Mara Louis; Girl of Mystery

by Timothy Paterson

asleep.

  Mara had been asleep for an hour, when she woke up suddenly, shaking all over. “Are you okay Mara?” asked Scott.

  “Yes,” said Mara. “I just had a bad dream.” Mara had not had the cave dream for several weeks. It made Mara realize that there were some things that even she did not have any control over.

  Anything for a Friend

  When Mara and Scott returned from Ohio, and told Betsy all about the latest mystery, she was very upset. “I miss out on so much, just because I am the president’s daughter,” she said. Mara and Scott begged Betsy not to be mad at them. After a while, Betsy forgave them for having so much fun without her. Then the three of them went to the basement of the White House to watch a movie.

  After Mara returned to school following fall break, things seemed to return to normal. In November, Mara joined the high school track team. She also became involved in other school extracurricular activities, including the school newspaper and she joined the coin-collecting club, because of her interest in old coins.

  The next couple of months passed with very little excitement, which Mara loved. She was enjoying just being an average teenager for a change. Unfortunately, it would not last for long.

  One night in mid February, Mara had a very intense dream. She found herself in the basement of a house. Her surroundings looked familiar, but she could not remember where she knew them. As Mara walked through the various rooms in the basement, she felt a sense of dread come over her, and she could not figure out why.

  When Mara walked into an office in one corner of the basement, she saw somebody lying face down on the floor. Next to the body was a textbook, with the last several pages in many pieces, as if the book had exploded.

  Mara’s heart began to race and she felt her hands getting cold and sweaty. Slowly, she turned the body over and when she saw the face of the body, she froze. She opened her mouth to scream, but no sounds came out. The person on the floor was her friend, Scott Wilson.

  Mara heard a noise behind her and when she turned around, she saw a man standing there. He was dressed in white and he seemed to have a glowing light around him, like some kind of ominous aura.

  The man spoke to Mara; “My name is Joseph,” he said. “You must help your friend immediately. There is no time to waste. He will not survive without medical attention.”

  Mara was in a state of shock. She glanced quickly around the room, to find some way to help Scott. On the desk was a pad of paper with a telephone number written on it. Mara locked the number in her memory. Again, the man spoke; “Mara, you must act at once. Wake up!”

  Mara woke up, drenched with perspiration and she was terrified. She ran downstairs, into the kitchen and called Scott’s house. The phone continued to ring. When nobody answered, Mara glanced at the clock and noted that it was a few minutes after midnight. Mara began to panic. “What should she do?” she thought to herself. Then, she remembered the phone number written on the pad of paper. She quickly dialed the number. Mara recognized the voice of the person who answered the phone. It was Scott’s mother. “Mrs. Wilson, thank God,” said Mara. “Where is Scott?”

  “He is home in bed, which is where you should be also,” said Mrs. Wilson. “Why are you up so late?” she asked Mara.

  “I just had a very strange dream,” said Mara. “Scott is in trouble. He is hurt and he needs to go to the hospital right away.”

  Mrs. Wilson told Mara that Scott was at home by himself. She and her husband had gone out to dinner and a late movie. She told Mara that they were on their way home. “Mara” said Mrs. Wilson, “what exactly did you see in your dream?”

  Mara told Mrs. Wilson about finding Scott on the floor in the basement office, lying face down next to a textbook that looked like it had exploded. Mrs. Wilson could sense the fear in Mara’s voice and told her that she would call her back after she checked on Scott.

  As Mara hung up the phone, her mom walked into the kitchen and asked her what she was doing up so late. Then, Mr. Louis walked in as well. Mara explained to both of them, about her dream and told them about the phone conversation with Scott’s mom.

  Mrs. Louis could see that Mara was terrified and tried to calm her down. Thirty minutes later, the phone rang. Mrs. Louis answered the phone, talked with Mrs. Wilson for about five minutes, and hung up the phone.

  Mrs. Louis looked at Mara and said; “Get dressed; we’re going to Mercy Hospital. That’s where the ambulance is taking Scott.” On the way to the hospital, Mrs. Louis told Mara that Scott’s parents found him exactly where Mara said he would be. “He had a high fever, and they could not wake him up.” Then, she added. “Mara, Mrs. Wilson said that there wasn’t a textbook anywhere near Scott and no signs of any explosion. What did she mean by that?” Mara told her parents the details of her dream.

  Mara took out her cell phone and called President Morgan’s private number. When Mara’s mother asked her whom she was calling, Mara replied; “I’m calling President Morgan. I know that Betsy will want to know about Scott.” When the president answered his phone, Mara told him about Scott and he told Mara that they would meet her at the hospital.

  During the rest of the drive to the hospital, Mara tried to figure what the book in her dream meant, as it was obviously some kind of clue for her to figure out on her own.

  Mara and her parents arrived at the emergency room at the same time as the presidential limo pulled into the parking lot. The two families walked into the hospital together. As they walked into the emergency room, Mara suddenly realized what the book in her dream was trying to tell her. Mara ran into the room where the doctor was examining Scott. “He has a ruptured appendix,” she shouted at the doctor. “He needs surgery immediately.”

  Just then, a nurse walked into the room with the results of the lab tests. The doctor looked at the results, then examined Scott’s abdomen. He called the operating room and then he had a surgeon paged. Within twenty minutes, Scott was being taken into surgery.

  While Scott was in surgery, his parents waiting in the surgical waiting room with Mara and her family and President Morgan and his family. Mrs. Wilson hugged Mara and thanked her for taking her dream seriously and calling when she did. “We would have assumed that Scott was sleeping in his room and we wouldn’t have found him until it was too late. But, how did you know that he had a ruptured appendix?”

  “When you told my mom that there was no textbook on the floor near Scott, I realized that it must have been a psychic clue,” said Mara. “Then, all of a sudden it came to me. The back pages of a textbook contain key words in the book and what page to find them. You know; the appendix. So it was not the book that had exploded, just the appendix.”

  Mara was sitting next to Betsy and she could see that she was very scared. “Scott has to be all right,” said Betsy. “He saved my life. I wish that I could save his.”

  Mara thought of a way to take Betsy’s mind off Scott’s surgery. “So, how exactly did Scott save your life anyway?” asked Mara. “Scott will never give me a straight answer when I ask him. He just changes the subject”.

  Mrs. Wilson began telling the story to Mara and her parents. “Three years ago, when Scott was twelve, we were living in a suburb of Los Angeles. We had a great life. Scott had the best of everything. You might even say that we spoiled him rotten.”

  “Well, then things started to go bad for us. First, I slipped on a wet floor in a restaurant, and hurt my back. The restaurant refused to pay my medical bills, saying that I faked my fall and my pain. We contacted a lawyer and he told us that the case might not get to court for a year or more, and that it might be several years and several thousands of dollars before we received any compensation.”

  “Meanwhile, the store where I worked; fired me because I had missed so much work due to my back pain. My husband’s medical insurance only paid half of my medic
al bills. Things continued to get worse. There was a financial crisis at the company where my husband worked as a computer programmer. In order to cut costs, the company decided to get rid of the highest paid employees, no matter how skilled they were. My husband was the first to be let go.”

  “There were not many jobs available at that time for computer programmers because of the economy, and my husband had to take odd jobs, just to make ends meet. We had no health insurance, and our medical bills continued to pile up. After missing a few house payments, the bank took our house. Our church found us temporary free housing.”

  “Scott had gotten used to the good life and when we first started cutting expenses, his private school, his allowance and other extras were the first to go. Scott became angry with us, blaming us for all of our financial troubles.”

  “When we heard that a big company in Chicago was hiring experienced computer programmers, we decided that it was our best bet for employment and since the interviews were for one week only, we began selling off what few possessions we had left, and within two days, were ready to leave LA. We planned to drive to Chicago, making only one stopover; in Aspen, Colorado. We had only three days to get to Chicago. We had accumulated hotel points over the years, and used them for a motel in Aspen.