Welcome

The Adventure to America

Part One

A Second-Class Boat

Lydia stared at her humble trunk. Ma and Pa didn't make me do this, there's no reason I should be mad at them, she reminded herself. Exhausted, she pushed her tangled mess of hair behind her ear, not bothering to take it all down and put it all up again. It's not that she was lazy, just tired.

Only a few hours ago, Lydia had boarded the boat going from Africa and landing in America. Luckily, her father traded a lot with America and had taught her some of their language, but not so much that she could speak fluently. It was so hard learning a new language, especially one that is completely different from the one you were raised with! But Ma had reminded her that no changes are ever easy.

But one can learn a lot about a boat in a few hours. You can learn that waves are very choppy and bumpy and disagree with your stomach. You can learn that the portions are small and mostly inedible. You can also learn that blacks like her weren't allowed up on deck.

Lydia thought that was unfair. What kind of boat was this? Was it going to be like this in America too? If so, she didn't want to go. Would they even seperate what kids you could play with, or how differently you were treated? Lydia was suddenly scared of this new world. She was a stranger here. A strong gust blew through the windows that didn't close and were always open. Tired and wanting to just fall asleep, Lydia fell asleep, all wrapped up in her woolen blanket at the foot of the ladder leading up to the deck. She dreamed that she was dressed all fancy like the white passengers upstairs, and she was having a party. Little did she know that it would take a lot to get there were she was going. Little did she know that all her worst fears were about to come true.

The man in the black coat walked down the street.  The brim of his hat cast a shadow across his face so no one knew who he was.  He turned a corner, and turned into a small building.  Inside was a room, with a huge crowd surrounding a dead body, all their mouths wide open. Murmurs were going through the crowd as they stared. The man was confused. Was this the murdered man that had been killed three weeks ago? The man spoke:

"What is going on here?" he asked. He only knew a few people from previous experiences at work. But half of the people examining the dead body the man could not name.

"Oh, Detective Black! We're so glad you've come! We need you to find out who murdered this man!" said a woman with a pointed hat like a witch's.

The case had been covered weeks ago by a journalist that worked for the local paper, the Motown Chronicle. Not even the police had found out yet who had committed the crime and why. Strange things seemed to be happening. Detective Black remembered random murders like these back in the days of before he had destroyed his evil nemisis in a sinking ship. All of a sudden, a man dressed in a purple robe in front of a very old mantle, said to be as old as time itself, sighed impatiently as if waiting in a long line for something very important he needed to get to now. "Black Panther, come with me," he said, making motions with his gloved hands. Detective Black was startled by being unusually adressed by his secret agent name, the Black Panther. He followed the man in purple robes to a secret trapdoor right in front of the mantle. Everyone watched as Detective Black crossed the room, but when the man in purple opened up the trapdoor everyone's attention was drawn to the dead body on the floor. Reluctantly, Detective Black climbed into the trapdoor, not sure if the man in purple was a friend or a foe.

Black Panther (or Black for short) followed the man down a steep ladder that almost felt as if he were climbing on the bottom of the monkey bars it was so slanted. Sweating, Black landed on the hard dirt ground of the tunnel. He coughed as dust arose and caught in his chest.

The man in the purple robes fell gracefully to the ground almost without any noise. Dust swirled around him too, but he did not cough. Black tried to see his face, but it was covered by a purple mask. Of course, thought Black. Perfect. Now I don't even know who he is!

"You may be wondering who I am," said the man in purple with a deep, low voice that was somehow recognizable, but Black couldn't put his finger on it.

"Of course," said Black. "Anyone would be." He tried to sound calm, but really he was very frightened.

"I already know your name. My name is Maricous Brooks. I believe we've met before, when you tried to kill me not so long ago." The man smiled wickedly.

Black gasped. That's why the voice was familiar! It belonged to his evil nemisis, Maricous Brooks, on of the country's top ten most wanted criminals. Brooks cackled as staggering men with spears and ragged clothing came out from all around him, encircling Black. The detective pulled out his knife and slashed away, but magically the wounds seemed to heal without a single scar. He fought them off with his knife for what was like ten hours to him, but was really about five minutes. Exhausted, he stopped, breathing hard. Brooks laughed as his men bound his hands and feet with rope on a stick. As they carried him away, Black's head hit a rock. He blanked out for a long time, so long that Brooks even thought he was finally dead...

But was he?

The Summer Children

Part 2

The next day, Alexis was washing dishes with Mom after breakfast. She hadn't worked up the nerve to tell her about her little night walk outside last night, or the flash of light, or the sonic boom, or the aliens (or at least, what she thought were aliens). Finally, as Mom was wiping the fog off her glasses, Alexis blew it all out. "Aliens, Mom! Last night, outside, there were aliens!" Mom looked up from her glasses. "What?" she said, confused.

Once she was done explaining the whole thing, being outside, eating the ravioli, seeing the flash, hearing the boom, getting freaked out by the alien kids, Mom just stared at her, probably more confused than ever. Finally she decided. "A dream, honey--it was all just a dream. You probably ate that ravioli and went to bed, and you were so tired you didn't even realize it. That food before bed probably gave you a bad dream. Don't worry, sweetie, there's no such thing as aliens," Mom reassured her daughter. But Alexis wasn't so sure. The boom, the flash, the kids--it had all been as real as her toes. But she went along with it. "Oh, yeah, I was probably just dreaming," said Alexis.

"That's right, honey. Dry this one for me, will you?" Mom handed Alexis a plate. But that wasn't on Alexis's mind. All she was thinking about was that "dream" last night. She wasn't concentrating at all and dropped a plate. She grabbed for it as it fell, but she couldn't reach it. She anticipaited the crash. She waited.

But it didn't come.

Alexis opened her eyes. There, hovering a mere inch or two above the floor, was the plate she had dropped, perfectly intact, not a crack in sight. Alexis couldn't believe it, but Mom hadn't noticed, and her stack of dishes to dry was getting bigger. Alexis put the plate gingerly away in the cupboard, and then turned to the rest of her dishes. She dropped none of them, and none of them appeared to float or fly away. But Alexis was still creeped out beyond imagine. Once she was done with the dishes, she decided to go outside.

Thanks to past summers, Alexis was an avid explorer, and her night vision was great. But it wasn't great enough to lead her to entirely new places every day. The woods in her backyard were full of little crawl spaces and secret hideouts, made out of some fallen tree or a past avalanche, from the times when the slopes of her backyard was actually a mountain, back when the dinosaurs lived. Alexis could see everything in the light of day, explore ever tunnel, crawl under every fallen tree, shimmy through every hollowed out log, see every frog and bug out on the swamps and puddles. Alexis loved it.

But there was one tunnel. One tunnel just like all the others, a little bigger in size, but perfectly the same. It was covered by a rock formation that Alexis thought was hardly "natural", because it looked like the maker had selected very specific shapes of rock and limestone to make the cave. It was like the opening to a subway tunnel--like a piece of macaroni cut in half sticking out of the ground. The doorway looked like something out of Stonehenge. Alexis couldn't wait to explore it.

The Summer Children

Part One

Alexis wished it wasn’t summer.

               It was late July, and all the other people in her neighborhood were outside doing something. But if it weren’t for her mom, Alexis would be asleep right now. A few summers ago at school, she had decided that, to hide from the harshly hot weather, she would sleep during the day and go out during those cool summer nights she loved so much. She would feed herself then, too. Being thirteen, that wasn’t too hard.

               But this year Mom had told Alexis otherwise. She had enrolled her in a summer camp at school. For a whole month! It wasn’t an overnight camp, but it still wasn’t fun—or cool. None of her friends were doing anything that summer. Sure, they weren’t sleeping, but they were hanging out at the pool, shopping going to the beach, no doubt meeting cute guys and making new friends, like what normal teenagers do over the summer. But no, Mom had to torture her by making her be the oldest person at the camp. All Alexis did all day was do lame and boring crafts and projects. Alexis was a fairly well behaved child, but she did have her own opinion on things. She wished she wasn’t spending a whole chunk of her summer sitting on a park bench making door hangers with kindergarteners. SO not fun.

               And as if that weren’t enough, Mom’s camp had thrown her sleeping pattern way out of whack. Six days of the week she had to go to bed at night and then wake up at nine for the camp. Summer, and you had to wake up at nine. Jeez! Harsh! So even if she had had at least one day of sleeping until ten pm, she wouldn’t have been able to do it because she was so used to doing it so she could go to camp. But her lame (but usually effective) excuse—I’m tired!—hadn’t worked on her mom this time. Alexis let out a puffy sigh and lay back on her bed, bummed she was too awake to fall asleep.

               That night, when the stars were shining and the moon was glowing like a huge lightbulb, Alexis crept outside slowly and silently. It was a cool night for such a hot day—highs in the 90’s. It was Saturday night, so she had just spent the day staring out the window. Even on a “nice” day like this, kids weren’t out and about. Huh, she had thought, I wonder why.

               She twirled on her tippy toes. She sashayed across the lawn and leaped across the dewy fields. Her toes were wet and she probably stepped in dog poop on her way out. Still, she was as happy as can be.

               She jumped so high she thought she would touch the moon, the stars, the sky. She got acrobatic, cartwheeling and tumbling across the spacious lawn. She stared up at they sky and made a wish. Then she remembered how nine-year-old that was of her and reminded herself that it would’ve been okay four years ago, but not now. What was she doing, anyway? Alexis scolded herself and went inside. Out of habit, though, from the previous summers, she dumped a can of ravioli into a dish and stuck it in the microwave. She sat down at the table and thought. She deserved some time outside. After her ravioli, she would go outside and spend just two more minutes…

               A half hour later, Alexis was shivering in her bed even though it was something like ninety degrees in the house.

               Oh, my god, she thought. Oh, my god. What just happened? Is the planet being abducted by aliens? Are Martians trying to take over the planet? Oh, my god, I’m going to die. No, I’m going to be experimented on, then tortured, and then I’m going to die. Yeah, that seems about right. Okay…the only problem being I don’t want do die!

               Alexis shivered again. She thought about what had just happened. Minding her own business. Then a blinding flash of light, and a noise like a sonic boom. Silhouettes of kids walking towards her. Then total blackness.

               How she had gotten back in the house was a miracle. But one thing was for sure: she was never going out there at night. Never. Ever.

               Not for a million dollars. Well, maybe.