Jack didn’t want to get out of bed. In fact, he wasn’t going to get out of bed. He was going to tell Janet he was sick and staying home from school and that was that.
And to be honest, he didn’t feel that great. Ever since his episode the day before (that’s what Jack called it, “the episode;” what was he supposed to call it?), he’d had a headache, and his chest and back were sore, like he had the flu or something.
That wasn’t the only problem of course. Jack couldn’t lie to himself – he was scared. He was scared of what happened the day before. He was scared that he had imagined the whole thing. He was scared he had gone a little crazy.
He was scared of the advent calendar.
There was absolutely no reason for Jack to believe that the advent calendar had caused the episode the day before. No reason whatsoever.
But Jack did believe it.
It was officially December 4th. According to Jack’s watch, it had been December 4th for about seven hours and 24 minutes now. It was indeed official. Jack could march over and open the fourth door in the calendar without a pang of guilt. People all over the world were opening all sorts of fourth doors on their very own advent calendars. It was the obvious and normal thing to do.
But Jack wasn’t going to do it.
His Mother had left him once. She had turned her back on him and deserted him. Why would he want to see her again? Why would he want to go through that again?
Even if he was dreaming the whole thing, why would he possibly want to give her the chance to leave him again?
Jack was alone in his room, but he still moved his blanket up over his face to hide his tears. If he hid them, then she hadn’t hurt him.
And he wasn’t going to let her hurt him again.
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