The Forgotten One

Chapter twenty one

I was finally home and with a lot of homework that I missed because of what happened to me. I couldn't catch a break, can I? I sighed as I was working on my fifth math homework, if I had to solve for X one more time, I'm going to scream. I was laying on my stomach, chewing on my pencil while trying to solve X for this stupid Algebra homework. Mickey was perched up on my back and I felt his soft fur on my shoulder as he looked at my homework in confusion. I stroked his head and he whined, probably missing me from all the days that I've been gone from him.

"Sorry for leaving you, Mic. But you know how I am, I either get really sick or get hurt really bad, there's no in between," I say as I glanced at him. He licked my face and I giggled, he hopped off my back and landed gracefully on the floor. "Show off, you should be part of the Olympics"

He barked and I laughed. I was finally finished with my math homework and decided to work on history. It was a family tree project, I sighed as I hated this one. That meant having to go to the attic and having to get photos. I glanced down at Mickey and got off my bed. I walked out the door and indicated for Mickey to follow me and he did. I opened the attic door and held Mickey while I climbed up the ladder. It was dusty and cold. The attic had cobwebs and cracks on it, a window was shattered and glass was on the floor.

"Talk about a horror movie, huh Mic?" I asked and he whimpered. I patted his head in reassurance, it was so cold that we could see our breaths. Well it was winter and that stupid window was shattered. I looked around the dark attic, trying to find the light switch to no avail and only the light was from the window which was illuminating the whole room. Each time I took a step, there was a creak. I looked down at Mickey and kissed his head. "Don't worry Mic, I'm just looking for pictures"

I set him down and he ran off into a corner. I let him stay there as I looked for the box filled with the pictures. I finally located it and crouched down and opened it. I coughed as dust filled my nostrils, after I stopped coughing, I took out the pictures. I decided to find my baby pictures first, to decide which to copy so I could put it on my family tree. But when I looked through the box...there were no pictures of me. At all. I flipped the box over so all the pictures could scatter on the floor. I looked at all of them and there were only pictures of mom and dad, their parents and other family members. The only baby picture that I had was the one that Mickey slightly chewed on. My parents never put any other pictures in the kitchen, living room or hallways. I felt my heart starting to pound.

Maybe there were other boxes with me in it. But as I scanned around the attic for more boxes, this was the only one. I brushed my hair to the side and closed my eyes. I knew it. I knew that there was something wrong with my parents. Maybe they adopted me, didn't take any pictures of me, erased my memories from my childhood and pretended everything was dandy. Okay, that's the stupidest thing I ever heard of. But I tried to make sense of it but I couldn't. Maybe they kidnapped me. I shuddered and it wasn't because of the draft in the room. Maybe they did kidnap me and pretended they were my parents. I suddenly jumped when I heard creaking coming from the ladder and I whipped my head to see who it was. It was my mom.

"Emery? What on earth are you doing in this attic?" My mom said as she popped her head in. I breathed heavily at her. I stared at mother for a few minutes, she had blue eyes and blonde hair. I had hazel eyes and my blonde hair was a little bit darker than hers. My dad had black hair and brown eyes. We looked nothing alike. My mom finally hoisted herself up and she took a step forward while I slowly crawled away from her. She looked at me warily. "Em, are you okay?"

I had to play it cool for my "mom" so she wouldn't suspect anything out of the ordinary. So I got up, brushed off the dust and smiled brightly at her. "I'm fine, mom"

She looked at me curiously and noticed all the photos scattered across the dusty floor. She gestured towards the mess and gave me a pointed look. "Why were you looking through the photos?"