Page 55 of The Good, the Bad, and the Aunties

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I push my way through the crowd without any regard for personal space. A few people grunt and hiss, “Watch it!” but I don’t pause, I don’t look back. It feels like forever before I finally make it to the door. I burst out of it and close it behind me. I run down the hallway and make a quick turn to the left, and there in front of me is a staircase leading up. Yes!

I rush up the steps, taking them two at a time, and just as I reach the top, I hear one of the doors cracking open. Without thinking, I dive in and push the door shut behind me.

“Meddy!”

I gasp. “Nathan! Ma! Oh my god.” I throw my arms around them and squeeze.

“How did you know we were here?” Nathan says.

“I—I didn’t, I was running and I heard the door creaking open and it—I don’t know, it sounded suspicious? Like, someonewho’s trying to hide would open a door like that.” I realize I’m babbling and tell myself to stop.

Ma pats my cheek. “Ah, you so smart, Meddy. My daughter so cunning, ya? She can tell who is bad guy just by the door opening.”

“In this scenario, we are the bad guys,” Nathan reminds her.

Ma tsks. “Obviously no lah.”

“Okay, we don’t have time for this.” I gesture at them to listen. “Second Aunt is in one of the guest bedrooms. Fourth Aunt is in the living room, performing, but Rochelle is also down there and she recognized Fourth Aunt, so we’re in a bit of a bind. We need to find Second Aunt and get her out and then find some other way to get Fourth Aunt out.”

Nathan and Ma gape at me. Then Ma goes, “Hanh? Fourth Aunt performing?” She snorts, shaking her head. “Aduh, that woman, no shame. No understanding why we are here. She see the stage, she has to go on it, such attention hole, you see what I say? Attention hole!”

“Actually, it wasn’t her fault. We ah—we ran into Kristofer and he recognized her and sort of pushed her into performing.” Okay, well, she could’ve said no, but I choose to leave out that tiny little detail for now.

Ma snorts again. “He recognize her? Hanh! She will be boasting about this for year and year, you just wait and see. Will be unbearable.”

“Uh. Right. Anyway, my point is, things are pretty bad, and we need to move fast.”

“How you know Second Aunt in guest bedroom?” Ma says.

“Ma!” I throw up my hands. What part of “we need to move fast” does she not understand? “I’ll explain later, okay?Come on.” I open the door a little and peer outside, half expecting a whole army of guards to rush through the door. But the hallway is empty. Huh. Maybe I’d imagined Kristofer’s knowing look after all. Maybe he was looking at me like that because he was annoyed that I wasn’t capturing Fourth Aunt’s performance from a close enough distance? Well, anyway, there isn’t time to linger. I gesture to Nathan and Ma to follow me.

Slowly, we creep out of the room. I wince at every sound we make; our footsteps, something I’ve never thought much of before, sound thunderous in the silence. Even my own ragged breathing seems deafening to me. Stay calm, I tell myself. We’re so close to rescuing Second Aunt. So close. We’ll find her in one of these rooms, set her free, and go. Of course, as soon as we’re fully out in the hallway, it hits me that the room that Second Aunt’s in is probably locked. How are we going to get her out without a key?

Doesn’t matter. All we need to do is find which room she’s in and then figure the rest out. Right. One step at a time.

“Aduh, this house so big, how we going to find her?” Ma complains.

I shush her. I look down the hallway at the doors on either side of us. They are all identical, and there are six doors in total, including the one we just came out of.

“My guess is they’re all guest bedrooms,” Nathan says, reading my mind.

“How do you know?”

He shrugs. “Well, the room we were in was one. And a house this size probably has a lot of guest rooms. It makes sense to put them all together on the same floor.”

“Ah.” That does make sense. “And I’m guessing any guestthey might have would be downstairs at the feast, so these rooms should be empty, except for the one Second Aunt’s in.”

“Yep.” Nathan gives me a half-confident smile. “That’s a bit of luck. Come on.” He straightens up and brushes invisible lint off the front of his caterer’s shirt before approaching the first door on the right. He knocks twice and says, “Room service.” When there’s no reply, he takes a deep breath and opens the door. My blood is a deafening roar in my ears. I’m half expecting someone to start screaming about an intruder, but there’s nothing. The room’s empty. And Nathan’s right, it’s a guest room. He closes the door gently and cocks his head toward the next room.

But before we can get to it, Ma has marched right up to the next door and knocks on it. “Room service,” she calls out, and without waiting for an answer, she turns the knob and flings the door open.

“Wait,” Nathan says, rushing toward her.

I run to catch up with them, but once I get inside the room, I freeze.

Because against all odds, we’ve found Second Aunt. She’s standing right in front of a beautiful picture window, her arms raised in a Tai Chi move. For a second, we gape at each other, and then Ma darts forward and envelops Second Aunt in a fierce hug.

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