Chapter 3

       “So how was everybody’s sleep?” There were soft mumbles as an answer to Sally’s question. Everyone ate their prepared breakfast quietly. This is too quiet, thought Sally. I bet I can wake everyone up with a jiffy. A song ought to do it. Yeah, a song. As everyone was trying to clean up their space lazily, Sally’s voice suddenly sang a song. A queer one. “Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way!” Soon everyone was awake. But Sally didn’t notice that because she kept on singing. She got into it so much that she started singing the batman version, “…in the bathroom, peeing on a─” “Sally please stop singing! Okay I’m going to tell you three good reasons why you should stop singing. One, we’re all awake now. Two, it’s not Christmas time yet. And three, we are eating! Not to offend you or anything.” So she finally calmed down after I told her “the reasons”. Then she apologized and said to me, “Sorry, it’s just that I haven’t sung like that since I was a child. I just remembered how much fun it is!” My mom then asked,

              “Do you like to sing?”

              “Of course! Why would I be singing?”

              “Well. I was thinking to form a singing club.” Then dad suddenly popped in. “Just the two of you? How rude!”

              “No! Just everyone that likes to sing.” Then I popped in.             

              “Well, there’s a huge problem. I like to sing. Everyone likes to sing. Invite everyone and have a broken house!”

              “Well invite everyone that likes to sing and that are good at it.” suggested grandma.

          But Sally said, “But what if people’s feelings get hurt?”

              “Okay, fine, fine, fine! Let’s not do it then!” cried mom.

       “Oy! Mom! Where are Elizabeet and Angeleet?” I asked mom. Grandma suddenly put Steve in dad’s arms and said, “Oh! I was busy changing Steve’s diaper that I forgot all about them! Just let me…” We couldn’t hear what the rest of her sentence as she went upstairs.

After breakfast was over, I asked dad if I could talk to him privately. So we went to my room and I told him the whole nightmare. “We finally found a way to go back to 2005, but nobody would let us in our house because they said it belonged to somebody else now. We argued until they threatened to call the police. And, and…” By that time I was crying again. Dad tried to comfort me. So then he asked everyone (in our family) to come to my room. We talked in Chinese. I told them about the rusty thing. I told them how I suspected it was a time machine. (I saved the thing because I thought it might prove to be handy.)

So I told them why I was crying the day before. Then grandma asked, “Then how come it didn’t work when you tapped it again?” “I don’t know,” was my whispered answer.

Right then we heard a HUGE crash followed by Angela’s wailing. THAT ended our meeting. Obviously Elizabeet and Angeleet were fighting. Mom went downstairs to check on them. As it turned out, they weren’t fighting at all. Elizabeth asked Sally if she was allowed to run. “Sure! Run around! Knock yourself out!” Elizabeth took her word seriously (not that she takes her family’s word seriously) and ran around with Angela. Angela was in front of Elizabeth and turned around so she could see Lizzie. But she didn’t see the corner of a table in front of her. She ran right into it and now she has a black and blue bump on her hip. Good thing she didn’t actually knock herself out, or we would have serious injury! Sally kept on saying sorry to Angela and mom. She kept on saying she shouldn’t have encouraged her by the saying. And we said it is okay for about 100 times!

That night, Angela was the only person having a hard time sleeping. But other than that, everyone had a peaceful sleep.

The next morning, we all tried our best to look awake and to answer everything clearly. While I was halfway through my bacon and eggs, I thought how close we had become to Sally. I just can’t believe a famous woman sharing a house with some Chinese people.

“Stephanie, Stephanie. Are you in their?” Sally knocked on my head gently. “Y-yeah?” “You okay?” asked Sally. I replied, “Of course!” Then she wanted to play with me. We began to play all sorts of games. From go fish to arm wrestles. That night I slept very soundly because I was worn out. Then next morning I woke up early and put a note beside her mirror. It said, Today, victory’s mine!