Out of the Ordinary

Chapter 6: Here Comes Trouble

The sun was setting, and the sky blushed with pink and orange colors. I walked towards my house with a smile on my face. This was the best day ever! I will never forget this day, even when I'm hundred years old.

When I opened the door and entered the house, I noticed a man sitting at our dinner table. I recognized him. It was that government agent guy I saw yesterday talking to Mr. Handerman. My happiness washed away. I stood there with my mouth opened and eyes widened.

"Kaley, you came just in time for dinner," Mom said.

"Mom," I said. "What the heck is he doing here?"

"This is Dean Jackson," Mom said. "I'm sure you two already met. He's here to do more investigating, asking questions and all. He was just asking me if I saw anything weird." I was staring at him while Mom chatted away. He stared back too. He gave me a smile, but I know a fake smile when I see one.

"Mr. Jackson thinks you saw something peculiar, too," Mom continued. "Why don't you tell him about what you know?"

"I don't know anything," I lied. "I saw nothing weird, I didn't hear anything weird. I don't know why everyone thinks I saw something."

Dean looked at me with suspicion. His stare really freaked me out. It's as if he was looking right through me to read my thoughts or something.

"OK, if you say you saw nothing, then you saw nothing. Case closed. Now come have some dinner." My mom was easy to convince. It's a good thing she doesn't have to give me a freaky suspicious look.

We ate dinner in silence. Half of the time, Mr. Jackson was staring at me. I acted like he wasn't, and ate my dinner casually. With all those weird suspicious looks, I definitely couldn't trust him. And why the heck did my mom invite him over?

After dinner, Mom told Jackson that he could stay if he wanted to and he could use my dad's study room to sleep in.

"Heck no! Absolutely not!" I told Mom. "That's dad's study room. We never used it after he died. We can't give it to some stranger!"

"Mr. Jackson needs a place to rest," said Mom. "He's a hard working man and he needs to be in something more comfortable. Your father's study room will have to do. And besides, Mr. Jackson is not a stranger. He's a nice man, and he deserves to be treated with respect."

What the heck is she thinking? Has she lost her mind?

"Why can't he go to a motel or something?" I said

"Because he asked if he can stay and I allowed it," she said firmly. "Now calm down and be nice to him." How am I going to be nice to a suspicious, rude, annoying, questionable man? He's going to ruin my life, and maybe Dainu's.

The whole evening I was grouchy. I didn't want a stranger staying at my house. My whole exciting day was ruined because of him. Now he will be asking me a lot of questions. Right now, he's not asking me any questions yet because he's exhausted, but I know that tomorrow he might throw millions of questions in my face. Why does he have to stay here?

The telephone rang. Mr. Jackson was about to pick it up as if he was expecting something, but I told him I got it. I answered it and it was Amy. That started to comfort me.

"Hey, Kaley. What's up?" she said.

"A lot of things," I told her. Mr. Jackson was standing right behind me, listening to my conversation. That was really creepy and annoying.

"Can you hold on a second, Amy," I told her. Then I told Jackson, "Do you mind? Can a girl have her talks in peace?" He continued to stare at me with his suspicious looks. He was really disturbing, so I went to my room.