Mikael's Umbrella: Chapter 8

The first bad thing was that the Italian neighbors* upstairs in the hotel shouted at Mariah. "Via con rumore!" "Away with noise!" Mariah grabbed earplugs--useful for walking down the street on a sunny, clear day with her sister--out of her travel bag and inserted them into her ears. Then she remembered the day of checking into the hotel, and shivers ran down her back.
The clerk, a well-dressed man in a black suit, handed them the keys. "You're that famous movie star, aren't you," he said nonchalantly as they prepared to go up to their floor.
"We aren't the only movie star family," Mariah's mom had said. "Be more specific." In her younger days, she'd been a high school English teacher, and to this day was consistently correcting peoples' speech.
"You know, with Laurel Reeth..."
"No," said Mariah's mom, insulted. With that, she took the family's baggage and stomped toward the elevator.
"Wait, sorry..." The clerk was really trying to regain his reputation. In a final attempt, he called out,"You're on the top floor!"
The top floor. Mariah took in these words with fear. That meant...there was no one upstairs.
Mariah ran. But not before they caught her.
"Hello, Mariah," said a small but athletic girl with sleek black hair that looked surprisingly like Mikael. "Welcome to Room 304."**


*I do not speak fluent Italian. It is the result of a lucky birthday gift that I can present this story to you in multiple languages. For those of you who do speak fluent Italian, or at least passable Italian, I apologize for any incorrect grammar the phrase may contain.
**For the public, Mariah's hotel was divided into three large parts. It was an amazingly tall and thick building, and so there was sufficient room space for this. For you who happen to know the significance of Room 304, I encourage you to visit this part of my blog: Click here to view it.

Mikael's Umbrella: Chapter 7

In the late evening sun, two figures were illuminated, so that only the silhouettes were visible. There was a shorter one, probably a girl, with long hair down to her waist. The other was tall, muscular, and much thicker, most likely a man. The two were surrounded by leaves on three of the sides, as if the figures were in a picture and the leaves were the border.
"Come on, hurry," said the smaller of the two to the larger without looking at him.
That was apparently the wrong thing to say. The larger grabbed the smaller by the shoulders and shook her. "We don't have to hurry!" he said, or rather, growled. There was a static noise here, blocking out some of his next phrase, and then... "... don't have to hurry!"
"Oh, well," said the smaller, and turned to what seemed to be dust, that blew away in the wind.

*  *  *

The hologram shattered like glass.

Mikael had been watching this. It had projected from the disk, and it all seemed very strange. But even so, Mikael realized three things.

One: The place pictured in the hologram was Kittero Park.

Two: The sky was orange in the hologram, which meant...what?

Three: The people in the hologram looked a whole lot like Mr. Leiber and Kallia.
But just as he thought that, he ran out of air.

*  *  *

El Paros was right next door to the hotel. Mariah knew she had to go there, she just knew it.

"Mom, let's go to El Paros for dinner," Mariah suggested.

"Okay, but you go alone, and it's up to you to get the reservation," Mariah's mom said.

Mariah was still sopping wet. She took her potion and tucked into her coat. Then she headed to her fancy bathroom to take a shower. She was off with a hotel bunch of towels tied neatly in a pink ribbon when a strange thing happened.
A slat opened in the ceiling above, and out dropped a disk. It was a clunky flat disk, clunky in the way of an old laptop. As Mariah threw on some clothes, she accidentally touched the disk, and then bad things started to happen to her.

Mikael's Umbrella: Chapter 6--Mishmash Chapter!!!!!!!!!!

It was time.
The pool had opened, and Mikael saw something at the bottom. The bell dinged and the swimmers at the deep end, poised to dive, dived. Mikael was one of them. Luckily he'd brought his goggles. He dived down, down, until the water went dark and he should have been out of air. But his excitement at the prospect of the new object drew fresh oxygen into his lungs. The goggles, diving goggles (Mikael scuba dived on vacation), had a light feature. Mikael flicked it on.
There it was. It was a clunky flat disk, clunky in the way of an old laptop. Mikael picked it up, and red and blue lights started flashing along the edge.

* * *

She landed. She had little time.

She dug into the roots of the Mother Tree. There it was. She held it up and pressed a button.

A gash opened on the Mother Tree, as if an incredibly sharp ax had cut into it. The gash grew until it was a hole wide enough to fit an adult. As the late afternoon light touched it, she saw a familiar passageway beyond. A shape was coming up the passageway. 

An automatized voice said, "Agent 013-949-409 is now leaving."

"Hello, Mr. Leiber," said Kallia.

* * *

A bottle appeared. Mariah took it. "Thanks," she said.

The man snapped his fingers and he and the bones disappeared. Then a voice came from the ceiling: "DO NOT INSULT BELLATAE THE GREAT."

* * *

Mikael's father was at work. He had quite a high-level position. He decided to take a bathroom break. As he wiped his hands on a hotel bunch of towels tied neatly in a pink ribbon when a voice said, "WHAT IS THE CODE?"
I ask you, readers, WHAT IS THE CODE???????????

Mikael's Umbrella: Chapter 5

 Chapter 3 changed. Read it before you read this.

 The strange man put the bones on the table.
"Come here," he intoned. His voice was low and husky.
Mariah surfaced. She'd been doing the breast stroke at the deep end. The man, she noticed, was looking warily at the water and had taken a table near the shallow end. Maybe he is aqua phobic, she decided, and dismissed the thought.
"Come here," the man said again.
Mariah did the butterfly over to the shallow end and got out, dripping wet. The man hustled away from her.
"Careful, careful," he warned, but it was too late. Mariah dripped water on one of the bones. It sizzled and disintegrated into dust.
"Then we'll only work with fifteen," the man said, but Mariah detected a faint smile in his thin lips. Her mom liked to call her the "Human Lie Detector," and she was right. Most times, Mariah could accurately detect a lie, and this man was definitely smiling.
The man crossed his hands and said, "Let us do this the simple way." He paused and snapped his fingers. The bones moved into a strange formation. Five bones made a square with a vertical one in the center, another 5 made the same but with the middle bone being horizontal, and the last 5's middle bone was from the top left corner to the bottom right corner.
"Take away six but leave ten," the man said.
Mariah thought. It seemed impossible. But what if...
"Ohhhh, I get it," she said, and dried her hands off on a hotel bunch of towels tied neatly with a pink ribbon. She took some bones away. First were the bottom three of the first five. Next, the one to the far right. Finally, the ones on the top and bottom. Mariah threw the unused bones on the hotel towels.
The remaining bones spelled out "TEN."

Mikael's Umbrella: Chapter 4

"Hello!" called Mikael, waving to the school coach.
"Hello!" Mr. Leiber responded. He'd been the coach for over 20 years. He was a good-natured, humorous man. Mikael was on a vacation to London, but the vacation seemed to be lasting longer than expected. They'd really settled in over the many months they'd been there. His parents had gotten jobs, well-paying enough to buy a small apartment, and he and his sister, Kallia, had joined the school swim team. They'd liked Mr. Leiber from the start. He joked around with the team members and even regular students could expect a silly pun thrown their way if they passed him in the halls. Only the older grades got sports during the school day, and Mikael was lucky enough to be one of them.
"Get into your bathing suits," Mr. Leiber now called, tossing towels toward Mikael and Kallia. They already had towels. Mikael dodged them, but Kallia got hit headfirst with a hotel bunch of towels tied neatly with a pink ribbon. She sank to the ground, giggling.
Mikael used the distraction to walk quickly to the changing rooms. Inside, he changed into his wetsuit from Mr. Leiber's recommended brand and started out of the room when he saw his phone (he'd set it in his locker, which he left open) flash. He ignored it until MISSED CALL blinked on the screen. Too bad. But before the message faded away, he saw the number.
It was Mariah's.

*  *  *

Mariah, luckily, had thought to look up Mikael's phone number and write it on her hand so she could call him later. Floating on her back in fear, she remembered. It was there, a bit blurry, but still legible. She grabbed her waterproof cased IPhone 4 and tried to call. But no answer came. 

It was her last hope. Mariah dived.

Chapter 3

At dinner, Mikael and his sister were alone. His parents were often late from work, so that was not an unusual situation. He'd ordered pizza from Liam's Pizzeria with the money his parents had left on the table as usual. Suddenly he looked out the window and saw Mariah standing outside with an umbrella held over her head. For a moment, they locked eyes, and Mariah made a gesture that clearly meant "good-bye." Mikael returned the gesture. Then Mariah hurried away.
"Why did you do that?" his sister asked.
"Because," said Mikael. Strangely enough, he didn't want anyone to know about Mariah.

           *  *  *

Mariah wished, for what seemed like the billionth time, that she could go to the hotel pool.

It was supposed to be a cold day, but stuck inside her heated hotel room, Mariah was sweltering.

She stuck her head into the living room, where her mother and her older sister were doing a read-through of the script for the latest movie, The Angel Files. "Can I go to the pool?" she asked, forgetting all of her mother's grammar lessons.
Her mother sighed and, surprisingly, threw up her hands in defeat. "Okay, Mariah, you may go to the pool," she said, sounding tired, and, well, defeated. "Remember to be back by 7:00 for dinner."

"I will," promised Mariah, relieved.
She threw on her bathing suit, grabbed a random towel off the rack, and headed down in the elevator, which was completely transparent and light up. She watched the hotel floor swoosh closer and closer, faster and faster, thinking she was going to crash, but it stopped just in time, and Mariah stepped out on the cool glass floor and headed toward the pool.
Mariah felt safe in the pool. Her swimming strokes were clean and practiced, and even her butterfly had a sense of dignity to it. Today there was no one else in the pool. Mariah dove in the cool water, thinking if that if she was a child of Poseidon, she wouldn't be surprised.
When she finally came up for air, a sight made her screech and fall backwards into the water.
There was a man cloaked in purple sitting under one of the showers. In his hands were sixteen human bones.

Mikael's Umbrella: Chapter 2: Bellatae is first introduced to the public!

The first out was a glamorous girl. She wore a sleeveless blood-red dress that sparkled with her every move."Way too inappropriate for the weather," he heard someone mutter. She was also wearing jeweled pink sunglasses and sported a head of blond curls. In short, she took Mikael's breath away.
Following the girl were two adults with expressions of pride on their faces. The girl's parents, Mikael supposed. Then there came an angry-faced girl with mousey brown hair. She was the only one in the group who was wearing regular clothes. Everyone went inside the glittering studio except this girl. 
As the people drifted away, Mikael fingered the old, well-worn key in his pocket. The wizard Bellatae had given it to him in exchange for a sample of pizza, Mikael's favorite food. Bellatae had promised that the key would one day grow enough to fit the lock in the basement of Mikael's apartment. The basement, according to Bellatae, was a tunnel to a secret underground world. 
"Hi."
The once-angry girl was in front of him. Surprised, Mikael took a step back.
"I'm Mariah," she said. "My sister's a movie star, and our parents drag us all over to make exotic movies." Unlike many of the people he'd met in London, Mariah didn't have a British accent.
"I'm Mikael," Mikael said. "I play baseball." It seemed like a worthless piece of information compared to Mariah's. "Well, bye."
"Where are you going?" demanded Mariah, but Mikael was already off, size 8 feet pounding on the soaked ground.