Chapter 1: Bonded by Glue (and Sibling Shame)
Katie stared at the disaster.
The permanent craft glue wasn’t supposed to come out like that. It was supposed to be a neat, precise line along the edge of her scale model of the Elvish treetop library. Instead, the bottle had made a sad, wet farting noise and deposited a thick, clear glob directly onto the thigh of her favorite dinosaur-print pajama pants.
“No, no, no, seriously no,” she whispered, frantically dabbing at it with a corner of her t-shirt. The glob only spread, becoming a wide, tacky patch that instantly bonded the flannel to her skin. A cold dread slithered down her spine. This was the ‘industrial strength,’ ‘bonds anything in seconds’ kind. The label had a little cartoon of a grinning hammer. She hated that hammer.
Mom would kill her. Not literally, but the lecture about responsibility would last approximately until her thirtieth birthday. She had to get it off before it set. Water wouldn’t touch it.Acetone. Nail polish remover was in the upstairs bathroom cabinet.
She was moving before the thought fully formed, a quiet, desperate panic powering her limbs. It was past midnight. The house was a tomb of sleep. Her parents’ door was shut; Ryan’s, across the hall, was dark.Good. The hardwood floor was cool under her feet as she slipped from her room.
The hallway stretched before her, long and dim, lit only by the weak amber glow of a nightlight plugging into an outlet halfway down. The air smelled of old wood and lemon polish. A distant, rhythmic tick-tock from the grandfather clock in the living below echoed up the stairs, marking the rapid passage of time. Her glued leg made a soft, sticky peel sound with each step.
She was almost to the bathroom door when Ryan’s door handle turned.
Her heart kicked against her ribs. She froze, a deer in the terrifying glare of her brother’s impending gaze. The door swung inward.
Ryan emerged, bleary-eyed, his dark curls a chaotic mess. He was wearing only a pair of faded sweatpants, one hand rubbing his face. He took one step out, pulling the door closed behind him with a soft click.
He turned.
His sleep-clouded gaze landed on her, paused, then dropped to her leg, where the dinosaur’s placid green face was partially obscured by the shiny, spreading patch of doom.
“What’s on your pants?” he mumbled, his voice thick with sleep.“Nothing. Go back to bed.”
He squinted. “Is that glue?”
“It’s a new textile design. Very avant-garde. Goodnight.” She tried to sidestep him, to slip into the bathroom and lock the door.
He mirrored her move, a clumsy, sleepy dance in the narrow space. “Katie, you’re covered in glue.”
“I’m aware, Ryan. Your powers of observation are, as ever, stunning. Now move.”
He didn’t move. He yawned. “How?”
“The bottle betrayed me. It’s a whole thing. I need nail polish remover.”
“That stuff’s permanent.” A flicker of awake-now interest shone through his tiredness. He looked from her panicked face to the glue. “You’re stuck.”
“Not yet. The fabric is. My skin is… adjacent. Move, please.”
He finally stepped aside, but as she rushed past, her glued thigh brushed against his bare arm.
It was the lightest contact. A whisper of flannel against skin.
It was enough.
They both felt it instantly— the tug, the sudden, unyielding resistance.
Katie stopped dead. Ryan looked down at his arm, now pressed firmly against her leg. He tried to pull away. It didn’t budge. He pulled harder. Her entire body jerked towards him.
A profound, horrifying silence filled the hallway, broken only by the relentless tick-tock from downstairs. The weak light seemed to spotlight their new, grotesque connection.
Ryan’s sleepiness evaporated. “Oh, you have got to be kidding me.”
“Don’t pull!” Katie hissed.
“I’m glued to you!”
“I know that! Just— stop moving!”
“I’m glued to my sister’s dinosaur pants!”
“Could you maybe focus on the solution instead of the commentary?” Her voice was a strained squeak.
Ryan ceased yanking. They stood there, conjoined, in the middle of the midnight hallway. The reality of their position settled over them, heavy and absurd. The glue patch, roughly the size of a saucer, bonded the flannel of her pajama leg firmly to the skin of his forearm. They were stuck at an awkward angle, his arm bent, her leg held slightly off to the side.
“Okay,” Ryan said, his voice carefully calm.“Okay. Think. We need acetone.”
“That was my plan before you became a literal part of the problem.”
“Right. Bathroom. Move.”
It was not a simple task. They had to shuffle in a bizarre, three-legged race, coordinated only by shared desperation. Every slight movement sent a fresh jolt of adhesion through the bond. They bumped against the wall, Ryan’s free hand splaying out for balance. The tick-tock mocked their slow, crablike progress.
After an eternity of shuffling, they crossed the threshold into the bathroom. Ryan fumbled for the light switch with his free hand. Harsh fluorescent light bloomed, exposing the full ridiculousness of their situation in the mirror over the sink. Katie, wild-haired and pale. Ryan, shirtless and horrified. The glossy glue patch between them, a grotesque bridge.
“Cabinet,” Katie said, pointing with her chin. “Under the sink.”
Ryan yanked the cabinet door open with his good hand, knocking over a can of shaving cream. He rummaged, bottles clinking. “Nail polish remover… nail polish remover… I see cotton balls, I see something that says ‘fungal,’ I do not see— ah!” He produced a small, rectangular bottle with a pink cap. It was half-full.
Hope, fragile and desperate, fluttered in Katie’s chest. “Open it.”
He struggled with the child-proof cap one-handed, cursing under his breath. He got it. The sharp, chemical scent of acetone bit the air. He soaked a wad of cotton balls.
“Hold still,” he instructed, his voice low and focused. “This might sting.”
“Just do it.”
He pressed the soaked cotton against the edge of the bond, where his skin met the fabric. He rubbed, gently at first, then with more pressure. A cold, burning sensation spread on Katie’s thigh. She bit her lip. Ryan watched the area intently. Nothing happened. The glue remained a clear, flexible seal.
“Maybe it needs to soak in?” he muttered, holding the cotton ball in place.
They waited. The clock ticked. After a full minute, he peeled the cotton away. The glue gleamed, undisturbed.
A new kind of quiet descended, colder than the last. This wasn’t just an awkward snafu; this was a technical problem with no clear solution.
“We could… cut it?” Katie ventured, her voice small.
“Cut what? Your pants? My arm?”
“The pants. Around the glue. Then we’d just have a… a patch stuck to you.”
Ryan stared at her, then down at the bond. “So I’d be walking around with a piece of your dinosaur pants glued to my forearm for the foreseeable future.”
“It’s better than being surgically conjoined!”
Before he could answer, the floorboard in the hallway outside the bathroom gave its signature, high-pitched creak.
Both of their heads snapped toward the door. All the blood drained from Katie’s face.Footsteps. Slow, sleepy, coming down the hall.
“Kids?” It was their father’s voice, groggy and concerned. “Everything okay? I heard banging.”
Ryan’s eyes widened in pure, unadulterated panic. In one fluid, desperate motion, he yanked Katie forward, unbalanced her, and pulled them both down into the empty bathtub.
The porcelain was cold and hard. Katie yelped as her elbow cracked against the side. Ryan clamped his free hand over her mouth. They lay in a tangled, stiff heap, his glued arm trapped awkwardly between them, jammed against the cold curve of the tub.
The bathroom door swung open.
From their ridiculous hiding place, they could only see the ceiling and the top of the door. Their father’s slippered feet appeared on the tile floor, pausing just inside the room.
Katie held her breath. Ryan’s body was rigid. The glue bond felt like a branding iron.
The feet took a step.Another. They turned toward the sink. They heard the faucet squeak on, then off.A sigh. The feet turned again, pausing. He was looking right at the tub.
Tick-tock.
The moment stretched, thin and razor-sharp.
The feet shuffled back toward the door. “Must’ve been the furnace,” he mumbled to himself. The door clicked shut. The footsteps receded down the hall. A distant bedroom door closed.
In the bathtub, they let out a synchronized, shaky exhale.
The relief was temporary, instantly swallowed by the renewed, claustrophobic horror of their predicament. They were stuck in a bathtub.Literally. The awkward position was already sending a dull ache through Katie’s back. Ryan’s breathing was quick and shallow against her ear.
“Okay,” he whispered, the word vibrating with a suppressed, manic energy. “New plan. We need the internet. We need heavy-duty solvent. We need… we need to never speak of this to anyone, ever.”
Katie nodded, her cheek rubbing against the cold porcelain. The glue held fast, a permanent, perfect seal in the silent, fluorescent-bright room. The clock downstairs kept counting. Adulthood, she realized with a sinking, giddy dread, was going to be so much weirder than she’d imagined.