“Kate!” Anne sang. “Kate, are you ready to go? You’ve already spent half the day with your mom! No offense, Mrs. Crimson.”
My mom squeezed my shoulder and smiled. “None taken, Anne. You girls can go out now.” I smiled too. I had spent the morning with my mom. We went out on a nice picnic, my dad and Peony too. We had lots of fun, talking, eating, seeing what foods Peony could catch when we threw it. My mom said I could play today after the picnic.
“All right, I’m coming.” I laughed. “Bye, Mom. Love you!” I hugged my mom. She hugged me back. At this moment, I felt so close to her. Literally and figuratively.
“Have fun!” She called. My mom was less overprotective now. Anne and I chased each other to the treehouse. Anne had decided to call it “V2”, which stands for Vault #2. I laughed at that.
“Ready for the orange stone?” Anne asked.
“So ready.” I smiled. We floated up to the treehouse and landed on the carpet, giggling.
“That never gets old.” Anne chuckled. I agreed. Anne waited while I pulled out the box with the stones. I pulled out the two orange rings and gave one to Anne.
“Ready? Put it on on three.” I said. “One, two, three!” We slipped the orange rings on our fingers. Orange sparkles flew from the stones.
“That’s new.” Anne noted.
“Maybe it’s fire!” I said excitedly, but nervously. The sparkles stopped.
“Is that it?” Anne asked. I waved the ring around. I tapped the stone with my other finger three times. A sharp pain shot through my head.
“Ouch!” I yelled. I fell to the ground, clutching my head. There was something weird about this. I felt like there was a bubble in my head. I could feel it was there, but I couldn’t quite pop it.
“Ow!” I shouted. “Ow! Ow...wait.” I got up. My head still slightly hurt but I noticed something.
“I think...I think the stone put something in my head.” I said. I didn’t know how I knew this, but I did.
“What is it? A memory? A picture? A thought? Evil? Tell me!” Anne urged.
“No, it’s...it’s...it’s hard to explain.” I finally said. “It’s like...just information. But not a memory or a picture. Like it’s always been there. Like breathing. I’ve always done it, and I notice it, but I don’t specifically remember learning how.” Anne’s eyebrows knit together.
“Hey, if it’s in your head…” Anne started.
“It’s in the Red Room!” I finished. We fished the red rings out of the box and travelled to the Red Room. We appeared in the Red Room, still red and looking grainy. Anne shouted my name. My head felt automatically better as soon as we got in there.
“Anne, do you see it?” I asked.
“How am I supposed to know what it looks like?” Anne said. “I guess it’ll be in your recent memories. What did you say it felt like? A-”
“Bubble.” I answered, pointing to a floating bubble.
“Okay, I’m assuming that’s it.” Anne walked over to it. “Kate, you’ve GOT to see this!” I ran over. In the bubble were the six stones, each color had a few words under them.
“I can’t read those words.” I squinted at the words. “They’re too small.” I tapped the picture of the red stone in the bubble. Suddenly, it zoomed into the red stone. I could read the words now, and more popped up. I read the words aloud.
“Red stone, put on finger. Opens Red Room. (Mind, thoughts, memories, ideas, dreams).”
“Oh, I get it!” Anne exclaimed. “It tells you how to use it and what it does! Do the orange one!” The bubble said loudly, ‘Orange’. It switched to the orange stone. I read the next part out loud, “Orange stone, put on finger and reach towards object and close hand and pull hand back, pulls object toward you.”
“Coooool!” Anne exclaimed. “I guess when you tapped the stone it put this stuff in your head! Do the rest!” We did, and I read the ones we haven’t used yet out loud. By the end, we found out that the yellow stone can control someones’ thoughts, and the green one allows you to create an illusion. We exited the Red Room.
“Woo-ho-ho!” Anne cheered. “That is sooo cool!” We decided to try the orange today, then the yellow, and then the green if we have time.
“Okay, put them on.” We put the rings on. “Then we reach toward something and close our hand and pull it towards us, I guess.” I said. “You go first.” Anne reached towards a pillow, closed her hand, and pulled her hand in. The pillow shot towards her and knocked her over. “OOF!”
“Oh, wow! Anne, are you okay?” I reached down to help her. I thought she was crying, but she was laughing.
“That. Was. AWESOME!” She giggled. I tried it too. I caught the pillow, but stumbled. I laughed too. We practiced for a while, and at one point, we even were using two rings at once. We floated while we pulled stuff towards ourselves. We tried three rings at once, but it didn’t work.“Ooh-hoo, that was fun!” Anne exclaimed as we walked home. I agreed. We didn’t have time to do the green one, or the yellow one.
“Tomorrow?” Anne asked.
“I’m going to Marcus’s.” I sighed. “I don’t really want to but he’s having another grand opening.”
“But he grand-opened like a week ago!”
“I know, he just wants even more customers. I don’t want to go, but I don’t want to disappoint my mom. See you the day after.”
“‘Kay.”