1 January 2013
"Summer?" I stand up. No way!
"Autumn! Finally!" Summer gets up and hugs me. Why has Summer been hugging me a lot lately?
Summer pulls back. "Listen- Eldonist is running around outside trying to find you. They don't know I'm here. We have to sneak out somehow..." Summer looks around.
"Wait-how did you find me? Where's Kat? Where's Tessa and Keleb?" I ask.
"I'll tell you later. Do you know a way out?"
"Upstairs."
"That doesn't count." I look around and see a shiny thing on the floor.
"What's this?" I ask, walking over to it. It turns out to be a handle. I pull it open, and some floor tiles open up like a trapdoor.
"Good job, Autumn."
I'm about to jump down the hole when I remeber that my mom's diary is still upstairs.
"Wait!"
"What?"
"Our mom's diary is upstairs!"
"We can't go up and get it!" Summer squints her eyes at me. "Wait- how did you get it?"
"Long story- but we need to get it!"
"No, we don't!" Summer's eyes sparkle. Ugh. "Go down the trapdoor. Now."
Of course. I slip down the trapdoor and fall about 8 feet. It doesn't hurt much when I land.
Summer pulls down the trapdoor when she falls into the hole.
"Where are we?" I ask.
"A... it looks like a cave." Summer answers. It's hard to tell, since there's not much light in here.
"Do you have a flashlight?" I ask.
"Does it look like I have a flashlight?"
I sigh and feel around on the walls for something to turn on for light. My hand grazes a bump ans I press it in.
"Ahh!" I scream. Light pours in from torches on each side of the long hallway. I cover my eyes since it's so blinding.
"This way." Summer pulls me down the hallway while I shield my eyes from the bright lights.
We run down the hallway for a while, then finally reach a ladder at the end. Summer grabs a torch off the wall and starts climbing up. I do the same.
We climb for a minute, then Summer stops.
"What?" I ask.
"There's no way out." Summer answers, confused.
"Let me see." I climb up the ladder some more so I'm right next to Summer. I place my hand on the ceiling and move it around. It's rough in most spaces, but at one point it's smooth. I push on the smooth spot and the ceiling opens up.
"How do you do that?" Summer shakes her head. "Come on." She climbs out of the hole and I follow.
It's daytime, and I don't see any Eldonist agents walking around. "What country are we in?" I whisper.
"New Zealand." Oh, yeah! That's where the city of Wellington is!
We creep away from the trapdoor, which doesn't look like anything from outside. Finally, we make it to a city.
"What is this city?"
"Wellington." Duh. Summer unwraps her black scarf and takes off her ski cap. We walk into Wellington, and enter a house at the edge of town. It's empty.
"It's safe in here." Summer sighs.
"Okay. How did you find me?"
Summer smirks. "When I became your guardian, I got a GPS chip implanted in your head. My hand flies up to my head.
"That's... that's..." I stutter. I'm not sure what that is. Wrong? Sick? Gross?
"Who cares. I got you out, didn't I?"
"Yeah... where's Kat, Tessa, and Keleb?"
"In Sydney." I stare at Summer. "Australia!" she yells. Oh.
"Oh." I smile. "Are we going there now?"
"Yep."
"Where's the airport?"
"Umm... we're going by boat."
"Why?" Boat? That's dumb!
"Eldonist will be checking flight records for us. That's how they found us in America."
"Oh." I stare at Summer. Summer stares back. Then we both laugh.
"Come on." I follow Summer out the door and find a commotion going on outside.
There's an 8-year-old girl getting pulled away from a boy my age and a teenage girl.
I know all three of them.
March, Chapter 3 • Opuss № I