7: Second Chances

Hillary looked at the empty bag and Molly’s face. Shaking her head, she knelt down in front of the cell lock, closed one eye, and tried to look into the mechanism. “Do you have anything metal, like a belt buckle or thick hairpin?” She asked Molly.

“Nope. Only got key.”

“What?” Hillary said and spun around.

Molly held a loop of string circling her neck. A key like the one on Bitterbrun’s key ring, dangled from the cord just below her fingertips. “This key for my room. Not for that lock. Different words on end.”

Hillary took the key, gave it a quick look and tried it in the lock. When she turned the key the lock sounded a solid, “click.”

“Molly, are all the keys the same? The same on this end?” she asked and held the key up as she opened her cell and moved to Molly’s door.

Molly nodded. “Forge-Twiddler make alla keys and lock. Alla same.”

“What’s your escape plan?” Hillary asked and unlocked Molly’s door.

“Plan is wait for sisters. Wanna wait? They sneakie here tomorrow.”

“No.” Hillary said, loud enough that Molly took a step back. “We’re getting out of here now! What’s outside the door to this room?”

“Big long hall. Turns this-a-way and that. Then soldier room, then outside. Maybe we run fast like scritch. Soldier not see Molly and Hillre.”

Hillary leaned over the well and looked down into darkness. “How about down there; the way the scritch went?”

“No, no. That nota way. Go that way and you gonna die. Better run fast like scritch past soldier.”

Hillary looked up past the bell, following the chain it hung from. She couldn’t see very far from her position and climbed up on top of the table. Carefully she stepped to the stone wall that circled the well. “Maybe this is our way out. Climb on the other side.”

When Molly stood with her on the wall, Hillary moved around until she was directly opposite Molly and the bell hung between them. “We have to get up on top of the bell. See up there? I think those metal loops sticking out of the wall in the shaft are like a ladder. Maybe the shaft… yawn… goes somewhere.”

Hillary had to stretch as far as she could to grab the big brass ring at the top of the bell. She knew Molly was too short to reach it on her side. Hillary was worried. If they didn’t balance when they climbed on the bell, they might ring it and alert the soldiers. She was worried about Bitterbrun too. He could be back at any minute. She grabbed the ring and began pulling herself up when the bell lurched and swung back and forth. Hillary froze and held her breath, listening for the clapper to bang against the inside.

“What Hillre wait for?” Molly asked, looking down at Hillary from the top of the bell. “Grab hand.”

Hillary let Molly help her up. The chain links were big enough to use as toe and hand holds. They climbed four feet of chain to reach the metal loops stuck in the side of the bell chamber walls. With Hillary leading, they climbed. The smoke from the torches down in the room curled up past them. It burned Hillary’s eyes and almost made her sneeze. She felt herself getting sleepy, but if she fell asleep now, she’d fall past the bell and into the well. She kept climbing.

She wasn’t sure how far they had climbed, and couldn’t see the bell through the smoke anymore. A bit higher she could see a small door with a keyhole. When she was level with it, she read the black letters painted on the smoke stained wood. “Bell Works Maintenance Room.” The lock had symbols, but Hillary ignored them. She saw what she was looking for stamped just under the keyhole. “Forge-Twiddler, Inc.” She tried Molly’s key. The lock clicked, and a small push opened the two-foot square door. The girls squirmed through and shut the panel behind them.

Enough dusty sunlight pushed through a small, octagon shaped window to let them see. It was above Hillary’s reach and looked too small for them to squeeze through. Gears taller than Hillary crowded the eight foot square room. A chain like the one the bell hung from, came down through a small hole in the ceiling and wrapped around a big drum. Across the room waited another wooden access panel and keyhole. The sign above it read, “Drawbridge.”

The space inside this passageway reminded Hillary of a big wooden air duct. The passage was barely three feet wide and tall, so they had to crawl. This passage connected to others, and soon they were lost in the maze.

 “I’m falling asleep, Molly,” Hillary said and stopped. “What’s going to happen?”

“Here. Eat chocola.” Molly’s tiny hand pushed up near Hillary’s face.

“I thought you said we were out of chocolate?”

“Nope. Not say that. Say nothing. Chocola bag empty. Got some in pocket. Eat so stay awake.”

“Molly, that won’t keep… yawn… me awake.”

“Then bye bye. Back home you go. Next dream you go back to cell. I get-cha out. Come back with sisters. You see.”

“I’m not going… yawn… to let him… yawn… get…”

“She gone. Guess I gota eat it,” Molly said and put the chocolate in her mouth.

***

Windslow popped his eyes open and blinked. Using the hand rails fastened to the wall his bed sat against, he pulled himself up into a sitting position. “Oh, no,” he said as he twisted his shoulders and pulled at his pajamas.

“Windslow!” Hillary said, bursting into his room. “You’re never going to believe… Windslow? What happened to you? You’ve got pink paint all over your pajamas.”

“Did you… did… Did you have a really, really weird dream last night?”

“Maybe I did…we did. A dream I mean. Oh crap! Give me that can.”

“Can?” Windslow twisted around to look behind him where the two walls of his room formed the corner his bed nestled into. Propped up by a pillow sat a can of pink paint with a brush sticking out of the open top.

“Does it say ‘Forge-Twiddler’ on the label?”

“Yeah. Right here,” Windslow said and handed the can to her.

“Hey, you two. Ready for an early start?” Windslow’s father called from down the hallway.

“Double crap,” Hillary cursed. She grabbed the book, dropped in on the floor and kicked it under the bed.

Windslow’s dad stopped halfway through the open doorway. “What in the…? I can’t believe this. Look at you, Windslow. And you, Hillary! What’s going on? This is… This is… You’re grounded. Both of you! For a month unless your mother thinks it should be for a year. Neither one of you move. Not an inch! I want her to see you just like you are now.” He turned and left.

“Did you hear that, Hillary? Woo hoo, I’m grounded. This is fantastic. Finally I got punished for something. Do you know how cool that is? It makes me almost normal. None of that ‘poor kid in a wheelchair’ this time.”

“Yeah, really great. Just the same old thing for me.” She sat down on the bed and cradled the paint can in her hands. “Thanks a bunch.”

“Give me that,” Windslow said. Not waiting, he grabbed the paint can from her and looked at the label. “Forge-Twiddler Reversible Paint.”

“Reversible? How?”

“I’m reading--I’m reading.”

“Hurry up!”

“To remove paint, seal can with lid upside down,” Windslow read from the label.

“Where is it? Where’s the lid?” Hillary asked as she leaned over her brother and shoved pillows out of the way.

Hillary crawled off him and held the lid in her hand. Windslow grabbed it. He shoved the brush underneath his pillow, flipped the lid upside down and pressed it on to the can. He watched as the pink quickly faded from his pajamas and arms. “What about my back?” he asked as he leaned forward.

“Clean. What’ll we do with the can?

“We can--” Before he could finish, the can vanished.

“All right, you two. What’s this I hear about pink paint?” his stepmother asked. She stood in the doorway; one hand on her hip, the other on Bill’s shoulder.

“We, ah…” Windslow stammered.

“Where’d it go?” Bill asked and pushed past his wife. He bent over Windslow, moved pillows, lifted blankets and then stepped back, scratching his head. “I swear, Trish. I came in here and Hillary was holding a paint can, and Windslow was covered in pink. He… They… I…”

“Bill, do you need some coffee?” Windslow’s step mom asked with a playful sound to her voice.

“I’m sorry, Bill. We were playing a joke on you,” Hillary said.

Windslow winced. His father wanted Hillary to call him dad, but she didn’t like to call him that.

Still scratching his head, Bill took another look around the room. “Okay,” he said. “The laugh is on me. But how’d you do it?”

Windslow and Hillary stared at each other for a few seconds before Windslow blurted out, “Magic. It was special paint. All you do is put the lid back on the can upside down. The paint disappears, can and all.”

“Ha,” Trish said and laughed. “You’ll have to show us how you did it, but not now. I’ll start breakfast. Hillary, I think some of that lipstick you’ve been hiding would look nice on you today. Bill, you get Windslow ready and we’ll all meet for pancakes and sausage in ten minutes. Bill, don’t put any of Windslow’s clothes on him upside down.” Trish started giggling. Windslow could hear her snickering all the way down the hall.

***

They didn’t have time to talk that morning. They hurried to get ready, had breakfast and loaded into the van. Bill headed for work, and Trish drove them to school. While Hillary wheeled him into school, Windslow told her to meet him for lunch if she could. At lunch, he couldn’t get rid of his friends. It didn’t look like Hillary could get rid of hers either. Windslow waved at her and blushed when some of her friends waved back. In class he tried to concentrate on lessons, but his thoughts kept wandering back to the book, the three wizards, and whatever world his dream had carried him too. He thought about Hillary’s comments that morning. Her hand reaching out to him in the first part of his dream-slip must have been real. He snapped the rubber band on his wrist several times as a way to keep himself from daydreaming. He wondered if you could daydream-slip.

The bell rang at the same time he snapped the rubber band for about the tenth time this period. Everyone hurried for their lockers, anxious to end the day. Windslow waited for the room to empty to make it easier for him to navigate with his chair.

“Windslow,” Miss Christensen asked, “how are you and your new mom doing?”

He hoped he wasn’t blushing. After his real mom died, Miss Christensen had helped him a lot; more than the school counselor. He had been in the nurse’s office two years ago. Miss Christensen came in looking for a Band-Aid. The nurse wasn’t ready to see Windslow yet and he and Miss Christensen just began talking. After that, he stopped by her room a couple times after school just to talk. After his accident she helped him again. She was easy to talk to and pretty.

“Windslow?”

“I was thinking about something. I’m sorry,” he said.

“Is everything all right at home? How about you and Hillary? I bet it’s fun having a sister.”

“Oh, she’s real cool; almost like my best friend.”

“I’m glad to hear that. I hope being in my class this year won’t stop you from talking with me once in awhile.”

“No, I like doing that.” He gave the rubber band another snap. “Can I ask you a dumb question? If you had a chance, a second chance to do something, what would it be?”

“That’s quite a question. In fact, I don’t know how to answer it. Hm… a second chance at something.”

Windslow sat quietly and watched her turn toward the window and bite on her bottom lip. Finally she looked back at him.

“I’m only telling you this, Windslow, because we’ve shared a lot in our conversations the last two years. My second chance would be about a boy I knew once.”

“A boy? Really?”

“Yes, really,” she said and smiled. “I had a boyfriend in high school. He was more than a boyfriend, he was my best friend. We graduated, and I went off to college. He couldn’t afford college and joined the Navy.

“So you never saw each other again?”

“No, but we had planned to. We promised to keep in touch. For almost a year we wrote back and forth and called each other when we could. Then we wrote less and stopped calling. Finally the letters stopped too.”

“Which one of you stopped?” he asked.

“I don’t know if it was me or him or both of us. It just happened.”

“So if you had a second chance, it would be to start writing again?”

“In a way,” she said. Her smile broadened, and she glanced back out the window.

“If I had a second chance,” she said looking back at him with soft eyes, “it would be a second chance at being boyfriend and girlfriend. That probably sounds silly to you, but that’s what it would be.”

“Why don’t you just look up his phone number and call him?”

“Where would I start? He might even be living in Europe and is probably married.”

“Search the internet,” Windslow said and hung his backpack on his wheelchair. “I bet you could find him or his family or something and call.”

“So why the question? Is there something you want a second chance at?”

“Only about a thousand things right now. I… I have to do a paper on it. I keep thinking about stuff like, if you had a magic second chance book, how would you make it work?”

“I think you answered your own question. We teachers give assignments because we want you to think. Look at your answer. You told me to just look up my old friend and give him a call. The only magic I’d need for that is a magic phonebook. You’ll do fine with your assignment.”

“Thanks, Miss Christensen,” he said and began rolling his chair toward the door. “I better go. My dad’s probably waiting for me.”

“Bye, and don’t forget. We discuss pages 7-14 tomorrow. My assignments get equal attention.”

Windslow grinned, and headed for the parking lot.

***

After dinner Hillary and Windslow finally had time to talk more while they were supposed to be doing homework. Hillary told Windslow all about Molly Folly Sallyforth, Bitterbrun, and Fistlock. Windslow told her about the wizards and how only someone named Biffendear and Fistlock knew how the book worked.

“Look here,” Windslow said and showed her the book. “It’s got words now, and you can turn the first page.”

Hillary read the words that had formed after Windslow fell asleep last night.

 

Chapter I.

The story in this chance begins,

Found in pages locked within.

Open them with words of care.

What you seek is waiting there.

 

“You can turn another page,” she said.

“That wasn’t there when I was with the wizards or this afternoon. I looked at it when we had library time.”

Hillary read the new words to him.

 

Something lost in time long past

Chancing love she thought would last

You helped her think of what to do

A link once cut she now renews

 

“This isn’t making any sense,” she said. “Maybe it’s a puzzle?”

“I’ll tell you what it is,” Windslow said. “It’s spooky.”