Welcome to Gaia! ::

madmidget~ the swollen eye= um it's kinda pointless and well it wasn't even funny or anything. I didn't get what your porpose was.

Queeny~lost in ivory= wow *sniff* that was beautiful. But all those big words and stuff made my brain hurt. So much thought required. O_O

Amor Fati~ short story= good well written just work on grammer. O.~;




The Gloomy Sail
~~~~~~~~~~~
This is a very long story I have wrote. Even though it is long I would be very happy if you would read it. I would also be tremendously happy if you leave comments. Thank You and enjoy~




CHAPTER ONE

It was a sleepless night as I lay there and pondered about when they took my brothers and me into that horrible place. My brothers and I escaped from yet another orphanage and crawled into our old makeshift sailboat and put it on the tracks. As we sailed away we were silent, because we didn’t know where we would be next. With Mom and Dad gone all that we had was each other, and that was all we needed.

It all started two years ago when we were in our home in Dover. It was a beautiful mansion with every room a work of art. Naturally, my room was my favorite. It had light cream walls with borders on top and bottom. The borders were peach with a hint of light pink and the engravings were fantastic! If you looked closely they almost told a story, but one I could never understand. The furniture was made of wood and was engraved just like the borders. But what I loved most was my bed sheet. My great grandmother Georgiana, who died before I was born, made it.

We lived without a care in the world, playing, laughing, until one day we went to the marketplace to buy groceries. Though we did not know it then, our laughter would be the last for a long time. We bought more than we needed and returned with the strange feeling that something was wrong.


CHAPTER TWO

My brothers and I didn’t know why, but we felt something wrong from the moment we stepped in the door. Mom and Dad were gone. We knew that Father would not be home because he was always home quite late. But Mother was always home, boiling water on the stove and waiting for our arrival with the food. As we slowly walked through the house, Oliver crept into Dad’s quarters, a place he had longed to explore. Among his amazing discoveries, he found a note dated that very day. It read –

“dear children,
we Have lEft to go to a pLace where People like you, alSo known as children, are noT allowed. InterestingLy we have found no such need for you. you aLL hAve a Knack of taking carE of yourselves. goodbye!
sincerely,
mom and dad”

Why were Mom and Dad acting so strangely? Why was their grammar so dreadful? These questions didn’t matter. All that mattered was that Mom and Dad were gone, and we feared we’d never see them again. Tears filled my eyes as I read the words one last time. Little Timmy and Oliver were crying as well. All except for Xavier; he just stared at the floor with no emotion. As I watched him not making a move, I became filled with anger and sadness at the same time. I screamed, “Don’t you care about anything? This is a tragic moment and you just stand there with a blank face as if nothing has happened at all?”

There was a momentary silence. I had surprised myself. I was about to apologize, but somehow couldn’t say a word. I saw Xavier turn his head and a teardrop fell to the floor. He then went up to his room on the top floor and wasn’t heard from again all that night. We continued to live in the house. Nothing was going to move us away.


CHAPTER THREE


Even without Father’s job, we still had enough money for food for a while. But we had to use money sparingly to make it last. The first day was hard to keep everything the way it was but we managed. A few weeks went by. It seemed we could live there with each other forever. But even our skillful tricks didn’t fool our neighbors, so they called the police, and soon they would be there to take us away from our favorite place in the whole world, home.

We each decided to take something with us, so that we could remember our house wherever we may go. Timmy took his precious teddy bear Mom made for him when he was an infant. Oliver took a pocket watch he had found in Dad’s quarters. Xavier took a pocketknife Father had given him. I took the sheet Grandmother had made and the strange note our parents had left.

When the police came, knowing it was our only chance to stay, we put up a struggle, but did not prevail. When they finally got us in the car we realized how frightening the little car was! There was barely any sunlight coming in, locks on the doors, and driven by a complete stranger.

Then the scary little car finally came to a slow stop. We agonized as the black windows prevented us from seeing the place. When the policeman opened the door I didn’t look. What was I to expect? A friendly little white cottage with green vines up the side, a white picket fence, and a happy little garden? Certainly not! I looked at Xavier, then at Oliver, and finally at Timmy. All had the same expression, an expression of shock, sadness, and disbelief all at the same time. Dare I look myself? I suppose I had no choice.



CHAPTER FOUR


I looked up and turned away fast. Tears filled my eyes. I asked the police officer, “You don’t really think we can stay here, do you?” I didn’t need to know the answer. It was a gray, old building with dead flowers in the front. The windows were either broken or boarded up. I had a hard time making out the word on the sign, but finally determined that it said, “Welcome.” But it was the farthest thing from welcome. But the worst thing was the sign above the door. It was yellow with faded blue letters: Orphanage! How horrible that word did sound! I am now living the life of those whom I used to pity. This miserable story begins.

As we approached the door a strange figure lurked in the shadows of the windows. When we went to knock on the door suddenly the door bolted open, and almost hit Oliver in the face. What stood before us was the scariest and most unattractive person I have ever laid eyes upon.

She was an older person with shaggy gray and white hair, and she had a mole on her face the size of our mansion! She wore ripped and ragged old clothes and her eyes were almost popping out of her head! “What can I do for you officer?” the old lady screeched.

“These children will be staying here now. Is that all right?” the officer said, not noticing how obviously evil she was.

“It is quite all right,” she said. But I could tell she was unhappy. “Come in now children, time to meet the others.”

“Good day, Miss,” the officer said. The old lady slammed the door without another word.

I thought it was all just a bad dream. This couldn’t really be happening. I pinched myself. Oh, I was not dreaming.

“My children, you are new here, so I will give you the day’s schedule. First you will wake up and scrub the bathroom. Next, you will make my breakfast. Then you will mop, dust, broom, and clean the entire house. Then make my dinner. Next clean the dishes and go to bed!” she stammered.

“But Miss,” Xavier said, “What will we eat?”

“Ha! Ha! Ha!” she laughed, “Whatever is left of course!”


CHAPTER FIVE


The next day we did just what she said. With the other children helping, you would think that the jobs would go faster, but they didn’t. Thankfully we were allowed to whisper to one another in our spare time. I always talked to a girl named Kira. We talked about our hopes for a better life when someday we would finally be adopted. Of course these were only fantasies, for no one was ever adopted from Miss Whiffer’s Orphanage. “I think secretly, since we never get any visitors and we are in the middle of nowhere, that she uses this orphanage as an excuse for homeless children like us to do her dirty work!” Kira whispered. Kira and I soon became best friends. Kira told me of all of her past attempts to escape, and how each time she was caught. Suddenly an idea came to me. Since there were now two of us to think, we should be able to come up with an escape plan that was bound to get us out. Because after all, two minds are better than one!

We thought for a long time. Days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months. Nothing came to us, well nothing brilliant anyway. If you were thinking we were going to escape out the broken windows, well she made us board those up too, and anything that could get it open again was outside. So that wouldn’t work.

Finally one day Kira almost knocked me over as she blurted out, “I got it!” “All right,” she said,” Here is my plan!”


CHAPTER SIX


One evening Miss Whiffer was taking a rest in her bedroom. Kira told me what to do. I had to get the keys to the front door out of that room. I opened the door with caution, knowing that there was a bucket of water above the door. I slid through the small opening I had made. Before me there were mousetraps, dozens, maybe hundreds of them! I carefully tiptoed around them, which was difficult because they were very close together. With drops of sweat running down my face, I stepped over the last trap. Made it! I grabbed the keys and tiptoed back. I was almost there when suddenly, SNAP! How could I have been so careless as to step on the very last mousetrap? Miss Whiffer’s eyes popped open and she saw Kira, my brothers, and me–holding the keys. She was infuriated! She intended to punish us severely.

Miss Whiffer said that my brothers and I were to stay outside all day long, and make tables out of wood from the large shed behind the house. But poor Kira, poor, poor, Kira, she had the worst of all. Since she had attempted to escape many times Miss Whiffer made sure she would never try again. She was locked in the attic, only getting sunlight from a small window with metal bars crossing over it. Her only food was whatever came up a small chute connected to the kitchen, and she had only the rats to keep her company. So this is how it was, and this is how, it appeared, it was always going to be.


CHAPTER SEVEN


Oh, how those winter months were chilling. Making table upon table, and too frightened and cold to escape. For what if we failed again? What horrible life would we have then? I shuddered at the thought. Everyday was more depressing. Kira wrote some nonsense on pieces of paper, and then threw them out small holes in her window to try to forget them. I would find these notes, and read them.

Kira realized that I was reading them and then started to send me notes. They were messages really about anything. Notes about escape plans, her memories, her depression, and really anything that came to her mind. But in one particular note she wrote about the set of railroad tracks beside the house. It told how there hasn’t been a train on it for 73 years; at least that is what her father told her, before he passed away. This gave me a ray of hope of escaping. By then surely I was ready to try anything. Maybe the cold had made me deranged! I told my brothers my plan and we got to work.

We had a large flat wooden board and put four little pegs into it, two on each side. We made four wheels out of wood and put them on the pegs. We then got a few more pieces of wood and attached them to the flat piece to make a box but with a side missing in the front. Next we fastened a plank sticking upward in the middle of the unclosed box. On the back and on the middle board we put pieces of wood to make seats. We then got two pieces of wood and attached them at the front to make the unclosed box a closed arrow looking shape. We then got a few wooden poles and made it into a sail and put it on our arrow-shaped box. Then Xavier said, “Just one more thing,” and he held his hand out to me. I stared at it for a moment and slowly reached into my coat. I then pulled out the sheet my grandmother had made me and we put it on to be the sail. “It’s done!” Timmy said. Yes we now had a little makeshift sailboat, our only hope for freedom.

“What’s that?” Oliver said. We all looked at the house and saw through the window that Miss Whiffer was slowly coming down the steps. “She is early! What is she doing getting up so early?” I said nervously. We struggled to push our sailboat onto the tracks; we hopped in and hoped for the wind to blow. It wasn’t moving! We panicked. We kept trying to move it but there just wasn’t any wind. Miss Whiffer was almost downstairs. “Hurry!” I said. Suddenly a gust of wind came and I was relieved. I let a note go I had written, and somehow it landed in the attic with Kira. She opened it and it read, “I will come back for you. Promise.” She closed the piece of paper and smiled at me with tears in her eyes. I smiled back. I would come back for her. The wind then swept us away, quickly rolling, and just as Miss Whiffer opened the front door, we were out of sight, behind the trees.


CHAPTER EIGHT


While the wind took us down the tracks, we didn’t talk much. We hadn’t really talked much at all ever since I yelled at Xavier. We should have said something, all the silence was making me think too much about the note our parents left. I kept reading the note, memorizing it letter by letter, trying to answer questions. I couldn’t bear to read or think any longer. I stuck my foot out of the side of the little sailboat and slowly made it come to a stop. There were some apples on the trees that were beside us. “I don’t know where we will be and how long it will take us to get there,” I said. “We have not been talking much and I know we are not getting along.” I paused. “But, can we at least act like none of this has happened for the ride to who knows where?” I then walked out of the cart and began to pick apples. Little Timmy said, “I wish we could get along for a little while. After all, we are all that is left of our family. I need you guys.” He then hugged his teddy bear and got out of the cart and began to pick apples too. Oliver and Xavier then followed. After a few minutes we all turned around and apologized to one another. We loaded the apples into our sailboat. I believed the ride was going to go much smoother now.

We talked more and laughed, and it was just like old times back in the mansion. We probably traveled 100 miles, but since we were all friends again, it seemed to go by in a few minutes.

“What is that up ahead?” Oliver said. It was a tall white house with pink and yellow flowers in the windows. It had a white picket fence that looked freshly painted. The garden was magnificent and everything was very inviting. “We do need a place to rest,” I said slowly. My brothers agreed, and we hid the makeshift sailboat in the bushes on the other side of the railroad tracks. We went and knocked on the door, and a lady in a beautiful dress opened it. She was also beautiful herself, and seemed very nice. The only odd thing was a boa constrictor around her neck as if it was a shawl. “Hello children. Welcome to Miss Lockwood’s Orphanage. I imagine you want to stay here?” she said. Another orphanage? Well it certainly didn’t look to be as bad as the last one. “Yes Miss,” I said cautiously. She held out four pieces of paper with four pens and said, “Then sign this.” Foolishly my brothers and I signed it without reading, for we were famished with hunger and needed rest. “Perfect,” she said with a grin, “You come right this way.”


CHAPTER NINE


“Well the contract said you would stay here till adoption,” Miss Lockwood said. Oh this is not good. We should have read the contract. Well maybe it will go smoothly, I thought. She continued, “There are two rules to this house and that is that you work for your food, and you cannot talk.”
Well then, I took that thought back; maybe it wouldn’t go so smoothly. We found a chart that showed how much work we had to do for the food. Ten house chores equal one meal.

The meals were miniscule so we each needed two meals. So we did 20 chores everyday. These chores were not easy. I was queasier than my brothers, but I got stuck with cleaning the mysterious trail of slime left on the floor by the many boa constrictors Miss Lockwood had. And how could we escape? There were guards posted at every window and door as well as bulldogs - large ones.

No wonder that picket fence looked freshly painted. A person had to paint it every day. That person was now me. I somehow got stuck with all the chores outside in the beating sun that were very exhausting. The only chores inside that I had were ones that were gross and made me sick. I don’t think she liked me much.

The other children whispered at night, but they never whispered to any of us. I slept in a bed next to another boy’s bed. I heard two girls whispering to each other about him. They said he has been there from birth and was abused as a toddler. He now works for small amounts of food, and spends his spare time just staring out the window. I looked over at him. He did stare at that window a lot, and his left hand always twitched every few seconds. What a scary boy.

I had to find a way out before I became just like that boy, but how could I? There was nobody guarding the place at Miss Whiffer’s Orphanage, but here there was full security. I had to think. I thought a lot but I had little time to do so. I was busy all day doing chores and I had a hard time focusing at night. But, after a few months of thinking, I had somewhat of an idea.

I had to get something to throw to distract all the guards and a piece of meat big enough to distract the dogs. We had to have enough time to get to the sailboat, get my brothers into it and escape fast enough to not be caught, and it all had to be done on a windy day!

Well it seemed like a hopeless case. I could never plan any of this with just my brothers and I. Well, not alone anyway. But who would ever help us without asking for a seat in the boat? We didn’t even have room on the boat for one more person. My brothers and I decided that it was better to wait until we were all 16 than to risk the consequences of being caught trying to escape.


CHAPTER TEN


We kept living our routine, working all day for one meal. We tried to not mind this lifestyle anymore. We tried looking on the bright side of things, and this made us all feel slightly better… slightly.

But one night getting ready to go to sleep, that strange boy tapped me on the shoulder and startled me. He looked around; all the other children were asleep. He reached into his coat and started to pull something out. My eyes widened. It was an enormous piece of uncooked steak. “Use this to distract the dogs,” he said quietly. Then he pulled out a small gray bag from under his bed, “and these to distract the guards.” I started to say something but he interrupted me, “Don’t ask questions.” I paused for a moment and tried to figure out what was in the bag. I started to open it but he quickly reached out his hand to stop me. “Don’t open them. When the time is right, throw these as far as you can and they will keep the guards busy for a bit.” I nodded. “Thank you,” I said. With the steak and mysterious little gray bag, there was still a chance for our freedom. But I thought for a moment. “Don’t you want to escape with us?” He said nothing and he seemed to return to his normal state of quietness. I hid the items under my bed and went to sleep.

In the morning I told my brothers about this strange event and we became filled with excitement. Winter was ending and the wind was becoming weaker. If we wanted to escape it had to be soon, and we decided it had to be that very day. It would be difficult and tricky, but I believed we could do it.

But something tragic hit me; we need the key to the front door. Luckily the key was not as tricky to get as the one at Miss Whiffer’s Orphanage, but it was still complicated all the same. We had to get into the handbag Miss Lockwood kept with her day and night. We went into the kitchen and Oliver told us an idea. It was not foolproof, but it should work. Little Timmy snuck into the kitchen where Miss Lockwood was having breakfast. He then confronted her and said in a loud, annoying voice, “I’m hungry!” Miss Lockwood looked at him in disgust. “Well? Have you done enough chores today?”

“No,” Timmy said.
“Well go do them!,” she stammered.
“No!” Timmy replied loudly.
“Oh yes you will! Or you can just starve to death. See if I care!”

They then started to go back and forth with Miss Lockwood getting more upset by the second. Now that she was distracted with rage I slowly entered the kitchen from the other door and snuck up behind her, reached into her handbag, felt around for the key, and pulled it out. When Timmy realized that I had the key and had escaped he ended the argument and stormed off.

We now had the key, but the tough part was to set everything in motion, for it all had to be done without really thinking. We cracked open the front door, I then reached into the little gray bag, and threw little pebbles that were inside of it as far as I could. When the pebbles hit the ground in the distance there were sparks and loud snaps that could be heard a mile away and then a small fire started to spread. Automatically every guard was racing towards the fire, but the dogs stayed. We were prepared for this. I threw them the meat just before they we going to attack. We then ran as fast as we could to the place we hid the boat and lifted it onto the tracks. Suddenly Miss Lockwood’s pet snakes started to slither out the door, with Miss Lockwood yelling and screaming behind. The boa constrictors were a problem, for they were incredibly fast! We rushed into the sailboat. We had no time for the wind to start us up as the snakes approached swiftly. Xavier and Oliver pushed as hard as they could and started running with the sailboat. The wind finally filled the sail and they jumped in the back.

The boas were on our tail and we were fighting them off with whatever was on the side of the tracks that we picked up. I looked forward and then turned back, but then glanced forward again with horror. We were headed for a bridge with a small section of missing tracks. We had two choices, we could either let the snakes get us, or we could try to jump over the small section of missing tracks. I told my brothers what to do. We all grabbed the bottom of the boat and at the very last minute we lifted the boat up desperately trying to make it lift into the air. Through our struggle it did lift up and we made it across! The snakes dove after us, but as we landed on the other side they seemed to hit an invisible wall in the middle of the gap in the track. They plunged into the river far below us. We then caught our breath and looked at each other in amazement. We didn’t know it yet, but we had entered into a new place, where we would share many more amazing adventures.



CHAPTER ELEVEN


As soon as we calmed down from all the excitement, I realized that it was much more foggy than it was merely seconds ago. When I turned around, the gap we had just leaped over was not in sight. What had the boas run into? I had so many questions. I stopped thinking about them and instead turned my head forward where the fog was lifting, slowly uncovering a picture in the distance. When the fog had passed, far off was the most magnificent castle I had ever seen. It is hard to describe in detail because it was so far away, but it looked just like ones I had imagined in the stories Mother used to tell me.

We were finally almost over the large river below us, and up ahead was a dark forest. The forest was thick – it covered everywhere from what we could see. There was no way to get around it. Before venturing through these woods I saw some fruit trees and considered having something to eat. We hadn’t eaten for a long time, and we didn’t know when an opportunity like this would ever arise again. We gorged ourselves, and stuffed our pockets with snacks for later.

We headed back to the boat still eating, but the boat was gone. “You tied it down here, didn’t you?” I said to Xavier nervously.
“Well, I did leave it here, but tie it down …,” Xavier trailed off. I dropped my fruit. To get the boat back we had to walk along the track into the forest. We paused, but then we slowly walked forward, eventually quickening to a normal pace.

The forest was horrible. The trees were shaped in crooked patterns, and their color was almost black with aquamarine moss covering most of the bark. The ground was covered in leaves that could have fallen there years ago. There were all manner of creepy bugs and spiders unlike any other, and there was an inescapable sense of being watched. We must have walked for several hours, avoiding obstacles, narrowly escaping injury at times. Out of nowhere, a small beam of light, no larger than the size of a dime, shined in front of us. “We are almost out!” Oliver said joyously.

Suddenly, the ground gave way beneath our feet, and all four of us fell into the abyss. We were screaming and shouting. I knew we were overdue for something like this to happen.



CHAPTER TWELVE


Surprisingly, I was still alive, and I felt liquid all around me, but strangely, I was still able to breathe and speak. I was unharmed. My eyes were shut tightly, but when my heartbeat slowed to normal I finally decided to open them. My brothers were next to me. An ocean of green water surrounded us on all sides, top and bottom. How to get out was the problem.

I saw a crowd of people swimming towards us. They were unlike anything I have ever seen in my entire life. They had lime green skin with dark green hair. Their clothes were made of green leaves, and each one had an emerald embedded in their forehead. They grabbed our hands and dragged us through the green ocean. They then threw us into an empty space and we somehow ended up in a huge room. The walls, ceiling, and floor were all rock and there appeared to be no doors or windows, no way out. In the middle of the room on the floor was a small pond that apparently was from the green ocean.

We breathed nervously. The water started to move slightly. We huddled together and hoped that nothing alive was in the pond. The room became quiet. Not just a normal silence. A silence where you know that at any moment something could go horribly wrong. Suddenly a large snake-like creature sprang up from the water. It was a shiny aquamarine, and much larger than any snake I had ever seen. I started to panic and looked around the room for a way out but there wasn’t a hole anywhere on the walls big enough for even a mouse to crawl through. The creature was about to head for us so I was about to get up but Oliver beat me to it. Xavier, Timmy, and I followed and we ran around the room. We might as well have put up a struggle for it might be the last thing we would ever do. We kept dodging the monster’s head but I grew tired and slowed down. The creature was catching up to me and Xavier urged me to hurry up. I suddenly collapsed from exhaustion. My brothers ran to me and tried to drag me along. The creature was headed right for us. Right before I went unconscious I remember the monster being so close to my face I couldn’t see the rest of the room. Then I saw white everywhere. I thought I was dead.




CHAPTER THIRTEEN


The next thing I knew was that I was sitting in a luxurious chair made of gold with red cushions, and a few women were caring for me. I looked around. I was in a huge room with marble floors and painted ceilings. There must have been one hundred windows each one with stained glass. The architecture had such detail and indoor trees loomed above my head. The room was magnificent in every aspect. But where was I, how did I get here, and more importantly where were my brothers? The women were offering me food. I tried not to be selfish but I was starving. I ate one Danish, two oranges, a piece of chicken, and three cookies, and drank a tall glass of milk.

After all of this feasting I asked where my brothers were. “Oh them, they are unimportant. Wouldn’t you rather stay here with people who understand you more?” one woman asked.
“What do you mean?” I asked, puzzled.
“Men are rude, obnoxious, selfish, and they just don’t care about us…”
“They are not!” I stammered.
“Now take me to my brothers!”
“Never! Either you stay here and your brothers remain safe or you leave and your brothers will be executed! Those are the rules!” she screamed.
I slumped down in my chair, ”Alright, I will stay. But who makes these rules?” I asked.
“That would be Queen Victoria the Fortieth,” she said.
“May I meet her?” I asked.
“Yes you may,” she replied.
“Here she comes now.”

Trumpets sounded, flower petals flew, and excitement filled the air. Soon out of a cloud of confetti, a lady in a very large gown appeared. The gown was white and a sea green color. She had curly hair that was the most radiant orange red color, and perched on top of it all was a small diamond tiara. She was very beautiful indeed. I jumped up from the chair. I bowed to show my respect and to get her attention. “Miss, may I speak with you a moment?” I asked politely.
“Yes, you may,” she said. She took me to the next room and told the guards to leave. “I can see you are feeling better. What is it you wanted to talk to me about?”
“It is about my brothers,” I said.
“Oh, those boys. What about those… boys?” she said in an unhappy manner.
“Well I am honored you are letting me stay with you here but I was wondering if maybe I could leave and take my brothers with me? We really must be going and I don’t feel comfortable that…”
“Certainly you may not take your brothers and leave! We at this castle have our principles,” she said.
“What do you mean?” I inquired.
“Come with me.” She led me down the hall that was right outside of the door.


“My dear, since the beginning of time man has overpowered the woman and has always bossed us around. We have never been able to make a stand for ourselves. That is why my ancestors built this castle. To set matters straight. I put every male in the dungeon I can get my hands on so we can make this world a better one. Soon this world will be filled with women! Then the world will truly be a perfect place!”
“How can you believe such a thing?” I stammered. “Men can be rude and obnoxious at times but they have a good side too. They can be funny, loyal, and so much more. You can’t just lock up every man! This world will not be better! It will be worse! It will be the most horrible world ever!” I screamed.
“You are too young to understand! You just don’t know how wonderful this world will be! Now leave my presence! I no longer wish to speak with you!” she snapped. I looked at her in disbelief and left the hallway. As I was walking out I thought about how loudly I had yelled. I never yell that loud. But it is true. She shouldn’t be doing this.



CHAPTER FOURTEEN


I was walking in a secluded area when a shadowy figure in a dark corner called for me. I slowly approached. “Stand still,” whispered a weak voice. I obeyed. Suddenly I was in a different room than the one I was in before. The room was huge and was filled with test tubes, vials, wires, pipes, and a lot of other interesting things. Suddenly from behind a table an old man appeared. He had no hair on top of his head but a very long white beard. He wore long ragged clothes and held a hand-carved walking stick. “So you need help escaping with your brothers, is that right?” the old man asked.
“Yes sir, I would also like to free all the other men in the dungeon,” I replied.
“Well you have came to the right place,” he said as he walked towards a large table with buttons and such. I stared at him for a moment wondering what he was doing. “What are you doing?” I asked.
“I was just reloading my watch,” he said.
“But why do you need so many tools? Does your watch do something special?” I asked.
“Oh this watch is just a teleportation watch,” he said as he worked away.
“Teleportation? What is that?” I wondered.
“That means that you can go different places without walking or traveling there. You just are there,” he smiled. He could see by my widening eyes that I was excited. I then thought about the time I was going unconscious in the rocky room, everything went white, and then I ended up in the castle. “Y-You teleported my brothers and I to the castle, didn’t you?” I said. The old man nodded. “So now you are going to help me again?” The old man nodded again.
“And I have a plan too,” he said excitedly.
“Let me guess. We are going to just teleport everyone here and then let them go?” I felt certain that I was correct. Suddenly he turned around and in one motion stuck his finger in my face and said, ”No! It is more complicated than that! We can’t have people know about my inventions or me. Terrible things will come of it! I only led you here because I know that you are a trustworthy person. Here is the real plan.”
“First, we must sneak into the dungeon and get rid of the guards. Then we must break the wall inside each of the prison cells so more people can escape more quickly. Once everyone is outside and far away I will teleport your brothers and you back to your sailboat,” he said.
“But couldn’t you just teleport everyone back to where they came from?” I asked.
“I can only teleport a few people to one place at a time and the power in my watch wears out easily,” he explained.
“But what about Queen Victoria? She will be very angry!”
“I will deal with her when you leave. Now come. There is so much to prepare and so little time to prepare it. We don’t have time for these questions!” So we got to work on our big plan and within a week we were ready to set the plan in motion.



CHAPTER FIFTEEN


The old man and I snuck into a dark and abandoned hallway. A hallway no one had used for years. The old man felt around on the wall. I wanted to ask what he was doing but a guard might have heard me, so I remained silent. He finally stopped and pulled out a door from the wall and we went inside. We traveled through the secret door until the old man opened another secret door out from the wall. He opened it slightly because the door led to the dungeon and there were guards everywhere. He told me to stay there. Suddenly he jumped out and drew the attention of all the guards. The guards ran toward him and as they got close the old man turned a knob on his watch and they disappeared! I crept up and stared in amazement at the spot where the guards once stood.

We told a boy from each cell to break the wall behind them using their ball and chain. They did just that and everyone started to climb through the hole and then ran as fast as they could to get away from the castle. I saw Xavier, Oliver, and Timmy and oh how happy I was to see them! Xavier broke the prison door and we found the key to their ball and chain. We heard guards coming up the stairs. I turned to the old man and said, “Thank you. You have been a great help.”
“May you always be with your brothers,” the old man said. He smiled and with one turn of the knob we disappeared and found ourselves outside of the woods with our makeshift sailboat on the train tracks.

“Well, I guess it’s on to who knows where, huh?” Timmy said. Just then I remembered the promise I had made to Kira so many months ago. “Wait, no. We have to go back to Miss Whiffer’s Orphanage before we do anything.”
“Are you crazy?” Xavier asked.
“We have to go back for Kira! I promised her I would come back to save her.”
“Well okay,” Oliver said.
“Let’s go get her.”


CHAPTER SIXTEEN


We traveled back through the woods, over the ocean, jumped the hole in the bridge, went past Miss Lockwood’s Orphanage, and traveled until we could see Miss Whiffer’s Orphanage in the distance. We slowed down a bit and hid the boat behind the trees. We slowly approached. I was going to knock on the door and try to slip inside really fast. As I went to knock on the door the door opened in a calm and peaceful manner. It was strange because Miss Whiffer never opened doors that way. When I saw the person that was behind the door I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was Kira! “What are you doing? Where is Miss Whiffer? What is going on?” I asked.
“Oh Miss Whiffer? She died some time ago and we buried her behind the house. The other children and I have been living here and we have been taking care of ourselves. Oh it is so good to see you again!” she said.
“Oh well we have came back to take you with us. Do you still want to come?” I asked.
“You came all the way back for me like you promised! Yes I do still want to come with you!” she exclaimed. She went back into the house and said goodbye to all the children. She then followed us to the boat.

She got in and we decided to talk a little before heading off. I told her about everything – from Miss Lockwood to the old man with the white beard. Later in the day she grew tired and fell asleep and I had taken out the note my parents left to read it again. I became bored and took all the lowercase letters and tried to make one big word. It was fun. Then I took all the capital letters and did the same but it was odd. It said HELP STILL LAKE. Still Lake was a lake far away from the mansion that father used to take me fishing to. I became frightened and let out a gasp. Kira awoke and asked me what was wrong. “Let’s go. I think I know where my mother and father are.”



CHAPTER SEVENTEEN


We had to get there fast. What if Mom and Dad were in trouble? The wind was slow that day so my brothers pushed the boat to make it go faster. When they got tired Kira and I would push for a while and so on. It took us about a week or so but we finally got to Still Lake. We looked all around the lake but there was no trace of them. But we did see a small cave beside the lake, poorly disguised by some pine trees. We cautiously crept over. We decided that I should check the place out to make sure it was safe. I peeked in the cave entrance and was surprised to see no one was there but there were things thrown about as if there had been someone there at one time. I gave Kira and my brothers the signal and they slowly came over. We went inside and started to inspect the place. As I ventured farther into the cave what I saw was shocking, confusing, and wonderful all at the same time.

It was Mom and Dad! They were behind some metal bars as if they were birds in a birdcage. “Mother! Father!” I exclaimed with joy. I called my brothers over and Kira followed. Xavier, Oliver, and Timmy were just as happy. I found a key on the floor and opened the prison cell. Mom and Dad raced out and embraced us all with tears in their eyes. “I thought I would never see you again!” Mom said.

“What happened here? Why were you locked up?” I asked with excitement.

Dad explained, “When you went to the market some men came in and forced us to write that note to you. I overheard two of the men talking about where they were taking us, so I coded it into the note. I knew that you would be smart enough to figure it out eventually. Then they tied us up and put us in bags. Next thing we knew we were in that dungeon over there. They beat us every day and told us to give them our family fortune, but we refused every time. This went on for a few months. But one day the man who gave us food came over with his big bag and while he was pouring a little bit of bread crumbs in our hands he suddenly disappeared and so did everyone else in the cave. We have been living off the food in that bag that the man dropped.”
I thought about the old man who had helped us. I whispered, “Thank you,” as if he was listening to me.

We all got on the sailboat and went home. Now we have such a good life – Kira, Xavier, Oliver, Timmy, Mom, Dad, and me, Annabell. All that we have is each other – but that is all we will ever need.

THE END