The Frights of Fiji by Sunayna Prasad (books to read for self improvement .txt) 📕

meantime.”

 

*      *      *      *

 

Someone knocked on the bedroom door, and Alyssa bolted upright from her bed. She and the other girls had slept since nine p.m. Opening the door, she saw a tall black man standing next to Isabelle. He introduced himself to her.

“Can you wake the other girls up?” he asked.

Alyssa nodded and did so.

As the other girls woke up, Isabelle strode over to Alyssa. “Are you turning thirteen soon?”

“Yeah, next month,” said Alyssa.

“What day?” asked Isabelle.

“The seventeenth,” Alyssa replied. “Why?”

“There’s something important I need to give you, but I have to wait until you’re thirteen.”

“How come?” asked Alyssa.

“The magic in this object can be harmful to children under thirteen,” said Isabelle.

“What is the object?” Alyssa asked.

“Alyssa, time to go!” Hailey called.

“You should get going, Alyssa,” said Isabelle. “You’ll find out more about the object once we can travel to America and when you’re thirteen.”

“Okay.” Alyssa nodded. She picked up her backpack, grabbed her suitcase, and walked toward where the girls stood.

“Do you want to take out something long sleeved?” the pilot asked.

“Right,” said Alyssa. “It’s still cold in New Jersey.” She took out a hoodie from her suitcase. Her long coral T-shirt wouldn’t be enough to wear in whatever weather New Jersey experienced now.

“Do you have the note?” Madison asked the pilot.

“Yep,” he answered. “Now are we all ready to go?”

The girls said that they were.

After bidding goodbye to Isabelle, Mathias, and Simon, the girls hopped into the back seat of the pilot’s helicopter. Alyssa took out a hairbrush to brush her tresses.

“Are we going to go through a portal?” asked Hailey.

“In two hours,” said the pilot. “When we arrive at the immigration center, it’ll be six p.m., Thursday.”

 

*      *      *      *

 

The helicopter stopped. Alyssa opened her eyes and saw a pink sunset spread across the sky. She also spotted dead trees, pines, and people walking across the terminal in jackets. At last— she’d returned to the United States.

“Okay, girls, rise and shine,” the pilot said. “We’re at the immigration center.”

Everyone stretched, yawned, and moaned. Alyssa put her hoodie on and zipped it halfway up her shirt. She also thanked herself for wearing leggings instead of shorts before she’d left Fiji.

The pilot escorted the girls to the front desk outside of the entrance, where a frowning man sat.

“Please show proof that they’re here legally,” the guy behind the desk said.

The pilot took out Mathias’s note and handed it to him. He scanned it through what looked like a regular computer scanner. The process included a soft buzz, which went on for about ten seconds. Then a ding occurred, along with a green light in the button at the top of the scanner.

“You’re good,” said the man. “Are they all unaccompanied?”

“Yes,” answered the pilot.

“Okay, I’m going to need their wrists for the wristbands.” The man then explained what they were for.

Alyssa held out her arm first. The man wrapped a red wristband around it. He repeated the same step for the other girls. Then he spoke into his walkie-talkie, telling somebody about five unaccompanied minors.

“You’ll be getting some attendants in a few minutes.” The man put his walkie-talkie down. “Please stay here while you wait.”

“You want me to stay with them?” asked the pilot.

“Yes,” answered the man.

After about two or three minutes, five people in blue-and-black uniforms came out. The man at the front assigned a different one to each girl.

“We’ll take them from here,” said Alyssa’s attendant, a short-haired Asian woman.

“Okay,” said the pilot “Bye, girls.”

“Bye,” the girls said.

He climbed back into his helicopter and took off.

“So where are we going now?” Alyssa asked her attendant.

“Through immigrations and customs,” she responded. “It’s the same as going through them at a regular airport.”

“No one has any potions or magical items, right?” asked Hailey’s attendant.

The girls shook their heads.

Alyssa hadn’t gone through immigrations and customs since she and the Flynns had traveled to the Cayman Islands during the Christmas vacation of 2006. She hadn’t remembered much of that, but as she went through the same processes here at Griffin’s, the actions taken set off an alarm inside her head. She appreciated how the lines had few people, because she longed to go home and lie down.

 

Several minutes of going through immigrations and customs had passed, and the attendants led the girls into the pickup terminal. Unlike regular airports, this one had fewer baggage claim carousels. The girls already had their bags, but Alyssa still tilted her head at the carousels.

“What’s with the carousels?” asked Hailey. “Why aren’t there that many?”

“Because this isn’t as busy as an ordinary airport,” answered Hailey’s attendant.

“Okay, girls, listen up,” said Madison’s attendant. “Because you are all unaccompanied minors, we have to drive you back to your houses.”

“How come?” asked Madison.

“Because we can’t trust taxis to drive you home,” answered her attendant. “It’s our policy. Even regular airports don’t allow people to accept unsolicited rides.”

“We can’t have our parents pick us up?” asked Madison.

“You can if you think they won’t mind driving all the way from New Jersey,” Madison’s attendant said. “It’s quite a drive.”

“How long from Bursnell?” asked Madison.

“About two and a half hours,” her attendant replied.

“You can take us,” Madison said.

“I’ll take you to my car,” Madison’s attendant said.

Madison, Destiny, and Jasmine walked with their attendants out the door.

“Are you ready to go, Alyssa?” asked Alyssa’s attendant.

“Same here, Hailey?” Hailey’s attendant checked.

“We live together,” said Hailey.

“So we’ll all be traveling in one car?” Hailey’s attendant asked Alyssa’s attendant.

“Yeah, that’s a good idea.” She nodded.

Alyssa and Hailey followed their attendants to the parking lot.

“Do you want to take your car?” Alyssa’s attendant asked Hailey’s attendant.

“Sure. Where are we going?” She sat in the driver’s seat.

“Forty Cygnus Lane, Opal Stream, New Jersey,” said Hailey. Her attendant programmed that address into the GPS.

“Do you two have cell phones?” asked Hailey’s attendant.

“No,” Alyssa and Hailey said.

“We’ll let you borrow ours then.” Alyssa’s attendant reached into her pants pocket. “Another rule for unaccompanied minors is that when they arrive home, there must be a trustworthy adult in the house.”

“What if there isn’t?” asked Hailey.

“Then we have to wait with you until they come home,” answered her attendant. “If it’s not for a while, we take you back here and wait until they’re home.”

“They should be home,” said Hailey.

“Just make sure they’ll be there within a couple of hours.” Hailey’s attendant handed her the phone. Then she backed out and drove.

Alyssa’s attendant also handed her a phone. Hailey told Alyssa Donald’s number because she called Kathleen. After dialing Donald’s number, Alyssa put the device to her ear and listened to the ringing.

“Hello?” Donald answered.

“Hey, Donald, it’s Alyssa.”

“Oh my goodness, what happened?” he cried. “First, Kathleen and I couldn’t find you, and then some jerk kidnapped Hailey!”

“I’ll tell you what happened.” Alyssa told him everything relevant from the time Master Beau had kidnapped her up until now.

“I can’t believe you’re okay,” said Donald.

“Yeah,” said Alyssa.

“Well, we’ll have something special for you when you get home, kiddo,” Donald said.

“Thank you,” yawned Alyssa. “Bye.” She gave the phone back to her attendant and lay back in her seat, shutting her eyes.

 

The GPS’s voice and the car’s engine turning off let Alyssa know that the attendants had stopped at Kathleen and Donald’s house.

“Okay, girls, wake up,” said Hailey’s attendant. “We’re here.”

Alyssa opened her eyes and stretched. She turned to her window and looked at a brick house similar her old one, except that this had a garden lined up against it. The garage was also a separate building.

Kathleen opened the drapes in a window next to the door and peeked at them. Hailey and Alyssa waved at her. Then she and Donald rushed out to the car.

“Hey, girls, it’s so great to see you,” said Kathleen.

Alyssa and Hailey greeted her back.

“Thank you for driving them,” Kathleen said to the attendants.

“You’re welcome,” said the driver.

“How much do we owe?” Donald asked.

“Five hundred dollars,” the driver replied.

Kathleen and Donald frowned.

“That much?” asked Donald.

“Donald, it’s fine,” said Kathleen. “Go get your credit card.”

After Donald paid the attendants, he and Kathleen took Alyssa and Hailey inside. Pictures of Uncle Bruce in his youth and Kathleen and Donald covered the walls. A tank of fish rested on a stand in the living room. Alyssa had never found pet fish interesting, but she wished that she’d had an animal back at her old house. Before her parents had died, she’d had a rabbit from when she was four up until she’d started second grade.

Following Kathleen and Donald into the kitchen, Alyssa noticed a pizza box, a Coke bottle, and a jug of lemonade sitting on the table. A tin of snickerdoodle cookies lay on top of the stove.

“Welcome back, girls,” said Kathleen. “Have some food.”

“You don’t want us to unpack first?” Alyssa asked.

“You can unpack later,” said Kathleen. “Just lean your stuff against that wall.”

Alyssa and Hailey took Kathleen’s suggestion. Then they sat down and helped themselves to pizza and drinks.

“So where were you guys?” asked Donald.

“Fiji Islands,” answered Alyssa.

“You have no idea how worried we were about you, Alyssa,” said Donald. “We called the police, we called the missing children’s center—we even put up flyers around town with pictures of you and Hailey. I can’t believe you two ended up in the Fiji Islands.”

“But we did tell the police that you returned here safely,” Kathleen added.

“Where’d you find the pictures?” asked Hailey. “We haven’t gotten any taken since—”

“We used one of Alyssa’s pictures from her sixth-grade graduation last year and your last school picture, Hailey,” said Donald. “I know you guys have changed since then, but people would’ve still recognized you.”

“We slept in the car,” Alyssa said. “So we didn’t see any flyers.”

“Well, we need to take them down,” said Kathleen.

“What did the police do about this?” asked Hailey.

“They tried to find out about the kidnapper and how to get you guys back here,” said Kathleen. “Sadly, they couldn’t find him, so that was why we put flyers around town.”

“So this man was a wizard?” asked Donald.

“Yep,” said Alyssa.

“How did you defeat him?” asked Kathleen.

Alyssa told her without hesitating.

“Oh my god,” said Donald. “Everything you did sounds so unsafe for children your ages.”

“Well, at least we did it,” said Alyssa.

“Still,” said Kathleen.

“We’re glad you’re okay, though,” said Donald

“Thanks.” Alyssa smiled.

“So, we were considering buying you guys some ‘welcome back’ gifts.” Kathleen sat as the girls ate. “But maybe we should all go shopping together tomorrow.”

“We’re really tired, though,” said Hailey.

“So, after you eat, you can go to bed and unpack tomorrow,” said Kathleen. “We can go shopping another time.”

“Sounds cool,” said Alyssa.

“Hey, where’s my dad?” Hailey asked.

“He’s sleeping,” said Kathleen. “He’ll actually be going to Happy Howard’s Assisted Living Home next Tuesday.”

“How’s his memory?” asked Alyssa.

Kathleen sighed. “It comes and goes. He can figure out something for minutes, but then he