“Through the Door”

Mac and Nandi stood staring at the mirror.

“Did he just…jump into the mirror?” asked Nandi.
“That’s sure what it looked like,” Mac replied.

“That is…impossible,” said Nandi.

“Well, it seems impossible, but I think it just happened,” said Mac. “I suppose, then, that it must be possible somehow.”

“Hm,” Nandi grumbled, “now we’ll never find—WHOA!!”

Nandi’s eyes grew wide as if she had suddenly realized something amazing.

“I just realized something amazing!” she said. “If the squirrel can do it…”

“Maybe we can, too!” Mac said, finishing her sentence.

“But where does it go?”

“I suppose there’s no way to know, really.”

The two of them stood and stared at the mirror for another moment. There was only one solution to this riddle. They both knew the answer.

Mac reached his hand out and touched the mirror.

It moved.

The surface of the mirror rippled slightly. Mac inched his hand further and it went into the mirror, just as the squirrel had done. This was just too strange. He pulled his hand out quickly and examined it. It seemed to be completely normal and unharmed.

“That was very odd,” said Mac (still staring at his hand).

“Of course, there is one way to know what’s on the other side of this mirror,” suggested Nandi.

“Well sure, but you can’t just jump in.”

Just as that sentence escaped Mac’s mouth, Nandi did exactly what he had just said that she couldn’t do. She jumped right into the mirror.

“Oh, gosh,” said Mac, and in he went.

Mac stumbled as he came through the mirror. As he stood up and brushed his pants, he realized that he was still in the Manic Street Orphanage.

It is interesting that brushing one’s pants is a natural reaction whenever one falls down. It doesn’t seem to matter whether or not one’s pants actually got dirty during the falling-down process. I’ve done it again. I have strayed from the story a bit. Where were we? Oh, right! Of all the times to get distracted…

Mac realized that not only was he still in the orphanage, he was still in the same hallway – in front of the same mirror. Just then, Nandi came around the corner.

“Weird, isn’t it? I was just about to go looking around when I heard you make a noise,” she said.

“It is strange,” Mac agreed. “It seems we’ve come out exactly where we came in. I must say, I’m a little disappointed.”

“Me too,” said Nandi. “I was expecting…well…I don’t know what I was expecting, but I didn’t expect nothing! We haven’t gone anywhere at all! We just went right through a magic liquid mirror, and where does it lead? Nowhere. We’re in the exact same place we were before we went through that good-for-nothing mirror.”

Of course, it was understandable that the children should be disappointed. Whenever one gets the opportunity to experience such a thing as a magic liquid mirror (as Nandi called it), one hopes to find fairies and pirates, or eggmen and walruses, or fantastic talking lions. Nandi would soon learn, however, that this mirror had brought them a little more than nothing. While Nandi was expressing her frustration, Mac was beginning to notice things.

“Did it take your eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness when you came through?” Mac asked.

“Yeah, I suppose so.”
“You came through the mirror less than a minute before I did, right?”

“No, it was two or three minutes, I think,” Nandi replied. “Why?”

“I stepped into the mirror just seconds after you did. I thought I might need to help you, if there was something dangerous on the other side.”

“Aw, that’s cute.”

“Why did it take me two or three minutes to get to this same spot, and why did our eyes have to adjust to the darkness?” Mac asked.

“I don’t know. I just thought you waited a few minutes because you were scared. I didn’t notice the darkness until you pointed it out.”

“There is a full moon out tonight – or at least a really bright one,” said Mac. “So, why is everything so dark all of a sudden? And where did the squirrel go, by the way?”

As if he had been waiting all along for the children to wonder where he had gone, the squirrel now came hopping around the corner. As he did, Mac began to look past him at the orphanage. Something was not quite right.
“Something is not quite right,” he said. “We just came from that way, didn’t we?”

“Yeah,” Nandi replied, “that’s the front—“

Now they both noticed it.

The great big blue front door was on the wrong side.

“Oh, gosh,” said Mac.

“Yeah,” said Nandi.

“Everything is…”

“Backwards!” said Nandi. “Everything’s backwards! Holy cow, that is…”

“Impossible?”

“Well, I guess not,” Nandi replied, “unless we’ve both gone mad. Check outside. I wonder if the whole world is backwards.”

As Mac went over to the big blue door (which was black at the moment – like everything else in the room), Nandi went over to the window and tried to open the shutter.

“Gin Afro Tea Urts Kin Nam,” Nandi announced.

“What?!?” asked Mac incredulously.

“That’s what the sign will say outside if the whole world is backwards,” Nandi explained. “‘MANIC STREET ORPHANAGE’ pronounced backwards is Gin Afro Tea Urts Kin Nam.”

“You’re odd sometimes,” said Mac, as he tried the door. “I can’t seem to turn the handle.”

“Why not?” Nandi asked. “You’re just not very strong, are you? Well, you come over and open the shutter on this window, and I’ll get that pesky door handle for you.”

The two switched places, to no avail. The window shutter and the door handle were hopelessly stuck.

“Not quite strong enough to get that pesky door handle?” Mac asked.

“Okay, okay,” Nandi replied. “I take it back. You couldn’t get the shutter open, either?”

“No, it’s jammed shut. I wonder if it’s extra warm outside, or something. Maybe the latches have expanded in the heat.”

“It isn’t that warm outside,” said Nandi.

The squirrel, who had been patiently watching the children’s discoveries, now hopped over to where they were standing. At first they didn’t notice him, but he continued darting around a bit until he had their attention. He then raced off toward the mirror, turned right, and disappeared around the corner.

“I guess we have to follow him now, don’t we?” asked Mac, smiling just a little.

“I guess we do,” Nandi replied with a wink.

And so, off they went after the squirrel again.