The Dangerous Doors of Shannon Anderson

Chapter Fourteen

I barely slept that night, even though my dinky twin mattress felt like a king-sized bed in the penthouse suite at the Four Seasons compared to the cramped, humid, muddy tree trunk I'd been stuck in for the past three nights. I couldn't stop thinking about how royally screwed I was.

One, I had missed all my exams. Somehow, I was pretty sure NYU frowned upon that kind of thing.

Two, there was no point in trying to tell the truth about where I'd gone, because who in their right mind would believe me? I foresaw things getting awkward when the police came to talk to me in the morning. And if I didn't make up some kind of excuse, would the school let me retake my exams? What if they didn't let me? What if they just failed me? I was not the kind of student that became a super senior, and I didn't think I'd be able to tolerate another year at St. Rita's, especially not without Tucker and Jessa there.

But what I really cared about was what this would all mean for the fall. The prospect of not moving to New York in August was unbearable to think about. I'd slaved away for four years, putting in countless late nights on every school theater production, even during the summer; interning at the community theater downtown; maintaining damn near a 4.0 (and how I managed that with all the science and APs I had to take, I have no idea); writing and re-writing my admissions essays, and the hellishly broad "What do you want from your college experience?" statement of purpose, and honing my portfolio until all of my application materials shined like the top of the Chrysler Building. And only then was I invited for an artistic review in Chicago. I had never been so happy as when that admissions letter came, all the fruits of my labor distilled onto one piece of paper with that lovely purple letterhead. The gateway to everything I had ever dreamed of becoming. And now what? Was that all going to get thrown away because of a book? No way. I resolved to tell Dad the whole truth first thing in the morning, so that he could help me develop a plan of attack to keep Operation Go to NYU and Have the Most Successful and Fulfilling Career in Theater Production Ever moving full steam ahead. It was only then that I was finally able to snooze for a few hours.

I was woken by a light knock on my door. Dad poked his head in. "Shannon?"

I squinted at the sunlight that was shining through the window above my bed. "Yeah?"

"Lieutenant Fuller is here to ask you some questions. When you're ready." He shut the door.

"Wait, Dad!" I jumped out of bed and caught him at the top of the stairs. "Come in here," I whispered so that Mom wouldn't hear, and dragged him by the arm into my room. "I want to show you something."

I grabbed The Complete Sherlock Holmes from the book pile by my bed - a reasonably safe choice, I thought - cracked the spine, and waited for 221B to materialize in my wall. I didn't see it. I closed the book and opened it again. No sound. I checked behind my dresser, and by my closet, even under my bed. There was no door.

"What are you doing?" Dad asked as I crawled out from under my bed.

I took a deep breath. If I couldn't show him, I would just have to do my best to explain with words.

"Okay," I started. But where to start?

"Shannon, what is it? You can tell me."

Of course I could. This was Dad. "Okay," I said again. "So, you know how lightning hit your office while you were in Missouri with Aidan last weekend? Well, I think it might have hit me, too. It knocked me down, anyway, and it was really, really blue, and loud, and ever since then I've been able to go inside the books that were on your shelf. Like, actually walk around in the story worlds. These little doors appear when I open the books and I can crawl through. I met Dr. Van Helsing and I helped him kill Dracula, and for the past three days I've been in New Switzerland with the Swiss Family Robinson because it was the rainy season and there was a huge storm and I got stuck." Wow, that didn't sound ridiculous at all.

Dad sighed. "Shan, I don't know where you've been or what you've been doing, but no matter what it is, you can tell me. Was it too much exam pressure? Did you run away?"

"Not on purpose," I said. This was not how I had imagined this conversation going, but now that I thought about it, how could I have expected it to go any differently?

I had expected it to go differently because it was Dad, and he could always tell when I was lying. Why couldn't he tell now that I wasn't?

"It's not like you to just vanish for three days without telling anyone," he said. "It scares me to think what really happened if you're going this far to cover it up, even with me. You can be honest with me. I won't even tell your mother if you don't want me to."

"I am being honest!"

He looked so disappointed. That look hurt a million times more than smashing my knee had.

"Shannon, I thought we'd gotten past all this making stuff up."

Pretending, I thought. When I was younger I was just pretending, but this was real.

"When you're ready to tell the truth, you know where to find me." He turned for the door.

"What about my finals?"

"We'll call the school on Monday. But Shannon, if you don't tell us where you were..." He shrugged, gave me a sad half-smile, and left me alone.

That lasted about two minutes before my mom let herself into my room.

"The police are waiting," she said. "Hurry up and get dressed."

She closed the door behind her. I groaned and collapsed backwards onto my mattress, covering my face with my pillow. I wondered what would hurt worse: talking to the police, or suffocating myself with a sack of goose feathers.

A/N: What would you do if you were in Shannon shoes? How would you be feeling? Would you tell the police the truth? Please let me know your thoughts with a comment! As always, I appreciate your votes and adds to public reading lists. Thanks!