Genius

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Twelve

The day the doorbell rang five times

    The doorbell rang four times on Wednesday. Once in the morning. Twice in the afternoon. And once in the evening. I'm woken up by the buzzing of the doorbell, the clock says it is exactly too early to be awake o'clock but I force myself to get up and answer the door anyways. Go back to sleep.

    The door opens to reveal a short girl with a brunette ponytail that bounces with every word she speaks. And she speaks a lot of words.

    "Hello, are you Stein Thompson? I've wanted to talk to you since monday when I heard about that awful thing those kids did to you. I just want you to know that a lot of us are on your side, there is no way you could ever be a crazy murderer. But the people with influence are dead set on tormenting you so I thought I should warn you and I just want to apologize for everything that has happened because that must really suck to be a new kid at school and then to be treated horribly and accused of being a psycho. I don't think you're a psycho but even if you were-and I'm not saying that you are-I doubt you'd be a killer psycho, just the kind of psycho that screams at padded walls and like falls down stairs-but! That is neither here nor there and I have come to gift you with this teddy bear, I know a plushy isn't proper compensation but I thought you might like it so I got it for you. Okay, I have to go to school have a good day and be careful!"

She shoves the bear in my hands and runs down the porch steps and into a car, driving off before I can process half of what she said; she is long gone before I am able to respond to her impromptu speech.

    "Thanks?" I walk back into the house to find my parental units wrapped in robes and holding coffee.

    "What just happened?" Susan asks,

    "She talks to fast for anyone to understand anything that comes out of her mouth." Hal grumbles,

    "It makes it very hard to eavesdrop." Susan adds.

    "So what did she want? Based on that teddy bear, she must have been confessing her undying love." I look down at the teddy, it is a fluffy and cute little creature with shiny black button eyes and a black nose. What differentiates it from the average teddy bear is the giant red heart clutched between its paws.

    "She didn't say anything about confessing her love." I respond, staring at the bear, it's a lovely stuffed animal. I'll introduce it to Bluie II. I set it up on my dresser, right next to my lovely bird before falling face first onto my bed. I stay like that for a while before flipping over.

    "Are you there?" I ask, not sure what I'm expecting. I shouldn't be doing this. I'm always here. Since when did you initiate conversations with me?

    "I don't know what to do." Well that's obvious: prove your innocence.

    "You make it sound so simple. But in reality there are few things less complicated than proving my innocence. In fact, the only more complex thing than that are humans and theoretical physics equations." But is it simple, just find Alice and you'll have your killer.

    "Find Alice? You can't seriously think that's a good idea: she wants to kill me." No, she doesn't want to kill you, you're her only daughter.

    "I'm only her only daughter because I killed her second one." We both know you didn't do that.

    "I don't want to do this anymore." Then...

    "Let's just kill her. We're finally thinking along the same lines."

    "No, we aren't." I clamp my mouth shut, covering it with my hands. I stay like that until noon. Until the second time the doorbell rings.