Out Of Thin Air (Chapter Seventeen) Burnt Waffles And More Paranoia
I decided to walk down to breakfast without my shoes on. The whole not-sleeping-in-your-own-bed thing reminded me of a sleepover we had had at Elsie's once, and how we had gone to the grocery store in just our pajamas and slippers to get donuts the next morning. I guess that my regular clothes and socks were as close as I was getting to that particular occasion.
In the elevator, I was tempted to light up all the buttons next to the floor numbers, like they had in Elf. But by the time it reached the ground floor, the feeling passed.
I skipped through the lobby as nonchalantly as possible. I noticed the concierge was different, so there really wasn't much to worry about for now.
The breakfast room was deserted, which wasn't that big of a surprise. I had noticed at least seven breakfast places on my epic five block hotel hunt, and breakfast in the city seemed like touristy enough of a thing to do in Chicago. Plus, everyone had probably eaten already.
Nonetheless, all the breakfast food that hadn't been eaten already was spread on the counter to the left of a bunch of tables. Bagels, Lucky Charms (among a bunch of other cereals), yogurt, muffins, coffee and juice, and even a waffle maker. It looked like the breakfast aisle at Kroger had thrown up.
I grabbed a plate and started cramming as much food on it as I possibly could. One whiff of those chocolate muffins reminded me that I hadn't eaten in the last 24 hours. My last meal had been a bag of Doritos.
All the food was rather cold, some of it stale, but when you where this hungry, it didn't really matter. In the end I wound up with a bagel, two chocolate muffins, a bowl of Rasin Bran, a cup of apple juice, and a waffle still in the waffle maker. It had taken me a moment to figure out how to work it, until I read the obviously displayed instructions on the wall next to it.
I settled down at a table big enough to hold all my food, and started munching on a chocolate muffin. And let me tell you, it was absolutely delicious. I guess that this amount made even the crappiest of hotel muffins feel like a foreign delicacy. The muffin was gone in about 10 seconds.
I turned my attention to the television hanging on the wall. Whatever station it was turned to was on commercial, but I was instantly reminded of school as soon as the Oxiclean commercial came on. Not only was the television the exact same kind as the ones they had at school, but one of the times our class had eaten lunch in the classroom, Elsie had made up new words to the Oxiclean commercial, something along the lines of "Hey there, I'm Billy Mays, and I like peanut butter!"
School. I had already missed a full day, an was missing my second right now. The homework would have really piled up for me when I got back. If I got back.
I watched the muted commercials as I finished my other muffin and started on my Rasin Bran. My favorite was that one about the upside-down tomatoes. Their catchphrase should be something along the lines of "Because growing them upside down makes it so different." Finally, the station came back on.
And I swear, if anyone else has ever been more scared of a TV station before, there must have been something tragically wrong with their head.
It was CNN. They had said that their top story had been me, so that probably mean that they would be talking about it all day, right? I was so amazingly glad that it was muted so all the other people-
And then I realized that there was no one else in the breakfast room. Once again, Luna's paranoia gets the best of her.
I tried to ignore the TV, with no luck. I remembered the concierge, and tried to act normal. The bottom of the screen on the news program read "Indiana Girl Missing," with frequently changing subtitles. The reporter had changed, and was now an older dude with a pretty wicked-sweet mustache. But that was beside the point. A different picture of me, a more recent one from Elsie's birthday party appeared in the upper right hand corner.
"Hey!" I heard someone shout, and I jumped a mile. I flipped around to see the concierge staring at me, not suspiciously, but furiously. "It's gonna burn!"
It took me a moment to calm down enough to realize he wasn't talking about the news, but instead my waffle. I had completely forgotten about it, and the waffle maker had been beeping for the past however-long. I jumped to my feet to try to keep it from busting into flames.
Not that that wouldn't be amazingly cool. But still.
I managed to get the beeping to stop, but all that was left of my waffle was a charred black brick. Oh, yum.
“Sorry,” I called nervously, trying to pry the burnt waffle out of the maker, but it just fell to pieces. I got a good percentage of it into the trashcan, and stared at the remaining bits, wondering how to make them go away.
“I can get that,” said the concierge. He grabbed a wet-wipe and cleaned the rest of it out as I stood watching awkwardly, trying not to make eye contact. “It’s a shame, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” I said, trying to be polite. “I was really excited about eating it.” How stupid did that sound?
“No, that girl that went missing,” he said, tossing the wet-wipe in the trash. “Bet she got kidnapped.”
Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap.
“Oh,” I laughed nervously. “Yeah, that’s, uh, too bad.”
“You know,” he said, a strange tone in his voice. I looked off to the side, but I could tell he was trying to look at me. “You look just like her.”
The oh crap level has just been raised to a quadruple crap level. And those are pretty freaking rare.
“Hey, what’s that cool thing over there?” I tried to distract him, but it was no where close to working.
“You are her,” whispered the concierge, his eyes scrutinizing my face. I stared back in utter horror, not even making an attempt to mask it.
I searched my brain for some way out of this situation, something to distract him. Maybe if I could run fast enough-
Or maybe if I could stop time…
I flexed my fingers quickly, and the concierge stopped dead. I heaved a sigh of relief and bounded towards the elevator. I had left my shoes upstairs, and I doubted I would be getting
far without them. Plus, with my current luck, there would be some time-stop-immune demons on my tail or something highly improbable like that.
I jabbed nervously at the elevator button, but it wasn’t lighting up. I guess heavy machinery doesn’t work when time isn’t moving. Great. Just phenomenal. I searched for the stairwell and bolted up it.
About three flights up, I felt like collapsing. Turns out the tenth floor is great until the elevator’s out of order. I took a quick breather and continued at a more normal pace, managing to reach the tenth floor while still breathing.
I ran (clumsily, I might add) down the hallway, trying to remember where my room was. I finally found it, and started digging in my pocket for the key card. After swiping it a few million times in the lock, it finally opened.
I grabbed my shoes and started shoving them on as the door slammed shut behind me. Quickly, I looked around the room looking for anything I might have accidentally strewn there. My iPod was on the nightstand-
Wait… my iPod?
Now if I’m correct, I most definitely didn’t leave that there.
I finished tying my shoe and leaned over to grab it. There was no doubt it was really my iPod; it still had the engraving of my name on the back. The real mystery was how on earth it got here. Suddenly, I noticed something clipped to the headphones- a folded slip of paper. I unfolded it and tried to read the messy handwriting.
Luna-
Look, I’m really sorry. I completely overreacted, and it was all my fault. I totally understand if you hate me now, but if not, I want to make it up to you. There’s this restaurant down by the Shedd Aquarium, and if you want, I can get you lunch. If you don’t that’s fine, I understand.
How’s 1 o’clock sound?
-Aiden
On my list of things I expected, that was definitely not at the top.