But, please, if you have any advice, give it, because it'd be well-appreciated!This is a true story. Names have been changed for protection of the innocent.
For those with an analytical brain, go no further. Please, just drop this book and don’t look back. This isn’t safe in the hands of rational-mind people like you. You won’t be able to handle the truth of what is written in this. You simply will not believe it. For those with a creative, random mind, however, the truth shouldn’t be a problem.
Rooms come in all shapes and sizes; there are big ones, small ones, master bedrooms, tiny coat closets, ones shaped like squares, ones shaped like rectangles, even some like triangles. There can be colourful rooms, painted shades of pink, green, purple, even sky blue. There can be dull and gloomy rooms, painted dark blue, brown, grey, black, even plain white. I could go on and on. Rooms are common, yes? Well…most are common. Others, like the ‘Canvas Room’, are needles in a haystack. And guess what? I found the needle.
I’m sorry I haven’t told you my name yet. Introductions are a boring way to begin a story, but we should get them over with. Hello. My name is Lavender Violet. Yes, snicker all you wish, but my parents thought it clever to have two different shades of purple for my first and last names. I don’t even want to tell you my middle name.
Would my age be appropriate to give, too? I’m fourteen years old, fifteen on the twenty-sixth of June. That’s twenty days and counting. Now am I supposed to tell you that my favourite colour is green or that my favourite bird’s a cardinal? I don’t think so.
Sorry, I’ve always been terrible at introductions.
Ever since birth, I’ve had a rebellious streak, to say the least. My mama used to tell me about how ever since I had been able to sit up as a baby, I was trying to unlatch my crib and crawl out. Same as when I was two and tried to run out of the house without my sandals on, or even last year at thirteen when I snuck out to see a movie with my friends. But without that streak of revolt, I wouldn’t have found what would haunt me for the rest of my life…
Throughout grade school and junior high, all my teachers have been saying the same things about me: I’m inattentive, rebellious, lazy, but have a good heart and am very creative. I guess you can say that’s true, but I swear I am not lazy. I just don’t try in my school work. That’s all. Why should I even care that they called me lazy? It’s not like they see me anywhere but in class. Except for that one time I saw Mrs. Lockley, my fifth grade teacher, in the supermarket buying a whole bunch of organic fruits and diet sodas. But that’s a different story. Right now I’m telling you the story of how I found the ‘Canvas Room.’ I’ll try my best not to get sidetracked. Bear with me, please. If you can’t, well I guess that’s too bad for you.
Sophie shuffled into my room, her sock-monkey slippers dragging tiredly on the blue carpet, creating a static-universe.
She groaned and rubbed her eyes.
I glanced up at her, annoyed. Her strawberry curls looked as if they had just been rolled over by a bulldozer, and her normally animated grey eyes were red and bloodshot.
Hmm, somebody just woke up from their afternoon nap.
“Something you want?” I asked her, dropping my pen on the loose-leaf paper which contained the beginnings of the poem I was writing.
The poem went a little something like this:
Awake and alive,
Asleep and deceased.
Happy and joyous,
Depressed and morose.
Living on edge,
Going by emotion…
And the rest only God knows.
Anyway, that was one of the first examples of me sidetracking. So, please allow me to get back to the main story. God forbid you never hear about the ‘Canvas Room.’
Sophie had just turned five on May fifteenth, and was going into kindergarten that September while I was going to be a sophomore.
“Mommy wants you downstairs,” Sophie said in that sleepy voice of hers, rubbing her eyes once more.
I sighed. Usually, when mama got Sophie to get me, she was usually too mad to get me herself. Looks like I won’t be finishing my poem tonight.
I hopped out of my green rolling chair and bounced down the stairs, unusual behaviour for a girl who knew she was in trouble at the moment.
But, hey, I’m an unusual girl.
I knew for sure that I was in trouble when I got downstairs. Mama and Daddy were sitting on the couch without the TV on, completely silent.
Oh, dear Lord, I must’ve committed all of the seven deadly sins.
Daddy always watches ESPN on Friday nights! I don’t think there’s been a time when he’s ever missed it.
I couldn’t think of anything I could’ve done wrong…
“Lavender.” My mama said, and I almost winced at the coldness in her tone. “Sit down.” I gulped. The last time my mama spoke to me like that was when she figured out that I had lied to her about sleeping over my best friend, Andrea’s, house and went to the mall with my boyfriend.
I went to sit on the black leather recliner, but my daddy stopped me.
“No.” He said, just as terse and cold as my mama. “The floor.”
I bit my lip as I sat down on the cold, hard ground.
This wasn’t looking good. “Is there—”
“We got your final semester report card today,” said Mama, cutting me off curtly.
For my school, summer had officially begun on Monday night. About a week or two before other schools because mine barely takes off for snow days.
Anyway, back to my chagrin in one of the most dreadful parts of this story. “Did you know you were failing most all of your classes?” she asked me.
Gaping, I shook my head. On my progress report, I got mostly D’s and C’s, and only one F in algebra. I was pretty much passing. If you got more than two F’s, then you’re held back. Other than that, you’re free to move on to the next level.
So, as you could guess, getting mostly F’s is a very bad thing. I didn’t want to repeat freshman year!
“Well, you were.” My daddy scowled, holding up a blue sheet of cardboard paper, which I expected was my report card. “And you’re now going to have to take the ninth grade all over again. Either that, or summer school.”
I was frozen. Summer school! I couldn’t go to summer school! What part of the word ‘summer’ has anything to do with ‘school’?
I’d rather retake freshman year a billion times than ruin my summer with school and what not. “I—I,” Stuttering, I rose to my feet.
“You’re going to summer school.” Mama said, sounding resolute. “We didn’t waste money at your school for you to slack off and fail.”
“But—”
“You will go to summer school, and that’s final.” Daddy spoke for Mama, his dark eyes showing nothing but aloofness.
“I don’t—” I was about to say my trademark quote ‘I don’t want to Oh boy, that would’ve been something. They were already fired up, and that would just be adding fuel to the flame.
“Don’t you dare say ‘I don’t want to,’ young lady.” Mama said, crossing her arms. “If it were your choice, you’d probably stay in the ninth grade forever. We’re very disappointed in you.” She said, and I flinched, my knees wobbling.
“Mama, I—”
“And by the way, Lavender,” My daddy interjected, and I felt my face grow paler and my palms cold and glistening with nervous and frustrated sweat. They just weren’t listening to me! “Don’t think that summer school is your only punishment.”
Oh no.
“No TV, no iPod, no cell phone, no computer, no electronics until the end of July.” He concluded, his jaw clenched.
Why don’t you just add ‘No Summer’ to that list?!
Jeez, no more watching stupidly funny sitcoms. No more listening to my favourite artists or bands. No more Facebook, no more MySpace, no more Twitter, no more Blogspot! Just take my very life, why don’t you?
I gritted my teeth. “I—” but they still weren’t going to listen to me, they were just growing more and more animated as they went on.
“And—” Mama started, but this time I didn’t let her finish.
Baring my teeth, I pivoted on my heel and stormed up the stairs and to my room. As quickly as I could, I grabbed my red duffle bag, stuffing my iPod, cell phone, laptop, a bunch of clothes, and some extra shoes in there. I slipped on my blue Converse and straightened out my black jeans. I stormed into my bathroom and snatched my toothbrush, hairbrush, toothpaste, and other necessary items for running away.
And, finally, I went to my Emergency-Only porcelain piggy bank, broke it by slamming it on the ground and stomping furiously on it, and grabbed all the money from it. There was at least one hundred dollars.
Doing all this in less than a minute, I called out my goodbye to Sophie, who was still probably drowsy and confused, and stuck my tongue out at my parents on my way out the door.
That was my way of telling them: Don’t come after me, you’re not welcome where I’m going.
I stifled a hysterical laugh. I was being even more rebellious than usual. This time I even brought all the electronics they told me I couldn’t have, and even more. I’d have to block their number, that reminded me.
I raced down the steep driveway and to the bike I rode to and from school. Luckily, it had a little wire-basket in the front of it, the perfect place to put my duffle bag.
Without a thought of regret, I began riding down the row of houses in my neighbourhood. I saw elderly women out, watering their rosebushes, and the teenaged boys playing basketball in their driveways.
I rode along the sidewalk, and out my neighbourhood, landing myself in an intersection.
Cars honked and exhaust blew all around me. But I was used to riding my bike around here. It was the way I got to school. But instead of taking a right, I took a left. I had no idea where that back road would take me. Nor did I care.
I rode as fast as I could, pedalling at what I thought was equivalent to the speed of light. Trees and occasional houses flew past my peripheral view, but my eyes were locked on the road unfurling in front of me.
There was a sudden intersection, and my instincts told me to take a right. I began down a dirt road that had a water tower with the words ‘Rowan County’ painted on in such a dark orange colour, it appeared almost brown.
The rest were open fields.
Along this road, two more intersections showed up, and at each, I spared a look behind and, to my relief, my parents were nowhere to be seen. At one I took a left, the other a right.
Darkness was approaching faster than a speeding car, and I had no idea where I would be sleeping that night. I was so far into the back roads, I wasn’t sure I was in Rowan County anymore. And I was growing more and more tired as I rode on. I stopped by the side of the dirt road, next to a completely open field.
I sat down next to my bike and just stared up at the orange twilight sky. I pursed my lips. It was the colour of my bedroom walls. I looked over my shoulder at the horizon distorted by the outline of green trees. Green. The same colour as my mama’s eyes.
I sighed. No. I could not be homesick already. I told myself it was just nerves that I was out all alone in the middle of nowhere. Anything could happen.
I didn’t even have a place to sleep, and there was no way I was going to sleep on the grassy ground where spiders or rodents or, God forbid, grasshoppers thrived.
I’d just have to find somewhere…and then I saw that ‘somewhere.’
I rose slowly to my feet, not believing what I saw. Oh, an oasis! One with white panels and big, rectangular windows! I grinned at what I saw in the far distance. I could just barely make it out from where I stood.
I hopped on my bike and rode to my shelter, my saving grace from all creatures that go scurrying in the night.
It wasn’t as far as it looked, and I got there in about a minute. I dropped my bike at the beginning of the rode and grabbed my duffle bag. I didn’t think anyone would steal my bike. I didn’t think anyone would drive by that night.
From the overgrown shrubs in front of the house, to the broken window on the first story, this place reeked of abandonment. Although I couldn’t tell why. With just a little work, it could be a beautiful home for somebody. Well, now it was a beautiful home for me.
I needlessly knocked on the red front door.
No answer, of course.
I bit my lip as I turned the silver doorknob. I hoped it wasn’t locked…it was.
I frowned. I jerked the handle again. The door didn’t budge.
Sighing, I looked for another entrance.
I could always go through the broken window, but that was just a hazard waiting to happen.
I could bust down the door, but I’m a skinny, pale fourteen-year-old girl. That didn’t seem likely either.
And then the greatest idea ever occurred to me.
There must be a backdoor.
I rounded the white-panelled house and got to the backyard where flowerbeds were installed, but no flowers were living. There was also a tire swing hanging from an out-of-place magnolia tree. Hm. That’s odd.
To my relief, there was a backdoor. French doors, to be exact.
I crossed my fingers behind my back as I reached for the door knob…please, Lord, let this one be open…Click. The door opened.
I smiled luminously as I stepped into a dark room, fumbling for any source of light, although I highly doubted it had any, considering it had no inhabitants to pay the electric bills.
My hand felt a smoother counter, and I found a lantern.
That’s. Really. Weird.
It was, as expected, a fake fire inside the lantern as I turned it on. Hopefully this place had extra batteries.
Thankfully, the lantern showed a lot of the room and I could see partially clearly and the only places where the light didn’t show were in the corners, which were unnaturally creepy, and other rooms.
I gasped at what I saw.
Pots and pans, a microwave oven, a stove, even a refrigerator.
And on one counter it looked like a phone charger connected to an outlet. This place was sure up-to-date considering their main source of light was a lantern.
The kitchen table was made out of mahogany and the counters were a pure marble.
Wow. Just…wow.
I picked up the lantern and adjusted the duffle bag on my arm, making my way down a long, narrow hallway without a single door. To the side of the front door was a stairwell. I looked up at the eerie sight before my eyes. All the doors in the rooms above were open, and only one had a light shining through. At first I thought it might be the last signs of the sun, but then I remembered that the trees blocked it from this angle. I felt my hands grow clammy and cold, and I struggled to keep a grip on the lantern and my duffle bag, which both seemed to be growing heavier by the moment.
“Hello?” I called up the stairs to whatever was up there. My voice was hoarse and rough.
No one answered, just like no one answered the door. Maybe this was a bad idea…
The room with the light’s door suddenly slammed shut, the vibration resounding throughout the whole house.
A scream caught in my throat.
Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad idea.
I should be in my house, listening to my parents lecturing me.
Not here…
I desperately wanted to run back down the hallway, slam the door on the way out, and ride my bike back home until daybreak and suffer whatever repercussion I would get for my actions from my mama and daddy. But I was frozen in place.
Cold sweat beaded on the back of my neck and tricked down my spine.
Every atom of my brain was telling me to turn and run, but my heart was now telling me differently. I wanted to go up there and explore. What was that strange source of light? How did the door slam on its own? It’s not possible to have a draft without air conditioning, is it? But I also wanted to be in my home. My reliable, safe home, curled up in my warm blankets, crying because I was just yelled at by my parents.
Stupidly, after I unthawed, I took a step up the carpeted staircase. And then another. And then another. And before I could talk some sense into my stupid self, I was at the top of the staircase, the light around me shaking because my hand around the lantern was.
I bit my lip anxiously as I grabbed the doorknob and turned it slowly, letting the suspicion build in my mind, the drama queen that I was.
For a second, I thought I heard someone whisper my name, “Lavender…” but before I could say anything or respond…
I was in my bedroom.
No kidding. My bedroom.
From my desk, to my TV, to my dusty guitar and bed, even to the orange colour of my walls, I was in my room. In some strange, creepy, and abandoned house!
Impossible…
The only things missing were my iPod, cell phone, laptop, and porcelain piggy bank. But those were in my bag, and my piggy bank was broken.
Even the clothes on the floor were same as the ones I left!
I clenched my teeth. This had to be some kind of joke. Why would my room be in some creepy abandoned house? It made no sense.
I reached out to touch my dusty old guitar, maybe to rub some dust off of it, but right when my hand made contact with the wood of it…
Everything disappeared.
Everything, except for the light source overhead.
How in the world…?
Now I was just staring at blank walls. White as pure, untainted snow.
I gasped. What just happened? I looked at the ground. I was standing on white. It looked like a cloud.
As soon as that thought escaped the barriers of my mind, it felt like I was standing on a cloud.
The walls turned a deep, sky blue, and the light source overhead shined as bright as the sun and beat down warmly on my back, turning my cold sweat hot. I looked all around me. It looked like I was standing in the middle of the sky.
Things began painting themselves onto the sky blue walls; it looked like planes, and red cardinals, and bald eagles, and kestrel. Everything that belongs in the daytime sky that is imaginable was painting itself onto the wall, and the door slammed once more, this time with me in it.
Oh my gosh…what was happening?
I ran over to the door and tried to yank it open, but it didn’t move an inch and it caused me to stumble back, falling over myself, looking up at another blank wall.
Again, I thought about how much the whiteness of the walls reminded me off snow, and then the craziest thing ever happened. It began snowing. Indoors…
Snow fell into my dark hair, and when I looked up, the light source became a light even brighter than fluorescent. I squinted while looking at it.
And the funny thing was…it looked like there was no ceiling. Snow was just falling from oblivion, it seemed.
Oh, dear, and right after I thought about heaven…well. I think you get it.
Let’s just say the light source became a halo, angels began singing, I was floating on a cloud once more, and flowers began blooming on them.
I studied the flowers, having to wonder if there were really navy blue roses.
Surprise, surprise, after I thought of flowers, they began blooming through cracks in the floor and the ceiling.
It couldn’t be true…things like this just didn’t happen! No…no…no.
Impossible!
I couldn’t take it anymore. Keeping my mind as clear and blank as possible, I ran toward the door again, tugging and pulling and twisting with all my might. I tugged and tugged, but then I got the most brilliant idea.
I thought of breakable windows.
Windows appeared from all sides, and, for a moment, I forgot which way I would have to go to get outside.
After I gained control of myself, clutching my duffle bag for dear life, I set down the lantern and crashed into one of the windows. But it wouldn’t work!
Nothing was working!
I tried and tried, again and again, to break the window that way I could escape, but nothing happened. Not even a crack in the least.
Frustration brought tears to my eyes.
Why me? I know it’s my fault that I ran away in the first place, but why? It doesn’t make any sense!
I sighed and sat down on the floor that looked like a window.
I should probably just give up now. Let the room have me for whatever it wishes. I’m the lamb to the slaughter. Whatever it wishes…
I reached over to turn off the lantern…and when I did, everything changed.
It was no longer a creepy, odd room full of windows, instead it looked like every other room in this house: abandoned.
Oh my goodness….maybe it wasn’t the room that wanted me. It was the lantern!
I shook my head, disbelieving. Shaking my head was the only time I wasted. I fumbled in the dark for my red duffle bag, shot out of the room, down the stairs, through the hall, and out the French doors in the kitchen.
I rounded the evil house and got to my bike and sped away into the darkness.
I didn’t get home until past one in the morning.
I felt really bad because the cops were at my house, their flashing blue and white lights probably keeping my whole neighbourhood awake, and my parents had probably already tied themselves into pretzels trying to find me.
Sophie was probably up still, too, or not informed of what I did. Just so she doesn’t get any ideas, you know…
As soon as I stepped a foot onto the brown welcome mat, my mama opened the door and flung herself into my arms.
I hugged her back, more than happy for this sweet embrace.
“I’m sorry…I’m so sorry,” I was mumbling, although it was useless, because words couldn’t have ever described how sorry I really was.
“Where did you go?” Daddy asked, taking his turn to hug me tightly, too.
“If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me.”
thank you guys so much! I'm working on getting it published...although I have to find out how to first...I'm glad that you liked it 
