Meg
sat on her bed. It was late and she was trying to sleep after a very hard day
at school. She had been sent to the office 2 times already for not finishing
her work. As she tried to doze off, she heard a hurried knocking on the door.
Opening it, she saw Charles Wallace and Calvin O’Keeffe standing there.
“Hi!” said Charles, “How’s the night going?”
“I feel rotten.” said Meg weakly. “I got sent
to Mr. Jenkins’s twice and I can’t sleep even though it’s 10:30 now. I have a
feeling that tomorrow won’t be much better either.” she concluded. “Come on,
Meggie,” Calvin yipped. “We have another adventure to do!”
“Really?!” yelled Meg, so loud that her
glasses fell off onto her bed. She put them back on and said: “What is the
reason for this?”
“When we saved your Dad from Camazotz, he
left behind some golden coins for the research in Camazoz, which was then later
stolen by the extremely greedy emperor of the planet TXR-0112. They are hidden
in his palace. We need to uncover them and give them back to your Dad.” Calvin
explained.
“When?”
“Right now!”
“And fast!”
Three minutes later they were outside. “YOO-HOO!”
Charles called. Suddenly, like fog, Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who and Mrs. Which
materialized out of thin air. “Hi, again.” said Mrs. Whatsit, “I hope you guys
are ready. We will be off now.”
Before she could move a muscle or say
anything, Meg was whirled into the familiar nothingness of tessering. It was
very dark and she couldn’t see, hear, smell, touch or taste anything. If both (if
any) of the boys were holding her hands she could not feel it. If her own body
was still present, she couldn’t feel it either. When she felt the tingling
sensation again, she blinked and tried to see where they were.
“Meg?!” “Meg!”
“Charles Wallace!” Med heard Calvin screaming
at the top of his lungs.
Then there came the thrust through glass and
she could see clearly.
“Oh, there you are!” exclaimed Calvin delightedly.
“Wee aarre herre! Wellcome too TXR-0112,”
Mrs. Which said.
Meg opened her eyes and saw that they were on
a land of hills, plateaus, mountains and vast deserts. But the mountains were
all red. Shades and shades of red, from light pink to dark brick red and rust
brown. There were many big plains with
blue, purple and green grass. The deserts were golden, yellow, red and orange,
so were the plateaus. The hills were a dark, earthy purple and blue. There were
also many trees, but they were all brown, black and gray. Mauve rocks dotted
the hills. The sun was also gray, but its light was not very different from our
Earth’s sun.
When Meg calmed herself down from the
shocking view, she asked: “Ok, where are the coins?”
“Aat thhee empprrer’s ppalacee.” said Mrs.
Which.
“Where?” inquired Charles Wallace.
“Over there.” pointed Mrs. Whatsit.
The palace was very old, but it was still
massive. It rested on a huge brick red mountain and was made of stone, glass,
ivory, gold, silver, brick and metal and some other materials that are hard to
describe. They also saw marble, wood and copper making up the grand palace.
And, for some weird reason, frozen alien dribble made up the windowsills and
frames. The brick was white and the marble a bright magenta. Of course there
were guards. They were glow-in-the-dark from head to toe with pink and blue
jellyfish-like tentacles for arms and legs.
“Huh” said Mrs. Who for the first time. “I
wonder how we get in there. They have the best security system on TXR-0112.”
“They have highly-trained guards and video cameras of every room and vaults
that have 5-ton steel doors and a combination code for the vaults that only the
emperor and his wife know. They also have heat and motion sensors and
detectors.”
“I know everything about
this palace. I was once a good friend of the emperor. And I have a map.” Mrs.
Whatsit said with a smile, pulling out a large map of every room in the palace.
Mrs. Whatsit then added: “This is my plan. But, first, put these on. They will make you
invisible to the guards and the sensors and the detectors. Do make sure the
zipper is zipped up completely. Otherwise they will see you.” She passed to each of them a long and very
soft yet leathery coat.
“Oh, come on and let’s go!” cried Calvin
excitedly. So, they hurried inside. But unfortunately, Meg’s coat zipper was
not zipped up and the coat flew out behind her. One of the guards saw her and
said “Catch her, catch her! Hey, Oddblurby! Get a rake and shoo off this young
intruder!”
“Right away，Mr.
Slime!” answered Oddblurby. He came back
with a rake that blew out huge gusts of cold air. The two guards then chased
Meg out of the palace. She was very shocked and saddened. But she quickly
zipped her zipper up and ran back inside leaving the two jellyfish guards scratching
their pink heads.
She caught up with the others and said softly
“I was just spotted by 2 guards and they chased me out with a rake. Thank
goodness I’m unharmed, though.”
“That’s very good, Meg. Now we have to go to
vault EI-271. It’s where the treasure lies. The combination is 10, 200, 1,000.”
said Mrs. Who. “But,” she continued, “The door there is even heavier. All the
other doors are 5 tons. This one is 10 tons. Hopefully with all our strength we
should push it open.”
“With that being said, let’s go!”
Therefore they continued their journey. Mrs.
Whatsit held up the map and kept whispering directions to the others until they
reached vault EI-271. The door was square, but a very wonky one. Charles
Wallace turned the dial and spelled out the combination: 10, 200, 1,000. The
door unlocked but it did not swing open. Then Meg, Charles, Calvin and the
three Mrs.’s started shoving! They shoved and shoved until they were worn out.
But the vault door was so heavy, it had only creaked open half a foot wide.
“Uh-oh,” panted Calvin “What do we do now?”
“Here, I’ll fix it.” said Mrs. Whatsit. She
took out a medium sized bottle of some Mr. Boxer’s Extra Strong Fitness Water,
which is a potion water that can break open or push heavy objects with ease,
and a pipette from her jacket pocket. Then she sucked up the water until it was
full (3 mL) and then squired it at the vault door. The water shot toward the
door and it burst open. Meg was very surprised to see what was inside, but she
managed to stifle a scream.
There were tons and tons of bags containing
gold and silver coins, and gigantic treasure chests holding precious gems,
jewels and pearls. They searched all the gold coins until they found the right
bag, a leather one that had a picture of a liquid-filled flask stamped into its
front, the symbol of Mr. Murry’s lab.
They went back outside with the coin bag and
Mrs. Whatsit squired the door closed. But, trouble came when they got back to
the entrance hall. One of the guards
heard the coins jingling in their packs.
“Oh, no! Robbery again!” he yelled. Mr. Slime
then took out a UV light and shone it right at the six people.
“Destroy the intruders! Destroy the
intruders!” shouted Mr. Slime, “Quick, Dribbles, catch them!”
But Mrs. Whatsit already had 2 pipettes full of the potion
water (that makes 6 mL) armed at her side and fired. The water sailed toward
the two terrified guards; before they could turn and run, the water struck them
on the chest, sending them hurtling backward and crashing into an old brick
wall.
Everyone quickly filed out of the palace with
a phew.
Meg was very happy, and she leapt about the
sand and shouted, “Yay! We have gold! We have gold!”
Then she said “I’m dead
tired. Let’s tesser back home. “And so we shall!” said Mrs. Whatsit and Mrs.
Who at the same time.
Meg was whirled into nothingness, but this
time she did not care.
When they got back to Earth Calvin said to
Mrs. Whatsit “This adventure was fun, I hope you will take us on more.” “I
will.” she promised. “But for now, good bye!”
“Good bye!” the children shouted and waved
back and then they were gone.
Soon the children went to Mr.Murry and showed
him the bag and said “Sir, did you lose these?”
“Why thank you!” Mr. Murry exclaimed “I was
worried about the coins, they are essential for the research.”
He hugged each of them and said “For an award
you each get a chemistry set for Christmas and ice cream after dinner
tomorrow.”
Calvin went back to his home and Meg and
Charles Wallace, filled with pride, strode into their house.
THE
END
