Another Door

Kayhari, Lance and I sat under the cherry tree as we always did that day at lunch. Kayhari's guardian, Strawberry was jabbering away about ideas for the performance and Kayhari was witting it all down.

"Here is what I have so far," started Kayhari to read her list, jotted down on the pages of her notebook titled "the plan." "We will put on a play about a group of soldiers (a fortune teller, lone ranger and princess) all go on an adventure!"

"What if we just emulate other plays we have seen. Kinda like a mash-up," suggested Lance who was surprisingly willing to put forth effort. If I had to guess, it was secure a part as a tree in the background, or a side character who didn't have any lines.

"I agree," said Night, Lance's guardian that took the shape of a small dragon.

"What if we do both?" I pretended that I was also very into the idea of preforming in front of royalty. "We could use popular scenes and kind of turn them into our own."

"Where's Kai, we need his opinions too," Kayhari asked, and I really didn't want to explain the incident from the night before. It happened so fast that my memory was still hazy. In fact, I hadn't registered it quite completely, but when Kai had walked past me, he tossed his silver portal key. I felt in the pocket of the blazer for the key and clenched it in my hand.

I knew they were going to find out one way or another, so I didn't have a choice. "In my world, Kai was taken to a police station for questioning. He's not in trouble or any-"

The weird looks from the two friends made me pause. Kayhari spoke up, "What's is a police station?"

"You guys don't have police?" I asked, confused and they shook their heads. "It's basically like guards who are put in place of a certain town or district to protect."

"Oh," Lance Kayhari Strawberry and Night all understood in unison.

"Wait, WHAT!?" shrieked Kayhari, realizing the severity of the situation. "Why?"

"Well, I'm not really sure, but-" that's when I was cut off by Aqua.

"Hey! You have to see what Owen and Rinna found!" the cat Gurdian shouted from across the school yard, distracting other students for a moment. The entire group went to see what had happened.

The entire class had gathered in the library, guardians and all. The first person I heard was Suki. "What the heck are we going to do with a tattered script that we can barely read?"

"We decipher it, shorten it, and make it our performance," Samm replied with a mischievous smile. "All the homework has been done for us!"

"Samm's kind of right," smiled Rinna. "It's not cheating if no one finds out."

"That's like saying its not murder if no one finds the body," Camm retorted.

"Well, its not murder, so let's use it," Samm preached, trying his hardest to convince the group of... whatever was going on. I for one was quite interested in the debate that had taken place in the library.

"Guys, comparing it to murder is a bit extreme," Laura chimed in. "It's just a homework assignment."

"Yeah an assignment that we are to preform in from of a queen," argued Owen.

"Um, murder wasn't in the plan!" Kayhari pointed her finger at Samm who just shrugged. "What the heck is going on in here?"

"Owen accidentally opened this weird door with a script inside," explained Rinna. " Its torn up, but I'm sure we can decipher the gist of what it says."

"Yeah, and if we get in trouble, it's Samm's fault," Owen finished.

"Right," Samm nodded with a smile, before realizing what Owen had said. "Hey! It's your fault too, right Lance?"

"No, I'm good with the first plan," Lance crossed his arms. Samm scoffed, obviously betrayed that someone he consider to be his 'best friend' didn't actually agree with him for once.

"Whatever, if you guys wanna do it the hard way, then I'm not helping," Samm pouted like a child.

"Can I see the script?" I spoke up, and Suki, who had been flipping through the pages the entire time, handed it to me.

"It might be old, but the writing is ahead of its time," she twirled a strand of her hair around her finger. "If we do decide to do this, it might actually shock the audience."

"Then they are going to know that they didn't write it," Owen shot back, adjusting the hood of his coat that he wore over his blazer. His ice magic brought his tempeature down quite a few degrees. "Is that a risk we really wanna take?"

"Yeah, they would totally know, actually," sighed Suki who must have been existed to play a part in the ancient-looking script.

Samm turned to her. "How would they?"

"Because if you were in this play, it would have been written with at least five grammatical errors per paragraph.

"So, if we kick him out, we might have a chance of getting away with this?" a devious grin sped across Rinna's face.

"I don't think we have the power to do that," Laura tried to steer the conversation away from having her sibling kicked out of school.

"Look on the bright side. We'll blame him and he can just relax at home for the rest of his life," Camm laughed.

Lance spoke up. "Or we could just murder him."

"How about we just do the script!" Laura exclaimed. The jokes being made obviously made her nervous.

"Laura's right, you guys would never be able to kill me anyway!" Samm claimed with the utmost confidence. His (fake) maniacal laugh echoed throughout the library.

"We are doing the script?" asked Suki, her face lighting up the slightest bit.

"And who would write us a better one?" I looked up from examining the tattered script to glance at Kayhari, who had been scribbling away in her notebook with enthusiasm on her face. She seemed detached from reality.

Then Kayhari exclaimed, "Alright! Using this wonderful script is all in the plan!"

"Then it's settled, because our dear fortune teller said so," Samm finalized his plans with the help of Kayhari. I wasn't excited to see how that mess was going to end but the story seemed interesting.

I looked behind me to see all of our guardians had abandoned the conversation. None of them seemed to really care what we did outside of training. Aqua was no exception, for the cat was sleeping on top of a bookshelf.

But something started to bug me. Was this new secret door connected to the one where I found the second piece of the Nickeler stone? As I handed the script back to Suki, the bell rang, chiming throughout the academy from the bell tower.