Chapter 6

My Social Life Saves Me From Imminent Danger

I knocked on the door to my house. It was just like every other house in my neighborhood. It even had a whitence. That was half of the reason I wanted to go on the quest. My life was just too boring for things like this to happen.

My little brother Jason opened the door. "Oh, you're back," he said as he let me in. "I was honestly hoping you'd stay lost for a while. I really wasn't minding you not hogging the computer all the time."

"Well, I mind you being so rude about the whole thing," I said. "Where's Mom and Dad?"

"They're outside looking for you," Jason said. "They were really worried when you didn't pick up your phone."

I had almost forgotten. I turned off my phone in the bookstore because Miss Pratt hates noises in the store, but I never turned it back on. I rushed back outside and spotted Dad talking to a police officer.

"I haven't seen her since 3:00 this afternoon," Dad told the officer.

"Hi Dad," I said.

"Avery!" he exclaimed. "We've been looking all over for you! Where have you been?"

"I'm sorry, Dad. I met some friends at the bookstore. They live really close to here, so I went to their house for a while."

Mom walked over. "It's good to know that you have a social life, honey, but we need to know where you are. You have no idea how worried we were about you."

"I'm sorry, Mom," I said. "Speaking of which, I was thinking about going over to Raven's house tomorrow morning. We were talking about having a sleepover." That was sort of the truth, right? I couldn't exactly explain to my parents that we were going to steal a crystal from a Chinese restaurant that would transport an elf back to his home planet.

"No way," Dad said. "Not after what's happened."

"But Dad..." I pleaded.

"Are Raven's parents going to be there?" Mom asked.

"Yes, of course," I lied.

"I think we should let her go," Mom said to Dad. "I'm sure this won't happen again. Am I right, Avery?"

"Yes, Mom," I said. I rushed inside and quickly got in bed. I would need my rest if I wanted to be any use on the quest tomorrow. Just the fact that I was helping Raven and Spindler with this little adventure was amazing to me. I just had to wait a little longer.