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exasperated. Speaking slower than was probably
necessary, Tub Man said, “You’ve got to choose something to be your key. Once
you choose it and use it with the intent to get you to Smythe’s SFL, it will
forever be your key.”
    “So
I just pick something?”
    “Yes.”
Mom inched a little closer to me to get out of the drip from the showerhead. “It
should probably be something small, so it can fit into your pocket easily.”
    I logically
stuck my hand in my pocket so I could get a feel for how much space I could
use. I felt the blue marble from The Box .
    “Here,”
I said, pulling it out. “I’ll use this.”
    “Oh,
Lily…” Mom got a little teary. “Your father’s favorite marble. Look, Matt.”
    My
dad swallowed, and I rolled my eyes.
    “So
I just hold this and think about going to Smythe’s SFL?” I asked, trying to
change the subject.
    “Uh,
no,” my dad said. “You’ve got to stick it–oh, hold on, I’ll just show you and
walk you through it. So I’ll portal first. Then, send Lily and you come after
her, Ginnie.” The last sentences were directed to my mother, who immediately
began nodding her head and moving to the back of the shower, so my dad could
move to the front. “Okay,” he continued, when he had made it to the front of
the tub. “First, place your key in the water faucet, like so.” The golden egg
disappeared. “Make sure you hold on to it. Then, you close your eyes, and think
‘E. G. Smythe’s Salty Fire Land.’ And…”
    But
whatever was going to follow “And” was forever lost in the bathroom, because my
dad had completely disappeared.
    Poof!
    Into
thin air.
    Gone.

6
Arrivhall, of Course
     
    “Well,” I said, stepping out of
the tub still holding my bag. “That was…lovely. Just lovely.” I walked out of
the bathroom. I admit I was suffering from a mild amount of shock.
     
    Disappearing fathers = mild
amounts of shock
     
    I headed for my room.
    “Lily,”
Mom called. I could hear her fighting with the shower curtain. “Lily, where are
you going?”
    “I
think I’d rather just spend the weekend here, thanks.” I called back as I sat
on my bed, hugging my duffle bag.
    People
don’t disappear. It does not happen. There is no mathematical evidence
whatsoever that–
    “Lily
Elizabeth Sparrow.” Mom stood in my doorway. “Get up and get in that bathtub,
right now.”
    “I
can’t.”
    “What
do you mean, ‘you can’t’?” Mom crossed her arms.
    “There
is absolutely no mathematical evidence to suggest that people can—”
    “Get
in the bathtub,” Mom interrupted. “This has nothing to do with math. You have
got to accept that there are some things in this world that cannot be put into
theorems and proofs.” She paused. “You are going to E. G. Smythe’s Salty Fire
Land, and you are going right now .” She pointed behind her towards the
bathroom. “Now move.”
    Here
is a fact about my famous-distracted-author-mother: when she comes out of her
distraction she tends to make up for her former distractedness by channeling
all that energy into authoritarianism and dictator-type behavior. I think she
tries to prove how motherly she can be.
    Apparently,
I must have looked sad and pitiful, because she became more normal and less
dictatorial. She sat on the bed beside me.
    “Lily,”
she said softly. “Look. I know what you’re going through. When I portaled the
first time, with your father and Prince Witham, I was so shocked by seeing
someone vanish like that, that I nearly didn’t go either.”
    “Who’s
Prince Witham?”
    “Snow
White’s Prince. Anyway—”
    “Wait.
He has a name? Aren’t all the princes just ‘Prince Charming’ or something?”
    “Really,
Lily. Of course they have names.” Mom looked at me like I had just said
something incredibly socially unacceptable. “As I was saying, after Prince
Witham portaled, I told your father there was no way I was going to vanish like
that.”
“So how’d he talk you into it?”