When your day gets completely turned upside down, finding out you have a spy in your household is not that big of a surprise. Having a second spy, ok that is a little kooky, but having a third spy, that is a monkey????? Now it is going way too far. First Violet, then mom, now Leland. Ok, well let me start from the beginning. It all starts in Florida…

4 Weeks Previously 

Mom was cooking dinner in the kitchen of our small condo- apartment. It was spaghetti and meatballs, but it didn’t smell like that at all. Me and my sister Violet were playing spit on the dining room table, and the twins (Luca and calvin) who were both one and a half were fighting over a bubblegum wrapper. Suddenly, the phone started ringing.

“Hey mom?” I called “The phone is ringing!” I didn’t pay that much attention to it. The phone rang a lot. I stroked our pet monkey named Leland and watched her slowly walk over to the phone, her face pale. This was very unusual of her. She never did things like that. Now that I noticed, Mom had actually been acting like this our entire vacation. Panicked, stressed, and nervous. I looked away from Mom. Violet seemed to have noticed it too, because she had dropped her cards on the table, very unusual of HER. Even the twins had stopped screaming, and were staring at Mom open mouthed with spit dripping down their chins. What was happening? I saw Violet stand up and walk over to mom. She picked up the phone before mom could. 

  “Hello?” She said. It only took 1 second for her usual smile or grin to turn into a look of complete seriousness. She nodded at mom, then hung up. 

 “Experiment 124679830” She called, looking directly at Leland. He turned his head to face mom. 

“Take action.” As soon as the last word came out of her lips, Leland started scampering around the house, as though he had been programmed to. My jaw dropped. The twins managed a simple

“Ohhhhbegubidaga” Before mom scooped them up and put them in the stroller. Violet was running around packing, like Leland seemed to be doing, and so was mom.

“MOM!” I shouted so she could hear me over the noise of the packing “WHAT IS HAPPENING??” I could make out a quick “I will tell you on the way! We have to hurry! Violet knows what to do! Follow her!” Wait, so Violet knew about this too? My mind was filled with a jillion questions, but I only had one thought.

Follow Violet.

I ran with my bags across the street, barely keeping up with V and my mom with the twins in the stroller and Leland, who I think is a spy robot monkey now.

“Where, are, we, going?” I gasped

“To the train!” My mom shouted. “I will have to leave you guys there! Again, Violet will explain everything!” We had reached the train. Mom gave us each quick but tearful goodbye hugs. I blinked back tears. I had never left my mom before. Not even for a sleepover. I was honest to goodness very very scared. Mom gave Violet the stroller, and Leland jumped out of my arms and onto Violet’s shoulder. We entered the train station just as the train pulled up. It was all going so quickly, and none of it seemed very real. It was all like a blurry dream. The doors opened. Violet pushed the stroller into the train. I quickly looked back to see if Mom was waving goodbye, but she had disappeared. The train doors were starting to close, and Violet had to grab me and pull me in. It was much nicer than I had expected. The seats were leather and there was an old woman with a frilly dress with a cart filled with food parading up and down the train. Violet sat down and motioned for me to sit too. I was hesitant at first but then I gave in. She took the twins out of the stroller and put them on her lap, bouncing them gently. She was nine years older than me and I was only 7. She turned to face me. 

“Okay,” she said. “Now I have to tell you the entire history of our family. It all started when I was 10 and you were just 4. Mom knew that this day would come someday.”

“But what do you mean ‘this day’?” I interrupted. She glared at me and I shut my mouth. 

“The day when the spy attackers would come, or as Mom would call them: SNAKE. I don’t know what it stands for but it sure does sound awfully important.” She paused and stared out the window dramatically.

“She told me this, and I am going to tell you. First off, Mom works for a spy institute where they look into the future and this little monkey,” she motioned to Leland, “is a spy too. And not just any spy, a world class detective.” 

My mouth dropped open. But after all that happened today, this wasn’t that surprising. 

“So she is sending us off with a monkey spy, we don’t know where he is taking us, and we don’t know when we will see mom again?” I asked her, my arms crossed over my chest. Violet nodded. I sighed in frustration. I grabbed Leland off of Violet’s shoulder and put him in my lap. He squirmed to get away, but I held him tight. I started to feel drowsy, and shortly after I had fallen asleep. 

Chapter 2

 I blinked my eyes open. Why were we on a train? Then I remembered it all. My cheek had prints from Violet’s coat on it, and I had a little crusty drool on the corner of my mouth. I wiped it off with my sleeve. 

 “Are we there yet?” I asked Violet drowsily. She shook her head.

“Leland said there are 12 more stops.”

“Wait, Leland can talk now?” I asked. Everything was so confusing now. I just wanted to go back home.

“Monkey Translator. Duh.” Violet looked at me like I was the crazy one. I tried to roll my eyes, but I could really only go halfway. I was glad I had brought my book. 12 more stops seemed like an eternity to a 7 year old. I unzipped my bag that I had been hugging to my chest and pulled out my favorite book of all time: SPACE CATS Into The Spacevolution. I also pulled out my worn out, beat up, patched stuffed animal. Flufster McFlufferson went straight into my lap. I leaned onto Violet again, and curled up with my book.

10 Stops Later

Bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Nothing to do. I read my book 4 times, I lost at cat’s cradle 16 times (and won once) and I braided Leland’s hair until he screamed and bit me. Violet said it was my fault, but I think that Leland has cabin fever too. I could tell the twins wanted to go home. They were fighting over the last Annie’s Bunny Gummy. I had the urge to scream at them. 

“Violettttttttttt” I whined. “How many more stopsssss?”

“FOR THE LAST FREAKIN’ TIME, THERE ARE TWO STOPS LEFT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” She screamed at the top of her lungs. Everyone on the train went quiet and stared at her. She turned beet red and giggled nervously.

“Umm, heehee sorry Ruth,” She said in almost a whisper. 

“I like the color of your face,” I said as I poked her on the cheek. The train pulled to a stop and the doors opened with a swishing sound. I sighed in relief. Only one stop left. So did everyone else including Leland who kind of smiles because his mouth turned up in the corners a little bit. 

Ten people started taking their bags and getting off the train. There were only twenty people including us, so it was a lot less crowded and claustrophobic. Leland said in his monkey translator which is basically a speaker on his chest “Our stop is in ten minutes. Start gathering your things.” His voice was metallic and scratchy and didn’t sound at all like I imagined a monkey’s would sound like. I literally jumped up on the seat and started doing my happy Snoopy dance. Violet shot me a glare and pulled me down. I looked around at the seat and noticed all my things were scattered everywhere so I had to take two trips to my backpack which weirdly enough was ten feet away. I shoved everything in there and zipped it. I didn’t do a very good job zipping it so I dragged it back to my seat–or attempted to– but everything completely fell out again. I groaned. Violet was putting her stuff back in her bag and trying to comfort the twins at the same time. I put everything back in hastily and zipped it up correctly. I continued to drag it to the seat before Violet saw me and rolled her eyes. She walked over and picked it up with one hand, ONE HAND, and walked over to our seat where she rolled her eyes a second time.  I watched as she pulled her phone out of her pocket. She groaned in anger. 

“Stupid Battery” She mumbled under her breath. I shook my head. She was becoming a teenager more and more each day.

Chapter 3

I walked back over to the seat and sat down, only to spring up 2 seconds later. The doors opened, and the intercom crackled with life.

“This is NYJ airport. I repeat, this is NYJ airport. Please clear a path for the closing doors.” I grabbed my bag and ran out of the doors. I looked around. So this was an airport. I wanted to go home, where I didn’t have to wonder if things were fake.

 I marveled at the sight of everything. So clean, so shiny, so new. Then I remembered that I was supposed to stay with Violet and the twins. Oh, and Leland. I swiveled to look behind me for them, only to collide with a tall man with a black suit and tie, and tan skin. I was so short I could only see the bottom of his chin at the highest, and with that only by craning my neck so far I heard a snap. I heard the sound of the stroller on the tiled floor. The man looked behind me. I closed my mouth, just noticing that my mouth was a big O. 

“Are you Violet, Ruth, Luca, and Calvin Perolline?” A gravelly voice said. It was the man. I stepped back and huddled closer to Violet. How did he know our names? Violet narrowed her eyes.

 “Who’s asking?” She said, her teeth gritting. I decided that if Violet was mad, I was mad too. I put my hands on my hips and tried to look as angry as possible. Leland seemed to be very suspicious of this man. He was baring his teeth, and the hair on the back of his neck stood up. 

  The man cleared his throat.

“I am Sir Cleve-” He screamed a manly scream. I didn’t know why until I saw Leland attached to Sir Cleve’s face. He pinched as hard as a little monkey spy could, and at that point I knew. We could trust no-one. This man was disguised as our friend, yet Leland thought he was an enemy. Nothing was simple now. No black or white. Life was a million shades of gray. Before I had finished my totally deep thoughts, Violet had my arm firmly clenched in her hand. She started running and so did I. We ran and ran until I didn’t know if I could run any more. My legs were the wind, and my heart was my spirit. Carrying me on. (This was probably in a famous book or something) Violet stopped suddenly, and I crashed into her butt. Ouch. I looked for Leland, then realized he was on my shoulder. I was scared. Very scared. I was gasping for breath and wheezing for air. I needed my inhaler. I pulled it from my jeans pocket. I put it in my mouth and sucked up ten breaths of air. I stopped weezing. Then I looked up. We were stopped in front of a mangy-looking motel with the red and black sign hanging off of its hinges and the small double door caked with mud. I stared at Violet with my eyebrows raised as if to say, “This is where we are staying the night?”

Violet shrugged and said, “It’s the least costly.” I opened the door and Violet pushed the stroller in the door. Inside, there was a small desk, with a young teenager with earbuds in and her phone out. That was all. No couch, no TV. Nothing. 

“Um, excuse me?” Violet said. The girl didn’t look up. “Excuse me,” Violet said, her voice a little bit louder. The lady looked up and pulled out an earbud. 

“We would like to stay for one night.”

The lady took out both of her earbuds and hung them around her neck. “How many beds do you need?”

“Um, two please,” Violet said, doubtfully. 

The teenager widened her eyes in disbelief. “Two?! That’ll be fifty dollars per person.” 

Now it was Violet’s turn to widen her eyes in disbelief. “For this tiny little shabby motel?” 

The teenager looked offended and shoved her earbuds back in. We stormed out. 

Chapter 4

I woke up the next morning STARVING. Where were we anyway? And why did I have something wet on my face? I slowly blinked away sleep from my eyes and saw that I was on a couch, with Luca and Calvin  sleeping on top of me. I identified the wet thing as Calvin’s tongue. Gross.  

I slowly pulled the twins off of me and onto the couch itself, not my shoulder and getting off it when something hit me. Where was Violet? And Leland? I looked around the room. It was really fancy. It had I bed, but it was small, and the velvet couch we were sleeping on. Violet was snoring softly in the bed, with Leland curled up in her arms. I saw a big window on the side of the hotel room. It was covered by velvet curtains, the same ones the couch was made of. I walked over there, but discovered that the floorboards were SUPER creaky, and started tip toeing. I peeked through the curtains, and saw that it was still dark out. The sun was beginning to rise, but still dark out. I pulled it back and creeped over to Violet’s bed. I shook her. 

“Violet. VIOLET. WAKE UP!!!!!” I whisper shouted. She sat up in bed quickly and then, seeing that it was only me fell back in bed and groaned.

“It’s too earlyyyyyyy” She whined. I pulled the blankets off her. She moaned into her pillow.

 “Get up!” I said. She sleep walked off the bed. And fell. A muffled groan came from her, but you could barely hear it because her face was mashed into the velvet carpet and her butt was sticking in the air. I rolled my eyes. I quickly undressed out of my clothes from yesterday and into a fresh green t-shirt and blue jeans. I tried to braid my hair like Katniss in the Hunger Games but it turned into a giant knot of hair so I gave up. All the while, Violet was slowly getting ready and dressed. We opened the blinds so light poured into the room, waking up the twins. They started crying.

“We should probably go on a walk. Get some fresh air.” Violet said while putting the twins in the stroller. I didn’t have a better idea, so I nodded and started to put on my velcro hello kitty sandals. About 10 minutes later, we were walking along the block. The weather was perfect. It wasn’t too cold, or warm but it was crisp. It was a perfect day for a walk, but sadly, everyone was ruining it. The twins were screaming. Violet was on her phone, and I was trudging along, ten feet behind. Violet apparently had enough of it and put her ear buds in, listening to music as she walked through the park.

 Then her patience broke. She put her fingers in her mouth and whistled as loud as she could. Now this is a thing you would only know if you were Violet’s sister. She whistles loud. And I don’t mean PE Teacher loud, but loud loud. Loud enough for the president of the United States to hear if he listened. Although I doubt he would be. Loud enough that if WWIII was happening they would pause to listen. 

So, imagine how loud that would be if you were standing right next to her. All of a sudden, we heard a pounding on the ground. Getting  louder. And louder. What was it? And Violet didn’t know either judging from her expression. Then it was ear splitting we had to look up. 

Bad Idea.

  Chapter 5

When I looked up, I had to run to avoid getting trampled by the thousands of feet that were galloping, bounding, and scurrying towards me. Thankfully, my staying alive instincts deflected the worst injuries. I ducked behind a trashcan to watch the parade/stampede. I scanned the crowd, which was gazelles, giraffes, elephants, and zebras. Oh, and snakes-for my sister and brothers. No sign of them. I was getting a cramp in my thigh, when the stampede stopped. Stopped, miraculously, in front of Leland, who was standing on his back legs waving his arms frantically in front of him and squawking monkey nonsense. Oh right. My pet monkey was a world class detective. He motioned for me to come over. There was a part of me thinking “Why the HECK are you following a monkey’s instruction? Are you CRAZY?!?!” (Which yes, I was) But the bigger part told me to just do it. 

I crept out of my hiding spot and crawled towards Leland. I saw Violet and the twins huddled next to Leland. Suddenly, we heard huge stomping. Like BOOM BOOM BOOM!!!!!!!!! And there, in front of me was the shortest, fattest man I had ever seen. 

“YOU!! Vy you vuin my plan?! You vuin evevyving!! MY plans! All my plans!!” He said in a strong french accent. “WHY????” He said and broke down sobbing.

   This was the bad guy? This short man with a suit? Who is kneeling on the ground sobbing? Ha. But, there had to be a twist. There was always a twist. And of course, there was. He stood up, grabbed hold of Leland by the neck  and killed him. I heard the crack. I saw him go limp. I heard myself scream. And then I launched myself at the man, half screaming half crying. I didn’t have any reason to believe he was still alive. I was angry. So ANGRY!! I had done everything I could to stop it from happening, and it did. Leland was dead. And I tried to hurt him for how he had hurt me. But I couldn’t. There was a wall. Made of glass, through what I could see from my eyes that were clouded with tears. The mysterious man with the monkey blood on his hands was smirking on the other side of the wall. And then I just couldn’t anymore. So I slid my back against the invisible wall, and tucked my head in between my knees. Was Violet dead too? What about the twins? But I couldn’t just stay here. I had to help them. I couldn’t go home now. I didn’t want to, with all the wait on my shoulders. So I stood up, and put my hands on the barrier. I slid them on the smooth surface until I found a crack, as I had expected. I pulled it and it shifted slightly, and I slid to the other side. The man on the other side looked unamused. I ran up and grabbed his shirt. 

“Where are my siblings?” I seethed, spit flying into his face. He just smirked again and whispered harshly:

“Where your faith crumbles.” I dropped the shirt and he vanished, leaving a puff of smoke behind him and the smell of lingering ash. 

The End

Leave a Reply Cancel reply Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked * Comment * Name * Email * Website Δ