Akiko in the Castle of Alia Rellapor
Page 8
“Come on, Akiko, it’ll be good for you,” she said. “I practically promised Mrs. Miller that you’d do it.”
“Melissa, why can’t somebody else be in charge of the safety patrol?” I replied. “I’m no good at that kind of stuff. Remember what happened when Mrs. Antwerp gave me the lead role in the Christmas show?”
Melissa usually knows how to make me feel better about things, but even she had to admit last year’s Christmas show was a big disaster.
“That was different, Akiko,” she insisted. “Mrs. Antwerp had no idea you were going to get stage fright like that.”
“It was worse than stage fright, Melissa,” I said. “I can’t believe I actually forgot the words to ’Jingle Bells.’”
“This isn’t the Christmas show,” she said. “You don’t have to memorize any words to be in charge of the safety patrol.” She was carefully beginning the third floor of a very ambitious card house she’d been working on for about half an hour.
“Why can’t I just be a member of the safety patrol?” I asked her.
“Because Mrs. Miller needs a leader,” she said. “I’d do it, but I’m already in charge of the softball team.”
And I knew Melissa meant it, too. She’d be in charge of everything at school if she could. Me, I prefer to let someone else be the boss. Sure, there are times when I wish I could be the one who makes all the decisions and tells everybody else what to do. I just don’t want to be the one who gets in trouble when everything goes wrong.
“Besides,” Melissa continued, “it would be a great way for you to meet Brendan Fitzpatrick. He’s in charge of the boys’ safety patrol.” One thing about Melissa: No matter what kind of conversation you have with her, one way or another you end up talking about boys.
“What makes you so sure I want to meet Brendan Fitzpatrick?” The card house I’d been working on had completely collapsed, and I was trying to decide whether it was worth the trouble to start a new one.
“Trust me, Akiko,” she said with a big grin, “everyone wants to meet Brendan Fitzpatrick.”
“I don’t even like him,” I said, becoming even more anxious to change the subject.
“How can you not like him?” she asked, genuinely puzzled. “He’s one of the top five cute guys in the fourth grade.”
“I can’t believe you actually have a list of who’s cute and who isn’t.”
That was when my mom knocked on my door. (I always keep the door shut when Melissa’s over. I never know when she’s going to say something I don’t want my mom to hear.)
“Akiko, you got something in the mail,” she said, handing me a small silvery envelope.
She stared at me with this very curious look in her eyes. I don’t get letters very often. “Are you sure you don’t want this door open?” she asked. “It’s kind of stuffy in here.”
“Thanks, Mom. Better keep it closed.”
It was all I could do to keep Melissa from snatching the letter from me once my mom was out of sight. She kept stretching out her hands all over the place like some kind of desperate basketball player, but I kept twisting away, holding the envelope against my chest with both my hands so she couldn’t get at it.
“It’s from a boy, isn’t it? I knew it, I knew it!” she squealed, almost chasing me across the room.
“Melissa, this is not from a boy,” I said, turning my back to get a closer look at the thing. My name was printed on the front in shiny black lettering, like it had been stamped there by a machine. The envelope was made out of a thick, glossy kind of paper I’d never seen before. There was no stamp and no return address. Whoever sent the thing must have just walked up and dropped it in our mailbox.
“Go on! Open it up!” Melissa exclaimed, losing patience.
I was just about to, when I noticed something printed on the back of the envelope:
TO BE READ BY AKIKO AND NO ONE ELSE
“Um, Melissa, I think this is kind of private,” I said, bracing myself. I knew she wasn’t going to take this very well.
“What?” She tried again to get the envelope out of my hands. “Akiko, I can’t believe you. We’re best friends!”
I thought it over for a second and realized that it wasn’t worth the weeks of badgering I’d get if I didn’t let her see the thing.
“All right, all right. But you have to promise not to tell anyone else. I could get in trouble for this.”
I carefully tore the envelope open. Inside was a single sheet of paper with that same shiny black lettering:
And that’s all it said. It wasn’t signed, and there was nothing else written on the other side.
“Outside my window? On the seventeenth floor?”
“It’s got to be a joke.” Melissa had taken the paper out of my hands and was inspecting it closely. “I think it is from someone at school. Probably Jimmy Hampton. His parents have a printing press in their basement or something.”
“Why would he go to so much trouble to play a joke on me?” I said. “He doesn’t even know me.” I had this strange feeling in my stomach. I went over to the window and made sure it was locked.
“Boys are weird,” Melissa replied calmly. “They do all kinds of things to get your attention.”
Published by Delacorte Press
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Random House Children’s Books
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Copyright © 2001 by Mark Crilley
Akiko, Spuckler Boach, Poog, Mr. Beeba, Gax, and all other characters contained within, their likenesses and other indicia are trademark Sirius Entertainment, Inc. All rights reserved.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Crilley, Mark.
Akiko in the castle of Alia Rellapor / Mark Crilley.
p. cm.
Sequel to: Akiko and the Great Wall of Trudd.
Summary: Akiko and her friends reach the final stage of their mission to rescue Prince Froptoppit from the castle of Alia Rellapor.
[1. Science fiction. 2. Life on other planets—Fiction. 3. Adventure and adventurers—Fiction. 4. Japanese Americans—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.C869275 Ag 2001
[Fic]—dc21 2001028175
September 2001
eISBN: 978-0-385-72998-7
v3.0