Chapter 6: Thalia Mildew

I woke to the sound of crashing. I sat up straight and blinked the sleep out of my eyes. When my vision cleared, I saw Demi getting up with Beth’s help.

“What happened?” I asked.

“I guess Demi’s ankle isn’t all that better yet,” Beth explained. “Again, I’m sorry.”

Demi grunted. “I’ve been hurt worse. Trust me, this is nothing.”

“Ugh, I shouldn’t have fooled around with that robot! They told me not to.”

“Who told you to what?” I asked, getting up and eyeing her with concern.

“It’s nobody, Jaxx, really…” She faltered and looked down.

I saw she was close to tears, so I didn’t pry any further.

“We should get breakfast,” Zac offered.

“I’ll go. I wanted a walk anyways.” Tom stomped out of the cave and came back in with eggs and juice.

We ate in silence. Nobody dared to speak.

I heard rustling. “Uh guys?” Tom looked up. I guessed he’d heard it too.

We ran out of the cave. Rustle, stomp clrr! We walked further. I scaled around the observatory just to see trees. Lots of them. It looked like a forest.

Stomp, rustle PFFT!

The others gathered around me. “YAAHHH!!” A girl burst out of a bush and came at me with a stick.

“GAH!” We all backed off and I put my arms in front of the others. The girl was around 6 to 5 younger than us. Maybe 11 or 10. She had long, tangled black hair with startling blue eyes. She was wearing a plain white crop top and denim shorts. She had no shoes and was wearing a bronze anklet which looked surprisingly light.

“Not pythons—you’re not pythons,” the girl said. She dropped her stick-club thing.

“Who—Who are you?” Tom asked.

“Thalia Mildew. You’re on my island. What are you doing here?” she replied.

We told the kid (Thalia, whatever) why we were on the island and what happened to us. We told her our names too.

“Why are you here?” Beth inquired.

Thalia opened her mouth to talk but then a 12-foot freaking amazon python burst out of the jungle.

“RUN!” She yelled, making a frantic grab for her club.

I shepherded the rest in front of me and ran after them. Thalia was right behind us.

“To the rocks! There’s a canyon there that leads to the other half of the island, we’ll need to swing on the vine!” Thalia put on a burst of speed and ran ahead of us. The only person who was able to stay in front of her was Demi.

The sand and leaves faded to rocks and I saw a gaping hole some feet in front of us. A vine was attached to a tree. Thalia let Demi go first because of her twisted/broken ankle. The weirdest thing was (except for the python) that Demi was able to swing and run better than any of us. Beth came second, then Tom and after him, Zac.

“I hate thiiiis!” Zac yelled as he swung to the other side.

“Go! I can … do something about the python okay?” Thalia said.

I didn’t want to leave the kid with a python, but I was pretty much scared out of my wits. Plus, she looked like she could take care of herself.

I swung across the canyon. Wind whistled in my ears. I felt free, if only for a moment. I was almost disappointed when I got to the other side.

Thalia gripped her club. The python was moving slow on the rocks, careful not to damage its skin. Thalia waited until it was right in front of her. The kid dodged its bite and stuck a sharp side of the club in its eye. The python wailed and hissed and thrashed while Thalia dug it in further. Eventually, the python collapsed into the dark pit. Thalia let go at the last moment, giving her momentum for the swing.

She collapsed on the rocks, and we helped her up.

“That was—amazing,” I remarked, eyeing her scrapes.

“You spend a month in the jungle. Ya get used to it,” she replied, shooting me a dry smile.

Thalia led us to the other half of the jungle which pretty much circled to this side of the canyon/island. We came in view of a tent.

“You make this?” Tom asked.

“Yeah, pretty much,” Thalia replied.

The inside of the tent was bliss compared to our cave. “Wow. Hold up, Ima get the food then this place will have everything,” I said.

I walked back to the canyon and did the swing again. I dragged some of the food and threw it to the other side of the canyon. Most of it made it. But I’d aimed wrong and let’s just say potatoes wouldn’t be very happy getting turned into chips again. I did the swing again and dragged the food to the tent. So that’s pretty much how we met Thalia, the fierce little girl with some serious spunk. Being a girl myself, I was pretty sure Thalia wasn’t gonna take poop from others. Anyway, Thalia had rolled out some cardboard homemade snakes-and-ladders and we played that for the rest of the day. I was happy we found this girl. She could help us, and we could help her. I was sure of it.