The Sword of the Earth

To our disadvantage, we had no choice but to take foot. We had no planes, we weren’t permitted to drive, because we were underage, plus we were told not to arouse suspicion. We couldn’t hire a taxi to take us to a place called Mud Pool because then of course we would arouse suspicion. With us we took a basket of cold fruits and bread and a stash of money. It wasn’t like we would pass any shops when we went out into the second planet that had recently popped up, the world of the unknown. Every human feared it, so they just ignored it, but not the spy agency. Most things that went missing were found on that planet.
We walked for hours until we were out of town. Then we changed direction and headed to MI5 rocket plant. It’s a plant where rockets soar off to the second earth. The rockets are small round cubicles which there are only enough room to sit on. The wall is hollow however, which is where spies usually place their small gadgets. The rockets are silent, so it doesn’t alert anyone, and once they are off in the distance, they are far too small for the human eye to see.

It only took a few more hours to get there by foot, due to the fact that we all knew exactly where we were going. We sat in our separate cubicles, but they were all together by a metal strip. I was in front, Ruby behind me and Destiny behind her. The red light flashed twice and then, a sudden jolt sent us flying into the air at terrifying speed. It was like on a rollercoaster, except this was real life. I screamed until there was no more air in my lungs. I could hear another girl screaming, and probably Ruby sounded like she was choking. Then I fainted.

A loud thud and a jolt woke me up. I quickly was aware of what had happened, remembering it all. I clambered out of my cubicle and pulled my gadgets out of the hollow wall. I straightened the skirt of my ninja-like outfit.
“Ready girls?” I said smiling. Destiny nodded and smiled back, Ruby didn’t even try. She just gritted her teeth and let out a low rumble from the back of her throat. She turned away from me, arms crossed. I remembered what that meant. She was angry. Maybe coming here was a big mistake? But there was no turning back now. Ruby could be angry all she liked, we were still pressing forward.

We walked for a while, but we soon had to stop. In front of us was a long lake of mud. By looking to the side I could see we had the choice of walking miles to go around it, or swim through it. In fact, it might just be a river ending up in a sea, so that wouldn’t be very useful. Ruby smiled. Our first obstacle would be a difficult one. Ruby made more moves with her hands.
“Told you so. I knew we should of taken the long way around. So… how we gonna get out of this one then Mia?” Destiny translated.
“There has got to be a way.” I said, rising up to the challenge. Then a skeleton bobbed to the surface and sank again. I shuddered. So maybe one or two agents had been this way before and not survived, but so what? We could do this. I dunked my hand in the mud to test the current. I was almost dragged into the mud pool; luckily Ruby caught me before I fell in. There was absolutely no way we could build a bridge across this. I racked my brain for an idea.

“We will swim.” I stated simply, like that was always the answer.
“But the current! It’ll pull us away! And how can you swim, your on crutches!” Destiny complained.
“Yes, it will. But that skeleton, you see how old it is. It must have been circling in the river for years. That means the river is round. If we swim to the other side, going left all the time while we are doing it, no matter what direction we end up in, we will still end up on the other side. We might be a bit off course, but we will be able to cut through.”
Ruby did some more hand language. This time I totally was able to understand. She was saying, how do you know this? I shrugged; it just came to my mind.

“I have a wonderful idea!” Destiny said, clapping her hands with excitement. “If we build a raft we could use Mia’s crutches as oars. Then she could sit down and we could all take turns to row. That way none of us have to swim and get muddy and Mia will be able to help too. Plus we will still end up on the other side of the river.”
Destiny was right. Ruby demonstrated with her hands clearly so I understood. Hurry up. She pointed to the sky like saying look. I looked. It would be getting dark quickly.
“Let’s just build the raft tonight and sleep here. Then we could move tomorrow morning, it is getting dark.” I pointed out to Destiny.

We did exactly that. It wasn’t hard to make the raft. We found plonks of wood and used the weave from the basket as ropes. We secured them tightly. But making a raft was easy for us, it had been a part of our training. We all rapped ourselves in the picnic blanket for warmth, all huddled together. We fell asleep side by side. But for some reason I lay awake staring at the stars. All this information I had never been taught about how stars worked and everything came to my mind. I marvelled at how wonderful they really were. That’s how I fell asleep, looking at the stars and dreamed of the three spies wrapped in the picnic blanket.