Part 3.5

            The rowboat was tiny, and I didn’t see how Lillian was planning to fit seven people in it.  Not at all.  But, it didn’t look like I would exactly have forever to inspect it and search for a hiding space, so I jumped in, hiding myself underneath a sleeping bag.  Just at the same time, quite a few people, including Clara and Roxton, came out of the galley, and approached my hiding spot.

            And then I realized my true point of failure: the little rowboat would have to be dropped two stories into the water with me inside.  I would have to figure this out-and I was not getting out of this boat-while Clara and Roxton had yet another pointless argument.

            “We should travel light, so that we don’t waste any unnecessary supplies,” said Clara, “After all, it really is only going to be an hour.”

            “Not a chance,” responded Roxton, “we bring as much gear as we can.  We don’t know if we might get stuck there, so we need to bring some extra food at least, which we can leave in the boat-”

            “And the only reason we would get stuck on the island would be that we could not get to the rowboat, or the rowboat would have been destroyed,” stated Clara, rather defiantly, as if certain she had won the argument.

            He was silent for a moment.  “Light it is.  So we don’t need all of this extra gear,” and yanked up the sleeping bag which I was hiding under.

            “Um, hi?” I said, a teensy bit worried.  Clara sighed, “Look May, as much as we want to bring you along, it would be dangerous to all of us.  I promise that next time you can come, okay?”

            “Fine.” I said, a little put out, but I tried not to show it that much. 

            She patted my shoulder and stood up.  They lowered the boat, got in, and began rowing off to an adventure I should have been a part of.

***

            Jessalia stalked down the corridor with purpose, crimson red cape flailing out behind her.  The other faeries saluted her as she walked past; they all knew not to get on her bad side.

            The looming marble doors, so very out of place in the sodden cavern, stood before the VIF (Very Important Faerie).  The two guards, a mutant draik and a Usuki usul, stood to attention.  “What is your business with the great one?” asked the draik in a raspy voice.

            “I have business regarding confiscated matters,” she said.

            “Ooh!” said the usul, “A spy!  That is, like, so cool!” As the guards stepped aside, Jessalia shook her head.  No one really chose who was to be in the revolution, so they got all of the misfits one could think of.

            The doors swung open before her, and all she could see was darkness.  But she knew this was only a trick, to fool the unwise and unwanted.  She stepped forward two steps, and chanted, “Semper ubi sub ubi!” as loud as she could.  Suddenly, she could see, and the light behind her faded into darkness instead.  And there she stood in a room full of doors.

            There were twelve doors in the room, each containing their own punishment to trespassers. And rather curious rebels who had stumbled upon the room by mistake.  No one but the great one herself really knew what was behind those doors, as she herself had installed their containments. 

            The fifth door, painted purple, held the worst punishment possible to prisoners.  And yet, Jessalia strode right through it.

            The cave was lavishly decorated in deep colors.  Lush petpet pelts hung from every available space, giving the room a sense of being alive.  At the end of a long mauve carpet, there was a chair, shielded by a darkened veil.  One could tell that someone, or something, sat behind it.

            “My lady,” said Jessalia, kneeling to the floor, “You have called me.”

            “Yes,” rang out a voice.  It was an odd voice; you could not distinguish its age, gender or species. “We have trespassers,” it said, “As you know, this is a rare occurrence.”

            “Indeed,” responded Jessalia, “Are they the queen’s agents?”

            “No,” said the odd voice, and Jessalia almost thought that it sounded exactly like her old math teacher, a disco kacheek by the way, “They are but a few unwitting adventurers.  Most of them.  There are two, both with warped destinies, but destined for each other.  Luckily, they are harmless adventurers.  There is one that we should have been concerned with had we had no magic dampening forcefield, as she is faerie blessed.  There is no one else who is exceedingly important, though I could not tell who one of them was,” the voice (which now sounded like an old woman) paused for a second, “but she does not know who she is, and thus I do not know who she is.”

***

            I paced up and down the deck, waiting for a response, a result, so I could get going onto the island.  “Jordie, how long have they been gone?”

            The blue kougara sighed, “Three minutes from the last time you asked.”  I knew that tone of voice, the annoyed grown-up, the infamous “stop bothering me” tone.  I sighed, and leaned over the railing, peering into the depths of the ocean.

            The water was pristine and clear, painted with artistically placed daubs of sunlight.  The waters near the equator were quite turquoise and transparent, and I could nearly see the bottom.  Suddenly, something moved in the water, and my eyes shot over to where it was.

            Seeing nothing, I looked around, and saw it glimmer a bit again.  I snapped around, looking for it, when I saw the outline of a fish moving through the water.  A waterfish.  Such strange creatures, how they can hold themselves together is an amazing spectacle. 

            Then, the water seemed to get a bit darker for a second, as if in the outline of a jetsam or something else with fins and a tail.  I rubbed my eyes, and searched for it again.  Nothing seemed to be there, and I shrugged it off.

            I looked back towards the island.  I had another forty seven minutes to wait until they returned, and I wondered what I would do now.  I had already had a geography quiz done by Kerlie, helped Moht by being interviewed (though it wasn’t particularly interesting, since we hadn’t really done anything remarkable yet), and, get this, had taught Gaviella on what a tail was.  Apparently, she didn’t know that she had a tail, and had no idea why.  Well, actually, I didn’t know why much either, but that was okay.  I told her that it was a nice thing to have.

            I stared into the island’s forests.  I pictured moving figures, perhaps some exotic bird, and looked into the darker space between the trees.  And something moved.

            I blinked my eyes, and looked again.  Yes, there was something moving in the trees, but I guessed it wasn’t surprising.

            Two smallish specks ran out of the forest and onto the beach.  They might have been two giant mootixes or something.  But the giant moach that came up behind them (about five times their sizes) tipped me off on who they were.

            “I see Roxton and Clara!” I shouted to no one in particular.  I looked over my shoulder to see that I was the only one above deck.  Shoot.

            I ran down to the girls cabin, and shouted, “We have to help Clara and Roxton!”

            Lillian let out a snore in response.  “Who are they?” asked Gaviella, cocking her head in a confused way.  I decided to go get Jordie, Moht and Kerlie instead.

            I pounded my fist on their door.  “May, if that’s you, I’m not going to tell you how much longer!” I heard Jordie shout.

            “No, I can see Clara and Roxton running from a moach on the beach!  We have to help them!”

            Jordie stuck his head out the door, and said, “We have one rowboat, they’re on the beach, and I am not going to fall for your trick,” and slammed the door in my face.  Well.

            Next, I ran up to find the captain.  “We have to help Clara and Roxton!” I shouted, barging through the door to his cabin.

            “Why should I care?  That Colchester has caused me nothing but trouble!” he shouted back, and I closed the door on Mr. Grumpypants, which was my new nickname for him.

            And so, as they began approaching the boat, I was the only one above deck to help pull them up out of the waters into which a giant moach was now swimming.

            I watched them as they rowed frantically towards us.  I looked around, trying to figure what to do.  My eyes fell upon a coil of rope.  It would have to work.

            I grabbed it as they came up along the side.

            “Pull us up!” shouted Roxton!

            “I don’t know if I can!” I shouted back, glancing at the nearing moach.  “I don’t know how any of this works, but I could throw you a rope!”

            “A rope works!” he shouted, and I tossed it to them, tying it to the railing.  And of course, they began to argue on who would go up first.  I couldn’t hear all of it, but I did catch “You!” and “No, you!”

            “Hurry!” I shouted back at them.   They looked back up at me, looked at the rope, and looked at each other.  Clara huffed, and began climbing.  As soon as she finished, I helped her aboard, and Roxton tied the end of the rope to the bow of the rowboat.  Then, he himself climbed up, and we all went down below deck.

            “Wait!” exclaimed Clara, “what about the moach?”

            I sprinted back above deck, and witnessed an interesting scene.  The giant moach was drowning in about ten feet of water, which was impressive, since it was thirty feet tall.  It wasn’t pleasant, shall we say, and I went below deck a few seconds later.

            “It’s dead,” I told them, “It drowned in about ten feet of water.”

***

            We all sat around the table, talking, mouths full, as we ate lunch about everything Clara and Roxton had seen.

            “There were so many plants that I’ve never seen before,” said Clara, “I mean, all of the plants I’ve ever seen before were there as well.  It’s as if it was some kind of climatized zoo.”

            “No wonder you weren’t as focused as you should have been on running for your life.” Roxton said, “We certainly saw plenty of petpetpets, but the species changed depending on each part of the island.  We might want to stay near places where the plant eaters-”

            “Herbivores.”

            “Whatevers are, so that we don’t find our selves as petpetpet chow.  I’m not too keen on getting eaten.”

            “What about the temple Madtongue Murphy mentioned in his journal and that we saw the last time we were there,” asked Lillian, rather skeptically.  I honestly had no idea what she was talking about.

            Roxton shook his head. “We were on the almost exact opposite side that time.  Last time we were on the east side, and we are now on the northwest side.  We would have to go through the moaches’ territory again, and they aren’t the friendliest of creatures.”

            “Can’t we just figure out the correct path to the temple without getting eaten?” asked Lillian.

            Clara shook her head a bit, “It could easily take months.  I know that you saw a prophecy there last time, but I don’t think that we could get back there.”

            “Wait,” I said, “what prophecy?”

            Lillian sighed, “The first time that we went to the lost isle, we found a temple type structure.  It was, of course, abandoned, though filled with petpetpet eggs.  But, on one of the walls, there was a rather prophetic piece of writing inscribed, which talked about four children which were supposed to come to the island and save Neopia from certain doom.  I don’t remember the exact wording, and it kept misspelling fire, light, and dark by replacing Is with Ys and Ks with Cs.  We tried to interpret it, but it hardly made any sense, certainly none grammatical sense at all.  But, going on a whim, we tried to get people to come and help us, though hardly anyone believed anything we said.  So, after quite some time of searching, we decided that instead of trying to find children, let them find us.”

            “And, you didn’t tell us about this before because…?” questioned Moht.

            “We thought it was safer that no one knew about any of this, just in case,” said Roxton, “Made sense to me anyways.”

            “Yeah, but what are we supposed to do?” I asked, glancing at them sideways.

            “We have no idea,” said Clara, “but we intend to find out.”

***

I need an illistration here… *writes down on to-do list*