PROJECT 12/21: CHAPTER THREE PART ONE New part to Project 12/21! If u just started following me u might want to read the other parts first This was just getting crazier and crazier. I had no idea what the first message meant so maybe I’d be able to figure it out tonight. “Honey it’s time to go to bed,” I heard my mom say from the kitchen. Now I didn’t think I could try figuring it out. But that was before I got an idea. It wasn’t a really good one, but it was an idea. I could just stay up looking for answers. I mean my mom never checks if I’m asleep and she wouldn’t be passing by my door so I could. Besides, this seemed a lot more important. So that was the first day that I disobeyed my mother, which maybe wasn’t such a good idea in the end because it led me to maybe stuff that I didn’t want to be led to. I worked and worked searching through every search engine I’ve ever heard of and even asking Emmie some questions by texting her. Nobody passed by my door at all. Soon I was almost done figuring a part of the message out. But of course right then is the moment as always when I get interrupted. My iPod started vibrating. What now? I looked at it and noticed it was from some person with the username Adrirox123. I didn’t have any friends with that username so I had no idea why I got the message. “Hi,” it read. “Um who r u?” I texted back. I guess she was up late too because she immediately replied. “Oh, sorry. I think I had the wrong number. Wait why r u up?” “Just cause I wanted to look up something on my laptop. What about u?” “Same,” she replied which seemed a bit weird because I thought it was unlikely to be up at 11:30 PM researching. But then again, I was doing it, too. “That’s cool, so who were u trying to get to?” I asked. “My friend Lily,” she answered. “My name’s Hope. Why would it come to me?” “Really. I typed in Lilyg148. Is that urs?” “No. That’s nothing like mine. Mine is Hopec9999.” Now I was starting to wonder. How is Lilyg148 anything like Hopec9999? Then I get another message, but it was from unknown. By now, I felt like throwing my iPod out the window. It said, “YOU MUST FIND EACHOTHER.” I was so surprised that I almost dropped my iPod which would make a loud noise and my parents would find me not listening to them. Each other had to be this girl Adrirox123. But this could just be a coincidence. I somehow knew that that wasn’t true. I went back to my conversation with Adrirox123. I guess I hadn’t been answering for a while because it said, “R u still there?” Quickly, I replied before she left, “Yeah, I’m here.” “Oh, good.” “So do u know anyone with the username unknown?” I asked trying to see if she knew anything about it. There was a very long pause and then, finally, on the screen it said, “G2g.” I wanted to know why she didn’t answer my question, but at that moment all the sleepiness from staying up hit me. I was very tired so I went in bed and fell asleep right away. I woke up to my mom shaking me. Then I noticed that she had an angry look on her face and that I left my computer on the night before. At least I didn’t fall asleep at the computer. “You can’t forget to turn off your computer each night, Hope. You’re wasting electricity.” I looked at the clock and saw that it was 70 AM. “I’m going to drop you off at school today,” my mom said, answering my unasked question about how I was going to get to school. “But you still have to get ready fast,” she added. Once my mom left the room, I went to my drawer to pick my clothes for the day. I decided to wear all Aéropostale. I put on black Aéropostale sweatpants, a light green shirt that said, “Aéropostale 1987,”, and wore my furry, warm, tan Aéropostale boots that were technically fake Uggs or Fuggs as people liked to call them. I tucked the sweatpants into the boots and put my hair in a braid for one of the first times ever. I couldn’t really do it so I went to my mom and asked her to do it. I always kept my hair down, but I thought I needed to change sometime so why not today. I grabbed my backpack and shoved my iPod into the front pocket. I put a waffle into the toaster oven, waited a minute, then grabbed it and ran out to the small silver minivan where my mom was waiting. I opened the door and jumped into the comfy, tan leather seats in the back. My mom quickly drove me to school. I made it just as the last bus was finishing dropping off the kids. Then I remembered that today was a half day and the last day of Thanksgiving Break. Little did I know that this was probably the last day of school for not only a week, but possibly a lot longer. I walked through the student entrance and put my stuff in my locker. Not that long after, I was sitting in math and listening to Mr. Bellagora talk about proportions for the millionth time. The only reason why he kept teaching the same thing was because a couple kids still didn’t understand it. After about five minutes, I was already bored and sleepy. I thought it would be very embarrassing and rude to fall asleep during Mr. Bellagora’s lectures about proportions even if they were super boring, so I decided on every five minutes or so pinching my arm. His class felt like it was going on forever, but finally it was over and I was walking out the door. But before I could leave I heard, “Wait one second, Hope, I need to talk to you.” What now? I mean you can’t really make my #life anymore more confusing and crazier than it already is. I waited for all the other kids to leave, then went up to Mr. Bellagora’s desk. “Ye…s” I said just remembering to add the -s so I wouldn’t say, “Yeah,” which would probably be rude in Mom’s book. “I told the other teachers about that test you took the other day and they wanted to know how good you were at math and maybe you just found another way to figure out these problems. So, they told me to give you another test and see if we should move you to a higher math class. I want you to do this test which has 100 questions on all different things in math. You can stay for as long as you need. The other teachers already know.” My mouth was wide open as if my dentist was asking to check my teeth at a dentist appointment. Quickly, noticing how weird I probably looked, I closed it. He handed me the thick test packet and said that I could write on it. Then he gave me scrap paper to do any extra work that I couldn’t fit in my packet on. “Please use pencil and you may go to that seat in the back of the room with it. When you’re finished, just bring it up to me and I’ll write you a pass in case your teacher forgot the e-mail.” More like a pass to the nurse to check if I really did go crazy. I went to the chair in the back that he mentioned and got settled to start. After I finished reading the instructions, I turned to the first test page and read question 1. “Solve for x: x+2x-2+5=9,” it read. I quickly scribbled out the problem and solved it as we were told to. First, add together like terms…becomes 3x+3=9….subtract 3 and divide that by three. I got the answer 2 in what felt like 5 seconds. When I looked back up I saw that kids were coming in for the second class. Some were even staring at me, probably wondering what I was doing. I looked back at my test and did a couple problems until I was interrupted by a voice I knew very well. “What, did you fail a test so bad that you had to redo it so you missed class?” I heard someone sneer from behind me. I thought ignoring it would probably be the best idea. But I guess I really didn’t have an option. “I bet you cheated on those 200 questions and actually got in huge trouble so now you have to do a test to see if you’re even good enough for seventh grade,” Lucas Anderson said. I couldn’t concentrate on the question in front of me so I turned around and said, “Could you be quiet?!” That was probably on the top of the most stupid things to do. I probably just broke a record in the Guinness World Record book. “Wait, can you say that a little louder?” he teased. I had done exactly what he wanted. Now he was never going to stop. I almost lost all hope in actually doing well on the test. Right then though I saw his pencil move a bit. It wasn’t like some stray wind. It didn’t even roll. It just shifted a bit, but it still caught both mine and Lucas’ attention. That made Lucas shut up abruptly, and quickly turn away, scooching his chair as far away as possible from me. That was really weird. I didn’t know if that was a coincidence or not, but was just really hoping it wasn’t. Can’t I just get a day off from crazy things happening? I went back to my test, again, and after another fifteen minutes, I was finished. I checked all my answers and handed it in to Mr. Bellagora. As he made me a pass, I looked at the clock and noticed it was 8:50 so French would still have ten minutes left. The half day schedule caused it to end at 8:59 instead of 9:26. But before I left, Mr. Bellagora said, “Today before you leave please come to my room so I can give you your score.” “I will,” I replied. I went to my locker and got my French binder. I went to Mrs. Dominique’s classroom and she nodded to me as I walked in. I guess she at least got the e-mail. Before I sat down, though, the bell rang telling everyone to go to third. Ugh, that just stunk. I wish I just got my social studies binder and waited for the bell to ring next to my locker. Then I remembered that there was a video camera that showed the whole hall and played it in the office so anyone there could see it. I would probably have caused a couple people to wonder what I was doing. I really didn’t want people to get suspicious about me, especially after what happened the other day.