The Corn Box Secret

By: Angela Li

I’m Joy Lambert and my big sister Jean always wears at least one piece of clothing made of the cloth called Jean. Today, to school, she wore a pair of jeans, a jean jacket, and a pink top. My friend Kelly just doesn’t understand Jean’s style. I don’t really, either. On school picture day, she wore a short jean skirt, a jean jacket with the sleeves cut off, and her favorite red t-shirt. Once, Jean had this ugly pair of jean shorts. I am very good at sewing so I cut it up for her and made it into a bunch of bracelets. Then I dyed each one a different color. Now Jean always wears her lucky jean hat put together with the bracelets when our family goes traveling. Our grandma gave the hat to her on Jean’s fourth birthday. It has two fake purple flowers stitched to the visor. I have one too but I don’t wear it very often.

A friend of ours came to visit us for two weeks with her family. She is called Cornelia Conn. She is my parents’ friends’ daughter. Cornelia is a little like Jean. She is addicted to what her name is, and her name is Cornelia which sounds like Corn-eelia. So naturally she likes corn. Cornelia is a junior clothes designer. She designs all her clothes. My favorite of her outfits is: the baseball cap with pieces of cloth that are made to look like corn on it, her necklace made of corn kernels, the skirt that looks like it’s a piece of popcorn, a shirt with a picture of corn on the cob on the front, all put together with yellow tap dance shoes. Jean says that Cornelia is her best out-of-town friend. Cornelia doesn’t live here in Toronto. She lives on a farm in the countryside. Her dad grows corn on that farm. That explains where she gets all her corn. 

 

Cornelia has this little box made of dried corn kernels glued together. She won’t let anyone look inside. Not even her parents! We’ve tried everything to get her to tell us what’s inside. From begging to pleading, from deal making to promises, she still won’t tell us even one little hint. We are all beginning to wonder like crazy. Here are everyone’s suggestions.

 

           Mrs. Conn:       “A very rare item, it might be?”

           Mr. Conn:       “What about a precious jewel?”

           Cornelia’s Brother Charlie: “Guys, I suggest cool Spy gadgets. It would be awesome!”

           Dad:                “An embarrassing picture of us at our yearly friendship barbeque I’d say”

           Mom:              “It’s just a guess, but it’s possible that it might be a box with nothing inside. Cornelia might be trying to pull a prank on us.”         

            Jean:             “She might be saving whatever it is to give to someone for a present” 

            Me:                “Don’t look at me; I don’t have anything to say”

            Grandma Stacy:  “A million dollars?”   

            Grandpa Martin:    “Beats me. I never had anything special but my lucky socks.”

 

Grandpa Martin held them up. “When was the last time you washed those, Mr. Lambert?” asked Mr. Conn, fanning his nose. “They smell horrible!” “I never wash them. I used to wear them everyday without bothering to take them off. I love the smell, and if I wash these, they’ll lose it.” Grandpa explained. “Grandpa, will you please put those away?” Jean begged. “Okey, dokey,” he answered simply. “Do any of Cornelia’s friends know what is in there?” I asked Cornelia’s mom. “No Joy dear, I’m afraid not” she said. “They’ve asked her about a million times, even before and after phone conversations. But she won’t tell them a thing.”  “Yes indeed” agreed Cornelia’s father. “Not one single detail. It breaks my heart to know she’s keeping a secret from her parents.” “I don’t care one bit what’s her dumb little box.” declared Charlie. I cared a lot. I wanted to say something awful to him like: “Get your ugly self out of my house you flabby no-good donkey!” but I couldn’t. Not with the grown-ups around. I’d get spanked if I said something like that in front of them. When I said “Get out of my room, little Miss Know-it-all.” to Jean when we were little, I was grounded for a month and I wasn’t allowed to watch any TV during that time either. Jean has never gotten in trouble or gotten detention. My friends and I call her Little Miss Perfect when she’s not around. Plus, whenever there’s a new fashion favorite she just had to have it. No matter what! Jean is like a parent’s pet. I am the youngest of the family, so nobody pays any attention to me, except my cat, Paws. Unfortunately mom is allergic to cat fur, so Paws lives at Aunt Rachel’s house. I used to come to see Aunt Rachel and Paws every other Saturday, but now I see her twice every week since she just had her first ever kittens. I’ve named all six of them. They’re called Sleepy, Tails, Cuddles, Marshmallow, Foodie, and Nosy, the youngest of them all. I like Nosy and Cuddles best because they’re the youngest and most playful. Sleeper is always sleeping, Tails is frequently whipping me in the face with his tail, Marshmallow hogs the fluffiest chair in the house, and Foodie always begs for my after-school snacks Aunt Rachel fixes for me when I go to her house. Dad likes Foodie because he is so plump. Foodie is so heavy, that Dad once used him as a barbell. Jean is very fond of Marshmallow. Jean wants to be a hairdresser when she grows up, so she is always washing, drying, brushing, even braiding Marshmallow’s long, fluffy, white fur to make perfect fur- styles. Mom doesn’t really like any of them, after all she is allergic.

 

OK, back to Cornelia’s corn box. I’ve tried to open and see what is inside that mysterious box. Cornelia brought it here with her, just in case one of her friends snuck into her house and looked inside. But Cornelia is always standing guard and she won’t let anyone even touch her precious little box. She’s even bringing it around with her everywhere! To dinner, to the bathroom, to picnics, even to bed! Plus, Cornelia attached a burglar alarm to it just in case. Mr. Conn has tried to remove the alarm and peek in the box at night when Cornelia’s sleeping, but whatever kind of glue Cornelia used is more powerful then you can imagine. Mr. Conn even once tried to break the alarm with a hammer, but it turned out that Cornelia had been hiding in the closet because she thought she was in trouble and she heard her dad sneak into the room. Then she didn’t speak to her parents for two weeks. Mrs. Conn blamed it on her husband.           

 

Well, yesterday, Jean went shopping with her friends. Cornelia tagged along. Cornelia forgot her box on the kitchen counter. “I think we can open that while Corny is gone,” Charlie suggested, using his nickname for Cornelia, as he pointed to the box. “I’ll do it if you want,” offered Mrs. Conn. We all stared at her in shock, because we had never ever heard Mrs. Conn speak without her British accent. “What? All I did was offer a favor!” she said. “Um, it’s nothing Mom,” replied Charlie. “We’ll be grateful if you opened it,” added my dad. Mrs. Conn just shrugged. Then she walked towards the box. “Beep, Beep, Beep,” yelled the alarm. “Just ignore it!” grandma shouted, over the noise. Mrs. Conn covered her ears as she approached the small yellow box. With one finger, she lifted the lid and peered inside. “Ah!” she yelled, as something jumped up and punched her in the nose. Charlie went to look, but whatever it was, punched him too! Everyone except grandpa, grandma, and I rushed to have a turn looking in the box, but no matter what angle you stood at, you got punched. One by one, Mom, Dad, and Mr. Conn fell on the floor with a nosebleed. “Quick, we need some tissues!” ordered grandma. We ran to get some. When we came back, there was a puddle of blood in the center of the floor. “Grandma, get the mop, Grandpa, help me stop these noses from bleeding.” I instructed. Grandpa and I started to dab their noses with wet tissues.

 

“That feels much better,” said Mom. We had nursed everyone back to full health. Now they were all standing up instead of lying down. “Uh, I was just wondering if…” Grandpa began. “You could tell us what you saw in the box,” finished Grandma, in her strong, confident voice. “Well, I didn’t get a very good look,” replied Mrs. Conn. “I saw a…” started Dad. “I saw a clown,” interrupted Charlie. “I think that the box is actually a jack-in-the-box,” concluded Mr. Conn. “Wait a second…” Mrs. Conn began, looking at Mr. Conn. “Didn’t we buy Cornelia a jack-in-the-box when she was little?” “Yes, now that I think of it, we did! I’ll bet she glued on the kernels and then tried to test our memories to see if we would still recognize the jack-in-the-box,” agreed Mr. Conn. “Wait, I didn’t just see a clown. I also saw something big and shiny! A diamond maybe?” piped up Mom. “Let’s look again,” suggested Dad. “Who wants to take a look?” Everybody backed away, shaking their heads. “I’ll do it. Give me some string. Oh, also, I’ll need someone to assist me. How about you, Dad?” I suggested. Grandma gave me some string and Dad stepped forward to help me tie it onto the lid of the box. We ignored the alarm as we worked. As we finished, Dad whispered, “I hope you know what you’re doing, Joy.” I shrugged. “You stand over there beside the box. I’ll pull the lid open with the string so I won’t get hit. When the clown pops up, you grab it and force it down with one hand. With the other hand, pick up the big shiny thing and toss it to the nearest person. After that, we’ll close the box and see what it is.” I explained.

Dad walked up to the box and stood next to it. I grabbed the string and pulled. Dad backed up to prevent himself from being punched again. When the clown was still, he forced it down and pulled out a big shiny object. He threw it to Grandpa and let go of the clown. As he did, I let go of the string.

 

We all crowded around Grandpa. Everyone wanted to know what the shiny thing was. “Hey, hey, hey! Stop pushing and shoving. Let the two people who took this out of the box see it first,” yelled Grandpa, over all the commotion. Everybody stepped back, but Dad and I stayed. Just then, Jean and Cornelia burst through the door. Mom gasped. Charlie groaned. Mr. Conn crossed his fingers for luck. Grandpa stuffed the thing into his ultra-secret pocket that is hidden on the inside back of his sweater (Only I know that.) Jean was wearing a new jean jacket. Cornelia had gotten a corn headband with yellow ribbons coming from the sides. “What happened when we were gone?” asked Jean. I rushed up to her and whispered our news to her. “Oh Joy, that’s great news!” exclaimed Jean. “What is it?” asked Cornelia, curiously. Jean glanced at me. “Oh, uh, while you were gone, I came in first place in a computer game that Jean and I have been trying to beat all month,” I stammered. “What’s the name of it?” she asked. “Um… Icy Tower,” I replied. I only said that because I had gotten first place in it last night. Cornelia frowned, as if she didn’t believe me.

 

When Cornelia finally went upstairs to do something, Dad and I got to see what the thing was. Turns out, Mom was wrong. It was a plastic baby pacifier. Just kidding! It was three polished gold bars! “How did Corny lift all of these?” wondered Charlie, as he tried and tried to lift the bars. “I saw her working out in our basement back at home,” suggested Mrs. Conn. “Weird, Charlie, your sister is stronger than you,” giggled Jean. “Well maybe Joy is stronger than you,” Charlie shot back. “She is not!” said Jean, still laughing. “Whatever,” muttered Charlie. Wow, those two will never stop fighting.

                                                                              

THE END