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.

Excerpt

COMING SOON…
And then we saw it.
“It” was a piece of paper, folded in two like a card. The front displayed an old math worksheet. But the other side? I was curious to find out.
“Let’s read it,” Rhia said, bending down to pick it up. She read it, her eyes darting so quickly from left to right they appeared to be black slits in her face. Then she handed it to me.

I am hidden. Come to find me. Bring a long, sharp thing.
I will give you one clue:

Your Friend,

I recognized Shila’s handwriting almost instantly. But I also recognized the special symbol Shila had chosen about a year ago. I had chosen one too: . If I remember correctly, we made lots of stickers showing our symbols. Maybe the symbol on the letter was a sticker.
“Press the PRESS,” Rhia reminded me.
I did, and at once sound rose up from the letter. It sounded like a song I had heard in Dance, but with the words removed. “What’s the clue?” I asked Rhia.
“I don’t know. That’s a new song to me. What’s the name of the song?”
Suddenly, I knew it. “Rhia, go get the Award-Winning Pencil and come right back. Fast! “


--- Excerpt from “Baby School” by Nory Klop- Packel
Copyright 3/24/09
Note: Sorry about the blank spots. They include things that I cannot type on a computer.