Finding Opal

Chapter 5

I’m fresh out of ideas.  My mind is blank.  I have absolutely, 100% nothing.  Right now my only information sources are the news and the newspapers, which are not serving to my needs very well right now.

I needed information.  I needed information fast.  I needed fast information from a reliable source.  I needed fast information from a reliable source that was close to her.  I needed fast information from a reliable source that was so close to her they knew which side of the room she faced when she slept at night.

Opal’s parents! Of course! They can tell me any information I want to know! They can tell me anything about her.  I smacked my forehead.  Why can I be so stupid sometimes?  This thought had occurred to me before, I get the best ideas yet I choose to push them to the back of my mind.  Only to be discovered later as perfect. 

I sighed.  Oh well I have the idea in my possession now and I can work on my own problems after I figure out Opal’s.

Realizing I was still stopped in the middle of the sidewalk I continued moving.  If I was going to seriously consider rescuing Opal Read I needed to work, and work fast, before anyone got hurt.  Visions of bloodthirsty murderers and strange ax men ran in front of my eyes.  This frightening thought spurred me on toward my house.

Glancing down at my watch as I speed walked towards my house I noticed it was nine minutes until 9 PM, which made me go faster.  I jogged the rest of my house, arriving out of breath; I wasn’t the most athletic person.

Ignoring any questions my parents had about my whereabouts I ran upstairs.  I needed to get all my ideas down on paper.  The small spot above my desk would definitely not be enough for all the ideas I had in store for my Plan.  Who said a closet had to be only for keeping clothes?  Space was what I needed and finally I got something I needed right when I needed it, thank goodness for walk-in closets.

I exited my bedroom door and padded down the wooden staircase to the computer room/office downstairs.  Pushing the swing doors open I ruffled around the corner of the large desk in the middle of the room.  Finally after an eternity of searching I found a purple notebook with about half of the pages torn out already.  Whatever, this will have to do.  I eased down in the oversize bean bag we kept on the floor in the office and began to ponder.

The plan for the Plan was to note anything that was to be beneficial to my actual Plan.  Since I was going to be devoting all my time to the Plan, I needed to make sure to totally focus all my energy on school while I was there.  If I let my grades slip I would be in more trouble than I will when I rescue Opal. 

First issue with the plan: how will I even get out of the house?  I scratched the note down on the first page in the notebook.  Most people say they’re going to sleep over at a friend’s house when they need to get out of the house for a party or something.  But most people have friends so that is a valid excuse, which is not my case.  I only have about two friends, Clara and Maggie.  Even they are “school only friends”. 

If I wanted to even think about rescuing Opal I needed an amazing and believable excuse to leave the house for an extended period of time.  Maybe I could tell Clara or Maggie about what I wanted to do about Opal, and then they could help me work out some of the details.  No, I think this is something I need to do by myself.  Besides, as much as I love Clara, she is a loud mouth who cannot keep a secret to save her life.  Maggie probably could keep a secret but I haven’t known her for that long, and who knows what her evil cheerleader friends could do to get a secret out of her.  I shuddered at the thought. 

The problem remained. 

How on earth could I convince my parents I needed to leave the house for a while… perhaps this “rescue mission” could last days!

Oh well I would think about this crazy idea later.  Tentatively I raised from the fluffy bean bag and began the expedition up stairs.  I had to study for my science test that was… tomorrow.  Science was a subject I needed all the study time I could afford.  I just checked my grade online a few days ago; my average was a C+.  That will not fly with my parents when report cards come out in a few weeks.

Grades were something I have never had trouble with; everything just came naturally to me.  Except for in fourth grade when we were learning long division- I had some problems with that. 

Ever since last year in science I’ve been struggling.  Some of the content I wasn’t capable of understanding until after the unit was over or the teacher did a terrible job of explaining it, no it was never the teacher’s fault I didn’t understand.  I’ve finally gotten over blaming a teacher for my failures in their class; no way was I going to start that again.

I finally reached my door with the torn notebook in my hands; it would definitely need a makeover.  Images of glitter and stickers flashed in my mind.  Too bad I really had zero time to do anything I want to do with it.  We all have to make sacrifices.

Sighing I jumped into my black desk chair.  I reached into my backpack and grabbed my science binder.  The electromagnetic spectrum… not too difficult.  Waves weren’t that hard compared to some of the other stuff we’ve done.

Letting my mind wander to my parents, I can’t believe they haven’t figured out what I’ve been doing with my time lately.  They usually question every little thing I do.  I guess it is just a matter of time before they come around and figure me out. 

That fact encouraged me enough to put away my science binder and go back to answering the unanswerable questions about my Plan.  The only way to get answers to most of my questions was witty.  I knew what I needed to do to help me get that much closer to finding Opal. 

I needed to talk to Opal’s parents.