Afternoons consisted of council meetings, making his rounds, family time, and then dinner. My best shot at sneaking into his room would be during that council meeting .His wife would be in the kitchen prepping, for dinner because she organized all the meals and his kids would be having recreational time.
All the kids under eighteen had recreation time on Tuesdays and Thursdays after lunch. I liked to spend my time reading or playing checkers with Grace. Sometimes, Frankie would talk me into playing some kind of board game with her. Candyland was her favorite. But I’d beaten her so many times, now it was boring.
I was staring off, in a daze, consumed with my plan that I barely noticed Mr. Baker and his daughter Elise, standing before me. “It’s nice to see you, back and well, Miss Carver,” he squawked.
Taking a deep my breath, I lifted my head. I kept calm, a bright smile forming on my face. “Thank you, Mr. Baker.” I pushed a strand of my fiery red hair away from my face. “I’m so thankful to be back amongst the living.” I emphasized on the word living.
He nodded. “As you should be.” He turned to Elise. “Let’s go, dear.” He turned back to me. “Enjoy your breakfast, Miss Carver.”
“I will, thank you.” My eyes followed him over to his table as he and Elise took their seats.
Elise Baker was the same age as me. We weren’t friends. We were acquainted with each other, like everyone else was down here but, she had this arrogant, superior attitude, just like her father. I kept my eyes on her, as she ran her fingers through her honey brown hair. I wondered if she knew what her father had planned for me. No…..
Elise was snobby, always walking around with her nose in the air, or not speaking to anybody that she didn’t speak to first, but I didn’t think she was evil.
The table shook when Colin sat down across from me. “Hey there, Georgie,” he said kindly. “Welcome back.”
“Thanks, Colin,” I answered with a hint of flirtation in my voice. “I missed you,” I lied. “Why didn’t you come visit me again?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Grace smirking at me, and then she winked. I winked back at her. Soon Grace, soon, I thought. Soon you won’t want to wink at me when you think about Colin Martin. You’ll want to rip out his jugular.
Colin fumbled with his words. “Um… Yeah… Uh. I just thought you needed your rest. I didn’t want to intrude.”
“Intrude?” I raised an eyebrow. “You wouldn’t be intruding.” I reached up and fanned my fingers across his baby soft cheek.
He observed me, still tense. Then he slumped his shoulders relaxing. “I’m sorry, I should have been there,” he admitted.
“I forgive you.” My smile was stretched wide, and I could feel the dimples rising up in my cheeks.
He smiled back. “I’m glad.”
Inside, I was so sick and twisted with disgust that I thought about hunching over and throwing up next to the table, but beguiling Colin Martin was a pivotal part of my plan and I wasn’t about to screw it up. If anyone caught on to my little act, I wouldn’t be able to pull it off.
The rest of my morning passed by quickly. After breakfast, I went to the infirmary to visit May. “Look at you,” she gasped. “I’m so proud of your progress!” May was so easy to talk to. She just gave great advice and didn’t judge anyone. Sometimes, I found that I could talk to her more about certain things than I could my mother.
“May?”
“Yes, Georgie,” she said sweetly.
“This is all hypothetical, but just say you found out something important. And if you told someone it could hurt a lot of people. And if you didn’t you’d be keeping something very important from people you cared about. Would it be wise to keep it in or tell?”
She squinted. “Are you sure this all hypothetical?”
I nodded. “Yes.” Her eyes burned into mine. I hated doing this. I hated being like them. The ones who repeatedly lied to everyone. But I couldn’t tell her the truth yet because I hadn’t decided for sure if I wanted to or if it was the right time.
May shifted in her seat. “That depends on the secret the person is keeping. If it‘s something extremely important you should always tell. Keeping something like that from someone a person cares about is worse.”
“Thanks, May.” I got up and walked to the door.
During lunch, I set the second part of my plan in motion. I could feel Mr. Baker’s eyes on me as I walked up to my mother, hunched over, hugging my stomach. “Mom,” I moaned. “I don’t feel so hot.”
“Oh, no, honey, what’s wrong?” She frowned and placed the back of her hand to my forehead. “You’re a little warm. Do you want to go lay down for a while?”
“Yeah. I think I just need to rest for a little bit.”
My mother pushed her tray away and started getting up. She turned to my father, half-standing, half-sitting, and said, “I’m just going to walk her back to the room.”
My father nodded, leaning forward. “Feel better, kiddo.”
“Thanks, Daddy.”
My mother helped me into bed, then folded the blanket up under my chin. “I’m going to back to the mess hall,” she said. “Lunch will be over in an hour and I promised Margie Baker that I’d help with clean-up duty. Do you need anything before I go?”
“No,” I yawned. “I think I just need to sleep. I didn’t get much last night.”
She looked at me puzzled. “You didn’t? Why not?”
“My legs felt funny.”
“Describe funny. What was wrong with them?”
I shrugged, nonchalantly. “Nothing bad. They just felt a little jittery.”
“I see.” She appeared to be deep in though. “Well, do they feel alright, now?”
“They’re fine.”
She leaned in, brushing her lips softy against my forehead. “Feel better, sweetheart.” Then she waltzed out of my room.
I waited. The clock above me read 12:00 pm. In ten minutes, I would hurry into Mr. Baker’s room and switch the names in the ballot box before my mother could come back and realize I was gone.
The chatter from the mess hall ricocheted off the dirt walls of the hallway. Pressing my body flat against the wall, I crept passed the open doorway, careful not get myself noticed. I sucked in my breath and moved forward. The people in the mess hall were still eating and enthralled with the conversations they were having with one another.
Making a left turn, I placed my back against the opposite wall and walked right through the open doorway of the Baker family’s quarters. “Think, George, think.” Where did he say that box would be? Silently, I replayed the conversation between Mr. Baker and Mr. Martin in my mind. Yes! Mr. Baker said there was a hidden door behind a rug on the wall.
Observing the walls from top to bottom, and corner to corner, when I spun around to face the wall behind me, there it was. A long, crimson, rectangular antique rug. I picked up the bottom right corner, and sure enough, there was a door behind it. A massive wooden door with black,cast iron panels across the lower part and black iron bars along the upper part. It reminded me of a door that belonged in an 18th century prison. And how in the heck did he get it in here unnoticed? If I hadn’t heard about it before, I could bet my life that none of the other colonists had either.
As I twisted the black, oval doorknob, I stopped about half-way through the turn when the knob wouldn’t cross over. Damn it! The door was locked. There had to be a spare key in here somewhere.
I moved over to the dresser, prepared to tear through the drawers, when I heard the sound of whistling. At first it was faint, then it grew louder and louder, and I realized someone was heading toward the room. Seeing that the bed would be the only decent hiding place, I dove underneath, curling myself up into a little ball. “OWWWW!” I mouthed, forgetting the cut on my head when I dove headfirst into the dirt floor. Placing my fingers on the stitched up wound, I massaged it gently to take the searing pain away.