Aunt Taylor's Library

Chapter 2 (Kylie)

(The picture is Aunt Taylor's house)

(Kylie)

It took a while, but we finally decided that the story started here, with me and my sister. In my opinion, our part starts on the soccer field, when Lily accidentally tripped Ryleigh, costing us the game. And that was the day Lily and Ryleigh's rivalry started.

Ryleigh had the ball, and she was running down the field toward the goal. I was at the other end of the field, because I'm a defender. Lily was running next to Ryleigh, keeping the other team away, when she accidentally got in Ryleigh's way. Ryleigh tripped, lost the ball, and the other team stole it and scored. They won. Jo was the one that got really mad, screaming at Lily and having to be dragged away by her older sister Rae, but Ryleigh was the one who accused her.

"You did that on purpose, didn't you?"

Lily rolled her eyes. "Of course not! How many times do I have to tell you? It. Was. An. Accident."

Ryleigh crossed her arms. "I bet you were just jealous, that I was about to win the game for us."

"Soccer is a team sport!" Lily said with a raised voice.

"And your actions were really full of team spirit, weren't they?" Ryleigh yelled.

Lily was about to say just as ugly back when I pulled her arm. "Let's just go. She's not even worth our time."

Lily considered this, then turned on her heel and left with me. Ryleigh glared daggers in us as we walked away, but we ignored her. I knew the perfect spot to cheer up, too.

Aunt Taylor's house was at the end of my street. It was the largest, most impressive house on the street, and was three stories tall. My dad says its a colonial style house, and could tell you a whole lot about other buildings of this time period. He's an architectural historian, which basically means he studies the architecture of old buildings, I think.

Lily and I walked up Aunt Taylor's tree-lined driveway and rang her doorbell. After ringing it a second time, we heard a grumpy older voice yell "I'm coming, I'm coming!" and Aunt Taylor opened the door. "Oh, it's you kids again. Guess I'd better let you in." We smiled and stepped over the threshold. Aunt Taylor pretended she hated everyone, but she really did like us. We are really polite compared to most teenagers, of course.

Aunt Taylor led us through her house, cluttered with exotic things from all over the world that she'd collected on her travels - a large fan from Japan, a huge ivory elephant from India, an actual suit of armor from Germany. The only non-dusty places in her house were the kitchen, main bathroom, and her bedroom.

"I'll guess you'll want some cookies, then. Lucky you, I was just about to put a batch in the oven." Lily looked at me and smiled. Aunt Taylor's cookies were the best. No competition.

Aunt Taylor put the full cookie tray in the oven, then turned back to us and looked is over. We probably looked like a mess, since we came straight from soccer. Aunt Taylor motioned to two glasses of lemonade that were sitting in front of us. I could have sworn they hadn't been there a second ago. I guess I missed them.

"You two can take your lemonade and get on outside, or better yet, go wait in the library. Kids your age don't read enough. When I was your age, I was reading all the time." I didn't bother mentioning that Lily and I both love reading. "Go on, get on with you."

Lily and I grabbed our glasses and headed upstairs to the library. It was a huge room, full of books. Even though it's on the second floor, it's two stories tall. I guess it goes straight to the roof. I've never been to the third floor, so I don't know how it changes the layout up there. The second floor of the library is really just a four foot wide walkway around the perimeter of the room, so you can access the books up there more easily. The middle of the room has old chairs to sit at and read, and there are two windows with a fireplace in between them along one wall.

Lily and I plopped down on a couch. The books in this library were all old and boring, unfortunately, or I would have loved it. Let's say it was filled with books like Divergent, that would be amazing.

Lily picked up a book sitting on the coffee table in front of her. "Hey, look at this."

I looked, and to my surprise, it was just the book I was thinking about, Divergent. "That's weird. You know, I was just wishing there were more books like this in this library."

Lily shrugged. "Wanna read?"

I nodded. Lily and I might be strange, but we love reading out loud to each other. Lily leaned back and closed her eyes as I began. I was on the third page before I noticed anything strange.

"Since when did I have a watch?"

Lily opened her eyes. "What are- where are we?"

I looked around. We were in a bedroom, with no decorations. The walls were painted gray, and there weren't any mirrors. The only things in the room were the bed I was sitting on and a chest of drawers. I looked at Lily, who wasn't wearing her soccer uniform anymore. Instead, she had a simple gray shirt, gray skirt, and gray jacket on, and her hair was in a perfect, plain bun. I had a feeling that based on the way she was staring at me, I looked the same.

"What the heck?" she whispered.

I ran to the window behind her and looked out. Across the street I saw a row of identical gray, concrete houses with full metal mailboxes. One things for sure. We aren't in Aunt Taylor's library anymore.