"Not Tanya," Lee thought to himself as he lay on his bed and stared up at the ceiling.
The cool morning air of late summer drifted through the open window and the boy who had just awoken from an odd dream tried to figure out what he meant. Sure it had something to do with the basketball team his mom coached, he tried to think of the Tanya on the team, if there was supposed to be another girl named Tanya, tried to recall the dream, which he was certain had been important, and once again thought, "No. Not Tanya. It was, someone else."
But who, Lee found he couldn't quite recall. He thought the name began with an N, but wasn't sure and wished he could remember what it was he'd dreamed, as he felt it was tied to it. Out of bed, he stretched, shucked off his sleeper shorts and began to get dressed. No one up yet, he headed for the kitchen, where he got himself breakfast. Midway through, his sister Cassie turned up, yawning, tousle headed and still in her pyjamas. Not interested in his sister, he ignored her as she reached for the box of cereal he'd left on the table and instead went back to his attempts at trying to recall the name.
For two days, he'd either worked on his exercises to keep himself from becoming a dog accidentally, and is search for anything about an object called the Amulet of Zulo. And so far, the only luck he'd had was in his continuation of learning control. Information on the artifact, he found, was elusive, and most of what he found on the internet concerned stories, often really perverted, or sadistic, ones. The only website he'd found had been created by a user named Boucher, and he'd already exhausted all the links provided. Beyond that, it seemed like there was nothing else about it, not even where he could find it. Frustrated, it got worse when Cassie discovered what he'd been searching, and had started to tease him about it, which forced him to take his searches out of the house and to the local library, where he spent most of the time either using the computers there or going through the books, magazines, and newspapers.
His breakfast finished, Lee rinsed his bowl and spoon, then went to find his sandals. Still no closer to recalling the name he was felt he was close to recalling, he exited the house. The day already starting to get hot, Lee grabbed his bike and headed downtown, where he sat outside the library until it opened.
The morning passed and he spent most of his time amongst the old magazines and newspapers as he searched for more of the same thing. He wanted to find anything that hinted of someone else who shared the same curse as his family, yet, at the same time, he also looked for the littlest hint of the Amulet of Zulo. When noon came and he left to go for lunch, he was still nowhere near close to finished, as he had barely made a dent in the amount of articles the library had that dated back well over the last hundred years and came from all over the world.
After lunch, he helped out around the house where his dad needed him and when he finally was able to get away, it was almost two in the afternoon. Returning to the library, he looked in the direction of the steps that went downstairs to the stacks and archives, and found he didn't feel like going back to his search. Instead, he wandered the nonfiction section, his mind drifted from one subject to another. As he passed by shelf after shelf, reading the titles, he stopped when he something caught his attention. A quick scan of the titles, he paused when he came to the title Girl Sports, Boy Sports: A Clinical Study of Gender in Sports by Dr Nancy Gerronson. Something about the book left him with the sense that it might be something he was looking for and taking it off the shelf, he opened it flipped through it.
Psychological terms and things that were beyond him leapt out and after a moment he shut the book and stared at the title and authour. After a moment, as he felt he was close to something, he whispered, "Nancy," and unsure who this person was, though certain she might be who he'd been trying to remember since this morning, he returned the book to the shelf. Staring at the spine of the book, rereading over and over the name of the woman who wrote the book, he struggled to remember more of his dream, hoping that by doing so he could find some connection between all of his problems. Drawing a blank, he took the book back down off the shelf, turned and headed out of the stacks and toward the bank of computers that had internet access. Logging on with his library ID, he opened a couple search engines, which he used to search for stuff on Dr Gerronson, the Amulet of Zulo, and anything else that he felt might be important.
The afternoon slipped by, and he eventually grew bored with his searches on Dr Nancy. Slowly, he closed the tabs he had opened on her. No longer sure why it had seemed so vital he look her up, he leaned back in the chair, picked up the book, Thumbing through it, he eventually set it back down and decided, “This Nancy, whoever she is, or was, she’s probably not important,” and returning to his other searches, he figured that was significant was finding what he could on the necklace and whether it could help him.
By four thirty he was still no closer to an answer. With a resigned sigh, he closed his search engines and logged off. Standing, he stretched and headed out of the library. Outside, he paused as his eyes adjusted to the bright sunlight, and was caught off guard when a female voice asked, “You’re looking for the Amulet of Zulo?”
Glancing in the direction of the speaker, Lee saw it was a young woman who was probably in her early twenties with a pedal bike leaning against her. His mind flashed back to some of the more cautionary tales he’d read about the necklace, how some used it manipulate and abuse others, and suddenly on guard that she might be up to something, he almost brushed her off and told her no. Instead, he changed his mind at the last moment and told her, “Maybe. Why?”
A leg thrown over the bike and the young woman smiled and replied, “I might be able to help you. But it depends on why you want it.”
“You know where the Amulet of Zulo is? That it actually exists?” Lee blurted out.
“Maybe,” the young woman answered cryptically before she explained, “What are you doing tomorrow?”
Lee shrugged and said, “If my mom and dad don’t need me for anything, I’ll probably come back here and continue my search,” to which the young woman gave him a smile and said, “My name is Charlotte, but everyone calls me Charlie. If you do come to library tomorrow, meet me in the stacks, where you found that book you were looking at earlier,” and before Lee could say anything, she stood up on the bikes pedals, turned the bicycle around and pedalled away, leaving him feeling confused as to what had happened.
“My name’s Lee,” he called after, and unsure if she’d heard, he watched her pedal across the street and around the corner.
When she’d disappeared, Lee stood for a moment longer. He deliberated on what Charlie knew, and what she might be up to. His thoughts still drifting to the sites he’d seen which described some of the more nasty things people had done with the Amulet of Zulo, he wondered if he could trust the young woman. Heaving a sigh, he figured that if it didn’t work out, he could always turn himself into a dog and try and bite her as he started to make his way home for dinner.