Chapter Two
“C ome on, Elizabeth. Wake up!”
“Leave me alone.” Lizzie pushed at the hand shaking her. She blinked several times and lifted to her elbows.
Two young girls stared at her, smiles beaming from ear to ear.
Lizzie glanced from the taller of the two, a girl with curly blonde hair and freckles sprinkled across the bridge of her nose, to the smaller girl who was a curly brunette with a cute button nose. She wore a beautiful pink dress with puffy sleeves, a weird collar with ruffles, and the tie for the dress was at hip level instead of around the waist or underneath the chest. The older girl’s cream-colored dress had a lace collar and was equally outdated, yet they both appeared to be in brand new condition. Lizzie frowned. They looked harmless enough. “What in the world is going on? Who are you?”
The smaller of the two girls covered her mouth, turned to the other girl, and giggled. “Sissy is being silly.”
The other put her hands on her hips and stared smugly at Lizzie. “If you think you’re going to get us, you’re not.”
“Get you?” Lizzie frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s All Fool’s Day.” The older girl crossed her arms in front of her. “You already promised us yesterday that you would take us to see the progress at the World’s Fair. So, it can’t be a joke. You have to take us.”
“Yeah.” The younger of the two also crossed her arms defiantly. “You have to take us. No pulling pranks on us, Sissy, or I’m going to tell Daddy.”
Their expressions would be funny—if Lizzie knew who they were and what was going on. “I’m sorry, girls. Honestly, I don’t know who either of you are. And why do you keep referring to me as Sissy?”
“Because you’re our big sister.” The smaller munchkin put her hands to her hips. “Now stop playing, Elizabeth.”
“Lizzie, please. Call me Lizzie.” She didn’t have any sisters, though she always wanted them. Instead, she had two older brothers. Lizzie stretched, hoping it would clear her foggy head. As she sat up in bed, the white, eyelet comforter slid down. “Where’s the quilt?” She grasped the cover and tossed it back, looking for the quilt her great-grandmother had given her the night before. It wasn’t here. Her heart beat so hard it pounded in her ears.
“Your fabric is in the chair, silly.” The older girl pointed to a chair in the corner of the room. “Now, get ready so we can go. You can start working on the quilt you wanted to make tonight after we get back home.” She grabbed the younger girl by the arm. “Come on, Olivia. Let’s go finish setting the table for breakfast while Elizabeth—” She paused and glanced over her shoulder toward her. “I mean Lizzie, gets ready.”
Lizzie resisted the urge to flop back against her pillow. Either this was an elaborate April Fool’s prank, or she was having the most vivid dream she’d ever had! Great-grandma Mullane had just mentioned the World’s Fair to her last night—so this had to be a dream. She tried to recall what she’d eaten for dinner the night before. “Normally oriental food makes me have weird dreams, but I haven’t had any since Wednesday,” Lizzie muttered to herself as she made her way to the mirror.
She clasped her arms around herself. “Where are my clothes?” she hollered, as she stared at her reflection in the mirror. This wasn’t funny! When she went to bed last night, she had on pajama pants. The thought of someone having changed her into this old-fashioned, cotton nightgown with lace and pink trim made her cheeks grow warm.
Lizzie ran to the window and looked outside. She was on the second story of a home, surrounded by other homes, much larger than that of her grandmothers’. The few vehicles parked on the road were not modern. They resembled the old-fashioned collectors’ cars she’d seen at the car shows.
She stormed out of the bedroom she’d woken up in and headed down the stairs toward the sound of voices. In the dining room, she found the two little girls seated at the table. A man wearing a suit sat at one end, and at the other end sat a woman whose dress looked as if it came right out of the movie, Meet Me in St. Louis. Presumably, these were her captors, although a very odd sort.
Lizzie planted a fist firmly on each hip. “I demand to know what is going on.”
The man carefully folded his newspaper and laid it aside on the table. “Elizabeth Ruth Ambrewster, don’t you think it was time you stopped teasing your sisters?”
“My sisters? I don’t have any sisters. And how do you know my name?” She blinked rapidly as dawning set in. “My last name is Peterson, not Ambrewster. That was my great-great-grandmother’s maiden name.”
The couple frowned as they stared at her.
Lizzie glanced toward the children to see how they reacted to her revelation. Olivia, as the other girl had called her, eyes glistened as they began to well up with tears.
She might as well have told the poor child Santa Claus wasn’t real. “I’m sorry,” Lizzie said. “I’ve always wanted a sister, but right now, I feel like someone is playing an elaborate April Fool’s joke on me.”
“Now, dear, what makes you think such a thing?” the woman at the other end of the table asked. Her expression turned serious as she glanced back toward the man. “You don’t think she has hit her head and can’t remember things, do you?”
Lizzie bit her lower lip to keep from laughing at how ludicrous it all sounded. She hadn’t hit her head. “You never answered me.” She mustered up the courage to sound demanding, “How do you know my name and how did I get here?”
“Enough of this nonsense, Elizabeth. You’re our daughter, so obviously we know your name.” Frown lines creased the man’s forehead. “If you continue behaving this way then… then… I’ll seriously consider having you locked up for being crazy.”
The woman gasped. “John, you wouldn’t?!”
His left eyebrow arched. “Well, Rose, if our daughter insists on acting like we are all a bunch of strangers, or worse yet, criminals, then I have no choice.”
“I’m not crazy,” Lizzie protested. What should she do? She didn’t want to be locked up. Thus far, these people had been hospitable. They acted like they knew her and didn’t appear to be joking—unfortunately—about incarcerating her either.
Lizzie tried to think of a reason for why this was all happening. If these people had kidnapped her, they had gone to elaborate lengths to do so. Her family wasn’t rich, so it didn’t make sense that anyone would go as far as to rent old-time vehicles.
Weird food made her dream. Maybe she was hallucinating? She didn’t feel like she was drugged. The room wasn’t swaying. Lizzie pinched her arm. Ouch. That hurt. The only explanation left was she had to be dreaming. Was it possible to feel pain while you were dreaming?
But what would cause her to have such an obscure dream? Especially if she hadn’t eaten Chinese or anything she could recall that would make her have weird dreams.
Was this how Dorothy felt in the Wizard of Oz? As long as she didn’t come across any witches, good or bad, she’d let this silly dream play out, and in the morning, she’d wake up in the same bed that she went to sleep in last night—wrapped in her great-great-grandmother’s quilt.