Dvorak: An Interactive Adventure

Chapter 9

Friday, January 11th started out as any normal day did. Carissa woke up on time, got dressed, and caught the correct train to school. Everything seemed normal, except Mac still wasn’t at school when she got there. That, and she hadn’t stopped by Saint Arbucks for her chai in a few days, and she was starting to miss it.

She arrived in science class and had her first surprise of the day -- pop quiz. Carissa hated pop quizzes. Mrs. Anders was notorious for them, and she should have been a little bit more prepared. She slinked back in her seat and sighed. She was usually pretty good in life science, but with everything that had been going on with her adventures, she had been more than a little preoccupied.

Mrs. Anders passed out the quiz, and Carissa took a deep breath. The quiz was on a lab they had done last week, also reviewing some advanced functions with the scientific method, and she knew that she could answer at least half of the questions. The problem was that she couldn’t answer the other half.

She grabbed for her duffel, going to get a pencil out, and she noticed the other surprise of the morning. Sitting in the tray under her desk was a small piece of paper, folded up, with her name on it. Was it from Isabel? Carissa reached for the piece of paper, but stopped when she heard Mrs. Anders call out another student’s name.

“Gary,” she said, “you know there is no assistance on pop quizzes.”

“I know,” Gary said. “My pencil broke.”

“Then let me get you a new one,” Mrs. Anders said as Carissa quickly grabbed the pencil case out of the front of her bag. The note would have to wait. And wait it did, as that note was all Carissa could think about for the rest of the quiz.

She ended up making up answers for the rest of the questions -- one she was certain she could get some points on, but the other she knew she had no clue. She sighed as class ended and was finally able to pull out the note, stuffing it in her duffel before leaving. She had waited that long, she could wait until she got to Mr. Withrow’s class and see what it said.

But she was distracted in Mr. Withrow’s class as well -- because Mac was back. He was sitting in the back of the room in his normal seat, looking in a textbook, when Carissa stepped in. The problem was that he didn’t even look up when she entered, and she felt a sudden shock. What if Mac was now part of this “reality doing weird things” phenomenon? What if he didn’t even remember their adventures, who she was? She had to get his attention somehow -- reminding herself that, in this world now, Peter had never been in her house and they had been allowed to be on the roof. She reminded herself to tell Mac when she got a chance that he didn’t have to take the now fake detention if he didn’t want to.

That is, if he still remembered who she was.

“What’s that?” Isabel asked when they finally sat down to lunch. She peered over at the note that Carissa now had in her hands.

Carissa ate a bite of her chicken sandwich before shooing Isabel out of her face. “Be nice. I thought this was from you. Apparently not.” She swallowed. “Haven’t had a chance to read it at all this morning with that pop quiz.”

“I know.” Isabel sighed. “I definitely failed mine.”

“You would do better on those pop quizzes if you actually paid attention in class instead of reading People En Español all day.”

“I know, I know.” Isabel rolled her eyes and ate some of her own chicken sandwich. “So what does this note say?”

Carissa unfolded the note and dropped her chicken sandwich. The note was a plain sheet of paper, divided into two halves down the middle. On the left side was a picture, vividly detailed and hand drawn, of a girl and a boy on a bike -- and Carissa recognized it as Mac and herself. On the other side of the paper was written, in neat handwriting, “Stay away from Saint Arbucks or else.”