LITMIR.BIZ

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rigid and unyielding, like a piece of wood. At last, Mom opened her eyes and turned to Allie. For a few seconds her eyes were fixed at the girl with a frozen expression, then something moved in them, and a faint smile touched Mom’s lips. Another couple of seconds and she patted Allie on the cheek and walked towards the kitchen. All of Mom’s movements seemed uncertain, as if caught in slow motion.

      Allie felt a little better, but she realized that something was wrong with her parents. Maybe they had caught some unknown virus and she should call the doctor. But, however strange their behavior was, they did not look ill in the least and had even more color in their faces than usual. That is why Allie, trying to regain her composure, kept telling herself: “It’s nothing. It’ll go away soon. They’ll come out of it. I’ll just go play in my room for an hour, and then they’ll be fine.”

      But an hour passed, and nothing changed – neither for the better, nor for the worse. The only thing was, Mom and Dad’s movements seemed to be slowing down even more. To get away from this depressing sight, Allie was mostly staying in her room. Lemonade, who apparently had realized something was wrong, was there too. Unlike himself, he was timidly clinging close to Allie. She could not make head or tail of such behavior but was somewhat comforted by the cat’s presence.

      Evening came. Any hope for Mom and Dad’s speedy recovery was gone. For the past three hours, Allie hadn’t left her room at all. The last time she did was because of hunger. She went to the kitchen and checked out the pots and pans for dinner, but there was none – no one had cooked it. There were only three pieces of fried fish left in the skillet. Allie put the pieces on a plate and was just getting some bread, when she saw a fluffy striped lightning flash by and heard the crash of dishes. Her dinner was on the floor, covered in shattered plate shards.

      “Nasty Lemon!” Allie exclaimed with tears in her eyes and raised the loaf of bread as if to throw it at the cat. Lemonade darted toward the door, trampling on the fish and ruining it altogether.

      Allie had to content herself with a piece of bread with apricot jam and a glass of milk. When the hunger pangs were gone, she felt a new wave of anxiety. She was sorry for Mom, Dad and herself. Allie felt a bitter lump in her throat and, unable to control herself any longer, cried inconsolably.

      Meanwhile, it was already time to go to bed. Allie was still sobbing quietly, but, judging wisely to see what morning time would bring, began to get ready for bed. When she got under the covers, Lemonade immediately found a spot for himself at her feet. The presence of this warm living creature was comforting to Allie. Her eyes were finally dry, only a few teardrops still hung on her eyelashes. The drops were catching and reflecting the blue light of the forgotten cylinder that was still burning like a candle on Allie’s toy shelf. Thousands of many-colored stars were twinkling and shimmering before her eyes. Some of them would begin to grow bigger and take up her whole range of vision, and then all of a sudden they would burst into myriads of sparkling droplets. Allie felt like there was no more room, no more apartment, nothing but the shimmering and glowing space and herself flying through it, bathing in its warm and lovely rays of color. She felt incredibly light and peaceful to the core of her being.

      She could not tell how long her wonderful flight lasted – it could have been one minute or several hours. And then something changed. There appeared a black dot ahead that began to grow steadily. The feeling of serene flying was replaced by the sensation of an inevitable fall. Allie had to catch her breath. The black dot ahead was rapidly growing larger and changing its shape. It reminded Allie of something familiar, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. Then, in one moment she saw it: with its fins ominously flared and its enormous fang-studded mouth gaping, the familiar fish was rapidly approaching Allie. Somewhere deep inside the thought lurked that it could not be – Mom had already cooked it! But all thoughts were immediately crowded out by the ice-cold terror. The fish kept growing in size with every second. Its unblinking eyes were glowing red and staring at the girl with a menacing, evil look. It made Allie’s heart shrink in fear. The fish’s mouth was stretching into a nasty grin, reminding the girl of someone. And then she realized who it was – Mean Jean! It was Mean Jean herself, wearing her familiar old vest and rain boots. With the fishy grin on her face, Mean Jean was stretching her arms with long gnarly fingers towards the girl. “Allie’s in trouble, deep, deep trouble”, it was either Mean Jean hissing, or the phrase was painfully reverberating in Allie’s brain.

      Then everything disappeared all of a sudden. Allie realized that she was in her bed, clutching her blanket tightly in her hands. Her heart was pounding like a hammer.

      “That was just a dream,” she thought, relieved. “That’s it, I just dreamed all of it, Mom and Dad being sick. It was just a bad dream.”

      “Allie’s in trouble,” she heard a voice somewhere nearby, somewhere at Allie’s feet. It made her freeze. The funny high-pitched voice sounded pitiful and had a queer wail to it. Allie had never heard it before, but she could swear that it sounded familiar.

      “Of course she is in trouble, unless we help her,” a different, girly-sounding voice answered.

      “But how? What can we do?” The first voice wailed again. “Especially you.”

      The voice was clearly mocking.

      “I don’t know yet. But you helped Allie once, you said it yourself. And now we have this.”

      The voices halted.

      “I wonder who they are and what they are talking about”, Allie thought, trying hard not to move. “Let them think that I’m asleep.”

      Amazingly, she didn’t feel any fear, just curiosity. Very slowly, she opened her eyes.

      ***

      It was late night, but she could clearly see everything in her room. The room was dimly lit; an unnaturally blue and magical light was pouring from the direction of the toy shelf. Allie immediately remembered the curious cylinder. Then, slowly, she moved her eyes toward the strange voices. There, at Allie’s feet, on top of the blanket, Lemonade was lounging, leaning his head on his paw and squinting at the little blue star with a pensive if not sad expression. The scene looked so comical that Allie couldn’t help but giggle. At the sound, the cat jumped three feet high in the air, flopped back down and pressed himself into the blanket.

      “Oh, Lemonade, you are such a coward! But, you might do well if you ever have to compete in high jumps.”

      It was the large stuffed monkey talking – Allie’s favorite toy. She’d had it for as long as she could remember and never went to bed without it. According to the family legend, the monkey was given to Allie on her first birthday. The monkey’s name was short and funny – Lu.

      Allie had no idea where the name had come from, and didn’t really care. She just knew that she liked it.

      And now the toy stuffed monkey was sitting on the edge of Allie’s bed and dangling its feet, as if it were the most natural thing for a stuffed monkey to do. At the same time, it was apparently enjoying looking around, glancing in turns at the cat and at the girl. Allie was staring at her toy with amazement. She was overwhelmed by a whole flood of emotions, but the most intense feeling was, probably, joy that was close to elation.

      “Wow!” that was all Allie could say, breathless, sitting up in her bed.

      “Oh, it’s nothing much, really,” the monkey made a gesture similar to an actor taking a bow to the delighted public.

      “Hey, why don’t you stop playing the sphinx,” she continued, addressing the cat who was still frozen pressed into the blanket, “and let’s try to explain everything to Allie. Everything we know, naturally. And you can listen and try not to be too overwhelmed.”

      With these words Lu squeezed Allie’s hand encouragingly with her own soft plush paw.

      The cat was still on his guard watching Allie. But, as soon as he saw that she was not laughing but regarding him in a serious and attentive manner, he cleared his throat and said

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