Week 6: The Room

The room
By Charlotte Reber
Lamoille Union High School, Grade 10

“And this is my workshop,” said Parral, leading me into another room. The lights flicked on as we entered, and I found myself in a short, square room, made of a pale yellow stone, with columns in the corners that rose up to support the beams running below the pyramid-shaped roof. There were triangular skylights set neatly into the slanted ceiling, with tinted glass that gave the room a pleasant, yellowish ambient light, reflecting off the piles of junk and odd objects that were scattered all over the room.

“I really haven’t cleaned this place up in a while,” Parral said, shoving a crate of oranges off a chair and settling behind the large, curved desk of dark polished wood which appeared to be the cleanest part of the room. He leaned back in his chair and sighed. “Oh, watch out behind you.”

I jumped and looked behind me, then leapt out of the way as a chain of colored Chinese lanterns fell from one of the beams to dangle where I had been standing a moment ago.

“Sorry,” he said, brushing some papers off his desk. “A lot of the things in here turn on unexpectedly, if you trigger them, that is. Don’t sit in that chair, by the way — my collapsible trunk booby trap isn’t quite perfected. What did you need, again?”

“Um ... just a couple of parts,” I said, tearing my gaze away from the innocent-looking green lawn chair he had indicated. “Here.” I handed him the sheet.

He ran his eyes over it for a moment, then nodded. “I think I can accommodate you quite well. Have a drink while I look for the stuff.” A tray shot out from the cupboard next to me, with several cans of soda sitting on it.

“If you prefer lemonade, just pull on the chain by the potted palm,” he called as he vanished into another room. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

I would have preferred lemonade, but I didn’t feel like taking the risk of walking across the floor — which, I noted, appeared to be made of colored tiles. I felt certain that one false step might trigger yet another of Parral’s alarming inventions.

I helped myself to soda, then gingerly tested a chair sitting next to the desk. It appeared safe, but when I settled into it, a fedora dropped from the ceiling onto my head. Parral took that moment to come back in and pull a ring of brass keys from under his desk.

“That really is quite fetching on you,” he said, sparing me a glance, then vanishing back into his other room again. I scowled and threw the hat across the room. It bounced off the crocodile-shaped floor lamp and would have fallen to the floor, had not the crocodile’s mechanical jaws closed fast, holding it in place. At the same time, the lamp sprouting from its back changed colors, lighting up the area around it in blue.

“Drat it, that was my best hat,” Parral said behind me, dumping a large brown shopping bag onto his desk with a noise that sounded like breaking china. He crossed the room, hopping over a sawhorse with surprising agility and pushing aside a hanging bead curtain suspended from a beam. He pressed a button on the crocodile’s side, and the jaws released the hat with a sigh, the light flicking back from blue to white. Brushing off the brown hat, which appeared unharmed, he crossed back across the room, ducking with the ease of long practice as a hanging lamp abruptly lowered itself a foot, nearly smashing into his head.

“I really must clean this place up,” he muttered to himself, placing the hat on his desk. He rummaged through the bag, then finally produced several oddly-shaped pieces of metal. A wave of his hand caused one of the desk drawers next to him to pop open, and a sheet of wrapping paper automatically unrolled out of the opening with a motorized hum. Parral tore off a section, wrapped my requested parts with a section of shiny Happy Birthday paper, then scrambled in a crate next to him until he produced some Scotch tape. “Four ninety-five,” he told me, as a drawer shot out in front of me to collect the change. I shakily dropped the required amount into the box, and the door slammed shut with a clang. Parral handed me the odd package, and waved goodbye as I carefully exited the room.