Lost Time

Chapter 3: the secret

Ever since I woke up I've felt...weird. I head downstairs ans thank god that my mom gave up cooking the meals. I pour Oli and me a bowl of Fruity Pebbles. 

This is our usual routine; whoever gets up first makes double the food. Sure enough, Oli comes walking downstairs. She looks at the bowls on the counter and smiles. 

"Thanks, Fruity Pebbles are what makes the world go round."

"Duh", I reply nervously. I'm all jumpy for some reason. I guess my grandpa's note messed me up more than I thought it did. Oli and I take our bowls to the table and sit down. She takes a bite, swallows, then asks, "Are you going to tell me what was in that box?"

I look up at her and take a bite, chewing slowly. "After breakfast. The most important meal of the day, right?", I reply nervously. Oli stares at me for a minute, then starts eating faster. I roll my eyes, doing the same. We both finish at the same time five minutes later. 

Oli takes our bowls to the sink and rinses them. When she's finished, she starts walking upstairs.  "Are you coming or what?", she yells down the stairs. I jump out of my seat and run upstairs. 

When I enter the room, she is already sitting on my bed, legs crossed. I look over at her hesitantly, wondering if I should tell her. I should know better. She won't let this go, so she might as well hear it from me. 

"Fine, I'll show you. But you have to promise not to laugh, alright?" 

"Of course. Cross my heart and hope to die.", she smirks. I roll my eyes and grab the box from the closet. I set the box on my bed, then go to retrieve the note from the garbage. 

"Read the note first", I tell her, handing her the note.

She takes it from me and starts reading. I watch as her eyebrows go from raised to lowered, and back again. When she is finished reading, she lays the note down on the bed 

"So...what's in the box?", she asks nervously. I push the box towards her and she slowly opens it. When she sees that it's just newspapers, her shoulders slump and she lets out a noticeable sigh of relief. 

"What the heck? Newspapers? Is there any sort of writing on any of them?", she asks, reaching for the box. 

"Don't bother looking. I spent four hours searching every page and I found nothing. Just some date typos.", I reply, shaking my head. I watch as Oli stares at one particular page for a beat too long. She picks up the page that she was staring at, the same page that I was looking at last night; about the suicide. She studies the front cover and then the date. 

"This newspaper was in this box the whole time? Did you see this one yesterday?", she demanded. 

"Uh, yeah, why?", I asked, wondering why she was acting weird. 

"Sam...this actually happened. Mila texted me this morning to tell me about some guy that commit suicide by jumping off of a building. I don't think this was a typo. How would there be a newspaper article about something that hadn't even happened yet?", she asked incredulously. 

I stared at her, waiting for her to tell me that she was just joking. But she never did. I grabbed the newspaper from her and looked at it. 

"This is definitely the one that I looked at yesterday. There are more like that in the box; with future dates.", I told her. 

She turns back to the box and plucks out another page. "Wednesday, April 29, 2019. That's in two days.", she stated. "This one says, 'Armed Robbery At The Local Grocery Store'". She paused and started reading the article. She gasped and said, "Sam, this is your mom's store, FoodForLife."

I snatch the paper from her and start reading the article. Apparently, nobody got hurt, but all of the money in the cash register was stolen. Nobody in custody. I turned to Oli and said, "Well, we have to do something!". I started pacing around the room. 

"Wait! If this is supposed to happen wednesday, and today is monday, then we can stop it before it happens, right?", Oli suggested. I stop pacing and look at her. Yes, that could work, I thought. 

"We could tell the police that there is a robbery at the store before it's supposed to happen. They could get there before the robber steals anything and still catch him!", I shout. 

Oli stands up as if she just thought of something important. "Wait, what if this was Arthur's mission? This is what he wants you to carry on.", she said. I thought for a second and then started nodding. 

"He's not crazy after all! He's a genius!"

Oli looks at me, eyebrows raised. "You thought that he was crazy?", she asks. 

"What? No, I thought that you would if I told you about this.", I admit.

"Oh,yeah, I guess I did think that he was a little weird sometimes, but I would never judge him for it." 

I wrap Oli in a hug and wonder how I got this lucky. I take a step back from her and announce, "We need to prepare."