Chapter 05: Sam
Lisa barely noticed when Alice fell to her knees beside her, and ran forward to speak to the other girls around them. Her grin widened when she saw that they all looked like her - they had the same eyes, the same noses, and the same lips that would later curve into smiles mirroring her own - although one Allisana had hair so long it reached her ankles, another had curly hair, and yet another one had hair dyed a bright pink. They all stood unmoving, eyes glazed over with shock.
“Hi! Nice to meet you all!” Lisa grasped the hand of the nearest Allisana, who looked the most identical to her, for she even had a mark on her forehead. “My name is also Allisana, and I’m you.”
It was as if she had broken a spell: the girls spoke at once and students began to run screaming out of the classrooms. Lisa covered her ears from the sudden blast of multiple voices, but the Allisana nearest to her tightened her grip upon her hand.
“Kapatid ba kita?” the other Allisana screamed, but was drowned out by the rabble.
“Where in blazes am I? Of all the bloody—”
“Onegai, tasukete—”
“Por favor—”
“This is his doing, I’m sure of it! It’s Pra-”
“Lisa!”
Alice grabbed Lisa’s hand and started to pull her away. “We’ve got to get out of here,” Alice said. “We’ve got to find Alli before something worse happens-”
An explosion sent the other girls scattering. “And something worse did happen,” Alice said wryly. She pulled Lisa away from the Allisana nearest to them. “Come on!”
Alice elbowed their way through the crowd of Allisanas while Lisa shouted apologies through the din, until Alice tripped on an Allisana lying on the floor. She and Lisa had a mercifully soft landing on top of another Allisana, who was crying in one corner.
“Oh dear, I’m sorry!” Alice helped the others up.
“There’s nothing we can do,” the Allisana they had landed on wept. She did not look at Alice; her gaze seemed to be fixed on something far off. “We’re doomed. No matter what we do, the future only points in one direction-”
“We’ll get you back, I promise,” Alice said. She gave the weeping Allisana a nod, which was all she could manage under the circumstances. She and Lisa ran towards the girls’ dressing rooms. She ignored an Allisana who wolf-whistled at them and yelled “Goodness, I do look good, don’t I?” and a teacher who ran after them after arguing with a student who was in the way - Alice noticed that it was the gray-eyed boy they met a while ago.
“Hey stop!” yelled the teacher. “You! Allisana!”
Several of the other Allisanas ran towards the teacher, thinking he was addressing them, and Alice used that distraction to get away.
She hoped - desperately - that Alli was already aware of the situation, and doing something about it.
——–
“Do something!”
Alli crouched behind one of the benches near the lockers as another explosion rocked the dressing room. Another girl - who looked exactly like her - did the same thing. The other Allisana grabbed her arm in panic, nails digging painfully deep into her skin. She bit her lip to keep from crying out.
“You were responsible for this, right?” the other Allisana screamed over the noise. “Then do something about it! That other girl could very well kill us-”
From the far side of the dressing room came a scream. “Come out! I do not know why you sent me here, you fiend, but I will wring out some answers from you, just you wait-”
Alli risked a glance at the girl who was shouting, and saw that she too looked like Alli, just like all of the other girls that had appeared only minutes before.
She never suspected something like this could happen, not even with all the things that had happened to her during the past few days. In fact, she had thought that Cecilia had seen either Lisa or Alice when she burst into the dressing room earlier.
“Alli, you’re here already? But I just saw you outside!”
She had taken her time to get her PE uniform from her locker before turning to answer Cecilia. Of course she could not tell her the truth, not that Cecilia would believe her anyway.
“I can actually run very fast when I’m going to be late,” she was going to say, but her lie died down in her throat as she stared at the scene before her.
Cecilia was actually talking to another girl, a girl who looked like Alli, but was wearing glasses. The other Allisana only stared at Cecilia, and turned to the girl next to her to ask something, when she screamed instead.
And it was only then that Alli realized that she was surrounded by a whole lot of other Allisanas, who all began to scream as well. Their screams were joined by the other students, and all of them ran out of the dressing room.
Alli, however, stayed right where she was, unable to take in the situation. Before she could even think of what to do, the locker nearest to her exploded, and she was knocked down to the ground with the force of it.
“This is your doing, I know!” came a horrible shriek that made Alli’s hair stand on end. “I can smell his power off you! Why did you do this?”
She had run for cover and ended up where she was now, hiding with another one of her alter egos. What, she berated herself, have you gotten yourself into again?
Fortunately, the explosions stopped, but the Allisana beside her still did not let her go.
“How did you know that I was the one who did this?” Alli demanded.
“She seems to be sure,” the other Allisana said. “And you looked guilty. It was the only logical conclusion.”
“Would Alice happen to your name?” Alli muttered.
The other Allisana looked surprised. “Why, how did you know?”
“An educated guess,” Alli said. “Look, I did get you here. But I don’t remember how.”
“Then think!”
“I’m trying to,” Alli said, frustrated. “I can’t…”
The Allisana who was causing the explosions suddenly loomed in front of them, making Alli trail off. This Allisana’s eyes were nothing like Alli’s; her eyes were so dark they seemed absorb the light from the room. “Tell me,” she said. “Why did he order you to do this?”
“What? Who do you mean-”
“Don’t play dumb with me!” The third Allisana lifted her hands and looked about to bring them together, when someone lunged at her and pushed her towards the wall.
“Alli, run!” Stella said. She clamped her hands tightly on the third Allisana’s wrists. “I don’t understand, but she wants you, so go!”
“Stella!” Alli didn’t want to leave her friend behind, but the second Allisana - or more properly, Alli thought, the second Alice - grabbed her hand and dragged her towards the corridor. They kept running until they reached a deserted hallway, which was near the student council and office administration offices.
“You can’t save her unless you solve this,” the second Alice said. “Come on! How did you get us here?”
“I must have wished it,” Alli said.
She was so preoccupied with their dilemma that they bumped into another of her alter egos, who was writing something on a piece of paper stuck to the wall. This fourth Allisana was wearing earphones with the volume on full blast, so she did not seem to have seen or heard them coming but when Alli began to apologize, comprehension dawned; she dropped the books she was clutching and ran from them.
The second Alice ignored her and only tugged harder on Alli’s blouse. “What? You figured it out, right?”
Alli nodded and pointed to her ring. “The ring grants wishes. I think I must have said that I wished there were more of Alice-”
“More of me?”
“No - yes - does it matter?” Alli could barely contain her panic. “I didn’t mean it like this! I wish the ring would just stop taking my wishes so literally! The first time it happened I only wanted to know what it would be like if I was different, not actually bring all of my alter egos to my world-”
She stopped, for the second Alice was swearing at Alli under her breath. She raised an eyebrow. The first Alice, the Alice she knew, would never say something like that. “For God’s sake,” the second Alice went on, “you could have wished us more of me one at a time you know! Or, I don’t know, if you just wanted to know maybe you could have said that you wanted to see a different you every time you went to sleep-”
“I wish I wished all that!” Alli snapped, her patience spent.
“-so you could just dream about us, instead!” the second Alice managed to finish, before she abruptly disappeared.
Alli glanced at the space where the other girl last stood, feeling more than a little relieved at the fact that she was gone. She didn’t really like the second Alice. Though she probably was every bit as smart as the Alice Alli knew, she was far pushier and made Alli feel even more foolish and horrible than she already did.
She removed the ring from her hand to prevent any more accidental wishes, and ran back to the dressing room. She first saw Stella, who waved weakly at her and pointed at something at the far side of the room.
Alli gasped. Alice - the first Alice; Alli was so glad to see her again - was lying unconscious on the floor, her right arm bent in an unnatural angle. The other girl who was with her earlier - Alli remembered that her name was Lisa - was bandaging her left arm, which was bleeding.
“They saved me,” Stella whispered. “They distracted that other girl, but she made one of the benches explode, and…”
“Alice.” Alli knelt beside her. “I’m sorry.” Alli noted, with a rush of even more guilt, that Lisa’s lip was quivering in an attempt to keep from crying. “I’ll fix this.”
She hesitated before she put the ring on again. She was aware that the ring was beginning to spiral out of her control. Unfortunately, she was not Alice, and what would seem to her as merely a simple wish could actually bring disaster to all of them. She had to think through this.
I wish that none of this ever happened. It was a tempting thing to wish, Alli knew, but it would be the wrong thing to do. If none of this had ever happened, she would be happier, blissful in her ignorance. But how could she be sure that she would not do the same thing all over again?
She could not risk that.
“Here goes nothing,” Alli muttered as she put on the ring (at which Lisa looked up and said, “Where? Where does nothing go? I’ve always wanted to know!”), and spoke, phrasing each word syllable by syllable. “I wish Alice was fully healed.”
The blue light from the ring surrounded Alice and when it dissipated, Alice’s arm was back to its normal angle. She opened her eyes.
“Are you all right?” Lisa asked anxiously.
Alice nodded at Lisa and even managed a small smile. “I think so.” She looked at Alli, and her smile melted into a frown.
“I know,” Alli said before she could speak. “I’m sorry I caused all this mess. I’ll try to fix it again. Put your cap and shades back on. You too, Lisa.”
Lisa nodded and complied at once, Alice hesitated before she too put her cap and shades on. When they were finished, Alli spoke to the ring again.
“I wish everything would be as if I never said, ‘I wish there were more of you’ to Alice.” She bit her lip before she added hastily, “But I wish that Alice, Lisa and I remember everything that just happened today.”
Alice raised an eyebrow at her. She said nothing, and only pulled Alice and Lisa out of the room. From behind them came the voices of her classmates, who reappeared inside the dressing room, chatting with each other as if nothing happened, just like Alli wished.
“Look, I’m really sorry,” Alli said to the two other girls when they finally reached a deserted hallway. “I didn’t really mean for everything to go that far. I was careless.”
“I told you.” Alice was unable to keep the bitterness from her voice. “I told you to be careful with the ring.”
“It holds a power that I can’t control,” Alli said. “Or even remotely understand. I get that now. It’s really dangerous to mess with these things.”
And she told them about the earlier incident with Cecilia, Neil and Stella.
“It was so easy,” Alli said. “The way I can modify their thoughts, and even their feelings, with just one wish. I could even wish for Neil to like me instead of Cecilia, if I wanted to.”
“No!” Alice started forward, alarmed.
“Of course I won’t do that,” Alli said. “I just could, if I wanted to. The ring is that powerful. And dangerous because of it. So I decided that I won’t use it anymore.”
“What?”
“But why?” Lisa exclaimed.
“I always have to be really careful,” Alli said. “It’s scary, the things the ring can do. I can suddenly kill someone, or something.”
“You can un-wish the wish, right?” Lisa asked.
“Yes, but what if I wish something that can’t ever be wished back?” Alli leaned on the wall, grateful for something to support her. “I can’t think how, but it’s possible. So I’m not going to use it anymore; it’s a thing better left untouched.”
She took a deep breath; the next thing she was going to say was going to very difficult. She turned to Alice. “I’ve put you in too much danger already. I can understand how angry you must be at me, because you were so patient with me and yet I keep messing things up.” Alice did not even pretend to protest, and she felt guilt stab her again. The weight of all her feelings was beginning to produce an almost physical pain. “You said you wanted to solve this whole thing before you went home, but I think we’re dealing with something bigger now. So I wished that we would all remember everything that happened today so both of you will make this decision correctly.”
She paused. Lisa looked confused, but Alice nodded.
“To leave or to stay,” Alice said.
“Yes,” Alli said. She could not guess from her tone how Alice felt, but she went on with it anyway. She pressed the ring into Alice’s hand. “I’m giving you the ring, because you’re so much better at phrasing these wishes anyway. You decide what you want to wish into it. You’ll know what’s best for you.”
“But I want to stay!” Lisa gripped Alli’s arm. “I don’t want to go back to my world!”
“It’s much too dangerous here.”
“Oh, no! It’s a much safer world, and a happier one, too. Even after everything-”
“It’s okay, Lisa,” Alice said. She gently pried Lisa’s fingers off Alli’s arm.
“But-”
“Thank you, Alli,” Alice said. “Really, Lisa, it’s okay.” She patted Lisa’s shoulder, and the other girl stopped her protests and hung her head.
Alice put on the ring, and the blue light engulfed both her and Lisa. When it dissipated, the two other girls were no longer there. Alli waited for a few more moments before she turned to leave.
When she reached the end of the corridor, she looked back because she could not help it. But they did not reappear.
——–
The day was finally over. Alli spent the last hour of school counting down the minutes (and to her misfortune her Math teacher gave a pop quiz and she ended up leaving her paper completely blank) until the bell rang. There was no reason to stay, everything was back to normal again. She wanted to go home, go to sleep, and forget about everything, if only for a few hours. She hurried out of the classroom, leaving Stella panting behind her.
“Alli! Wait! Your cake-”
“Allisana Silvano?”
Alli stopped. She turned first to Stella, who was holding out her birthday cake; then after taking the box she turned to the skinheaded young man at the door.
“That’s me. What is it?”
“Thanks for signing up for The Papyrus,” he said. “We’re going to have an emergency meeting after class. See you at room 314, okay?”
“But I didn’t sign up for the club,” Alli said. “You must be mistaken.”
“Yes you did, see?” The young man looked annoyed, and held up a paper. True enough, there was her name on the signup sheet, in her own handwriting, too. “Honestly! Why does everyone keep giving me lame excuses not to go to the emergency meeting today? I know it’s short notice, but it can’t be helped!”
“Maybe they just heard he was president,” Stella muttered to Alli, out of the young man’s earshot.
“I’ll go,” Alli said reluctantly. “I just need a few minutes to tell my dad that I’ll be late.”
“All right,” the young man said, still looking irritated. “See you later then.” And he sped off without another word.
“Who is he anyway?” Alli asked Stella.
“Morgan Freyra,” Stella replied. “He was my classmate in fifth grade. And unfortunately, our class president. He’s as bossy as Reinabelle is competitive. And they were both my classmates then - you can imagine how terrible that year was for us.”
“Childhood trauma, huh? Oh well. Looks like I do have to attend this club.”
“At least Sir Al’s the adviser, remember? The Papyrus. Isn’t that the writing club?”
“Oh yeah!” This lightened up Alli’s spirits considerably. Without the ring, she could not wish her way out of this one - then again, she wouldn’t want to use the ring anymore, even if she had it. She thought she knew how she ended up being in the club: it must have been that Allisana she and the second Alice had bumped into in the hallway - the one who was writing something on a paper on the wall.
She and Stella headed to the school lobby and out into the parking lot, where Alli told her father about the meeting she had to go to. Her father was as understanding as always, although he did look distracted. He denied it when Alli asked however, and only told her that he would wait until she was finished. She waved goodbye to Stella and headed to room 314.
There was no sign of Morgan in the room, or Sir Al. Its only occupant was a young man with light brown hair seated in the corner farthest from the door. He looked up from the notebook he was writing on.
“Um,” Alli stammered. She felt ill at ease. “Is this where the meeting for The Papyrus will be held?”
The young man nodded and smiled, motioning with a tilt of his head towards the blackboard. On it were written in big block letters: THE PAPYRUS FIRST EMERGENCY MEETING. URGENT MATTERS TO BE DISCUSSED!
Alli blushed. What an embarrassingly obvious thing to ask! The young man did not seem to notice her discomfort, for he had gone back to his writing. She looked around. She wondered if he would be offended if she sat beside him, because he might like to be left alone. On the other hand, maybe he would be offended if she sat away from him, because he seemed friendly anyway.
“I’m glad someone else finally arrived,” the young man spoke up. “I was beginning to wonder if I was the only one who wanted to join besides Morgan.” He laughed sheepishly. “What’s your name?”
“Oh, Allisana Silvano.” Alli took this as a sign that it was okay to sit beside him, so she did. “You can call me Alli.”
“Sam,” the young man said, holding out his hand. “Samuelson Rivera. It’s really nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you too.” Alli smiled and took his hand. She was not sure if she imagined it, but there was a sadness reflected in his gray eyes, which did not match his smile. She suddenly felt sorry for him.
Sam went back to his writing again while Alli brought out a notebook, meaning to study for their test tomorrow, which was Biology. She found herself sneaking glances over to what Sam was writing, though, and caught a few lines.
Past, present, future, on and on we go
And she read on:
We tumble towards the ever after
Learning, forgetting, and learning again
The stars do not align to our wishes
The cards have no power to tell our fate
Past, present, future, on and on we go
We tumble towards the ever after.
Until Sam looked up with a strange mixture of shyness and mischief in his smile and said, “What do you think of it so far?”
“Oh!” Alli almost knocked her notebook off her desk as she sank down into her chair. She had not realized that she was already leaning out of her chair. “I-I’m sorry. It must have been rude, but I found your poem interesting a-a-and-”
“It’s okay,” Sam interjected. “Thanks for your interest. It’s weird though - it’s supposed to have a structure of sorts but I can’t get it to rhyme - what about you? Did you bring any of your work here today?”
“I - no,” Alli said, still stammering. “I actually don’t write. I just never had the time and interest to, I guess.” Then why was she here then? Of course he was bound to ask. She wracked her brains for a suitable excuse but found all of them unconvincing.
“Morgan forced to join then?” Sam said.
“Oh yes,” Alli said, relieved.
He looked sympathetic. “You should tell Morgan that you really don’t want to be here. I’m sure it’ll be okay.”
Okay? With Morgan? Alli seriously doubted it, but she nodded anyway. “Thanks. I think I’ll do that later. Would it be okay if I read your other poems?”
Sam nodded and handed her his notebook. She browsed through his work. There was an unfinished story about three men who landed in a strange new world, and another about an old woman who could see the future; and several poems. One of the very first poems caught her attention:
He smiles
Fooling those around him
Those blind to the truth,
Not knowing
He smiles
Trying to forget-
“You mean this is all of you?”
Morgan Freyra’s shrill cry resounded through the air, cutting through her reading. She looked up in annoyance. Three other people slunk through the room like wounded dogs, and Morgan glared at them until they sat down.
“Well, we’re going to need new members soon,” Morgan said. “For now, we’re going to work with just the six of us first. So this means: no backing down, people! I mean it! No slacking off!”
“But-” Alli began.
“But what?” Morgan said, his tone deceptively nice but his eyebrows meeting at the center of his forehead and his lips pressing tightly together betrayed what he really felt.
“N-never mind.”
“So first things first,” Morgan said. “We need to put together an exhibit for the school’s coming foundation day, which is why I called this meeting. Sir Al Moran can’t come today, unfortunately. Anyway, Principal Villanueva told him that-”
“Why didn’t you tell Morgan that you didn’t really like writing?” Sam leaned forward and lowered his voice. “It’s going to be hard if you’ll be doing something you were only forced to do…”
“It’s okay,” Alli said. She looked at Morgan nervously. “He’s really kind of scary. I couldn’t say anything. And I actually don’t have a club yet, so I guess I’ll give this a try. Who knows, maybe I’ll like writing.”
“Okay,” Sam said. He still looked concerned. “If you need help though, you can always ask me.”
“Th-thanks.” She found herself blushing again, for she found his words and concern reassuring. She smiled at him. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’m sure I’ll do fine.” She hoped she sounded convincing, for she really did not feel all that sure about herself as she claimed.
——–
“Bye Sam!” Alli said as she went out of the school gates and into the parking lot, where she and Sam separated. “See you! It was really nice meeting you!”
Sam waved back to her. He disappeared from view as she climbed into her father’s car.
“Hi Dad!”
“Hi Alli,” Mr. Silvano said. Alli looked at him, noting the strained tone in his voice.
“Dad, tell me. Is there something wrong?”
“Your mother,” Mr. Silvano said. “She sent me a text message to ask me not to pick her up from work at six, because she would be doing something. I asked her what time I was going to pick her up then, but she didn’t reply. So I called her - there was no answer. Then I called her office, but they said she already left.”
“Maybe she had some things to pick up from work?”
“Maybe,” Mr. Silvano said. “Well, come in. Let’s drive by your mother’s office anyway, just to check. Maybe your mother’s pulling a prank.”
Alli highly doubted that (a fact which she eloquently expressed by raising her eyebrows as high as she could), but she said nothing. Her mother’s office was no more than fifteen minutes away from her school (but the whole drive took them thirty minutes because of the heavy traffic), and she kept silent throughout that time. She wondered where her mother was: did her parents have an argument? Should she ask her father? She wanted to see her mother soon - but she was also dreading it, because she still felt guilty about how she had treated her the night before. But they might as well get over it.
After her father parked the car in the lot behind her mother’s office building, they headed towards the second floor, which was where her mother worked in. In the lobby, when they were about to enter one of the elevators, Mr. Silvano spotted her mother’s boss and ran over to him.
“Mr. Tinio,” Mr. Silvano panted as he skidded to a stop beside Mrs. Silvano’s boss. “I’m Adrienna Silvano’s husband, Albert. I was wondering if she had gone back to her office? Are there any more errands she has to run? She hasn’t been replying to my messages.”
Mr. Tinio looked surprised. “But Adrienna asked for a half-day leave! She left hours ago, actually. I didn’t give her work to do - she said it was a family emergency.”
“But we’re her family,” Mr. Silvano said. “And we know of no eme-”
“It probably has something to do with grandfather,” Alli interrupted before her father could incriminate her mother further. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Tinio.” She pulled her father away and out into the parking lot.
“Grandfather?” Mr. Silvano asked.
“It was a lie, Dad!” Alli said in exasperation.
“Oh!” Mr. Silvano shook his head. He did not go back inside the car, and instead paced in front of it. “But where could she be? I’m worried about her.”
“I’m worried about her too,” Alli said. “But all we can do now is wait.” She thought of the ring and what mess she had been in because of it. What if her mother had been involved with it right from the very beginning? And the thing she wanted to tell Alli at the beginning was about the ring…
But now she was missing, and Alli still did not have any answers.
To be continued