LITMIR.BIZ

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though she was about a little over a year young than the other three, they always included her in their activities. The reason they liked having her around Willow once told her, was because she was funny, thoughtful, precocious, fearless and probably wiser than the lot of them.

      Pru liked Willow and thought she was sweet, very pretty but kind of girly unlike herself who she deemed to be more like one of the boys. Except for the ribbons she always wore in her hair.

      She took the burled wood and brass spyglass from her pocket, a gift she received for her eleventh birthday. Although the gift was from Winston and Willow, Pru preferred to think it was Winston’s idea to give her what she considered to be such a unique and spectacular gift. As far back as she could remember, Winston has always been her favorite of all of Godfrey’s friends, but since her party Winston was looking a little different to her. Butterflies seemed to flutter in her stomach. She could not quite grasp the cause. But it usually happened when Winston was around and her heart sometimes began beating a little faster.

      Pru always had a great sense of humor and was never at a loss to quickly think of something funny to say. Nowadays her brain seemed to go numb when he was around. She liked being considered one of the boys. Competing with them to see who could climb higher or run faster. Though lately something else definitely seemed to be going on inside of her. “Maybe it was the new responsibilities she was given not long ago,” she reasoned. “It couldn’t be Winston. No! He’s just my buddy,” she groaned to herself feeling slightly befuddled over the possibilities. “Who would have the answer?” she wondered. “I couldn’t ask Mama. No, absolutely not, she would tease me and want to know, ‘When is my little rough and tumbler going to become a young lady?’ Willow’s the young lady, not me,” she thought.

      Gweneen, her adoptive mother, taught ancient history at the university and took pleasure in the rugged lifestyle digging in the dirt and camping out at remote archeological sites with her husband, Jonathan, an archeology professor. Occasionally they would bring Godfrey and Pru with them to the sites. She enjoyed seeing and sharing with her children what she referred to as ancient history coming alive at these digs. While her mother was an attractive, petite woman with beautiful long red wavy hair, she was most comfortable in jeans and a t-shirt. Pru did not consider her mother as particularly lady like. She saw her as a grown-up type of rough and tumbler and could not understand why her mother seemed to want her to become a young lady?

      She wondered if her teacher, Staishya, a Butterflian Shapeshifter, would have the answer. “Yeah, she might know about butterflies fluttering around in my stomach, after all she’s a butterfly who changes into a woman.” These thoughts quickly left her mind as she spotted two tiny specks in the distance flying towards them. “I think I can see them,” she said to Godfrey handing him the spyglass and pointing to the sky.

      They watched, as the specks grew larger until they were able to make out the shapes of the two malgrids. As they landed, Pru, feeling a little awkward about her recent thoughts, ran directly to Willow, trying to pay as much attention to her as possible while attempting not to focus on Winston.

      “What’s the adventure going to be today?” Winston asked polling the group for suggestions.

      “What about being archeologists looking for a new civilization?” Willow replied as the four friends headed down the long winding path leading to an extensive series of caves and tunnels which ran beneath Godfrey and Pru’s house and the nearby university.

      Jonathan would often remind his son, daughter and their friends that some of the tunnels in these caves have been deemed safe for them to play in, but others are considered dangerous. He told them, “Rock slides have been reported in some of the deeper recesses of the caves. One tunnel was found to have a foul smelling, toxic bubbling substance erupting from some cracks on the floor.” Knowing that both children and adults would explore the tunnels, the university sent in a crew of geologists to clearly mark the areas safe and unsafe for entering. As an extra precaution, Jonathan, periodically would walk the youngsters through the tunnels making sure they all understood which areas were safe and which areas they were forbidden to enter. Everyone has to adhere to the rules. Especially Pru, who he always describes as his little fearless rough and tumbler, mixed with a bit of a daredevil because she was constantly looking for something to climb up, to jump off of or run to.

      Jonathan took great pleasure in stimulating young minds. Godfrey and Pru were never aware that while they were at school their father, would occasionally go down into the caves where they played. He would salt parts of the tunnels with lots of brightly colored stones, beads, fake gold coins and replica of various artifacts he either found or purchased, for them to find. His children and their friends knew their finds had no real value but were always delighted with their endless discoveries.

      “What about pirates? We could be pirates and hunt for treasure.” Pru chimed in. “What do you think, Winston?” she asked. She looked at Winston waiting for a response to her suggestion about a pirate game. “He’s cute,” she thought, “Ick! What am I thinking?”

      Knowing pirates was Godfrey’s favorite Winston smiled and asked Pru, “What kind of bribe did Godfrey give you to suggest pirates?”

      “Can’t tell you, it’s a secret,” she teased.

      “We just did pirates just last week, what about going to the mystical land of…hmm…of Trope,” Winston suggested as his imagination thrust into full gear creating fictitious names, places and a scenario for their make believe adventure, “to retrieve the sword of Har and save the world from the Accus. We’d have to cross the land of the boiling mud and go through the caves of the Invisibles. I heard there are some nasty creatures living in that mud. It’s gonna be a dangerous mission, are we up for it?” he laughed.

      “Sounds like a good one,” Godfrey said punching Winston lightly on his upper arm and nodding to the rest of the group. “We’ve got a sword to find, let’s get moving,” he shouted as they all moved faster down the path towards the caves.

      Later that afternoon after saving the world the four friends lazily sat on the grass at back of the house drinking lemonade while waiting for the malgrids return.

      “They’re here,” Pru, pointed to the sky as they all got up and walked towards the side lawn to await the landing of two aeropaths.

      CHAPTER FOUR

      It had been a long day and Winston was tired. He opened the window in his bedroom; the cool night air helped him to sleep. The rays of the full moon flooded his room. As he crept into bed pulling the covers up over him, all he could think about as he drifted off was having a good night’s sleep so he would be energized for practice tomorrow.

      At three a.m. the hall clock began to chime, bong, bong and stopped. The shadows of the swaying tree branches outside Winston’s bedroom window were suddenly still. Tiny dust partials, which had swirled in the moonlight now hung motionless in midair. Nothing moved in Winston’s room, in his house; nothing moved on all of Luminatia. Crickets chirping a second ago were silent as was the owl hooting in the distance. All the sounds of the night had stopped. Time had stopped.

      As the young boy lay still in his bed, tiny twinkling lights began to whirl about in the now stationary sky. It appeared at first as if the stars were moving in slow circles, but they were not stars. The stars above had materialized as frozen dots of stagnant light in the darkness. More and more of the twinkling lights filled the vast night sky and covered all of Luminatia. A myriad of twinkling lights entered through Winston’s bedroom window and floated to his bed. Gently lifting him up out of the bed, the lights whisked Winston, still sleeping, off to a mountaintop where the boy was carefully set down upon a large rock.

      “Winston, wake up, it’s Father,” Simon said in a very soothing voice as he tapped his son’s arm.

      “Huh! What?” the boy said startled as he opened his eyes and saw his father sitting next to him. “Father it’s you, you’re really here,” he exclaimed as he touched Simon’s shoulder, “this isn’t a dream visit is it? Where are we and, and how did I get here? Father, what’s happening and what’s this all about?” feeling apprehensive and confused, he rattled off his questions.

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