hands.
It was a risky scheme with multiple steps and specific procedures that would have to be executed flawlessly. Both the project and the idea of liberation galvanized and terrified him. Impatient to get started, he initiated a mental list of what he would need based on what he could easily lay hold of. Mercifully, there were only a few items required: a paperclip, a piece of bubble gum, a ruler, some dental floss, and most important, the pesky television cable.
The only thing missing from the room was the floss, but he’d be able to grab that from the bathroom when he went to brush his teeth just before turning in. He hastened to his desk drawer to retrieve all three paperclips and one piece of the gum, putting them in his pocket so they would be at the ready when it was time to make his prison break.
Foremost was his need to procure his mother’s signature, or all his plotting would be for naught. To pass the time, he returned to bed and reclined, daydreaming of what life at the academy might be like. Were the other dimensions similar to his? Would the school be located on another planet, or would it be somewhere right under everyone’s nose like in the Statue of Liberty’s crown? Would he meet strange creatures he’d never heard of? Would he meet strange creatures he had heard of? His toes wiggled at the thought he might actually meet a dragon.
Dragons!
Far-fetched as the notion was, it served to trammel his aversion to change.
Soon, a faint rapping on the door told Pete his mother had returned.
“Come in, Mom.”
She entered looking weary, her spirit broken like someone coming off a chain gang—a far cry from a hero. “Your father asked me to tell you that you can go for a walk with him if you’d like. There’s one thing though …You’ll have to … well, you’ll have to be on a leash.”
“A what?!” Pete hollered, insulted and disgusted by the suggestion.
“He says it’s to ensure your safety, P.J.”
“Pass.” He lay back down, his resolve to flee skyrocketing.
A moment of static silence passed between them.
“Mom, will you do something for me – no matter how hard it might be?”
“Of course, P.J. You know I will.”
Pete sat up again and studied her, trying to gauge if she was up to the challenge of flouting the lieutenant’s commands. “I don’t know what you remember about the Academy of Omnisopol … Omniphoscent … the Omni academy, but I got a letter from them. They want me to go to school there … and I thought as long as I have to start a new school, maybe I should start it there … since you went there and all.”
“Sorry, where?” She scratched the side of her neck as her gaze danced across the ceiling.
He slipped the academy letter out of his pillowcase and carefully handed it to her. “I need you to sign this, Mom. Please.”
“What is it, sweetheart?” Upon reading the document, her eye twitched, and her fingers waggled as if she were laboring to work out a concept just beyond her grasp. Her breath caught. “Edisyuh id Deora!” She whipped her head in the direction of the open door, then grabbed Pete’s shoulders and looked into his eyes with the same intensity she’d shown the night before. “P.J. you must get rid of that, right away. If your father were to … You can’t begin to fathom … It could tear this family apart.”
“That’s why I’m coming to you. I need your signature, Mom. It’s the only way.”
She shook her head vehemently and thrust the letter back into his hand. “P.J., I can’t. You don’t know what you’re asking. I’m sorry, but I just can’t!” She nearly lost her balance as she wheeled around and hurried toward to the door.
“You won’t tell Dad, will you?” Pete begged.
Wordlessly, she exited and locked the door.
It was several seconds before her footsteps receded. He returned the letter to his pillowcase and picked at his cuticles, his pancreas pinching in I told you so smugness.
As long as she doesn’t tell him about the letter, I should be okay. Please don’t tell him … pleaaaaaaase!
His thoughts were a panicked jumble, and he voraciously chewed his thumbs, unable to focus or calm down.
After several excruciatingly suspenseful minutes, his father opened the door.
Pete sat on his hands to hide his fear and torn-up thumbs.
She did it. I can’t believe she did it. She ratted me out to Dad.
The lieutenant blocked the doorway, staring at Pete stone-faced for seconds on end. Whatever his father had in mind, Pete was sure he wasn’t going to like it.
As the lieutenant approached the bed, Pete instinctively scooted back, praying the paper secreted in his pillowcase wouldn’t rustle and give away its existence.
The lieutenant wandered the room, looking over Pete’s things. “I hear you declined my offer to go for a walk.”
Pete sat silent and immobile, unsure how to answer.
“I’m betting you could use a toilet break by now.”
“Yes, sir.”
“All right. Run along then.”
Pete couldn’t tell if this was some sort of trick to get him out of the room so his father could search it, but as his bladder was nearly bursting and he didn’t know when he’d be allowed a restroom break again, he dashed across the hall.
“Leave the door open.”
Pete grimaced at the indignity, but resisted commenting. No sense rocking the boat. While in the bathroom, he considered making a grab for the dental floss, then decided not to take the chance with the door open. No, the floss would have to wait until tooth-brushing time just before bed.
He returned to his room to find the lieutenant in the midst of a second search of the desk drawers.
“What did I tell you about chewing this stuff? It’ll rot your teeth!” His father pocketed the pack of gum as well as the inkless pen and box of baseball cards.
Pete let out an imperceptible whew, thankful he’d already stowed a piece of gum and the paper clips in his pocket. “Are you really going to keep me locked up in here ’til Tuesday morning?”
The lieutenant shot him a long look that Pete was unable to read. Pete was not in the habit of being so direct with his father, but then again, he’d never been on the verge of going to another dimension and maybe meeting a dragon.
The lieutenant resumed patrolling, bending down to peer into the floor heater, looking inside Pete’s closet. “Not necessarily. You’ll be free to go right after those menaces from Omni leave the area. Simply tell me the time they instructed you to rendezvous. Half-an-hour after that is when I’ll let you out.”
Pete chewed the inside of cheek. As much relied on his answer as it did on his mother’s signature. He opted for deceit. “They said, ‘When the sun is at its highest.’ I guess that means noon?”
His father exhaled and steadied himself against the doorframe. “Yes, son, you’re right. That’s when the sun is at its highest—twelve hundred hours tomorrow. Then it will all be over.” He made a start to program his watch, but his fingers kept fumbling. Instead, he placed his hands behind his back and cleared his throat. “After noon has come and gone, you and Billy can help me rake up the leaves in the front yard. I’ll ask your mom to bake you boys a back-to-school cake. How does that sound?”
It was the mention of the rake rather than the cake that made an impression on Pete. He’d vowed to meet rake-man Leon at 6 a.m. His plan had to work—it just had to!
“Cheer up, Junior. In nineteen hours, this nightmare will finally be behind us. Then you can really enjoy your last day before school starts.” The lieutenant sauntered out the door and closed it, jiggling the locked knob.
“Thirteen hours, more like it,” Pete said under his breath, calculating the time until his unauthorized exodus.
Alone again, presumably until dinner, he wrestled with the question of when to initiate his flight sequence. If he left too early and his father realized he was gone, it would give the lieutenant enough time to pursue him and drag him home. If Pete cut it too close and something went wrong, he could miss his rendezvous—not to mention there was still the matter of getting his mother’s signed approval. He’d have one last chance to persuade her, and that chance would be in less than an hour.
Daily Perqs
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