Monachi: Masters of Water and Fire (7 page)

We ran straight into a net.
One part of the net went up as we began to
be lifted off the ground. I looked up, though I
really didn’t need to, figuring we were strapped
to a helicopter.
Tess started scratching at the sides of the
net. She tried to set her hands on fire, but there
was no spark. “It must be magic proof.” I said.
Tess sat still, an impossible thing to do. She
looked as if all the emotion had been drained out
of her system. “Are you ok?” I asked her.
She looked at me and said, “This whole
week hasn’t been ok - so far” She was right. This
has been one messed up week.
Tess looked up and smiled, and suddenly
her emotion returned, saying “But look on the
bright side; we have butt-kicking powers!”
I smiled back. Even if I thought that my
powers were not as butt-kicking as hers, they
were awesome nonetheless.
Tess looked down, which was a scary thing
to do. “This is so cool. We are on a helicopter, but
not in it. It’s like going on a rollercoaster without
any seat belts.” It was a good metaphor.
It may be scary, but it is really fun. Tess
stood up, but fell back down. “Ok, so we might
not be able to stand, but you have to admit, its
way better than being in the back of a van,” I told
her.
She nodded. “This is
so
much better, and
faster than the van too.”
We were both tired. It may sound weird (or
reasonable) but we were dead tired. We were
tired from walking and fighting. Surprisingly, we
fell asleep in this awkward circumstance.
I woke up on my bed, sweating. It had all
been
a
dream.
Suddenly,
the
room
started
spinning, and I floated up. Tess was there, in the
air
floating around. The room kept spinning
faster and faster…
I woke up in the net. It was a dream, but I
wish it had been real, except for the spinning
part. Tess was still fast asleep. I looked at her, still
so calm. She was crazy, but hey, what’s wrong
with that?
I looked down; we were somewhere in the
mountains. I needed a plan; some way to get out
of this net. Even if we fall out of the net, we’d be
free and we might live by some rare chance.
I developed a plan. When Tess wakes up,
she could slip her hand through the ropes and set
the net on fire. But that might not work; I don’t
know what this net is capable of.
I looked down at the mountains; they were
dark blue with green splotches,with some lakes
here and there.
Tess woke up screaming. “Tess, what’s
wrong?” I asked.
“I had a dream. The worst dream ever,” she
said.
“What was it about? Tell me the whole
dream!”
She sighed. “We were back at the jail. It
wasn’t really a dream. It was a flash back. I heard
Penny screaming, and saw Briana get hit by a car.
I thought; why couldn’t I have done something
earlier to save them?”
I
was
concerned about Tess. She didn’t
seem like she was doing too well.
“A little bit of a weird dream, don’t you
think?” she said, chuckling. Even though she was
laughing, she couldn’t hold back the tears.
Even though I was afraid to get the answer,
I asked, “How are you?”
Usually she would say ‘Fine.’ She said, “I
would say I’m fine, but what’s the point of lying?
I feel broken, confused, ready to give up, pathetic,
bitter, crushed and most of all, I feel like I’m just
going to fall apart at any moment.”
I looked at her. “You aren’t broken. I’m
confused too; anyone would be in this situation.
Don’t give up on me, we can get through this.
You aren’t pathetic, you’re amazing! You are not
bitter, not now, not ever. If you fall apart I’ll be
right at your side
ready to put you back
together.”
Tess
hugged me and wiped her
tears.
“Thanks for that, I know we can get through
this.”
Tess smiled. “Wanna hear a story? May not
be the happiest story, but it’s something.”
I nodded. “Sure why not?”
Tess cleared her throat.

“One night, a girl and a boy were sitting in
a car; there was a long silence as both of them
stayed quiet for a long time. Then the girl gave
him a note of paper. Before the boy read it, he
said in an embarrassing tone that he wanted to
dump her. Suddenly, a speeding car hit their car.
The girl died, but the boy survived. When he read
the piece of paper that she gave him, he started
crying because she wrote ‘If you leave me, I’ll
die.’”

I stared down. It was a sad story. I shook it
out of my head.
“Where do you think we’re going?” Tess
asked with a yawn.
It was late, the moon was out and the stars
were twinkling above.
Tess looked up at the night sky. She loved
astronomy. We had an astronomy dome in our
class a week ago. Sadly, I was sick the day we did
it and I
missed out. Tess
pointed out
two
constellations in the sky that appeared to be the
most noticeable.
“You know there’s a story to go with those
constellations. Wanna hear it? I promise it’s not
that
sad,” she said, key word being
that
.
It meant it was kind of sad, but I nodded
yes anyway.

“A long time ago, Zeus, the Greek god of
the sky and ruler of Olympian gods, came to
Earth and fell
in love with a mortal
woman
named Callisto
and together
they had a son
named Arcas. Zeus’ Goddess wife Hera got upset
and demanded punishment. So
he
turned
the
mortal woman into a bear. Her child grew up,
and one day went into the woods to hunt. He saw
a bear and, not knowing it was his mother, aimed
to kill it. Zeus, seeing this grabbed both the bear
and the young man and threw them up into the
starry night. Zeus wanted to honor them so he
put them in the sky as the constellations Ursa
Major and Ursa Minor, or most commonly known
as the Big Dipper and Little Dipper.

I smiled. It was a good story. I looked up
and saw that Tess had fallen asleep. I thought,
‘
How quick was that?’

I woke up in the morning to find Tess
already awake.
That
shocked
me. Tess
was
looking at the sky even though the stars were no
longer visible. “Do you ever feel like you can’t get
anything right?” she asked me, not even checking
to see if I was awake.

“Yes, all the time. But I eventually feel
better as soon as I get something right.”
Tess looked at me. “Thanks, again.”
We looked down. We were getting closer to
the ground; landing. Tess
and I hugged each
other. We had no idea what was going to happen
next. All we knew is that we were in for some
deep trouble.
Once we landed, it seemed like a ton of
random people came to
check
out
what was
going on. I didn’t blame them, we were a freak
show. Two twelve-year-olds in a net, tied to a
helicopter; the same two girls described on the
radio. Who wouldn’t want to see that?
The
police
flashed
their
badges,
and
everyone left. Tess looked at one of the officer’s
dead in the eye, like they were having a staring
contest or something. “Boo!” she said and they
backed away. It was awesome.
Tess was taken out first, straight into a box
where they yelled “Get in the uniform, and don’t
even try anything funny, its magic-proof.” 15
minutes later Tess came out of the box with the
uniform on. It looked odd on her.
I was next to go into the changing box.
They pushed me in and yelled the same thing
they did to Tess.
I looked on the hook where the uniform
was. It looked like it was going to be difficult to
get on.
When I finally did get it on after 15 minutes
I came out of the box.
Luckily for
them, these uniforms were
magic-proof or Tess would’ve set them on fire by
now.
They grabbed us by our arms and lifted us
up onto a moving platform, and off we went.
Where were we going now?
When we finally reached our destination, it
looked scary; like the
ultimate prison.
It was
made of pure stone on the outside. When we got
to the
entrance
it
took ten
minutes to
get in
because there were so many locks.
It was pretty clean and white on the inside.
I wanted to take some red paint and splash it all
over. When we got to the front desk the lady
didn’t even look up, but we were clearly visible.
We were wearing pitch black in an all-white
facility.
She said, “Their room is ready, the one at
the end of the hall.” The officers nodded. They
dragged us; I’m not kidding they literally had to
drag Tess across the floor, to our room.
When we got to the room, they threw us in.
“Have fun! This is your room while we rebuild
the burned lab,” they said; glaring at Tess. They
slammed the door shut.
I looked around. It was like a cheap motel
room. It had a bunk bed on one side of the room.
It was made of wood, and had red pillows and
blankets, which stood out from all the white.
I looked into the bathroom. In a way, it was
nice. It had a toilet, toilet paper and a shower, and
that’s it. No towels, or soap or shampoo.
Tess looked at me and asked, “So who gets
the top bunk?”
I raised my hand. “Me, I want the top!” I
climbed the ladder and laid down on the bed.
Tess sat on the bottom bed. “We were so
close, and we lost it. Lost it all,” she sighed.
I climbed down from the top and sat next
to her. I put my arm around her. “We still have
each other right?”
“Yeah, we do.”
“Then what else matters? We’re both still
alive, and we’re still together.”
Tess smiled, and laughed.
“What’s so funny all of a sudden?” I asked.
“I’m just happy we don’t have to do the
living museum research.”
I laughed, “Me too.”
When I climbed back onto the top bunk, we
both stared up at the celling. “What do you think
was going through everyone’s mind when my
hair started on fire?” Tess asked me.
“Probably; ‘OH MY GOSH WHAT THE
HECK IS HAPPENING TO TESS’S HAIR? IS IT
SUPPOSED TO DO THAT?’ Or something weird
like that,” I replied.
Tess laughed “Yeah, probably,” and then
quickly sat up.
“What’s up?” I asked.
Tess pulled on my foot. “Get down here. I
want you to try something!”
I jumped down.
She took me by the arm and dragged me to
the bathroom. I was so confused on what she was
doing. She took us over to the sink, covered up
the drain and filled the sink up with water. Then
she looked at me and said, “Do something.”
Puzzled, I asked, “What do you mean?”
Tess let out a big sigh and said, Remember
when you made that water levitate in the van,
when Carson brought us drinks? Do that now!”
“Tess, you brilliant idiot, these suits are
magic proof.”
“Yeah, but you levitated water using your
mind, not your hands or your body.”
I
shrugged, thinking that it wasn’t the
brightest idea, but it was an idea nonetheless.
I looked at the sink and concentrated.
Come on water, lift!
COME ON WATER, LIFT!
Then
all
of a sudden
the
water
started
shaking, and then splashing, and then it started
twirling up from the sink. I was so surprised and
excited that I lost focus and the water went back
into the sink.
Tess went up and hugged me. “Maddy,
you are awesome!” she cried.
“Yep, I am!” I said, agreeing with her.
Tess wasn’t finished.
“You see, I knew you could do it! You
didn’t think you could, but I proved you wrong!
Ha!”
All
of a sudden, Tess
caught sight of
something that stopped her celebration.

She pointed towards the corner
of the
ceiling opposite of the shower
where there
appeared to be a security camera pointing right as
us, moving back and forth. How did we miss that
before now? Especially the blinking red light!

Not only did we just figure out that they
must have seen me use a power, but now we
know to get dressed and undressed in the shower
and away from the security camera’s view;
because that’s a just little creepy.

I mean, who puts a security camera in a
bathroom unless you’re a pervert?
We went into the bedroom and checked it
out for
more cameras.
None. That’s a good
strategy: put a camera in the bathroom where
nothing really exciting happens,
unless you’re a
pervert
, and not put one in a place where you can
make plans and practice your powers.
We bolted out of the bathroom. “Who puts
a camera in a bathroom? How does that make
any sense?” Tess
asked. It
was
a rhetorical
question.
“I don’t know!” I replied.
I sat down on Tess’s bed. This sucked, a
lot. I mean, no one deserves treatment like this,
especially people who are innocent.
I heard Tess’s stomach roar.
I forgot that we hadn’t eaten since Jason fed
us. He was a nice guy. He would bail us out, if he
was here. But he was in Idaho.
I got up off the bed and tried something
very childish and yet wishful. I tapped my shoes
together once, and said;