Greenhouse Gore

CHAPTER TEN: CLASS H FELONY

Within the same minute that we saw the fumes billow out from behind Mrs. Coffin's car as it spun around the massive fountain spewing pale green water, a pair of red eyes glaring at us through the headlights as she braked, turned on her left turn signal for no one in particular, and vanished down the read, the Sids, Axel, Micah, and I were huddled together like emperor penguins in the frigid October evening while Asa worked her magic in picking the lock on the backdoor to the house. I'd previously assumed Asa – while slinking in and out of all the jewelry boxes in BV – had found various household items that were suitable for the job. Bobby pins or paperclips, even. But now I was curiously watching her maneuver several tools I'd never seen before and thanks to Micah's innocent inquiries, she explained that the things she was holding in her hands were a tension wrench and a pick. At her feet was a tiny bottle filled with a liquid. It had no label to identify what was inside. 'Lubricant,' Asa had said. 'It's needed at times when dealing with shoddy locks.' Micah was relentless with his questioning, and I initially thought he was masking his nervousness under all these questions, but he genuinely seemed interested in what Asa was doing.

Asa held up a metal tool in the shape of an L. "This is the tension wrench." She showed it to Micah and then drifted it across to the rest of us like a teacher about to demonstrate how to use it properly. "You insert this into the plug right here. That's where the key goes, and you use the wrench to apply pressure."

For a moment, I felt like we were back in the greenhouse listening to Siddo describe the parts of the human skeleton before bending over to Tatum and pointing out the corresponding bone. In both these instances, there was a vague sense of skepticism; both teachers explaining their lessons to us while somewhere in the back of their minds, there seemed to be a thought of 'what in the world am I doing?' I turned to look at Siddo, expectant of distaste or disbelief stamped across her face, but I was surprised to find that she was deeply concentrating on every single movement that Asa made, caught between admiration and the image of this girl doing exactly this to her own backdoor mere months ago.

"You don't want your tension wrench to bend too much," Asa instructed, mimicking her teachings. "It's important to apply the right amount of pressure."

"Okay, James Bond," Axel interrupted. He looked over his shoulder as if Mrs. Coffin somehow caught on to what we were doing and snuck around the side of her house, ready to knock us all out. Weirdly, it was in this moment that I'd realized Reece had returned his scarf from earlier in the day. He tightened it around his collar. "We don't need a double-o-seven lesson this very minute. Can you just get us inside?"

Asa grunted at him, but then smiled faintly, her eyes focused on what her hands were doing. "Actually, the name's Larry," she said. We heard something click. She pulled out the wrench and the pick from the lock, stood up, and turned the knob so quickly that it was almost a shock when the door opened. She cocked her head around to look at us. "Lockpick Larry."

From inside, we could hear music playing indistinctly from another room which visibly sent a chill through all of us. Was it better to break into silence or an eerily upbeat tune from a house presumed to be deserted for the night by its only inhabitant?

The door was open, yet no one took the initiative of being the first person to step inside. We stared at the sliver between the door and the door frame, at the lock, and then at each other, embarrassed at what we were about to do. I expected Siddo to take the first step; this had been her idea, after all. But it was Asa, who'd folded her arms across her chest while reveling in her handiwork, feeling accomplished of what she'd just done, who glanced at the rest of our sheepish expressions and exhaled in contempt.