randomplaces | Kelly's Adventure, Chapter 1

When will you be home, Kelly?"
"I'm not sure," Kelly-Lynn Parker ran her hands through her long brown hair and examined a streak of silvery pink hair mascara on one finger. "But before 10, I want to get enough sleep to be awake at school tomorrow." She picked up her mp3 player from the counter and put it in the pocket of her bellbottom jeans with the glittering embroidery on the sides.
Her mom came in from the living room and lay Kelly's two month old brother in the baby chair on the table, then went to look in the fridge. "You're going with Michael?"
"Yeah." Kelly nuzzled Cory's fat belly and got a wide grin in response. Cooing, she kissed him on the forehead and cheeks while the baby babbled and offered her kisses in return. “Yeah.” Kelly nuzzled Cory's fat belly and got a wide grin in response. Cooing, she kissed him on the forehead and cheeks while the baby babbled and offered her kisses in return.
Mrs. Parker smiled fondly. “Cory’s going to miss you.”
Kelly sighed, her large brown eyes darkening slightly. “I know, but I have to spend some time with Mike. He’s been my best friend since forever, and the poor guy’s starting to feel a little left out.”
“Why don’t you have him over to play with Cory?” Mrs. Parker helped herself to a huge homemade cookie.
Kelly shook her head and gently took her cross pendant out of her little brother’s fist. “Mike’s scared stiff of babies. He dropped in once while you were in the basement and I offered him Cory. He backed off so fast he tripped over Scat and fell on his butt, then took off. Cory was totally insulted.”
Mrs. Parker looked at Kelly in amusement. “Your dad was like that when we first had you. You were five months old before he’d hold you. He said he was afraid of breaking you.”
Kelly chuckled. “Sounds like Dad. He can work huge, scary machines all day, but you show him something little and he runs.”
“Ah well, it’s one of the things I love him for, the sweet goof.” Mrs. Parker found a piece of cold pizza in the fridge and sniffed it before taking a big bite.
Kelly watched her for a minute, then turned back to Cory. “Mom’s putting it away again, Core-man, no wonder you’re so fat.”
Cory grinned hugely and made sounds of agreement, then put his fist in his mouth and smacked contentedly.
“Bye-bye, cute guy.” Kelly tweaked his chubby chin, her heart full of tenderness.
Cory looked up at her with a concerned frown.
“I’ll come back,” she told him hurriedly. “I’m just going to goof around with Uncle Mike.”
Cory squirmed and arched his back, asking her to pick him up and bring him along.
“No,” she shook her head; “you wouldn't like it. Mom’s not coming, and she’s the only one with milk.”
Cory made a little begging sound.
“You’re too little yet.” Kelly’s face creased in sympathy. “Oh, guy, I’d love to bring you, but you’re just too little. Someday, okay?”
Cory heaved a huge sigh and turned away to converse with his stuffed fish.
Feeling guilty, Kelly turned and kissed her mother. “Bye. I love you, Mom.”
“I love you too, sweetheart.” Mrs. Parker picked Corey up and waved his pudgy fist.
Kelly waved back, then sent a quick prayer upward as she went down the stairs and out the door of her apartment building, asking God to take care of her family and to help Cory be happy without her there.
The wind was nippy, and she shivered, zipping her baby blue down jacket and tucking in the yellow, white, blue, and red striped scarf her grandma had sent her for last Christmas. She was glad she'd decided to wear long striped toe socks with her fleece-lined suede clogs, but wished she'd tied her hair back. The wind was beating her in the face with it.
Grumbling, she gathered it and was in the process of undoing her coat so she could stuff it into her collar when a figure darted out from behind a tree with a whoop of, “Boo!”
Kelly squeaked, hair going all over again.
“Mike, you nut!” She pushed back the brown mane to frown at her friend.
Michael Carson tried to look innocent, but his bony face, spiked bleached-blond hair, pointy black eyebrows, and wide toothy grin spoiled the attempt. Not to mention the silver spikes he was wearing in the top of each ear. Mike had always wanted to be an elf.
“One of these days I’m going to clock you before I realize who you are,” Kelly warned him.
Mike whipped off his black sunglasses and drew himself up, turned his head dramatically to the side, paused, then turned it back to her. “Somebody stop me!” He said, in his best Jim Carey impersonation.
Kelly rolled her eyes inadvertently, then grinned. “Mom says hi. Cory would’ve too, if he could.”
Mike’s grin softened. “I’m sorry I took off like that the other day. How is the little guy?”
“Not so little now,” said Kelly, eyes dancing as she thought of her gregarious baby sibling. “He weighs 15 pounds.”
Mike looked at her uncertainly. “Really? He didn’t look that big.”
“Yeah, but he’s gotten a lot fatter since you’ve seen him,” said Kelly, giving up on her hair and letting it blow. “He has rolls of it over his ribs. It is so cute!”
Then she sobered. “You really hurt his feelings when you ran away from him.”
Mike sighed. “I can’t help it. Babies are so…little . And helpless. I’m always afraid someone'll make me hold one and I’ll drop it or something.”
Kelly shook her head. “I wouldn't make you hold Cory unless you wanted to. He’s happy just chatting. And he’d love your insane iguana act.”
“No way, it would probably give him nightmares.”
“Nope.” Kelly glanced down the street and saw that the light was nearly ready to change. She started walking, pulling on Mike’s black trenchcoat so he’d come with her. “This kid’s not afraid of anything except laying on the floor. He’d probably even laugh at you.”
Mike looked at her sideways raising his eyebrows in that way that tended to make some little kids scream and run. “Cool. But I’ll wait till he’s a little older before we try it, okay?”
Kelly shook her head. At least he was trying. She’d never seen Mike so skittish about something before. “Do you have Froggy?”
“Oh, yeah.” Mike brightened and reached into a bulging pocket. “He misses you.”
Kelly accepted the flexible, fluid-filled ball made to look like a cross-eyed green frog and cupped it tenderly in her hands. As always, the morose expression the manufacturers had put on Froggy’s face made her smile.
The toy was she and Mike’s “child”, they’d been sharing joint custody since eighth grade.
“I don’t want to lose him,” she said, pushing her hands into the ends of opposite sleeves so that they and Froggy wouldn't freeze. “Ever since Cory came I’ve been a little absent-minded.” She looked toward the sign at the end of the street. “So, what are we going to see?”
“‘Portal of Destiny’.”
Kelly turned her head to frown. “Isn’t that that one about the guys who go through a doorway and end up in another world?”
“That’s the one.” Mike leered at a girl in full punk-goth regalia and then grinned as she laughed and waved at him.
“Isn’t there anything else showing?” Kelly asked in dismay.
Mike looked at her in surprise. “What’s wrong with this one? The Focus on the Family review said it was okay.”
“Yeah, but you know I like watching realistic movies, Mike.”
“So, how do you know there aren't doors to other worlds somewhere?” he said quizzically.
“There’s nothing in the Bible about other worlds,” Kelly reminded him. “If there were such things, and it was important for us to know about them then God would have told us about them. Besides, those kooky doors go against the rules of physics.”
Mike frowned. “So, can’t you just watch it once?”
Kelly sighed and consulted her conscience. “Oh, I guess so, if you want to see it that bad.”
“Great!” His grin returned. “It’ll be awesome, just wait and see.”
Kelly shook her head, remembering the books she’d tried to read as a kid. She’d never made it even a third of the way through one of the fantasy world ones, the other lands had always seemed just too lame and unbelievable. Besides, like she’d told Mike, there was nothing in the Bible about such things, she felt a little guilty just entertaining the thought.
When they got to the theater the line-up was snaking right out the front door.
“Whoa, are they all here to see the same thing as us?” wondered Kelly.
“Don’t know.” Mike tapped a black kid on the shoulder. “Hey, man, you here to see Portal?”
“We’re waiting to see Shakira, dude, hadn’t you heard?”
“She’s here?” Mike tried to peer through the glass. “Why?”
The black kid shrugged. “To hype her movie. They wanna get the max out of it.”
“Oh.” Mike tried to see into the theater again.
“Which movie is she in?” asked Kelly curiously.
“The one we’re going to see.”
“What? There’s a rock star in it? What is she? The queen of the other world?” Kelly grimaced at the thought.
“No,” Mike shook his head. “She’s the girl that goes through the portal. Her and the guy that plays her brother. He ends up being king.”
“Brother?”
“Yeah, she and he are supposed to be the heirs of the place.”
“Oh.” Kelly lost interest. That storyline. She pulled Froggy out of her sleeve and squished him gently.
“Do you want a smoothy? Or one of those blue slushes?”
Kelly looked back down the escalator. “Are you having one?”
“Yeah, I want a green slushie. They look disgusting.” Mike made his mad scientist face.
Kelly chuckled. “What-ever, you nerd. Sure, I’d like a strawberry smoothy.”
“One strawberry smoothy coming up!”
“Hey, man, while you’re at it could you get me something?” The black kid offered him some money. “I’m gonna die standing here. I need a nice beef wrap to tide me over.”
“Sure.” Mike took it and headed down the escalator.
Kelly glanced ahead to see if she could see what was going on while she held the place in line, but could only see a bunch of excited teens jumping up and down and talking loudly.
“They’re nutty, eh, Froggy?” She squashed him to make his face bulge.
“Here you go, milady.” Mike leered as he handed her her drink.
She snorted and slurped gratefully, watching as the black kid took out half of his wrap in one bite. She sure hoped he had good digestion.
They finally got in and walked past Shakira, who was passing out cool khaki backpacks.
Kelly looked at her pack through the clear plastic, then poked Froggy into Mike’s pocket and tore off the wrapper so she could get a better look at the keyring hanging from one zipper pull.
“Cool.” It was one of those changing ones, with a picture of Shakira in a khaki shirt and jeans at one angle, and a picture of her in a metal breastplate and a helmet on the other. “Wow, she’s pretty.”
Mike pulled open the main pocket of his backpack and peered in. “Oh, hey, I wonder what this is?”
Kelly glanced at the little crystal bird in his hand, then opened her own pack. “Neat. Look, mine’s got a faint golden cast to it, yours is blue. They’re sure giving out good prizes.”
Mike flashed his keyring back and forth for a few minutes. “Shakira wouldn't give out anything cheesy, besides, the movie’s supposed to be really deep. Cheap prizes would ruin the effect.”
Uh huh thought Kelly skeptically, how can a movie about being the lost heir of another world be deep?
They had a hard time finding a seat that wasn’t right up against the screen, but then Mike saw two up at the top row in the middle of the huge theater.
“I love this theater,” he said as he poked his skinny butt into his seat.
“I just hope things don’t swoop around as much as they did in ‘The Fellowship of The Ring’,” said Kelly soberly.
“Hey, I won’t let anyone throw up on you this time.”
“Thanks.” She grinned at him, then turned to read the trivia questions on the screen.
It wasn’t a very long wait before the lights went down and the music started. Kelly sat forward in her seat.
The movie was good. Kelly couldn’t say anything against it except that so many people got killed. But there was no graphic slaughter, like some shows she’d seen, and the romance between Shakira and her young noble was modestly and sweetly portrayed.
And the characters grew and changed, and found out more about who they were. It was great.
Mike looked at her with a grin. “I told you it would be awesome.”
Kelly realized that she’d been chattering excitedly and blushed. “Yeah, I’m glad I got to see it. I want to buy it when it comes out on DVD. Cory will love it. He likes music like that. And he’ll be sympathizing with ‘L___’, too.”
“I liked when she was belly-dancing on the table,” said Mike.
“You would.” Kelly snorted.
“No, I mean, she shut those stuffy old counselors up but good, and totally floored ‘T____’. It was her way of saying ‘I am who I am, and you’re not making me into a puppet’. And it symbolized her coming of age.”
“Eh.” Kelly wrinkled her nose. “I liked when the crystal birds were dancing.
Mike nodded. “I cried,” he said simply.
“Yeah.” It had been stirring, and their leader’s statement that as fair and intricate that the dance was it was nothing compared to the dance of all creation smacked of Christian overtones, though that probably wasn’t what the writers had intended.
“You want to go eat before we go home?” Mike pointed to the food court they were passing.
Kelly looked at her watch. “Awk! I can’t. I’m going to have to hustle to get home by the time I told Mom.”
Mike glanced at his own watch. “It’s that time already? I still have homework to do.”
“You still have homework? Mike!” Kelly gave him a look.
“I know, I know.” He shook his head. “Let’s go.”
They hurried out of the mall in silence, crossing the street just as the sign changed to a blinking hand.
They were walking down the walkway between properties when Kelly looked up and gasped. “Mike, look at the Northern lights!”
Mike glanced up, then slowed and stopped. “Wow, a complete arch, right over us. God’s sure putting on a show tonight.”
“He shelters me under His wings,” murmured Kelly, staring up at the undulating green path in the sky. “Look, it’s even got other colours tonight.”
“Yeah….” Mike sighed. “That’s incredible.”
Then he glanced toward the lights of Kelly’s apartment building. “We better get going.”
“Yeah,” said Kelly, tearing herself away from the show regretfully.
Mike stopped at the outside door. “I’ll see you sometime this week. It bites being in different schools.”
“Yeah. But we still have church,” said Kelly.
“Maybe I’ll invite some of the others to my place after services, then you can come and visit, too,” said Mike.
“Do you actually have room for friends?” asked Kelly. “You said it was pretty well just one room a little bigger than Mom and Dad’s bedroom.”
“Oh yeah, there’s room. That bed your parents gave me helps a lot. My computer and stuff all goes on the desk underneath, and I’ve always gotten a kick out of sleeping in a top bunk.”
Kelly grinned, remembering the arguments they used to have when they were little over who’s turn it was to sleep on top. “Is it noisy, living downtown?”
“A little.” He shrugged. “It’s not too bad. The funny little fridge underneath the stove and sink is my only peeve. It’s too small for anything.”
There were footsteps on the balcony to their right. “Kelly? Mike? Is that you?”
“Yeah, Dad.” Kelly looked up, warmed as always by his habit of waiting up till she got home so he could talk to her about her day. “I’m coming up.”
“No hurry,” he said. “Have you seen the lights?”
“Uh huh.” Kelly gave Mike a quick hug. “See you. Be good.”
“Always.” He gave his most evil leer, then patted his pockets. “Do you have Froggy?”
“No, I gave him to you.” She frowned in concern, then grinned as he pulled the toy out of his pocket and stuck it to her cheek. “Oh gak, I’ve been kissed by a frog!”
“Did it change you?” asked her dad.
“No,” she giggled. “Bye Mike.”
“Take care,” added Mr. Parker.
“I will, bye Kelly.” He turned and walked toward his bus stop.
Kelly watched until his shadow faded into the night, then turned and opened the door.
She had one confused glimpse of trees, then realized she was falling.
What??!!! was all she had time to think before she hit soft forest floor with enough force to knock her cold.