Before rushing back to my house, I went to our next teachers and told them to not mark Karyn or me absent or dock us off points for any assignments we might miss, just so no one would ask questions where we were later on. Then, we were off to my house.
Once we arrived, I suddenly realized my mom wouldn't recognize me. She would probably be home and ask questions about who I was and why we were missing school. "Just relax, 'Jane'," Karyn said, "We'll just say Jon forgot an assignment and we were here to pick it up for him. If anything goes bad, you can command her to let us in and forget we ever came. Just relax; I'll do the talking."
Karyn knocked at the door and, after a few seconds, my mom answered. "Karyn? What are you doing here at this time? Aren't you supposed to be in school?"
"Well, you see, Mrs. Park," Karyn responded, "Jon forgot an assignment for his last class today and he asked us to bring it for him. This is Jane; his partner for that assignment. She knows exactly what it looks like. We just need to go up to his room to find it. We won't be long."
"That boy," my mom replied, "He's always forgetting things. Jane was it? My, my, you are a cutie. I apologize for my son's forgetfulness. He's lucky he has two pretty girls to help him out." I blushed a little bit. I couldn't believe that I was acting shy around my own mother. It was like if I talked or made eye contact, she would realize who I was. "Go right ahead," my mom continued, "I'll be downstairs if you need anything."
Karyn and I went up to my room. I lifted up my matrices to look for the rock under it. "It's gone," I mumbled. I started to panic and look around the room desperately to try to find it, but I couldn't. "Karyn, call my mom up here."
Karyn acted immediately, "Mrs. Park, can you come up here? Jeez Jon, you didn't have to command me." I was too concerned where the rock was to reply.
My mom came up. "What is it?"
"Did you move anything in my... I mean, this room today?" I asked her.
"I did. I was cleaning the whole house today and decided to clean up here too."
A little impatient, I commanded her, "Cindy, reenact exactly what you did up here when you cleaned up here." Like a switch, my mom's started to act as if we weren't there. She started to pick up imaginary pieces of garbage and putting them in an imaginary bag.
She then lifted up my bed. She let out a sigh of annoyance. I remembered underneath my bed was pretty messy. She picked up an imaginary rock and said, absentmindedly, "What is a rock doing underneath her? Zoe is never this messy. I wish Jon would start to act more like a girl. Maybe then he would be cleaner." She then put the rock in the bag and continued to clean the rest of the room.
As I heard what she said, my face went ash white.
