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.