Speed ➢ harry styles

Ch. 7 ~ Long Island Railroad

"Your destination, sir." The cab driver alerted me. I paid him and stepped out to view my surroundings. The neighborhood looked fairly safe and children were playing in a fenced basketball court area right next to the home I was supposed to visit Ms. Rosie in. Her home was painted a canary yellow that was slightly fading and there was a dainty looking army of garden gnomes of all different sizes surrounding the porch. I opened the white picket fence and headed over to the porch to ring the doorbell. A pair of eyes peeked out at me through the window next to the door. Then finally a young girl with auburn hair opened the door.

"Yes?"

"Um, I'm here to see Rosie. I was sent by her employer at the dorm."

"Oh well okay." She said looking at me quizzically. "Grandma! Some guy is at our door, he's asking for you." Shortly an elderly woman wearing butterfly shaped eyeglasses came at the door. 

"You're the one wondering about room 5's contents?" I nodded. "Well don't waste any more time, I've got to head to the supermarket in a bit. Come in please." I came in and sat in the living room. Rosie took a seat across from me on a shabby looking plaid recliner. 

"Other than the piece of notepad paper, did you find anything else?" 

She thought for a minute. "Not that I remember. She stayed there for very little time and the room was hardly a mess. I found the piece of paper under the sink. I kept it because I thought maybe it was a page from some report or homework assignment. The 3 East 3rd Dorm tends to have mostly students staying there so it's not uncommon for us to find forgotten assignments that are later claimed." She got up and opened the dusty old file cabinet in the corner of the living room and pulled out a piece of paper. "Here you go, make of it what you will."

As I grabbed the paper from her I truly hoped that it was something that could actually assist me in finding Anella. I examined the sheet. A Venn diagram was drawn comparing two literature authors of the Renaissance period. Anella Delaney was written in girly handwriting at the top of the page.

"Did you see the back of the page? Maybe you can make some sense of the tiny writing on the bottom left corner." Rosie interrupted my thoughts. I nodded and turned over the sheet. Sure enough, there was something written there and as far as I could tell it had nothing to do with literature authors. 

4/1/14 take LIRR at 6:40pm from Queens to Atlantic term.

"It appears to be a little note to self. Apparently she has to do something on April 1st? Hmm, isn't that April fool's day?"

"No, it's not April 1st." I shook my head. "It's January 4th."

"What do you mean?" She asked.

"Well Anella is from the UK so I'm assuming it's written as date/month/year instead of month/date/year," I explained.

"Oh, I almost forgot, you Brits do things a little differently. In that case, January 4th is today." Rosie looked to the clock on her wall. "And it's 3 pm right now."

"Queens is a borough in New York and term is probably short for...terminal? Atlantic terminal?" I thought out loud. 

"The Atlantic terminal is one of the stations that make up the LIRR." The young girl who'd opened the door for me, chimed in. 

"What's the LIRR?" I asked noticing that the sheet had mentioned taking the LIRR. Rosie gazed at her granddaughter as if she was the all-knowing. 

"You know what that is, Allison?" Rosie asked the young girl, who nodded. "Kids these days watch so much television, they become even wiser than their elders." Rosie said to no one in particular. Allison walked over from where she was sitting in the kitchen and gingerly sat on one of the arms of Rosie's recliner.

"LIRR is Long Island Rail Road, my friend Maria rides it on the weekends when she goes to visit her aunt." Allison told me. Then it started to make sense. Anella had written herself a reminder to take the train from Queens station to Atlantic Terminal station today at 6:40 pm.

"Thank you so much for your help, Allison, and thank you Ms. Rosie for saving this paper. I'll get going now. Goodbye." I got up and made my way over to the front door. 

"Goodbye. I hope you find her and when you do, be sure to give that sheet back to her. She might need the information on it for an upcoming exam, you never know." I nodded and as soon as I was outside I dialed Leo's number. I'd need his help to catch the 6:40 train from the Queens Station, considering I'd never taken the train in New York before. 

"Hey, buddy! Find Alina yet?" Leo's deep voice sounded at the other end.

"Her name's Anella and no I haven't yet but I have a feeling I just might," I told him.

"Oh damn! I like your confidence. What are you going to do and how can I help?"

"I need you to get me tickets for today's 6:40 pm train that is going to depart from Queens train station and arrive at Atlantic terminal."

"I'll see what I can do."