A+McCarthy-Shannon+Novel

//This is written by Lauren McCarthy and me (Emma Shannon). I write odd chapters, Lauren writes the evens. Enjoy!//


 * Chapter One: Discoveries **

They were running, hearts pounding with adrenaline. The watchmen were gaining on them. //This is it//, thought Ginger. //We’re not going to make it//. All would be fine if they had just listened to the rules…

Now let’s go back to the start. It was a warm afternoon. May 17th to be exact. A girl, about 14 of age, was sulking down the sidewalk. She had long scarlet hair tightly braided down her left shoulder. Her name: Ginger. If you happened to get a look at her hand you would see a fresh, gruesome, burn scar running across her palm. She made her way to a small one-story house with a cellar below it. Ginger’s parents were not home and would never ever come back. Her parents had died three days before in a massive fire while watching their neighbor’s house. Ginger made it out, but flames had licked her hand. The police told her that her parents were gone, but Ginger had a flicker of hope they were still alive.

On the other side of town, a boy with scruffy brown hair named Carlton was moping about his room. He was a freshman, but was very young for his grade, being only 13. His eyes were bloodshot from tears because, like Ginger, his parents had died three days before. They had been deep-sea fishing when gigantic, slimy, tentacles rocketed out of the water and snatched Carlton’s parents, plunging them into the murky depths below. Despite being miserable, Carlton decided to make the best of his mom and dad’s disappearances. They told him to never go into the attic, so that day he decided to. He worked his way over to the creaky wooden pullout ladder. Sweat dripped down his heavily freckled face and he carefully climbed up and pushed the small trapdoor open. He fumbled for a light switch in the pitch-blackness. It took a mini heart attack, but Carlton eventually hit the light switch. As the room lit up, he couldn’t believe what he saw.

Ginger wasn’t allowed in her family’s cellar, but the day after he parents died, she went down. She crawled down the cold stone steps. She had expected to find wine and emergency kits and such, but when she took a look around, she was stunned. There were blueprints for crazy creations that looked like nothing she had seen before. There were some gadgets being built, but she had no idea which was which or what they did. At first she was fascinated with the plans, but her eye was quickly drawn to a large, orange envelope. She dumped the contents on an empty table. It had three pictures: Ginger and her parents, a scrawny boy with messy brown hair with his parents, and a Japanese family with three daughters and only a mother. There were also three coded messages in the envelope. //What’s with the number three?// Ginger had thought. She had started searching for the significance. Progress: zip, zilch, nada, ZERO.

Carlton, on the other hand, was having much better luck. When he turned on the lights, he almost screamed. Not from surprise, but from a fat gray rat scurrying across his feet. All that he saw were dusty old boxes and crates… and cobwebs. On of the boxes had a small blue insignia on it that looked like a snake. He walked over to the box and mercilessly ripped it open. It was full of documents in some sort of secret code. Among the documents were the same packet Ginger had found and a silver disc with blue code written on it. “Man, this is awesome! I just wish I knew how to crack the code,” Carlton exclaimed. He went back to the packet and looked at the pictures. He looked at the picture with Ginger. “Hey… she’s in my math class! I’ll find her. Maybe SHE knows what’s going on.”


 * Chapter Two: Discoveries 2.0 **

Akina Kimura figured that her elder sister, Chikara, knew something that she didn’t. Chikara had been behaving a bit strangely ever since the disappearance of their mother. Akina’s mom had been a wise and powerful woman. She certainly didn’t seem like the kind of person who could just disappear, and to make matters worse, Chikara refused to say a word about how their mother had died. Akina’s father had died when she was eight, nearly a year before the youngest Kimura, Michi, had been born. Akina had grown up believing that her father had died in a bus crash, but now she was wondering if there was more to the story. Akina frowned. “I wish you were here, Mama,” she breathed. “You always knew all the answers.” A voice cut through Akina’s thoughts. “Akina!” She dragged herself to Chikara’s room. Chikara sat on her bed with a battered composition book. Her chocolate brown eyes were narrowed in thought. Her sable curls cascaded down her back. “Play with Michi, will you?” she murmured. At fourteen years old, Chikara was intelligent, trustworthy, and an ideal student. She was graceful, patient, charming, and everything that Akina did not believe herself to be. Akina was a witty and impulsive twelve-year-old. Her ebony hair was short and uneven. She was rather thin and angular, like her father had been. She was known for be lively and ambitious. Michi, who was only four, was an interesting child, for she hardly ever spoke, and when she did speak, her words were recollections of facts only she remembered their mother saying. “What are you looking at?” Akina inquired. She peered over Chikara’s shoulder. Her sister held a photo of a boy with disheveled coffee-colored hair. He was nestled between two adults, most likely his parents. Akina grinned teasingly. “Who’s that?” Chikara glared icily. “If my guess is correct — which it usually is — it’s thirteen-year-old Carlton McAlister.” Akina tugged a second picture from Chikara. There was a girl no more than fourteen with blazing red hair and intense hazel eyes. “Ginger,” Chikara muttered scornfully. “You don’t like her? Akina asked. “I think she’s got something to do with mom’s disappearance,” she replied. “What?” Akina cried. “Impossible. You know Ginger as well as I do, and we both know she’d never do that.” “What? You know her?” Chikara demanded. “Um, yeah,” Akina replied. “How? Tell me right now, Akina Kimura!” “Never mind that,” Akina said hastily. “If you're as smart as you say, surely you can figure it out on your own. Just let me in the basement.” “Mama said never to go down there,” Chikara said firmly. “Do I look like I care?” Akina rolled her eyes. “I know you went down there and I know you’ve got the key.” “What makes you think that?” Chikara questioned. “You think I’m just your silly little sister, but I’m more than that, and I //will// get into that basement—with or without your help.” Michi glanced up. “Mama said the snake shall only reveal the magic number’s secrets when the time is right.” Both elder Kimuras were jolted upright and stared in shock at their youngest sister. “What are you talking about?” Akina shrieked. “Michi,” Chikara said. “What else can you tell us?” Young Michi only smiled enigmatically.

Meanwhile, Carlton was wandering along the dry streets in search of Ginger. He had devoted the past few hours to find this girl, and he had finally found the address. He took a painful breath of the hot, moistureless air before timidly tapping at her door. A sharp voice came from inside. “Enter.”


 * Chapter Three: Fire and Earth **

Carlton cautiously opened the door and walked inside. He should have been more careful. Ginger had rigged a trap. He stepped on the mat inside house entryway and a net snatched him up and splattered him on the ceiling, like a fly in a spider’s web. Ginger appeared into the room, a knife with peanut butter on it in her hands. Her fire-like hair made his brown locks look like dirt. “Who are you?” she asked. “My name is Carlton McAlister, and I have some questions for you,” he replied. She looked up and that this intruder happened to be the boy from the picture. “You! I found a picture of you in the cellar!” she exclaimed. Through grunts, Carlton said, “You’ve got the packet too? Ow! This rope is really uncomfortable!” Ginger ignored the last part. “Yeah, I did. How did you get the parcel?” Ginger asked as she walked to the fireplace. “When my parents disappeared, I went into the attic even though I’m not allowed to… come to think of it, where are //your// parents?” Carlton just blew his chances of getting out of Ginger’s house unharmed. She was much stronger than him and when enraged, well, it was scary. She picked up an Arabian sword displayed on the fireplace mantel and threw it at the rope holding Carlton up. It zipped through the air and sliced through the rope like in was butter. Carlton crumpled to the floor. Ginger picked up the sword and held it a quarter inch away from his throat and screamed, “Dead! Everyone thinks they’re dead! That they died in the fire! They’re still alive! I know it! I’ll find them and prove everyone they were wrong!” she dropped the sword and as it clattered to the floor, so did she, curled up and crying. Carlton tried to move, but the pain from the fall made him cringe. Carlton finally got over the pain enough to talk and spoke. “Ginger, I didn’t mean to upset you. It’s just… well… It’s just that—“ He was about to say more when the door swung open and light flooded the room.