Episode 22: The Door Which Breaks for Burglary
It was 7:42 AM in the morning. Matt knocked on Jen’s door as he yawned loudly. Jen opened the door and whined, “Gee Matt, I heard you from all the way inside my house.” She handed Matt a printed paper, “Why couldn’t you just get this from me in the morning?”
Matt asked her, “What time do you start walking to school again?”
Jen looked at the clock in her house, “In about ten minutes.”
Matt quickly responded, “Exactly. I don’t want to go through the trouble finding you before class starts.”
“But we both have P.E. for first period. We can get late all we want for ten extra minutes.”
“Well that doesn’t matter. Last night after you printed the essay for me, you signed off. I wanted to tell you to find me at school but I was worried you wouldn’t think of doing that.”
Jen slapped his left shoulder, “Are you stupid? I thought of that the moment you asked me to print out the essay for you. Oh, anyway, I need to help my sister out with something. Luckily since P.E. gives me an extra ten minutes, I can help my sister pack up for camping today.”
Matt remembered, “Oh yeah, I heard about it. Kalpesh told me that our sixth grade teacher in New Lexington is hosting a camping trip again.”
“Yup, it’s every year. I can’t wait for Janelle to experience what camping is like!” She giggled. Jen’s sister, Janelle, is three school years younger than Jen and Matt.
“Do you want me to help you guys? I have P.E. for first period too.”
Jen pushed him away, “No, no. This is girl stuff. Get out!~” She closed the door and Matt, from outside, could her over four locks being set on her door.
Matt scratched his head as he said slowly, “Geez, she’s very secure on burglars.”
~~~
Moments later during P.E., Matt ran up to Jen so that they could talk about anything they wanted. Matt gave her a ‘hello’ but she only grabbed her head, shaking in fear. Matt tilted his head enough to see her expression, “Jen? What’s wrong?”
Jen closed her eyes, “It happened again… Again!”
“What are you talking about?” Matt became confused.
Jen shook Matt’s shoulders, “A burglary!”
Matt was very surprised. “(Did I jinx it? I wasn’t serious about a burglar earlier this morning.) What did he do?”
Jen explained her situation, “This happened last week too. I had many locks on the door this time but it was all destroyed before I was about to even go outside! I mean, the lock was broken so badly that someone not normal could have done it. They had a hood on and there was a backpack in front of them I think. I only took a glimpse. He ran out before I could even talk to him.”
Matt thought about it, “(Someone not normal?) Hey, do you know-… (No, I shouldn’t name all my friends who have powers. She might start having a suspicion. Ergh… Could it have been either Santi or Danny?)”
“Do I know who?” Jen asked.
“Never mind. After school, can I see the lock?”
Jen nodded, “Actually, I’ll give you the picture after first period. I took a picture of it before it is seen by my parents. I want to blog about this tonight on Gaia Online or something.”
~~~
After first period, Matt took the picture and he walked off. He looked at the broken lock, “Who could have done this… Santi, or Danny?”
ShirleyC appeared behind Matt. She looked closely at the picture and Matt noticed a shadow covering over the picture. Matt turned around and yelped in horror. Shirley laughed evilly, “Muahaha! I scared you!” She pointed at the picture, “So what is that?”
Matt hid the picture, “What picture? You mean this paper?”
Shirley rolled her eyes and she crossed her arms. “I know what it was. The ‘paper’ is plastic, and there’s a picture on it. It’s clearly a photo of something. Let me see, or I’ll freeze you to death.”
“I’ll burn you to death, now go away.”
“You can’t threaten me with your powers. Come to think of it… We can’t even use our powers as threats towards each other. Anyway, what’s with the photo?!”
Matt sighed. He handed the photo to her. “Here.”
Shirley took a peek at the photo and she handed it back. She said, “A picture of a messed up old door? Is that YOUR door? It’s pretty ugly. You need to paint it pink or something, haha.”
Matt said monotonously, “It’s Jen’s door.”
Shirley suddenly stopped laughing. She went on, “Er, so her door is kind of messed up, isn’t it?”
Matt explained the situation to her, “The thing is, there’s a burglar who keeps trying to break into her house. Somehow the doors are badly beat up, especially the locks. She saw it was a guy, and only a non-normal person can do all that within ten minutes while she was helping her sister pack up for her camping trip.”
Shirley thought about it. She began to guess her possibilities, “I think… Either Santi stopped time and took his time on breaking it like a normal person would, or Danny just used his powers like crazy.”
Matt resented the idea. He objected with, “But if Santi did it normally, then how did he get the lock from the inside all messed up? And for Danny, he can only use his ground powers at minimum. His power is weak, isn’t it? Besides, I don’t think any of them are close to Jen.”
“You’re not suspecting us?”
“Do you want me to?”
“No, no. But why only the guys with powers?”
Matt responded, “Jen said she saw a guy, so I automatically assumed it was one of them two.”
Shirley poked Matt’s chest, “Or it was you! You’re another guy, or should I say boy, who could use your fire powers to mess up that door even from the inside.”
“No way. I have fire powers, not explosives.” Matt closed his eyes in annoyance. From there, they started walking to class. Shirley shrugged the photo problem off her mind but Matt was still curious about it. He looked at the photo for the next two periods.
~~~
During lunch, Matt sat down with only a burger and a carton of milk, “Bleh, why do we always go to the same line? It’s burger, burger, burger everyday.”
Jen sat down across from him. She said angrily, “You didn’t have to follow me. You could have gone to the buffet line and-…” Danny sat next to her with a plate of mashed potatoes. “have gotten that…” Jen looked around her tray, “Huh? I must have forgotten my spork.” She stood up.
Matt stopped her, “Ah, you can take mine. I don’t need my spork since I have a burger and a carton of milk. Wait, why do you need it? We have the same food.”
Jen pointed at Danny’s food, “But I want some. It just looks so good.” She began walking away.
Matt looked away in anger, “Fine. She just had to get her own, did she?”
Shirley sat down next to Matt and began complaining about her Science test score. Followed by Shirley was Yessenia who sat next to Jen’s seat. Danny suddenly looked down at his shoes, “Huh? My shoe is untied.” He kneeled down to tie his shoe. Yessenia was staring at him.
Jen came back with her spork, “Here’s one! Let’s share, Danny.”
Danny stared at her burger, “I’ll take some of that too.” Danny took out the gum from his mouth and he placed it under the table.
Shirley squealed, “Ew, Danny! Don’t do that.”
Danny exclaimed, “Don’t worry! I’ll get it back at the end of lunch. I want to savor the flavor and not waste it.”
Yessenia said bluntly, “You might get the wrong gum.”
“I know. That’s okay. It’s happened before.” Danny said. Matt, Shirley, and Jen all squirmed from the gross thought.
~~~
After sixth period, Matt took out the photo again, “I guess it’s time to go to Jen’s house to check it myself.”
Shirley and Yessenia followed Matt out of class. Shirley grabbed Matt’s collar, “You’re bringing us with you. I told her all about the messed up door in the picture.”
“I want to go alone. She might think it’s suspicious for all three of us to just go to her doorway and start looking around at what happened.”
Yessenia began walking. Shirley tried to stop her, “Ah, Yessenia! Where are you going?”
Matt ran in front of her and he opened his arms to block her way from going through, “I’m serious. I need to go by myself.”
Yessenia gave Matt a disturbing stare, “It wouldn’t be suspicious if you even went to her house anyway?”
Matt scratched his head in shame, “Eheh, actually that’s true, I guess… Other than this morning, I haven’t gone to her house for awhile. Fine then, you two can come along but don’t cause some ruckus.”
“That won’t be a problem.” Yessenia said without any expressed feelings.
~~~
At Jen’s house, the group of three saw Santi. He had his hand facing the door and his hand was shining. Shirley screamed, “Ah-hah! So you’re the one who did this!” She ran as fast as she could towards him. Santi turned his head to look at Shirley barbarically flying towards him. He gasped in complete surprised as he covered himself and slowed down time. He stepped aside as he fixed the speed of time. Shirley fell onto the floor, “Argh, cheater! You’re going down for messing with Jen.”
Matt ran up to them and then turned away, “Wait, only Shirley knows Jen because they bash on me together…”
Shirley giggled, “That’s right!” She said to Santi, “Why are you doing this?!”
Yessenia took her time to catch up. Santi took a step back, “Hold on! I’m just trying to reverse the time of the door. It’s back to normal now. I’m surprised her parents haven’t seen this.”
Shirley came closer to Santi enough to see the designs within his pupils, “Oh yeah? Then how come you know that her door was messed up?”
Santi pointed at the door, “Danny told me to fix it.”
Matt yelled, “Where’s Danny now?!”
Santi blankly left his finger pointing at the door, “Why else would I be pointing?”
Matt and Shirley looked at each other as they yelped from surprise. They ran up to the door and they pushed each other, struggling for the door knob. Shirley pushed Matt down and opened the door, “Why did you let Danny in?!”
“EEEK!!!!” a voice was heard from inside the house.
Matt panicked, “Jen?! Hang in there!”
Matt ran in first and Shirley was about to follow. Santi stopped her, “Wait, let’s hurry up and hide! I think her parents are home.”
Matt ran in the hallway. He watched Danny run out of the bathroom with a soap bottle being thrown at his face. Matt kneeled down to find Danny’s injury. Jen closed the door without looking out of the bathroom. Matt whispered, “What were you doing, you pervert!”
Danny shook his head, “I had Santi come with me. I knocked on the door and even rang the doorbell. No one answered. I told Santi to wait outside and fix the door. Anyway, I couldn’t find anyone in the house. I heard water running in the bathroom and I thought it was the sink. I tried to knock on the door and there was no response. She probably didn’t hear me from the tub’s running water I guess. I thought she was dead, so I opened the door.”
Jen came out of the bathroom, “Danny, you jerk!-… Matt?!”
She clenched her teeth but Matt stopped her, “Hold on, let’s hear what Danny has to say!”
Jen sighed as Danny went on, “She has a diary with an actual key lock on it. I tried every day, checking in her backpack, hoping that she’d forget to lock her diary. Twice now, I’ve been trying to find the key in her house. I came here to fix the door with the help of Santi but I got curious so I went in again.”
Matt crossed his arms, “So you brought Santi into this especially when he was unaware of what was going on?”
“I’m sorry Jen… You just started teasing me with your life, telling me that you cannot tell me secrets. You mentioned your secret diary and I wanted to find out.”
Matt remembered the door, “Then how did you mess up the whole door? You can only… (Oh crap, Jen’s here! I can’t talk about his ground powers…) Well, it’s time for us to go. Sorry about this, Jen!”
They both ran away and Jen screamed, “Wha, wait, Matt! Argh… running off.”
Matt and Danny ran out of the doorway as Jen’s mom came in with groceries. She looked at them, “Goodness. Jen must have invited them. They must be late for something if they’re running in a hurry. Oh well.”
~~~
Shirley slapped Danny on the head, “Are you crazy?!”
Danny frowned, “It turns out I won’t be able to see her diary after all…”
Yessenia began to open her senses as she started feeling surprised. Santi sighed, “Heh, I’m not trusting you again, Danny.”
Danny took out his folder, “And I used this to mess up her door. My small ground powers broke her lock…”
“That’s it?!” Matt felt calmer.
Yessenia remembered, “Oh my, so that’s what he was doing during lunch. He wasn’t tying his shoes. He was rummaging through Jen’s backpack.”
Matt and Shirley screamed in anger, “Why didn’t you tell us?!”
“My bad.” Yessenia said bluntly.
~~~
---- Next chapter preview:Matt: On the next chapter, there's a shadow that seems to be following me! Shirley starts seeing something go wrong while no one else believes her story.
Shirley: This... isn't funny.
Matt: Shirley becomes traumatized from such strange happenings?! Am I being haunted? Next chapter, The Phantom of the Shadow Magic - Part 1!
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