by Jade Sánchez
I don’t care if people call her crazy. She’s my best friend, and if I needed her, I believe that she would be there for me.
Chapter Eight Dazed and confused
She started driving like a maniac. “Are you crazy? You’re going to kill us both!” I yelled.
Tess kept on driving but yelled back, “Don’t try to talk to a driver who has no idea what they’re doing!” She ran a red light, almost crashing into another car. After that episode, we put on our seat belts.
After about five minutes of crazy driving, I had an odd feeling. Tess was still driving at 90 mph, so I figured I was getting motion sickness.
After about five more minutes, I saw that we were heading into the middle of nowhere. Tess started getting drowsy and started to slow way down. We hadn’t slept since we were in the van. All of a sudden she fell asleep at the wheel. I freaked! Yelling at Tess, I took off my seat belt, reached over and shook her but she didn’t respond. We were headed straight towards a tree! Panicked, I honked the horn, thinking that might wake her up, but no. So I jumped out of the car and fell into a pile of bushes.
Tess woke up screaming, turned the wheel sharp to the right, and slammed on the brakes just seconds before impact.
Painfully, I crawled out of the bushes, brushing off all the twigs and berries from my body and hair and ran over to the tree where the car had stopped. I looked inside. I didn’t see her. “Tess! Tess answer me. Where are you?” I yelled, starting to cry. I heard a grunt coming from somewhere under all of the debris.
I swung open the passenger door and saw Tess lying on the floor. I pulled her out. She looked fine, apart from her twisted left arm.
“Tess, you’re alive!”
I cried out giving her a hug. Dazed and confused, she had no strength to hug me back, but I understood; I didn’t have much either. I was just happy to be alive.
I suggested that we needed to put her twisted arm back into place, so she bit into a piece of wood that I picked off the ground next to her, as I snapped her arm back into place.
“Hmm… should I apply ice or heat?” Tess said weakly, making a joke.
I laughed.
She set her right hand on fire and held it over her left arm for about a minute. Then blew her hand out.
She got up with a struggle.
We had no idea where we were or where we were heading.
I closed my eyes:
Please, just let this be some kind of long and strangely complicated dream. I opened my eyes.
Nope. Not a dream.
Even if this was a dream, it would be more
like a nightmare. Tess started walking slowly. I was about to give in, but I followed her. After all, neither of us would like to be alone at a time like this.
Chapter Nine Into the Distance
Tess and I walked on. “I don’t care if they find us again. I won’t even put up a fight,” she cried.
“Don’t say that, please don’t say that,” I pleaded.
“I’d rather just die than go through another minute of this,” she moaned.
“Tess, I know you don’t mean it. You’re just getting melancholia.”
Tess wiped the tears off of her face and asked, “Are we ever going to get home?” That was a question I couldn’t answer. “I mean it, Maddy. At least we’d be with Penny and Briana in the afterlife,” she said at last.
We walked on. Questions began sprouting in my head. Were our parents worried? Were the cops nearby? Were we ever going to get home?
Tess was still upset.
I wanted to raise her spirits. Tess loved singing. Maybe if I began to sing, she would join in.
“I got this feeling on a summer day when you were gone…” I began.
Tess joined in, singing the clean version. “… I crashed my car into a bridge. I watched. I let it burn…”
We both started singing, “I threw your stuff into a bag and pushed it down the stairs. I crashed my car into the bridge…” We paused.
“I don’t care!” Tess shouted.
“I love it!” I sang.
We began singing together again. “I don’t care! I got this feeling on a summer day when you were gone. I crashed my car into a bridge, I watched. I let it burn. I threw your stuff into a bag and pushed it down the stairs. I crashed my car into the bridge. I don’t care, I love it! I don’t care!”
We paused again and got into individual roles.
“You’re on a different road…” she began.
“…I’m in the Milky Way…”
“…You want me down on Earth…”
“…But I am up in space…”
“…You’re so hard to please...”
“…We gotta kill this switch…”
“…You’re from the 70s…”
“…But I’m a 90s chick!”
We both finished with “I love it!”
We laughed.
Tess gave me a hug, but grimaced when she moved her arm. “Thanks for that,” she said.
We sang the rest of the song to brighten up our spirits. Tess wanted to sing loads more songs to pass the time, so we did.
After we finished the tenth song, it was about 10:45 p.m. We decided to rest up, since we were walking more tomorrow. Though we really had no idea where we were going.
We found a nice spot in the middle of a corn field where there was a nice, big tree. I looked out into the distance. I saw a little house in the distance with its lights on. “Hey Tess, do you think we can ask the people who live there if we can stay the night?”
She looked out. “Sure, we have nothing to lose anyway.”
We walked about half a mile and reached the house. I knocked on the door. Tess loves singing to crowds but she just can’t talk to people she doesn’t really know, without blushing. “Hey Maddy, come take a look at this.”
I went over to her. “What is it?” I asked while heading over. I saw something sad.
I think we both knew where we were now.
Chapter Ten Polaris
It was a ‘missing sign’ with a picture of Briana on it.
All of a sudden the door swung open and someone said, “Hello?”
I ran over to the door and responded, “Hello, may we come in? We have some updates on Briana’s case.” I wasn’t entirely sure if they cared, butit’s the first thing that came to mind.
The lady smiled and let us in. Then she yelled, “Honey, get down here. These kids know something about Briana!”
Once the husband came down, we sat on the couch. They introduced themselves to us. “My name is Claudia, and this is Clemmence. We’re Briana’s parents.”
I smiled and said, “I’m Maddy, and this is Tess.”
Tess waved and said, “Hi. Nice to meet you.”
They were impatient. “Where is she? Is Briana ok?” Claudia asked.
Tess decided to speak. “Are you both aware that your daughter isn’t exactly, um, normal,right?”
They sighed. “We know that one day the police came to our house and took Briana, charging her for being a Nymph. That’s all we know.”
I began to tell them what happened next. “Well, she was taken to a jail with two other girls and a guy. The others were dissected. When she tried to escape she was hit by a car. I’m so sorry. I really am.”
It was silent for awhile. “It’s not your fault. It’s fine,” Clemmence said; a tear rolling down his cheek. Claudia started to bawl and buried her face in her hands.
“How do you know all of this?” A crying Claudia asked.
“Well…” Tess began. We were in a tricky situation.
“We’re not exactly normal either,” I finished.
There was an awkward silence. “Out of my house!” Clemmence yelled; “OUT!”
“You didn’t even bother to save my daughter when she needed help the most; I want you out of this house NOW!” Tess and I bolted out of there as quickly as possible.
We walked back to the tree. Tess had managed to smuggle two pillows and a giganti
c blanket out of the house while they were sobbing.
We set up camp. It was actually really comfortable. We looked up at the stars. Tess pointed at Polaris, the North Star. “If we head that direction in the morning and don’t stop, we can make it to Idaho. We are probably reported missing so then we can get a ride home, right?” She closed her eyes and fell asleep.
To guide our way in the morning, I arranged some rocks in the direction of Polaris, hoping that this was going to be all over soon. After that I too went to sleep.
Side Stories IV
Star Gazing Tess has always been fascinated with the stars. And I mean all of them. Every single constellation that she knew, she would point out.
When we’d go camping together, she would find a dark area near our campsite, to gaze at the night stars. She would put a marshmallow on a stick and then set it on fire. She would then shove the stick into the ground, making it seem like our torch to light the night around us. We would constantly have to place new marshmallows on the stick, since we would eat the burned ones, but that was part of the fun.
She would then point out all of the constellations that she knew. She could go on and on. Sometimes, I wish I’d listen to her more often than I did. It would make the night sky much more fun when she wasn’t around.
When you’re a wanted criminal you find anything to do while walking. When looking at the stars at night, immune to sleep, star gazing would be fun.
I remember one night while camping; Tess didn’t let any light in. She didn’t even light a marshmallow like she usually would. She just made us look straight up at the sky.
I remember she would say; ‘ if we stayed up, we would eventually see more stars.’ I’d ask why, and then I would fall asleep while she explained. I never knew why, and I still don’t know. I’ll ask later.
Chapter Eleven ER unit
I woke up in the morning with a pain in the neck. I looked around hoping to find myself in my bedroom and discovering this whole thing had been a bad dream.
Sadly, I wasn’t in my bedroom at all. I stretched, and got up. I pulled the blanket off of Tess, yelling “Wake up! It’s time to get moving.” I heard a grunt of a reply. “C’mon get up!” I said, pulling the pillow out from under her head.
By the time Tess got up, I had already returned the stuff to Briana’s doorstep. Tess hated getting up early, even if her life depended on it. Like I said before, she’s not a morning person.
Tess rubbed her arm and said, “I think I broke it. The first thing that I’m going to do when I get home is go to the hospital.”
I responded with, “That’s a great welcome home gift; a cast.”
She snickered.
We began to walk north. It was really boring. I’d rather be getting a Social Studies lecture, and I hate that subject.
Tess set her hand on fire and applied heat to her arm. It looked painful; it really did. It started raining but that didn’t put Tess’s hand out. It didn’t go out unless Tess blew on it. I wonder if that’s how it works; you can’t stop using your power unless you put it out.
As soon as Tess blew her fist out, she fainted. I’m dead serious. She just fell forward and fainted, on the spot. I didn’t know what to do. I was freaking out. All of a sudden, from the distance, I saw a car coming. I jumped into the middle of the road and waved my hands like crazy.
Soon enough, a car screeched to a stop and a man jumped out from behind the wheel. “Is everything all right here?” he asked. The man was tall, and he had a moustache. He was wearing sun glasses.
Trying to sound calm I said, “My friend just fainted.”
“Well that’s not good; we should get her to a hospital.”
I nodded. She needed one anyway; this is killing two birds with one stone.
He picked Tess up and put her into his car. “The nearest hospital is in Idaho, so that’s where we’re heading,” he exclaimed.
“Ok, thanks for doing this,” I told him.
“No problem, I was on my way there anyway. If you don’t mind me asking, where are you parents?” he inquired.
I started biting my nails. I couldn’t think of anything to say. “We’re lost, and we’re trying to find them,” I said half lying.
“Oh, well I hope you find them,” he replied.
It was silent for about three minutes, and suddenly Tess began waking up. “Wh-what happened? Where are we?” she asked.
“You fainted, so this man is taking you to the hospital,” I told her. Then I leaned up to her ear and whispered, “He doesn’t know anything, he’s good.”
She nodded.
About an hour later we were at the hospital. We went to the ER unit of the hospital, and Jason (I learned that was the name of the man who helped us) filled out the paper work. “Thanks for doing this; I don’t know how to repay you,” Tess said smiling, even though she was in pain.
“Think of this as a major act of kindness,” he said, smiling back.
After we finally got a room, Tess laid down on the hospital bed. She fell asleep quickly, as I predicted. I noticed her arm was blue. Jason seemed to notice it too, because he asked, “What happened there?”
I started biting my nails again, another question I couldn’t quite answer. “She broke it yesterday doing something weird,” I said, half lying again.
When the doctor finally came in, he took Tess’s temperature and gave her pain medicine with a needle to the arm. He then took her to an x-ray lab, took pictures, and brought her back, then left again. She was still sleeping.
About 45 minutes later, just as the doctor came back in, Tess woke up blinking. He told us that she fainted from low food intake and that she also broke her arm. As soon as they put a red cast onto Tess’s arm we left the hospital.
We thanked Jason and started to leave, but he wasn’t finished yet. He said, “You fainted from low food supply, so let’s go eat.”
“You’ve done so much already; we don’t want to be a burden,” Tess said, blushing.
“My treat. Come on, just take the offer,” he said grinning. We shrugged, and got in his car.
While driving, we listened to the radio. Suddenly, an alert came over the radio, you know, the kind that is loud and annoying beep…beep…beep…taking over the song that was playing. The alert continued…“Police are looking for two tween girls, both are twelve years old. The names of these girls are; Maddy Webber and Tess Turner. They are to be brought to justice, immediately. We are offering a $10,000 reward for their capture and return.” It then went back to playing the song on the radio, which happened to be a good song by Adele.
We went to a McDonalds drive-thru, and both of us ordered the two cheeseburger meal. We then parked in the lot, ate our meals quickly, and then got out of the car. “Thank you so much for what you’ve done,” I said to Jason. He smiled with a nod as he started to drive away.
As we stood there watching Jason pull away we heard another radio alert blasting from the radio of a car parked not far from us, giving our descriptions. Luckily, Jason had turned down his radio, muttering that he hated alerts as he pulled away; so hopefully he’ll never know that it was us.
As the alert continued to blast on the radio, the woman that was in the car that we were standing next to started giving us funny looks, and pulled out what appeared to be a camera with a big lens on it. As soon as she pointed it towards us - and from the sounds of it taking lots of pictures, we bolted from that scene.
Thankfully, we knew exactly where we were in Idaho, and knew which way we needed to go. We were finally close to Boise. It wouldn’t be long now.
But like I said before, ‘or so I thought’.
Side Stories V
Confessions The last time we were at school, when Tess’s hair started on fire wasn’t the first time that happened to her.
Tess confessed to me about the time when she was six and she was playing around with a candle. She leaned into it and her hair caught on fire. When she put her hair out under the sink, there were no burn marks
or singes, so she thought she was going crazy. Well, now she understands what had happened.
And if we’re telling confessions here; that time back in the lab when I had a fortress of water around me - wasn’t my first time either.
One day, when I was just eight years old and swimming at our local pool, I dove off the high dive and when I came back up above the waterline, there was water surrounding me in all directions as far as three feet; like a force field of water not letting any other water inside the circle. When I went back under the water and popped back up, the force field was gone. Well, now I too, understand what had happened.
This makes me wonder what else had happened in my life that could’ve been one of the elemental powers affecting me.
I mean, I’m almost sure they haven’t, yet I have the strangest feeling they have.
Did my parents know about me being a Monachi and never told me? What about Tess’s parents, did they know and never tell her? And how weird is it that I happen to be best friends with someone who’s also a Monachi?
These questions are going to have to be answered sooner or later, and hopefully not much later.
Another story I wanted to tell you, (yes I have two), is on a different subject as well, but still worthy of mentioning, somehow.
I think Tess has a fainting problem.
Can people have a fainting problem?
If so, Tess has one.
She faints at least once every two weeks. She will just randomly faint.
Sometimes she faints in dangerous places, and maims herself.
I’ve never fainted before.
Tess confessed to me that one time she was walking around in an office when she suddenly felt a tingling sensation, felt lightheaded, and fainted. She fell straightforward, hitting her head on the corner of a desk, and fell face forward onto the ground. Someone had to slap her, to wake her up.
She said that it was at that point that she saw a lovely face that told her;
‘Wake up and cry Just start balling’ So when she woke up, that’s exactly what she did.
