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I warned her not to.

I told her it was a bad idea.

We should never have opened that box in the first place.

Anna invited me over to her house after school. I thought that we were just going to watch TV, but I should’ve seen the look in her eye.

“They’re not home,” she told me, as we got off the bus. “Again.”

“Your parents?” I asked unnecessarily.

“Yup.”

She was silent as we walked the few blocks to her house. It was one more sprawling house in a neighborhood of opulent unfriendliness. Once, one of her neighbors threatened to call the police because we walked across her lawn. Now we’re careful to hug the edge of the street.

Mr. and Mrs. Chitral were frequently absent from my visits to their home. Anna liked bringing me home with her. She said it was nice to have someone with her in that empty house, someone other than Snarkie, their pet beagle, who more than lived up to his name.

And I liked Anna a lot. She was funny, when she wasn’t fuming over her parents and she was sweet. She was also smart. When she explained algebra to me, I actually understood it.

She unlocked the door and practically slammed it open. I loved watching the light play through the glass of the doorframe, seeing it reflected on the marble of the entryway. Whenever I came over, I always took my time there, slowly removing my shoes.

It sure beats the hell out of the dingy hallway that leads to my family’s apartment. The carpet always smells funny and I make it a point to jog quickly, especially at night, because half of the hallway lights don’t work. It gets spooky.

This time, I didn’t even have time to take my shoes off. Anna threw her bag in a corner, narrowly avoiding a fragile glass coffee table with a crystal vase on it, before storming off into the kitchen. I had barely followed her into the kitchen when she began laughing hysterically.

I was just craning my neck to see around her when she moved aside. Cake. The counter held a big white sheet cake.

“Since when is cake funny?” I asked.

“Since it’s a birthday cake,” she told me, wiping the tears from her eyes.

“Today’s your birthday?”

“Yup,” she said. “I’m thirteen today and they don’t even bother showing up.”

“At least they remembered,” I said quietly.

“Yeah. Cheap birthday cake. That totally makes up for missing half of your kid’s childhood.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t get you anything.”

“It’s ok,” she sniffed, wiping away the last of the tears that had leaked out. “At least you’re here.”

We both gave the cake a wide berth as we entered the cavernous living room. She flicked on the huge flat-screen TV, but she wasn’t watching. Listlessly, I watched the home shopping network woman rant about some new line of makeup, but really I was watching Anna.

Her eyes were narrowed at the screen, beaming hatred at the poor home shopping network woman and her neon green eyeshadow, but I knew she was plotting. And I knew that whatever she came up with wouldn’t be good.

Last year, when her parents had insisted on staying in their offices through Christmas, she ran all of their expensive Egyptian cotton bath towels through the garbage disposal, along with some sour milk and bad eggs. Oh, and she let Snarkie pee in their bed, but I think he does that regularly anyway, so I’m not sure they noticed.

Today was worse and I knew that. When her eyes finally snapped into focus and she got up off of the couch, I knew to be afraid.

“Let’s go upstairs,” was all she said.

Silently, I followed her upstairs, waiting for the explosion. At the top of the staircase, I turned towards her bedroom, hopeful, but she shook her head. I followed into her parents’ room, waiting for her to start wreaking destruction, tossing her mother’s expensive perfume bottles out the window or slicing up her father’s ties, but she just grabbed a chair and took it with her into the closet.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“We are going into the attic,” she told me, slightly out of breath as she stood on the chair and began to leap up and down.

I could see the latch to the attic protruding from the closet ceiling. Anna was a short girl and even with the help of the chair, reaching the latch was quite a hop. I knew better than to laugh at her, so I just watched as she sprung the latch and let the staircase to the attic come squeaking slowly down.

“Climb on up,” she said, hopping off the chair and swiftly ascending the ladder. “There’s something that I want to show you.”