The Forbidden

There I was, just standing there, when what I wanted to do was forbidden. I touched the door handle to my older sister's bedroom, looking both ways down and up the hall. No-one was home. The branches scraped the window at the end of the hall and I startled.

I had to see her room, I missed my sister Angie so much it hurt. My hand reached out, almost of its own volition. I turned the knob expecting resistance but it swung open easily. Too easily. Looking back along the hall, I slipped inside and shut the door behind me. Mom was called to my uncle's. He was sick and needed her. I begged off telling her I had a paper due tomorrow morning. There was no paper due.

I moved quickly to my sister's desk and began opening drawers. I shuffled through drawings and pages of her handwriting.

There has to be a clue in here to her disappearance last summer. She was gone without a note or a goodbye. Poof, gone. The police said they exhausted the leads and her case stagnated on someone's desk. I reached under her desk, sweeping my fingers left and right and then I felt it, a small box, but not too small.

She may be young, but she is not that young. At 16 Angie reached top of her senior class. Her looks stopped older men in their places when she entered a room. Mom was pretty, but not like Angie. Angie's wavy blonde hair and deep, ocean blue eyes lit up when she talked about travel. She even joined a travel club and had brochures about France and Germany. She was planning on travel before college, maybe an overseas college, she joked.

The box pulled free. Her room almost smelled like her. Her bed was still made and pillows laid beautifully on the head of the bed.
I didn't want to sit on the bed. What if Mom returned and saw it changed? She would fly into hysterics.

Grasping the box I opened the door, checked the hall and raced to my own room, closing the door quietly.
I pulled my notebook and a textbook out of my bag and made some notes on a blank page. They were pure nonsense, but I'd have something to show Mom that proved I'd been working on a paper.

I opened the box with some trouble. Angie had taped it up tight. Finding a letter opener I cut the tape. In the box was a receipt. I looked at it in shock. Where did she get the money to buy a plane ticket?

I recalled the day I loaned Morgan $400 bucks. He said it was for a friend who needed help desperately and he was going to return it soon. I saved up for a year to buy my class ring. Everyone else had one already but I had to buy it from my odd babysitting jobs and birthday money. Our brother gave it to Angie for this ticket and she disappeared! I stood up and grabbed my phone. Speed dial rang Morgan in seconds and his adolescent voice message kicked in..."leave a message at the beep." A message followed, "the mailbox is full. You can not leave a message."
The phone went dead.

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