It took five hours and 26 minutes to scrub, dry, and repaint a garage wall, including removal of a plastic kiddie pool and standing water, from said pool, from the garage floor.
Jack knew this from experience.
After spending all of his evening in the garage, working, Jack did his best to ignore his Father, who was still very upset, and Janet, who was giving him the pity-eyes. He went straight to his bedroom, fell into his bed and was asleep within minutes.
*****
Jack's cell phone alarm went off and he tossed it across the room. He put the pillow over his head to cut out the morning sunlight streaming into his room. Thursday. Two days of school left until Christmas break. Nine days left until Christmas.
Nine days to figure out how to help Clarice. Nine days to figure out how to stop Damien.
Jack tightened down the pillow over his head and reviewed his recent failures. It wasn't like he was unaccustomed to failure: his Mother leaving him, his Father embarrassed by him, his classmates contemptuous of him. Hey, he had failure down.
But this Doorway thing took it to another level. He just couldn't figure out what to do. He didn't know how to get Damien to stop sending his daughters to the past and he obviously didn't know how to destroy the Doorway.
Jack rubbed his eyes and and threw the pillow to the floor. He'd shower and eat something quick. Then he'd take a slow walk to school to try to come up with a plan.
Tossing his covers to join his pillow on the floor, Jack stood up and walked around his bed. He glanced at the Doorway leaning against the wall as he walked by it.
Jack stopped and turned around. The Doorway was not leaning against his wall. He turned back and forth, scanning his room.
The Doorway was gone.
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