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Stefano’s head snapped up. His expression was furious.
++Nothing,++ he said. ++There’s nothing wrong with me.++
++Huh?++ said Jaide. ++That’s not what I said.++
++Sometimes our minds reveal things we don’t mean to say,++ said Grandma X. ++You must make allowances, and be patient while you learn to control your thoughts.++
Stefano glared at Jaide. Tiny sparks zinged off the cutlery and metal surfaces in the room.
++Stefano,++ warned Grandma X.
He returned his hot gaze back down to his lap and the electric fireworks subsided.
Jaide looked at Jack, who shrugged.
++Beats me what that was all about,++ he teeped to Jaide.
++Eats the what?++ she said back.
++Feast’s not hot at all. Mine went cold while I was trying to teep you.++
Grandma X let them struggle on, sparing them the chores while she and Susan cleaned up. Then it was time for her to take Stefano to the blue room for his special lessons. The twins had hoped to spend the rest of the evening searching through the Compendium, but Susan had other ideas.
“All this Examining and now soccer practice,” she said. “It’s time for you to do some homework.”
The twins groaned and argued, but there was no defying their mother on this front. She had given ground on a slightly later bedtime, being able to stay over at Tara’s on a school night, and even having a phone, but when it came to schoolwork she was absolute. Not even Grandma X could deny her.
So they trudged upstairs and slaved through pages of math problems and English questions, all of which they had to do by hand since they had no computer in their room. By the time they had finished, it was time for bed.
Grumbling, Jack went to check on Cornelia while Jaide brushed her teeth. But when he got to the panel leading to the blue room, he found it locked again.
Jack raised his hand to knock, but stopped to listen first. He was curious about what Grandma X and Stefano were up to in there. What could be so important that he and Jaide weren’t allowed in to see it? They had passed the first Examination, hadn’t they? It really wasn’t fair that they were being excluded.
Whatever was going on in the blue room, it was quiet. Jack held his breath and pressed his ear against the door. The silence was deep and heavy. He could hear his heartbeat, and the clock ticking downstairs, and the creak of floorboards as someone moved in the room below.
Wait, he thought. The room below was Stefano’s room. If Stefano was there, then he couldn’t be in the blue room, could he? Jack relaxed, laughing at himself. There was nothing going on behind the locked door because there was no one in there at all.
He almost jumped out of his skin when the sound of Cornelia suddenly squawking came loudly through the panel.
“Charlie! Charlie! Look out!”
“Be quiet, Cornelia.” The second voice was Grandma X’s. “You’re not helping.”
When Jack’s heart had stopped hammering, he pressed his ear back against the door, but the voices subsided back into silence. All he could faintly make out was the sound of movement.
Tentatively, he knocked.
“Oh, is that you, Jack?” his grandmother said without opening the door. “Don’t worry about Cornelia tonight. I’ll put her to bed.”
“O … kay,” Jack said. “Well, good night.”
“Good night.”
Jack reluctantly backed away.
In bed after lights-out, he described to Jaide what had happened. She was as mystified and annoyed as he was. If Grandma X wasn’t doing something secret with Stefano, what was she doing?
“There must be some way to spy on her,” Jaide said.
“I can’t think of any. Why don’t we just ask her?”
Jaide snorted. “When has that ever worked?”
“I know, but this time, maybe.” Jack wasn’t ready to let the secret of what Grandma X was up to in the blue room remain unknown forever.
They argued back and forth until Susan came to tell them to settle down. Jaide lay in the dark, trying to feel sleepy but once again utterly failing. She had passed the Examination and got onto the soccer team, but what else had she really accomplished? Lottie was still stuck in the Evil Dimension, Grandma X was back to her old secret self
, and Stefano was the new star of school.
She began to drift, her thoughts becoming slow and wandering. At the sound of a distant drumming over and over, she thought she might finally be dreaming. Clocks were chiming too, only they were chiming thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen …
A voice whispered into her mind.
++Help us,++ it said. ++Save us.++
Lottie, she thought, her eyes snapping open. This wasn’t a dream. The room was pitch-black and something was tickling the back of her hand. She wiped it away and tried to concentrate on nothing but the voice. Lottie was calling her from the Evil Dimension!
++Hello?++ Jaide teeped. ++Can you hear me?++
++Yes!++ came the immediate reply. ++You can help us!++
++How?++
++Open the way. That’s all you have to do.++
++How do I do that?++
++Open the way and we can come through.++
++Yes, but how?++
Jack stirred.
“Voice,” he mumbled. “Weird.”
There was something on his face.
He opened his dark-sensitive eyes and saw two tiny white eyes staring back at him.
“Eeeurgh!”
It was a weevil. He sat up, wildly brushing his face with both hands. From several rooms away he could hear the chiming of clocks and steady, metallic banging sounds. There was a voice whispering in his mind.
++Open the way and we will come through.++
The sound of Jaide responding to that voice sent a chill straight down his spine.
++Can you tell me anything else?++
“No, Jaide — it’s The Evil!” he cried, flinging himself out of bed and crossing to her side of the room in two steps. She was sitting straight upright in bed with her eyes tightly shut. “Jaide, snap out of it!”
Her eyelids opened and she looked at him. Jack almost fainted with relief that her eyes were completely normal.
“It’s not The Evil,” she said, puzzled by his strange behavior. “It’s Lottie.”
She frowned and looked down at her hand, where the thing that had been tickling her had returned. It was an earwig, and its eyes were white.
