Chapter 18: Cotton Candy

Reality is like cotton candy.

Cotton candy looks all solid and pretty but as soon as you actually try to eat it, it dissolves away into nothing. All you get left with is a sweet taste in your mouth and a kind of sticky sensation. So you take another bite and the same thing happens. You keep going like that until you have nothing left but the little cardboard stick. Now the stick is hard and solid and not nearly so pretty but at least it doesn’t melt away into nothing. On the other hand, you can’t really eat the stick so, on its own, the stick isn’t worth much. The other thing you get left with when you’ve eaten all that cotton candy is a sick feeling in your stomach and a bit of a sugar-rush.

So reality is like cotton candy.

Okay, maybe not all the time and maybe not for everybody but that’s what reality seemed like for me. I stood on the pavement outside of our house. That was reality. I wanted to go inside. That was reality. But I was fairly sure that my house wasn’t as small as it appeared. I half expected a rabbit in a waist-coat to come hopping out of it at any moment. I desperately wanted to have a better grip on reality before I went inside. But my brain was playing tricks on me and every time I tried to grasp onto reality, it melted away – just like cotton candy.

Staying outside for a moment seemed like a good idea because the cold air was definitely real and I could feel it pushing against my one naked shoulder and arm. I’d been so proud of myself for wearing such a daring dress. Okay, it wasn’t that daring but it did leave one of my shoulders completely naked. That’s a little bit daring, isn’t it? The down side of the dress was that my shoulder was getting cold while I stood outside. The up side of the dress was that I could feel my shoulder getting cold and I knew that the coldness was a real feeling. That cold shoulder was like the stick in the middle of the cotton candy. It was real and solid and hard, even if the reality surrounding it was all pink and fuzzy and likely to melt away into nothing.

The other real feeling was that my feet were sore. I’d been wearing heels all afternoon – even dancing in them – and now my feet were sore. I was pretty confident that they really were sore and that the pain in my feet wasn’t my brain playing tricks. A cold wind flapped the bottom of my dress so that it slapped and stung against my legs. That was a real feeling, too. There was nothing cotton candy-like about the feel of my dress slapping against my legs.

I figured that was enough reality for me so I decided to go inside. The front door was locked so I dug my key out of my little handbag and let myself in. As soon as I had the front door closed behind me, I kicked my pumps off and picked them up in my spare hand. Then barefoot and fancy free, I wandered into the house. The living room was empty and quiet. I walked through it and around into the kitchen. That was empty and quiet, too, except for the fridge which hummed happily at me. There weren’t any notes stuck to the fridge telling me where everybody was, though I did see that Nevada was back. The fridge magnet in the shape of Nevada, I mean. Nemo the fish magnet was back, too. Nemo seemed happy. He was swimming in circles around Nevada. Obviously his brief magnet-napping hadn’t caused too much trauma. He was smiling and blowing bubbles like always.

I asked Nemo where the rest of my family was but he didn’t answer me. He just swam another lap around Nevada. I figured he was probably the first fish in history to actually swim laps around the borders of Nevada.

“Hello?” I called out. “Is anybody home?”

Silence answered me. Silence had a lot to say for itself. Silence didn’t explain a single thing.

There was a cooling tray on the counter with a tea-towel draped over it. I lifted one edge of the towel and saw that it was covering freshly baked scones. I inhaled deeply and smiled at the wonderful smell. But the presence of scones didn’t tell me where everybody was. It did tell me I was in the right house, though, so I guess that was something.

I walked along the hallway to The Parents’ room. I knocked quietly on the door and waited a moment. Silence answered that knock, too. After a moment of listening to silence and not learning very much, I pushed the door open and looked inside. There was a definite absence of Parent in the room.

“Hmm,” I said to myself. “Curious!”

I walked back to my room and went inside. There was an unknown backpack sitting on my bed. One of our camping mattresses had been stretched out on the floor beside my bed and a sleeping bag was laid out neatly on the mattress. A pillow with a clean white pillowcase sat at the end of the mattress, looking like it belonged there.

“Curiouser and curiouser,” I said.

I looked again at the backpack. I still didn’t recognize it.

“Hello,” I said to the backpack. “Who do you belong to?”

It didn’t answer.

I turned and looked at the painting of naked-Bec where she leaned against my mirror.

“So what’s going on?” I asked.

She smiled at me and stuck her nose up in the air.

“You figure it out,” she said. “Think of it as a challenge. Challenges are good for you.”

I snorted at her. “What would you know about challenges?”

She just smiled back at me with that arrogant little sneer of hers. Sometimes I really hate that girl.

“Put some clothes on,” I said and turned my back on her.

I put my pumps and my handbag down in my room and then went next door to Tara’s room.

I knocked and waited and opened the door.

The room was sisterless. Apart from that, it seemed perfectly normal. There weren’t any strange backpacks sitting on Tara’s bed. No mattress had unfurled itself to lurk mysteriously on Tara’s floor. The only mystery in this room was the absence of a Tara.

I walked through the kitchen and on to the bathroom. It was clean and sparkling – its surfaces unmarred by the actual presence of any actual people.

I walked along to Angie’s room. The room was un-Angiefied. Even Lucy the doll was noticeable by her absence.

I walked along to Dan’s room and pushed the door open. I was expecting to find the room to be a Dan-free zone but I was wrong. There was a Dan in the house. He was sitting at his desk, doing schoolwork. He had earpieces in his ears and his head was nodding to some unknown rhythm.

“Hello!” I said. “I’m back!”

He ignored me and kept nodding away. He flipped a page in one book and read a couple of sentences. Then I watched as his head moved back and forth between the writing in that book and a diagram in a different book. Then he picked up his pen and scribbled something in his notebook – adding to a series of notes that already covered most of a page.

He was wearing shorts – that was it – just shorts. No shirt, no shoes, no socks, just shorts. The broad expanse of his naked back teased and tempted me. The room smelled of Dan and sweat. Sweat on its own isn’t nice but a small amount of Dan-sweat is okay. This was a bit more than a small amount of Dan-sweat but I guess the room didn’t actually stink.

Dan still hadn’t noticed me standing in the doorway. I felt a weird temptation to take off my dress and dance in my underwear back and forth through that sweaty room. I wondered how long it would take for Dan to notice. I decided my brain was probably playing tricks again so I ignored the temptation.

Apparently I hadn’t escaped from Wonderland yet. I tried to remember how Alice had escaped. All I could think of was that it happened really quickly. She was in the middle of the trial for the missing tarts when something happened and suddenly she was back in the real world – no more cotton candy for her.

I looked around and saw that Dan’s free-weights set was out. That explained his shorts and the lack of a shirt. There was probably a wet tshirt sitting in a pile in some corner of the room. I looked back at Dan. His back was dry so it had probably been a while since he stopped lifting weights and went back to his books.

That naked back tempted me again. I had a wicked idea and I grinned to myself. I looked around the room again and then walked over to the table beside his bed. I pulled a tissue out of the box he keeps there. I figured a tissue would be perfect. Then I walked up behind Dan and used one corner of the tissue to trace a soft line down the back of his shoulder. It had no effect so I tried again, this time trailing the edge of the tissue across the back of his neck. A big hand reached back and rubbed the back of his neck. I pulled the tissue back out of the way and giggled a bit.

This time I trailed the tissue down his spine – all the way to just above where it disappeared into the back of his shorts. He wriggled a bit but ignored it. So I giggled and tried again.

“Blast!” yelled Dan and spun around, waving his hands at the supposed fly. I stepped back out of reach of the waving hands and giggled some more. The giggling turned into outright laughter when Dan suddenly saw me and just about jumped out of his skin.

He pulled the earpieces out of his ears and looked like he was about to shout at me but then he got himself under control. He laughed and shook his head.

“Damn it, Bec. You scared the life out of me.”

I laughed some more and spread my arms wide.

“Off with her head!” I called out.

I spun on the spot through a complete 360 degrees and then let myself fall backwards onto Dan’s bed. I lay on his bed with my arms still spread wide and stared up at the ceiling.

“How long have you been home? Did you have a good time?” asked Dan.

“I had a wonderful time, Dan. A most excellently wonderous time. But then I fell through the rabbit hole. Now all the doors are different sizes. I’m wondering if I’m in time for afternoon tea with the Hatter.”

“Oh really?”

“Yes, really. I’m trying to decide if that makes you the Red King or the White Queen.”

He raised an eyebrow at me. “If you think I’m any type of queen then you really haven’t been paying attention.”

That struck me as ridiculously funny and I screamed with laughter. After a bit, I slowed down and stopped laughing but I was still giggling.

“True! Very true. You are the very opposite of a queen.”

Then I giggled some more.

“Bec? Have you been... ? Are you drunk?”

I giggled.

“Nope! Maybe! I don’t know. If what I’m feeling is drunkeness – drunkenidity – drunketty – whatever – then maybe I am drunk.”

I rolled onto my side and looked over at Dan. He was sitting in his swivel chair and looking at me with a very serious expression on his face.

“I promise you, Dan, I didn’t drink any alcohol. I didn’t do any drugs.”

I stopped and thought for a moment.

“I did snort half a bruschetta but that was an accident. Besides, I don’t think that bruschettas are controlled substances. The only thing I’ve had to drink was lemonade. But I think I’m definitely drunk.”

“So you had a good time, then?”

“Oh, yes!” I smiled. Then I rolled over onto my back and looked up at the ceiling. “I had an incredibly good time.”

I sighed happily and smiled to myself.

“Dan,” I whispered to the ceiling, “I have something to tell you.”

I licked my lips and took a deep breath. I kept my eyes fixed on the ceiling. I didn’t want to be looking at him when I said the next thing.

“I kissed a boy, Dan,” I whispered. “A real kiss.”

“Ah!” said Dan really softly. Then he went quiet.

A moment later I heard the chair creak. Then the bed shifted as he sat beside me on the bed. He put an arm down on either side of me and leaned over me, looking down. I smiled up at him.

“It was wonderous,” I whispered. “O frabjous day! Calooh! Callay!”

“And who is this boy? Do I need to take him out into the desert and stake him down over an ant hill?”

I smiled up at him and reached up a hand to pat one of his bulging pectoral muscles. I left my hand there for a moment, delighting in the silky feel of his skin sliding over the hard muscle.

“Don’t be silly. He was perfectly nice.”

I let my hand drop away from Dan’s pec and rested it on my stomach.

“And you know him.”

“I do?”

“Yes! You know Al Jenkins, from your school football team?”

Dan’s eyebrows dipped into a frown. “Al?”

I giggled and slapped one of those big naked pectorals of his. Hey! It was right there in front of me. What was I supposed to do with it?

“Don’t be silly! Al is, like, old. He’s, like, 20 or something. That’s ancient.”

Dan’s frown turned into a pout which made me giggle.

Then I looked up into Dan’s face. I half-closed my eyes and gave him a little smile.

“Besides, if I was going to lower my standards enough to kiss 20-year-old boys, Al wouldn’t be the first boy on my list. That spot is already occupied.”

I pursed my lips and blew a kiss up at Dan.

Dan’s pout disappeared and got replaced with a worried look. That made me giggle some more. I decided to put Dan out of his agony.

“It was Al’s brother, Lance. We talked and then we kissed and then we danced and then we kissed some more. It was incredible, Dan. It was the most magical thing, ever.”

Dan nodded, his face blank. “I know Lance.”

“He is so nice, Dan. I really like him. I think I might be in love with him.”

Dan smiled down at me. “Good for you,” he said.

But the smile didn’t go to his eyes.

“Be happy for me, Dan,” I whispered. “I really love him.”

Dan smiled again. “I am happy for you, Princess.”

This time he tried harder, but I could tell he was thinking something else.

I sighed but my brain refused to let me dwell on the mystery that was Dan. I smiled and started giggling again.

“Oh God! Dan, I think I’m in trouble.”

“Why?”

“Well, sex is supposed to be better than kissing. Is that right? Is sex better than kissing?”

He nodded. “It is when it’s done right, with the right person.”

“Oh my! If kissing does this to me then I’m going to just die when I have sex. My brain will just explode with super-fizz.”

Dan was looking concerned again. It was like I was pulling strings and each string made a different emotion go racing across his face.

“Don’t worry. I’m not ready to do that yet. In fact, if it’s going to kill me, I better put it off for as long as I can. I’ll wait until it’s just the perfect time to have sex. Then I’ll do it and I’ll be able to die happy.”

Dan smiled down at me. “Waiting for the perfect time seems like a good plan to me. But I don’t think you’ll actually die from it.”

“Okay!” I said. “That’s probably a good thing. It would be very upsetting to only get to have sex once.”

My brain flicked around and jumped from one thought to another while I gazed up at Dan.

A part of my brain wanted to wrap my arms around Dan’s neck and kiss him hard – with my tongue in his mouth and my body pressed against his and everything. My body started throbbing in anticipation of more tingling lips and fizzing brains. I lay there and gazed up at Dan and tried to remember why I shouldn’t do that.

“I think what you’re feeling is a good, old-fashioned adrenalin high,” said Dan. “It’s normal to have some sort of reaction after an exciting event. I always feel pumped up after a big game. Adrenalin is a very powerful drug that your body produces naturally. You’ve been a bit like this a few times.”

“Oh!” I thought about that. “I see what you mean. But I’ve never been as bad as this before. It scares me a bit. I’m so out of control.”

“Well, that’s probably hormones kicking in as well as the adrenalin. Your first kiss is a big thing. You’re thirteen. Your body is flooded with hormones and your wonderous kiss woke them all up. It all probably made you a bit horny.”