CHAPTER ELEVEN

TWO WEEKS AGO, AFTER she’d tricked me into the mirror, I waited for almost an hour, hoping she’d return and laugh, saying she was just joking. Yeah, right. I finally realized she’d planned this all along and wasn’t ever going to let me out. I guess I shouldn’t plan on being a cardsharp, what with the quick way I size people up.

I went looking for her. It was easy. First stop was the hall mirror and sure enough, there she was. Telling my mother not to wait up for her; she didn’t know when she’d be home that night. Turns out, she didn’t come back home until the next morning.

I was furious. I would never have dared tell Mom something like that. Our family has always had this big deal about being polite to one another and using common courtesy and it hurt to see the look on Mom’s face when she asked where she was going and Liz said, “None of your business. I’m not a baby.” Mom thought that person was me! I yelled and screamed at her from inside the mirror, but of course she couldn’t hear or see me. It just killed me when I saw the tears in her eyes and the look on her face when Liz slammed the door shut behind her.

After Mom went into her bedroom to begin her nervous breakdown, I resisted the temptation to follow her. It just didn’t seem right. Instead, I went to Jimmy’s house and sure enough there he was, lying on his bed, listening to his CD player. I just stood there and watched him from his bedroom mirror, tears running down my cheeks because I couldn’t talk to him or touch him and probably never would again.

It wasn’t ten minutes later that she appeared, barging right into his bedroom without even knocking. She went right over to him and jumped on top of him where he was laying. He didn’t see or hear her since he had his back to the door and his earphones on, but when she jumped on him he threw the earphones off and gave her a big hug. That hurt!

She whispered something to him. I couldn’t hear what it was, but Jimmy got this serious look on his face and said, “Elizabeth, we agreed to wait. I love you, hon. This just isn’t the right time. Besides, my mother is right downstairs.”

She stood up, put her hands on her hips and said in this icy voice, “I should have known you’d say something like that, Jimbo. That’s okay, buster, I’d rather have a real man anyway. See ya around, lame-o.” She flounced out the door and there Jimmy was with the same look on his face I’d just seen on Mom’s. I couldn’t stand to see him like that, so I cut out, thinking I’d try to find Liz, see what part of my life she was going to trash next.

I didn’t have a clue where to look. I must have searched dozens of mirrors, all over town. Brand X, the record store, all the shops in the mall I thought she might go to; I even went to the truckstop at the edge of town and looked out of all their mirrors except the ones in the men’s bathroom. No Liz. Anywhere. She had vanished off the face of the earth. I searched for hours and then it got late and places started closing. Once they turned their lights off, I could see very little.

I discovered a funny thing. When you’re a mirror person, you don’t need sleep. In fact, you can’t sleep. To keep from going Space City, you have to find mirrors in places that don’t close and in our town that wasn’t easy. I ended up by going to a tavern I never before had even wanted to walk by, just because it was the only place still open except for an all-night gas station.

That’s where I found her.