The Lost Coins (By Ethan Li) A Sequel to A Wrinkle in Time

  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