“It’s been a week, Kate!” Anne complained. “Let’s go!” I sighed. I had to explain every day for the past six days.
“Anne for the billionth time, if I go right as soon as she stops watching me, we’ll get caught! Tomorrow!”
“You said tomorrow yesterday!” Anne pointed out.
“Two days. Look, it’s been a week and she’s still watching!” We both turned to see my mom at the window.
“Two or maybe even three days. We have to play it cool.” I explained.
“But I want to test the theory!” Anne exclaimed. I told her again that we had to wait.
(Three Days Later)
“It. Has. Been. Three. Days!” Anne kept bothering me about this. I couldn’t keep putting this off. I was technically free from “Mom Watch”.
“Okay, Anne! But if I’m grounded, this time I’m not saying you weren’t in on it.” I muttered. Anne squealed.
“Okay! Deal!”
“Mom, me and Anne are gonna go check out Marksmurks’, well now Marcus’s! I hear there is already some jewelry on display!” I told my mom later that day.
“All right, but I’m cooking a special dinner for you father’s birthday. So try to be home before sunset. Okay, Kate?” My mom said as she prepared dinner.
“Yes! Thank you, Mom! See you soon!”
“Have fun! Don’t get into trouble! Be safe! Make sure-” She called.
“I know! Bye!” I yelled back. Me and Anne ran up the path to Marcus’s, just in case my mom was still watching. Which she probably was.
“This is going to be so cool!” Anne cheered.
“Yeah, if we don’t get caught!” I muttered. Anne told me to stop being so negative.
“Just remember, if I-”
“If your parents kill you, yes I will make sure they put yellow daffodils out at your funeral.” Anne finished. I laughed. We took a turn of the path into the forest.
“I haven’t entered the forest this way yet.” Anne fretted. “What if we get lost? And what if...what if we go so far into the forest, those...those….those things get us!” I reassured Anne we would find a way out. Besides, there is no way those things are still alive. Right?
“Oh thank god! There’s the beehive!” Anne almost shrunk a foot she sighed so long. “Whew!” We hopped over a log and found the boulder.
“So, I guess this is the vault.” I said. Anne squealed again.
“Ready?” I asked. Anne was bouncing on her feet so hard I thought they would break.
“Okay, ready!” Anne confirmed. We stepped towards the rock.
“Hold on, wait. Who’s gonna say ‘other-”
“Anne! Don’t say it yet!” I exclaimed. “You can say it. On three.”
“Sorry, sorry.” We went behind the ivy and leaned against the cool side of the rock.
“One, two, three.” I nodded.
“Other stones!” Anne shouted. Nothing happened. “Other stones!”
“Hmm, you’d think it would work more QUICKLYYYYYYYY!” Anne screamed as she fell in the rock. I got sucked in too. It still felt like molasses. I felt very heavy and slow all of the sudden. When the ride was over, the rock spit us out onto the ground of the cave.
“Ouch!” Anne cried. “I hope we get used to this, because I’m not comin’ back if it’s like this every time.” I rubbed my eyes and looked around the cave.
“Where are the stones?” I wondered. “Did we say something to activate that too?”
“I guess. What’d we say?” Anne responded, looking around the room.
“Um, I think it was the same.” I recalled. “Other stones!” The room/cave/thing started to shake. I wanted to keep my eyes open so I could see how the stones appeared, but this time I was pretty sure it was a cave in. I shut my eyes and crouched down. The shaking stopped after a few moments.
“Ka-ate!” Anne sang. “The stones, oh the stones are heeeere!” I looked up to see a thousand or more colorful stones and Anne dancing around the room.
“La la la dee da, stones!” She sang as she pranced around all of them. She stopped.
“Should I pick one up?”
“Yeah, if you want to be cursed.” I joked. “Remember, beautiful things are always dangerous.”
“No, it was pretty things are never safe.” Anne corrected. “I’m gonna pick an orange one up.” She reached down for an orange stone that was smooth and the size of a walnut.
“OOH!” She shrieked. “It’s cold! I just got tingles!” I smiled and looked around the room in wonder.
“It is really cool here.” I marveled. “If we ever need to hide out, we can just go in here. If those...things come back, we’ll just put everyone in here. The whole village will definitely fit, with lots of room to spare.” Anne looked up.
“Wait, would the portal stop working if one of those things picked up the boulder, and like threw it?” She asked.
“I dunno. Maybe it's magic will keep it in place, or maybe the portal works as long as the boulder is intact.” Anne thought about this, setting the orange stone down.
“Kate.” She hesitated. “You know how like just the metal ring part of a ring doesn’t cost that much?”
“Yeah. What are you thinking?”
“Well, the metal part isn’t the part of jewelry that costs a lot. It’s the stone. So if you already had the stone-”
“Then you could have it made into jewelry for not as much!” I finished excitedly. “Anne, you’re a genius!” We cheered. Then we picked out stones for our rings.
“I think I’m going to go for this small blue one.” I decided it wasn’t too big or noticeable, just a little round smooth stone the size of a fingernail.
“I think I’ll get blue too.” Anne said. “We can match! And we can make more rings, with other colors!” Our blue stones were about the same size.
“We should probably go.” I finally said. “Ready.” Anne nodded.
“Other stones!” All the stones disappeared, except the ones in our hands. I yelled ‘other stones’ again, and we were sucked back through the rock.