A SOMEWHAT TRUE ADVENTURE OF

SARA ROBERTS

RAMON BALLARD

Chapter One

 

Instant Message from a Toad

Goose pimples danced on her skin, and she shivered while smelling damp earth and rotten eggs. If evil had a smell, this was it.

The ropes binding her hands and feet were digging into her skin, and she groaned when she tried to move. Tiny pricks and throbbing sensations radiated from the side of her neck as if something had stung her.

She was having another dream- a nightmare.

Opening her eyes, she adjusting them to the low light. Surrounded by a large, dingy tent, beams of light filtering through small holes in the fabric but no other light penetrated the thick walls of the tent.

 “Bring me the prisoner.” boomed a voice from outside the tent.

Sara listened as the sound of heavy footsteps approached the tent. She closed her eyes again and lay still, hoping the creature would not realize she was awake. This was no dream.

She heard the tent flap open, and the sound of footsteps grew louder until they stopped next to her. Warm, foul-smelling breath assaulted her nose. She trembled. A slimy hand tapped her on the shoulder. She forced herself to breathe evenly, not a squirm, not shake, and not scream. The footsteps retreated. She ventured to open her eyes a sliver, just in time to see a giant toad exiting the tent.

“She’s still unconscious, Sir.”

“I’ll be in my tent. Contact me the moment she awakes.” Sara could barely see the commanding toad as he croaked this order, but he was familiar. She had first met him several days earlier. Her stomach churned as she watched his eyes and his neck bulge and throb. She gagged when his tongue burst out of his mouth and snatched a defenseless dragonfly as it buzzed by him.

She wondered, “How did I get myself into this predicament?” Her memories flooded back as the poison wore off.

It was that instant message. It all started with a simple instant message only five days ago.

 Sara threw open the unlocked door. “Mom, I’m home, no homework, when’s dinner, gonna check my email,” she barked in rapid succession. With perfected precision, she dropped her backpack in the middle of the kitchen floor, scanned the area for snacks, plopped herself into the chair, and with one swift motion flipped on the computer and the internet.

Munching on a few Peanut M & M’s and guzzling a Mountain Dew which she had mysteriously seized on her way from the kitchen to the computer desk, she opened her email looking for a message from her father. He was away on business again, and he had promised this time to email every day, but she had received none. There were no emails and no friends online. Sara would have settled for some junk mail. However, it could never happen because her mother was the queen of home security. The door was seldom left unlocked. Computers and the internet were locked down so tight an ant couldn’t invade her mother’s protection.

She stared mindlessly at her monitor.

Ping. An instant message appeared.

She smiled. She opened the message.

Are you there, Sara?  

She frowned at the unrecognized screen name. The impossible had happened. Someone had broken through her mother’s impenetrable security and the intruder knew her name. She closed the message and reminded herself to let her mom know about this breach of security. Reviewing the list of boring E games her mother allowed her to have, she scowled, opening one. Her friends played T and M games, but not Sara. It had taken a multitude of well-placed tears to get any games at all. No amount of pleading could convince her mother to block access to the educational websites.

Ping.

She stopped her game, expecting a conversation with one of her online friends.

Are you there, Sara?

“Mom, come here. I got an instant message from a stranger. Did you change my security?” Her mom didn’t answer. Sara hadn’t heard from her mom all afternoon. She hadn’t yelled at her to pick up her backpack. She hadn’t asked for proof of no homework. No unusual smells were coming from the kitchen. Sara clicked “ignore” on the internet message, “Hey Dude. You try to come back after that. You are history.” She stood up and looked around the gloomy room.

“I’m thirteen years old now. I can handle this.” She was on the verge of panic. “Mom must be here somewhere. She would never, ever leave me alone.” Peeking in the kitchen to see if her mom was making one of her experimental surprise dinners, her stomach rumbled telling her some chicken gizzards a la mode would be perfect right now. Only her unattended backpack sat in the middle of the floor. She stepped down the hall and looked in all the rooms. Finally, she stood in front of her mother’s closed door.

Her mom often suffered from migraine headaches and would shut herself in her room for hours with the door closed. Sara could not disturb her mother when the door was closed.

“Mom must have fallen asleep from one of her migraines and cannot wake up to make dinner or hug me. I’m sure it would be okay to disturb her this one time. The rule doesn’t apply if you are starving. Then again, Mom still treats me like a baby. I need to show her I’m all grown up, grown-up enough for T rated games.” She walked away from the door, her stomach growling. “I must make dinner myself. It can’t be that hard.” She walked into the dark kitchen. She grabbed another can of Mountain Dew from the refrigerator, arranged by types of food, from shortest to tallest. From the pantry, she grabbed a bag of Doritos conveniently placed next to the donuts. Then she snatched the bag of Oreos located right next to the oregano in her mother’s alphabetically organized kitchen. As she assured herself of the nutritional merits of this three-course dinner, she noticed just how dark it was getting and sped out of the kitchen.

Ping. She stopped.

Sara stared at the computer screen. There was the instant message again.

Are you there Sara?

The message had come back even after she had clicked “ignore.” Sara flipped off the computer, the internet, and the monitor and ran into her room, slamming the door behind her and turning on her light. She leaned her back against the door, breathing heavily and crushing the bag of Doritos against her chest. “Mom’s gonna get me now, I’m in big trouble. I forgot to turn off the internet, and now all sorts of calamities will happen.”

Hadn’t her mother warned her repeatedly, “Leaving the internet running leaves us susceptible to many viruses and unknown calamities?” 

Far away in the White Star Manor, two family friends are discussing the latest phone call from Elizabeth, Sara’s mother.

“Bradford, Elizabeth has told me Sara does have a star on her hand. I believe it is time. Elizabeth has promised to tell her tonight. Then I can meet with the child.”

“Sir, she’s still so young, and if I might say so, a bit spoiled.”

“I know, but it is better done sooner than later. I believe Sara will need to grow up very quickly. If the sisters get Sara and her mother, then we have lost all hope, and they are getting closer every day.”

“Elizabeth has not had another migraine, has she?”

“No, she hasn’t, but I just have a gut feeling that they are close. Perhaps they have discovered a way to shield their magic, so she doesn’t feel their presence.”

“I’ll prepare some rooms for them both.”

“Excellent, and make an invitation for the child for tomorrow evening, something light, we wouldn’t want to frighten her.”

“Certainly, Sir. Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“No, that will be it, thank you, Bradford. I don’t know what I would do without you.”

“You would get along as you did the one hundred fifty years before I joined the Defenders, Sir—just fine.”