Chapter Eleven

Everything went black for a split second. When I came to, I was lying on my living room couch. I panicked for a moment and cried out, “Mom!” She quickly dashed into the living room from the kitchen door.

“Andy, are you alright sweetie?” she asked me as she was kneeling down to my level.

“I don’t know… what happened, mom?”

“Well, first you were yelling about a gypsy and getting everyone at school in trouble. Then you ran across the street without looking both ways, and then you passed out right in front of Vicky’s Summer Goods. You were out for about a good hour.”

“The gypsy… the gypsy!”

“Sweetie, sweetie, calm down. I know you’ve had a long day. I called your school today and they said that there was a big fight today-”

“Oh, no mom, I don’t want to talk about that!” The pain of the guilt hit me so badly that I had to cut mom off.

“At least let me just say that you’re going to meet Principal Van Dooren tomorrow. He said that he saw you when the fight was happening and wants to ask you a few questions.”

“Aw geez; thanks a lot mom.”

  “We can talk about this later honey. Hurry and get ready for dinner. Your dad and his friend will be coming in ten minutes. Do you want to know something funny? He actually asked me out before your dad knew me!”

“What made you say ‘no’ to him?”

“I only went on two dates with him and after that, I always just saw him as a friend. I met your dad only two weeks later!” 

After an evening with my parent’s high school best friend, I dashed upstairs and into my bathroom. I just wanted to take a nice, hot shower to get my mind off everything today. Before I undressed, I made sure to check my pockets because the last time I threw my jeans into the washer without checking my pockets, my $20 bill got destroyed in the machine! I told you that I always lose my money. I pulled out the $20 bill mom gave me earlier and along with it, two rubber controllers fell to the ground.

The first thought that rushed into my head was, “Wait? Didn’t I lose all my controllers when I threw them at Hector?” The scene replayed into my head from his hand wrapped around my neck to his snarky laughter as he walked away. Then I remembered: he only picked up three controllers. I had five before, so it only made sense that I have two left.

At first, I just wanted to throw them into the trash can, until I realized something: mom said that I had to see Principal Van Dooren in his office tomorrow because I witnessed the fight between Eden and Hector.

That’s it! Maybe I can fix this sticky situation after all! I quickly ran to the desk in my room, pulled out a pencil, and as carefully and accurately as possible, wrote, “I will forgive Eden for everything,” on one of the rubber controllers. I yanked out a fresh pair of jeans out of my closet and stuffed that controller into the right pocket.

I looked at my hand again and saw one last rubber controller. After I save Eden, I still have one more problem: Hector has the full ability to control three people with the rubber controllers he stole from me. I stuffed that rubber controller as well into the right pocket of the jeans I would wear tomorrow.

Everything was set for tomorrow. As I showered, as I put on my pajamas, and as I laid down in bed, my plan to save Eden kept playing and playing in my head.