The Crystal Pyramid

by Magan Lee and Kasey Lee

  “Omygod, you’re right!”

  The paw prints led them to a room with pots, pans, ovens, and plenty of steam. It was a kitchen.

  Amanda let out a little yelp, “SEBBI!” Anne looked over and saw Sebbi. She was on a counter, munching happily on a shimmering rainbow trout on a plate that was sprinkled with rosewater and fresh herbs. And to complete the look, it was surrounded by sugar swans, white and pure. The dish was an elaborate golden plate with magnolias engraved onto the sides. Anne can almost see the sparkles coming out of it and hear the violins playing in the distance. Sebbi rushed over and nuzzled Amanda’s foot, making Amanda forget all the scolding she was going to shout.

  Suddenly, they heard a loud Crash! To their horror, when Sebbi ran to them, she accidentally tipped the trout over, which caused the plate to fall, and the whole thing splattered hopelessly on the floor. “Wh-wh-who’s th-there?” called a small, nervous voice. The girls (including the cat) quickly rolled behind the supply closet and peeked out. A small person with an Italian moustache walked out, took one look at the rainbow trout, and screamed, “My beautiful rainbow trout!” He ran out of the room, sobbing. Amanda and Anne disregarded him and went on to the purple room.

  Chapter Fourteen - The theft

  They crept silently down the hall with Sebbi (the camouflage blanket) over them. They quickly glided and were about to open the door when Sebbi gave a meow of surprise. Amanda asked (in cat language), “Sebbi, what’s wrong?” After a long pause, Amanda tells Anne, “Sebbi says that Dan and his wife are staring at the door. We need a diversion or someone else that will open the door for us.” Anne whipped out her voice modulator that her mom gave her on her seventh birthday. They found a phone nearby and ordered (in Dan’s voice), “Guard! Bring me some Earl Grey and orange Jell-O, please.” “Do as I say!” Amanda added through the voice modulator, covering Anne’s mistake since Dan never said please. Soon, they saw a guard running in, muttering, “Boss’s never so polite, Boss always order coffee with two hundred grams of sugar in it, Boss hates Jell-O!” Then he yelled, “Boss! I have your refreshments!”

  “Come in!” Dan shouted. The girls seized this opportunity and rushed in behind the guard (with Sebbi on top of them, of course). Soon Dan was muttering angrily at his tea and the guard backed away without a word.

  Anne focused on finding the Crystal Pyramid. She noticed Amanda was staring at the floor so she followed her eyes and saw a mini laptop the size of a book lying on the floor. On a piece of masking tape taped to the laptop was, “THE LOCATION OF THE PYRAMID” Anne quickly grabbed the laptop and slid out of the room through the small opening of the door along with Amanda. But Amanda got stuck in the middle of the closing door. Dan shouted, “Guards! The door is clogged!” Amanda slipped out and the door magically became unclogged again. “Never Mind!” Dan shouted.

  Chapter Fifteen - The location of the Pyramid

  Amanda and Anne ran into the kitchen and into the dark supply closet they hid in before. They slammed the door shut and locked it so that no one could come in. After making several safety precautions, like piling everything they could find against the door, they felt safe. Anne opened the laptop and was faced with a hard challenge. Password, please. “Uh-oh.” Amanda said, looking over Anne’s shoulder. The whole screen was completely blank except for the word Password, followed by a textbox, and under that, two words that saved them. Lost Password? “Yes!” the two shouted at the same time. Anne clicked the link and handed the laptop to Amanda, “It’s all yours. He’s YOUR dad, after all.” In the end, they didn’t even need Amanda’s knowledge of her dad. The two security questions were “What is your favorite color?” and “What do you hate most?” The answers were obvious. Purple, and MPOC. The screen blinked and said, “Next questions. Who is your daughter? And who is your wife?” The answers were obvious too. The answer to the first question was Amanda, our heroine, and the second answer, of course, is Mrs. Smith. A screen popped up that said, “The Crystal Pyramid is in the white room. I told you a million times, but you keep forgetting. Again, it is in the white room. Again, it is in the white room. I don’t want you to forget this! Again, it is in the white room. Don’t forget, it is in the white room. The WHITE ROOM! As in the color white, the one that you greet people in. It is the white room. Again, it is the white room. The answer is The white room. It’s in the white room. Don’t forget now! 5……4……3……2……the white room…1…white room…EXPLOSION! The laptop self-destructed. Anne looked at Amanda, who said, “No comment.”

  Chapter Sixteen - Receiving the Crystal Pyramid

  Now that they knew where the Crystal Pyramid was, the A girls felt confident. They marched into the white room (with Sebbi on them), only to find Dan sitting on top of the sofa in the middle of the room. They stared in amazement and Anne whispers, “Is your dad psychic or what?” Amanda said, “Whatever. C’mon!” They crept silently as two cats along the walls, searching for the Crystal Pyramid. Suddenly, they heard a shriek from The Wife. “What happened?” Dan asked in bewilderment. “I s-saw a floating h-hand!” Amanda realized that her hand was out of the blanket so she quickly drew it back in. “IT JUST DISSAPEARED!” The wife screamed and ran out of the room. “Wait, ma’am!” the servants quickly ran out after her. Dan sighed and went back to reading his TIME magazine. The girls sighed with relief and looked around some more. Amanda gave a quick yelp of surprise. “There it is!” She pointed to the white table. Sure enough, there was the Crystal Pyramid. They crept quietly, but a strand of Anne’s long, black hair got uncovered. “Guards!” Dan shouted, “There’s a piece of black hair in the WHITE room! Go throw it into the BLACK room!” Anne swiftly grabbed her hair, twisted it around her finger, and pulled. That strand of hair fell out. She held it out at the wall to make it look like nothing had changed. Soon, the guards came, plucked the hair out of Anne’s fingertips, and threw it into the black room. Dan resumed reading. Anne took a deep breath and followed Amanda. They tiptoed to the Crystal Pyramid. Amanda reached out and saw her dad staring at her hand. She quickly withdrew her hand. Her dad muttered something about his bad eyesight, took out some reading glasses, and continued reading. Amanda tried again. Right when her hand was in view. Dan shouted, “MAIDS!” Amanda froze. “Get me another TIME magazine, at once!” Amanda relaxed and took the Crystal Pyramid. She handed it to Anne, who put it into her bag. Then, Dan murmured, “Ah, I see how it is,” Anne mouthed uh-oh to Amanda. “This tuxedo cost $199.99 after all!” He was looking at the catalog for Gentlemen Goodsâ. Anne smacked her forehead and shook her head. She muttered, “Your dad is SUCH a moron.”

  “WHO’S A MORON?!”

  Anne gulped. Dan was alert, he had spotted that the Crystal Pyramid was missing. “AH! I knew it! Amanda and her stinky friend stole it.” He put up a fist. “I really want to smack them right now-” his hand flew right into Anne’s face. “Ow!” Anne yelled. Dan turned his head to the voice. Even worse, Sebbi the blanket had fallen off of them. He saw half of Anne and Half of Amanda.

  They laughed awkwardly and sprinted away at top speed. Dan yelled in rage and sped after them.

  Chapter Seventeen - The fall of Dan

  Sebbi turned into a wand and the Amanda leaped onto her. “Grab my hand!” she cried. She grabbed hold of Anne’s hand and pulled her on. With the extra weight that Anne added, Sebbi wobbled a little, slowing them down. Suddenly, a bullet whizzed past Anne’s ear. She yelled and turned back. Dan was in a black limo (that Anne distinctly remember that Spike stole). He was holding handgun in his hand and was cursing himself, “Crud again, I missed for the second time this week! Whatever.” Instead of trying to aim nicely, he started firing random shots at them. It was impossible to dodge all of them. “NO!” Anne cried. But, Amanda just shouted, “JUMP!” Before Anne could even react, Amanda jumped up from Sebbi and pulled her up with her. Sebbi disappeared from under them and turned into a diamond sheet,
which Amanda held in front of them. The bullets bounced right off of Sebbi. Then, quick as a cheetah, Amanda stuck Sebbi under them and Sebbi transformed back into a wand. All of this was done while they were still in the air. Anne was still gaping at Amanda when she heard an excited call, “Look!” Amanda shouted, “We’ll be safe after we pass the cliff up ahead! Then we could just fly back home!” Anne looked ahead and the beautiful blue sea and the sparkling waves suddenly looked super welcoming, much more welcoming than they had been on board the Tornado Winds. But abruptly, Sebbi gave out a cry and hit the ground, leaving the girls tumbling after. Amanda quickly stopped rolling and went to Sebbi. “Ah!” she yelled, “Sebbi got shot!” Anne crawled up and saw that her knees were both scraped. But then she saw that the Crystal Pyramid had tumbled out of her bag. She crawled over and reached for the Crystal Pyramid. Quickly, she grabbed it and put it in her bag. But then, she heard, “Don’t come any closer Anne!” Anne looked up, startled. She gasped when she saw Dan holding his gun at Amanda’s head. Dan smirked, and said, “Hand over the Crystal Pyramid, or I’ll bust your friend’s brain.” Anne took one look at Dan and muttered, “Some Dad you are.”

  “What did you say? Hand over the Crystal Pyramid!”

  “No.”

  “Give it up. NOW!”

  Anne flung it off the cliff.

  “NO!” Dan shoved Amanda aside and jumped up to reach it. He dropped his gun and Amanda picked it up. Dan’s fingers wrapped around the bag and realized that he was off the cliff. “Ah!” He shouted. Luckily, Dan was very nimble for his age. He turned himself around in mid-air and soon was hanging from the cliff with his hand.

  Dan shouted with glee and said, “HAHA! I have it! I have it!”

  “No you don’t.” Amanda replied.

  “What?” Dan was bewildered.

  Anne smiled, “It’s right here.” She held up the Crystal Pyramid. “I just flung the bag with a rock in it to make it look like something was in it.” Dan was enraged. “HOW DARE YOU!” Then his hand started to slip. He realized that he was going to die and screamed, “I’ll take you down with me!” With one last effort, he pushed himself up just enough so that he could aim, and fired two bullets straight at the A girls’ hearts.

  Then he realized that he was not holding the gun. “WHERE IS MY GUN?!” Then he fell down to meet the sharp rocks on the bottom of the cliff.

  Epilogue - A “welcoming” homecoming

  Amanda knelt down next to Sebbi. She quickly turned to Anne and asked, “Do you have a cell phone? CALL THE VET!” Anne searched Google Maps and found the nearest one was not so far away. She dialed 1-800-vet-pals. Amanda heard her say,

  “Hello, mmm, yes, we have a white cat that umm got shot with a bullet, please come. Umm… where are we? Uh…” She glanced at Amanda, who pointed at the street sign and the address number on the mailbox. “Umm… yes. We are on 605 Limbsay Road. Please hurry!” She closed her cell phone.

  Soon, they heard the noise of the animal ambulance. A lady stepped out of the ambulance. She laid Sebbi on a white sheet and her assistant handed her some tweezers. She pulled the bullet out and sprayed water at the wound. Sebbi winced. The vet then stitched it all up and wrapped it in a cloth.

  “There it’s done. My performance cost a hundred dollars. Please bring out your parents so they can pay me.”

  Anne and Amanda looked at each other. They ran into the house and decided that Amanda would sit on Anne and wear big coats. They would act like the “parent” and pay her with Dan’s credit card.

  “Hello,” Amanda said in the voice modulator sounding like an older man. ”I thank you for saving our cat. Charge us on credit.” After they paid, they found some wild berries and fed them to Sebbi. Then after forcing in ten leaves of catnip, they were sure Sebbi was full and flew home on her. When they arrived home they found two very grumpy and mad mothers who lectured them the rest of the day, of how they snuck out when they weren’t supposed to, how they disobeyed them, and how they almost got killed. Then for follow-ups, they got worst punishments. But after some time their mothers forgot about the punishments and they were free to sneak out of their houses whenever they wanted.