Fear Town- The Chronicles

Chapter 6 (Pandora's Box)

“Pandora! Breakfast!” Petra shouted.  “I’ll get her mom.” Abby told Petra.  “Pandooora! Pandooora! (Abby shouted from downstairs)”  Abby walked rapidly up the stairs.  “Pan…Break-faaast.  Hello? Oooo-k. Where is she?”  Abby said softly and looking around the hallway.   Abby went into Pandora’s room to see if she was in there; seeing that she wasn’t there she wanted to walk away, but something on the dresser seemed to be calling to her. 

She looked on the dresser and saw her sister’s jewelry box.  She never noticed it so closely before, she’s only had a short glance at it while she was briefly in Pandora’s room.  It had an intriguing design.  The box was a long, wide, sharp metallic silver and black colored box, with large and smaller circles and star shapes all around the box.  There was also a metallic bronze colored spiral at the front, almost hypnotic-like.  (Abby tapped on the box)  “Wow, this is real strong metal, beautiful but strange…what is this made out of, some metal from a spaceship or something?”  Abby thought to herself looking at it closely.  “I wonder why I never seen this before.    I’ve been in Pandora’s room numerous times and have never seen anything as strange as this in my life.” She thought.

“Here I am!”  Pandora shouted.    Where WERE you?”  Abby exclaimed, turning around in Pandora’s direction still startled by Pandora scaring her half to death and catching her breath.    “I was in the laundry room, getting my pink and brown argyle sweater.   I’m trying to look all prestigious for my first full-on debate today.”  Pandora said with a proud and excited look on her face.   “I didn’t know you did debate?”  Abby said curiously surprised.“You don’t know anything.” Pandora said.    “Ooook.”  Abby said.

“What are you doing in here?”  Pandora asked.   Abby glanced at the box again quickly and changed the subject.    “That’s a beautiful box, where did you get it?”  Abby said to Pandora trying to make conversation and not drawing attention to herself.    “It was a gift from daddy.  Just rewarding me for my good grades.”  Pandora said.   “Reward?  For good grades?  They haven’t rewarded me since I got that art award in the 2nd grade.  They stopped caring about anything after that.   Probably because they’re used to my accomplishments by now and because I now have 3 other siblings to compete with.”  Abby thought.

“Anyway, what do you want?” Pandora asked rudely.  “Mom wanted to know what you wanted for breakfast.”  Abby said.  “Oh, I’m not eating breakfast. I’m on a diet.”  Pandora said.  “A diet for what?  You are so skinny already.”  Abby said stunned.  “You really don’t know anything.  I’m fat.” Pandora said pinching her “love handles”.      “Okie dokie, it’s you’re world.  Good luck with your debate .”  Abby said leaving slowly down the steps and looking at Pandora as she was talking.     “Luck…hmmm, I’ve already got that.   No problem at all.” Pandora said.     Oooo-k.  Well, BYE!”  Abby said in a fake tone and rapidly walking down the stairs getting away from the conversation as fast as she could.

“You didn’t come up here to just gossip about boxes and waste my time, did you?”  Pandora said.    “No, just breakfast.   Anyway, gotta go.  See-ya.”  Abby said.     “Whatever.”  Pandora said rolling her eyes.     Abby continued down the stairs to tell her mom Pandora’s answer.

Pandora just looked at the top of the stairs where Abby once was, gave a “hmph!”, and went down the hall into Penelope’s room and closed the door behind her.

“She’s not really hungry.”  Abby said as she grabbed an orange from the fruit bowl on the kitchen counter, peeled it, and ate a couple of slices.  “Oh, ok…that girl barely eats anything.”  Petra said shaking her head.   Abby nodded in agreement, gave a side smile, ate the rest of the orange, threw it in the trash, washed her hands, wiped them on a paper towel, and picked up her backpack.

“Ok, I’m off to the library.    I have a paper to finish for Science class and I need to do some more research.”  Abby said.    “You mind if I search the internet really quick on this computer, I’m in a hurry and I forgot to get the names of some of the books that the teacher gave us to go on.”  Abby said to Petra as she hunched over the kitchen table with her hands clutching the end of the table.    “Sure, go ahead.  Search away.”  Petra said.  “Thanks.”  Abby said.

Abby sat down in the chair facing the computer.    She opened up the internet browser and read her emails to get the information that she needed, then wrote down that info on a piece of paper in her notebook.    After she closed the browser, she put her notebook away and was about to get up from the seat when a folder on the desktop caught her eye.  The folder said  “Textile Design Ideas”.   “Wow, I didn’t know that dad was making his own designs in textile.  I’ve gotta check this out.”  Abby thought to herself excitedly.    She wanted to leave things alone, but something inside her was nagging to know what was in the file folder.

She clicked on the folder and scanned the list of file names.  Finally, she opened a file that was named “Design #102”.

There it was…the truth was right in front of her.  “What is this?    These don’t look like designs, at least not textile anyway.   Wow, I really cannot believe this.  A Map?   What is Moonhaven cave?   What are those symbols and what do they mean?   Pharmaceutical records?   What is all this?  I’ve never seen this before, let alone heard of these places before.”  Abby thought to herself. 

She quickly sketched the map on the computer and wrote down the information as she looked at the computer screen in disbelief.    Then, she got up from her seat and picked up her backpack.    Her mom was looking at a newspaper, so she was not paying any attention.

“Alright, gotta go.”  Abby said as she was standing next to the table.    “Ok, see you when you get home.  Dinner will be ready at 8 p.m. sharp.   Oh, and we’re having Beef Stroganoff for dinner.”  Petra said glancing up from the newspaper article she was reading.    “Okie dokie, good to know.  Well, I better get going.   Have a lot of work to do.  See you later.”  Abby said to her mother while giving her a peck on the cheek.  “Ok, see you later hun.”  Petra said going back to her newspaper article.  “Bye.”  Abby said.  Abby opened the door and walked out shutting the door behind her.

All day, Abby could not get what she found on the computer off her mind.  To keep her mind off of everything that happened, she poured her heart & soul into reading the info for her books for her Science paper and stayed at the public library for five hours to finish up the rest of the paper she had been working on for months.  After that was finished and she typed up it on the computer, she looked over it thoroughly a couple of times and e-mailed the paper to her teacher.  She laid back in the chair that she was in and gave a quiet sigh of relief.

Abby still couldn’t get rid of the curious thoughts running through her brain, so she just decided to go on her instinct and do a little more research for a few more hours.  Instead this time, it was research on the caves.  She recorded what she read up on and took notes on what she learned, excited by what she had found.  Then, gathered her things in her backpack and left out the library door.