Nothing to look at here—maybe in the next room, Betty thought. But when Betty approached the door to the next room, nothing made sense at all. From the outside, the door looked normal, but when Betty twisted the knob, a machine made its way from out of the wall. “Place your hand here,” the automated voice said. Betty backed away. It was all so complex and computerized, and the rest of the house looked like a shack.
Finally, she let out a shaky breath and placed her hand on the metallic surface.
“INTRUDER ALERT! INTRUDER ALERT!” A siren blared. Betty backed away, then started running to the room that she had been in when she first got here. The siren was still blaring, and Betty worked hard to catch her breath. The siren soon died down but nobody approached her. She made her way to a couch and dug her finger into one of the couch’s deep holes. Everything seemed oddly familiar, as if she had been here before.
And then she remembered. Amber! This was the exact same couch on which Amber had sat and patted Zenthia, her pet lion, at the end of the first book. She had imagined this place when she was reading—the couches, the windows, and the pecan colored walls. Everything matched the descriptions in the books.
This was Amber’s house in Amber the Brave. Who else would live in the middle of a forest? If this was real or a dream or her imagination, Betty didn’t care. It just mattered that she was here—the place of her dreams, the base of adventure.
But where was Amber? And where was her lion, Zenthia? So far Betty hadn’t seen either of them anywhere.
Suddenly Betty received her answer.
A door that Betty hadn’t gone through opened and a crouching figure with no mane approached Betty. Her claws were the size of Betty’s fingers, but sharper than her nails. In the light, her fur looked pale. Her eyes looked evil and hungry as she slowly got ready to pounce. Betty couldn’t take her eyes from the lion’s brown and beady eyes, which were drawing her in.
Then, the trance broke and Betty started running toward the pair of double doors the lion had come from. The lion’s warm breath streaked down Betty’s neck as it followed. Sweating, she burst through the double doors to what seemed to look like a balcony. She was going so fast, she collided with a girl about the same height as her!
“Sorry,” Betty nervously said. “The lion’s chasing me and oh, I’m so scared,” Betty admitted, as the female lion burst through the double doors herself and scowled at her prey. Betty cringed with fear, then turned around.
The other girl however found this behavior perfectly acceptable, and as she stroked the lion affectionately, she spoke to Betty in a sharp tone.
“It’s what she’s supposed to do. Any intruders have to face her first and if they make it out alive, they get the chance to battle with me.” The girl said this as if it were rehearsed. Her voice and words sounded strong but her face lacked confidence.
Finally, Betty spoke, “Amber? Amber the Brave? What are you doing here?” Betty recognized the poised figure and the auburn hair. The emerald green eyes and slightly tanned skin finally tipped her off. The camouflage pants and dark green shirt caught Betty’s attention—only a real adventurous girl would dress like that. And there was only one real adventurous girl in Amber’s house, and that was Amber herself.
“Um, it’s my house! And I don’t need to answer any of your questions,” Amber boasted, but the last sentence seemed to come out late and didn’t have the intimidating effect Amber had hoped for, since she had just answered one of Betty’s questions.
“Look, what are you even doing here? I don’t like strangers, and if you want, I’m ready to fight, as long as I get you out of my house,” Amber said, pretending to be bored.
Meanwhile, Betty couldn’t figure out why Amber was talking like this. She was supposed to be kind and genuine—or at least that’s how Lana Mungo described her. Were characters different from how authors wrote about them? Was Amber different in real life? Because this was definitely real. The balcony that Betty stood on looked real, and it felt so too.
“No, I haven’t come to fight. I want to…” What? What did Betty want to do? Be friends? Yes. That sounded right. She did desperately wanted to be friends with Amber. “Be friends?” Betty hesitantly said, hoping Amber would stop asking questions.
“That’s what they all say. ‘I want to be friends,’ or ‘I am your…uncle,’ or, and here’s the funniest one ‘I brought cake.’ So what’s the real reason you’re here, supervillain?”
“Supervillain? What are you talking about? I’m Betty,” Betty smiled and held out her hand. Amber took it for a split second, and Betty winced as she twisted it.
“Ow!” Betty cried, rubbing her wrist. “Why’d you do that?” Not only were Betty’s feelings hurt, but also her wrist. What was wrong with Amber?
“You can drop the act. Just reveal yourself. C’mon, I’m supposed to bust into Professor Spark’s office to kick his butt at about two o’clock, so stop trying to be friendly, Betty, and let’s just fight. C’mon! Either we do it now or in five minutes, but you’re still going to get thrown off this balcony.”
“You don’t really think I’m a supervillain, right?” Betty laughed, but her chuckling faded as she noticed the serious expression spread across Amber’s face.
“Duh…” Amber said. Betty blushed at her foolishness.
Standing on that balcony, Betty felt changed, as if she had known Amber, but now the heroine standing in front of her was nothing more than a girl with a bad attitude. Betty bet that Amber accused everyone who came into her house of being a supervillain. She also bet most people left as quick as they could, but Betty Pems Hilmar was a girl with determination. She was certainly scared but she also wanted to become friends with Amber. How could she do so if Amber thought she was a supervillain?
The scar!
The very first chapter in Amber the Brave introduced the scar. For billions of years, supervillains had scars engraved on their left ankles—a way to show they were supervillains. They usually wore long black trousers to hide the mark, but most people knew about the mark anyway. It was a dead giveaway if your scar was revealed, because no matter how good the disguise, the scar was permanent and was there right when the villains were born.
Betty didn’t have the scar, and once she showed Amber, the other girl wouldn’t think of her as a bad guy anymore! Betty’s heart jumped for joy at her cleverness as she pulled up the left leg of her pants.
“Hey Amber,” Betty said. “Look at this!” Betty held her foot up high and her ankle showed no scar. Amber’s eyes widened with surprise, and she bent down, feeling Betty’s ankle for the mark, but it wasn’t there. Shocked, Amber stood up and said, “Wait, so you’re not a villain?”
“That’s right,” Betty nodded gleefully.
“Then what are you doing here? Nobody really comes to this part of the forest,” Amber said, eyeing Betty while pursing her lips.
Betty tried to straighten her tangled brown hair. She looked down to smooth her clothing and realized she was wearing pajamas and bunny slippers. Oops. Betty blushed again. Now that she wasn’t a supervillain to Amber anymore, she cared about how she looked. While Betty was trying to untangle her hair, Amber was still watching her suspiciously.
“I’m Betty Pems Hilmar,” Betty said, trying to keep her voice cool.
Amber continued to stare, so Betty continued to explain—or at least try to explain. She knew she couldn’t say she’d come by a magical book. Who would believe that?
“Well, you see, I got lost and I didn’t know what to do in the midst of this gigantic forest,” Betty said, gesturing to the wilderness below. “And then I saw your house and I thought maybe you could take me in until I figured out how to get back home.” It wasn’t exactly a lie, Betty thought. “So then I came up to the door and saw that it was…unlocked and I decided to go in. Your lion scared me a bit,” Betty said.
“I don’t know,” Amber hesitated. Betty batted her
eyelashes and used her puppy-dog face, hoping Amber would let her stay. After all, she didn’t have anywhere to go, and if Betty’s hunch was correct, this might be the only time she would ever spend with the heroine.
Skeptical Amber’s thoughts were moving in a different direction, though. Would this girl cause her trouble? Hoping not, Amber sighed, “Fine, you can stay.” Then, regaining her sharp attitude, she said, “Don’t make any more trouble though, or you’re out of here, got that?”
Betty held up her right hand as if she were doing the pledge of allegiance and promised, “I won’t do anything. You’ll barely notice I’m here, I promise.” But Amber merely chuckled, because she had a feeling that the new girl wouldn’t be easy to deal with.
Amber started to walk away. She wasn’t used to having guests, and already this one had tired her out. Zenthia dutifully followed and Betty trailed behind the female lion cautiously. She had so many questions to ask Amber, yet she didn’t want to die before she had the chance.
Zenthia went to Amber’s side and growled at Betty when she finally came into the house. Amber was sitting on the dilapidated couch, and, even though Betty wasn’t anxious to, she sat down next to her, backing far away from Zenthia.
This was the first room Betty had been to in the house, but only now did she pay attention to it. It was a mess—but Betty wouldn’t expect more from a girl in the middle of nothing but wilderness.
Since the one window in the room was literally a hole in the wall, it had no glass and let in a cool breeze. The couch was patchy as ever, and the floor was covered with a large rug, stained and dirty. The air smelled of dust and mildew, and Betty wrinkled her nose in disgust. Why couldn’t she and Amber have stayed on the balcony? At least it smelled better. Other than that, the room was bare. Not even a light switch interrupted the impossibly white wall. Betty guessed Amber didn’t receive electricity out here.
“So, Amber—” Betty started.
“How do you know my name? It would be understandable if you were one of the bad guys, but I’ve never even seen you. Who the heck are you?” Amber interrupted.
“I told you, I’m Betty Hilmar,” but the reply didn’t suit Amber.
“No, I mean who are you? What do you like? Even though I’m not really excited about you staying here, I want to be a good host.”
Amber didn’t look like she knew what a host was. A host doesn’t threaten to injure you when you come onto her balcony asking for help. And another thing—Amber was blunt.
“Well…I like your books, and I hate vegetable sandwiches and, um—” It was a question with so many answers and Betty sounded dumb. She was grateful when Amber interrupted.
“Wait—I haven’t written any books.”
“No, I mean I’ve read about you in books.”
“What do you mean you’ve read about me in a book? How could you possibly know about me? I’m supposed to be the most secret person in the whole world!” Amber roared.
Betty was confused. Didn’t Amber know that her whole world was just a book created by an author? She was just a character—a puppet almost, created to think and do whatever Lana Mungo wanted. Amber, apparently, didn’t look at it that way.
Sure, she wondered why she didn’t have friends, or why she wasn’t like everyone else, and why she even had to go on these seemingly purposeless adventures anyway. Yes, she knew it was to fight evil but why her, of all people? Sometimes, Amber did feel like a puppet in somebody else’s hands, as if her fate and destiny weren’t her own, but what others wanted. Still, whenever that thought came, she shook her head and refocused herself, and began to climb down a tree or wade to the other side of the river (because she was often facing an obstacle when these thoughts occurred.)
“You are, you are! Just…” What? What could Betty say? “Remember that one adventure you went on? The one through the Forest of Night? Well, uh, I was there. In the trees. Way up high. You probably couldn’t see me,” Betty added for clarification.
“You were in the Forest of Night?”
“Yeah? So?”
“It’s just, you’re so…girly!”
“What do you mean?” Betty asked defensively.
“I mean, you got freaked out by a lion!”
“Oh, right! Because I was supposed to stay super-calm when she tried to tear off my face!” Betty said sarcastically.
Amber just chuckled, and then got back to the point.
“Well, it’d all be fine if you said you’d saw me—though, if you say anything about that, I’m gonna have to kill you,” Amber said. “But you said you read about me,”
“Did I? I meant to say I’ve seen you,” Betty corrected herself smoothly, but Amber was hesitant to believe it. This girl—Betsy something?—was already causing trouble. In her opinion, all visitors caused trouble, which was why she had chosen a secluded spot in the Horrifying Forest—which wasn’t that horrifying, really—to build her house.
“Uh-huh,” was Amber’s reply. Betty was terrified. Was she boring Amber?
They were silent, each lost in her own thoughts, Amber probably thinking about her guest and Betty thinking about her host. Betty was so excited to be here, but she didn’t know if she really was. It wasn’t scientifically possible to travel by book, right? Maybe this was just another dream?
Slowly, her thoughts began to unravel. What if she was really here? What if this book world was actually real and her world was the fake one? How would she survive here? Would she be stuck here forever, possibly brainwashed by Lana Mungo and put under her control? Had Amber come from the real world too, but been brainwashed to play the role of the amazing heroine? Did the amazing heroine really exist, if Amber wasn’t here from the beginning? What? Betty was confusing herself. She didn’t know what to think anymore, but, as she put her hand to her stomach, remembering the meager peanut butter and jelly sandwich she’d had for dinner, she knew she needed food.
Just as she was about to ask Amber if she could have some food, something in the house rang. It was very loud and sounded like an annoying doorbell. Betty put her fingers in her ears, but she could still hear it. Why won’t Amber open the door already? Betty thought. Then, she realized Amber didn’t have a doorbell. It was described right in the first book.
Amber’s house was a rickety building about two stories high, with green shutters and a chipped door with no doorbell in sight.
So what was the loud, irritating noise? Betty glanced over at Amber, who was fumbling around in her pocket but otherwise seemed rather calm.
Betty watched as Amber drew out her legendary cell phone—not the regular one she used, but the one just for her heroine-type stuff. That was what it was! This was the special top-secret phone she kept in her safari jeans pocket, the one that enabled her to hear about everything that was going on in the world, the stuff the news didn’t bother to report.
Slim, green, and made of this super-shiny material, it was Betty’s dream cell phone. However, every cell phone was Betty’s dream phone, considering she didn’t have one. Amber touched the screen, held it to her ear and tucked it behind some strands of hair, leaving it almost unnoticeable. Amber went on the balcony again. Zenthia took no interest, but Betty followed.
“Uh-huh.” Amber’s conversation was short and quick, and she had closed the cell phone and tucked it back in her pocket before Betty reached her. She was silent for a moment, and Betty didn’t know if she should say something or not.
“Well, I guess I have a mission. I have to reach the Portal to the Future before Doctor Sly does,” Amber sighed.
“Who’s Doctor Sly?” Betty questioned, curiously.
“Another archvillain. He wants to reach this portal called ‘The Portal to the Future.’ Do you know what it does? Takes you to the future! Clever name, huh?” Amber said sarcastically. Looking at Betty’s blank face, Amber asked, “You do know what sarcasm is, don’t you?”
> “Oh, yeah, of course. Don’t you remember? I used it? But…why does Doctor Sly want to get to the Portal of the Future?”
“He thinks there’s a special gizmo in the future that can control all human minds.”
“Oh,” was all Betty was able to say.
Betty still didn’t really have any clue about who Doctor Sly was, and Amber didn’t seem eager to explain, so she let it be. Even though she didn’t want to admit it, Betty was happy Amber was starting a mission. Maybe Betty could go along with her and experience the adventurous life she had always wanted.
Glancing at Amber, Betty thought she saw unhappiness on Amber’s face. Looking again, Betty realized she was right.
“What’s wrong?”
“Why do you care? You’re not the one who has to save the world,” Amber spoke quietly.
“Why can’t I help?” Betty demanded.
“This isn’t fun and games,” Amber said.
“I know that,” Betty protested.
“This isn’t what you think it is. Do you know how I feel? Sad, angry—why am I the only one to do all this? Nobody thanks me. Nobody cares. It’s too much pressure. I’m only ten!” Amber screamed.
Betty didn’t say anything; she was speechless. All this time she had thought she had known Amber, but it turned out Betty didn’t know her at all. Amber didn’t like going on missions? And Amber thought she was real and not just a book character. She was a book character, right?
“Betsy,” she continued. “This isn’t pretend. This, this is real adventure.”
Chapter 8
“Anyway, I guess I have to go, don’t I?” Amber whispered.
Betty nodded.
“That’s what I thought,” Amber sighed, and then she disappeared into her house.
Amber soon returned, carrying a small purple backpack, two water canteens that she stuck into its pockets, and what looked like an old map. Betty recognized all of these objects because Amber’s last adventure had started exactly the same way.
The Adventure of a Lifetime Page 4