“And tell me a reason why we shouldn’t? You’ve probably stolen some bracelets now to add to the legendary necklaces,” Jess said. Not bothering to care.
“Who said I was stealing? Does no one know a joke when I say one?”
“Then that was the worst joke I have ever heard in my entire eleven years on planet Earth, and trust me, I have heard a lot of bad jokes,” Olivia said. “What I really want to know is why he actually wanted to come to Diviniand.”
“I don’t really have a reason for wanting to come here.” He shrugged. “I mean, who wouldn’t want to come to a peaceful place like this?”
“Maybe bullies?” Olivia muttered. Jess kicked her leg to shut her up.
“Owww!” she shouted, and Jess just rolled her eyes at her.
“Can you guys stop being difficult just for the sake of us trying to get back home?” Jess made sure they both heard her, and they both muttered something that she couldn’t hear. “I’m guessing that’s a yes. Harry, do you know how to read this map? Because me and Olivia need to go to the jewellery shop.” She passed the unreadable map to Harry.
“Maybe if you put your pendant on it, you’ll be able to read it,” he suggested.
“I guess it’s worth a try, Jess!” Olivia said.
“Sure. Besides, it’s not like we’ve got anything to lose.” Jess grabbed the map out of Harry’s hands and put it on her pendant. The grassland all around her was blasted with the same shockwave that had hit Harry and Michael, and the map slowly started to form into place. A mark appeared on the map next to where three of them were standing.
“Note to self,” Jess whispered, dazed, “never, ever put my pendant on something that is from Diviniand.”
“Jess, you did it! We can finally find our way to the jewellery store, which is one step closer to home! I cannot believe that you did it!” Olivia squealed and hugged her.
“Good job,” Harry muttered.
“Thanks, guys!” Jess said, smiling, “Now let’s get out of here before we land in any more trouble!”
The three of them packed up their things and looked behind them.
“Wait! Harry, before you go, do you know how to hack?” Harry looked at her as if Jess were crazy. “No! Why do you need to know someone who can hack?”
“I’ve got my reasons,” Jess replied.
As the sun shone brightly through the clouds, the three of them started their journey to the city.
Chapter 9
The grasslands were coming to an end, which made Jess know that they were closer to their destination than they’d thought. She stared at the odd map, which was in her hands, and couldn’t help wondering if they would ever get out of this place. She couldn’t imagine not being able to get back home. Never being able to see her family and friends again.
Jess shuddered at the thought and she realised that her friends had moved ahead of her. She ran back up to them, so she wouldn’t fall behind any further.
Jess could definitely see more sudden changes in her surroundings now. There were now many more people and animals, or at least Jess thought they were animals, but that didn’t matter at that moment. They were so close to where they needed to be that she could almost taste it. More people and strange-looking animals passed their way, making it harder for the three of them to see where they were going.
“Can they please get out of the way?” Harry complained.
“Who cares, Harry. At least we’re nearly there.” Olivia overtook Harry.
He just stared at her in disbelief. “You guys are still mad at me, aren’t you?”
“Olivia, Harry, get along, or else I’m going without you,” Jess said to the squabbling pair.
“Fine,” they both muttered. They travelled the rest of the way quietly but didn’t hide how shocked they were when they saw something extraordinary. But even extraordinary couldn’t describe how amazing it was. There was a massive door that said “Diviniand” on it in golden writing. Apart from that, the black door was pretty plain. Jess swung the door open, and inside the room were white walls and a crowd of people. Inside the room was another door, identical to the one behind them, on the other side of the room.
“Okay, guys. How are we supposed to get in?” Harry questioned.
“Jess’s pen—” Olivia started.
“Guys, my pendant doesn’t work on everything, you know,” Jess said, smirking, as she put the map in her pocket.
“Calm down, Jess, we were never going to say your pendant was the key,” he said as he snatched the necklace off her and ran to the door.
“Why is he so stubborn and immature?” Olivia muttered.
Jess couldn’t help laughing at Olivia. “You say that like you don’t disagree with me or him at all.”
Olivia started blushing and said something under her breath that suspiciously sounded like “shut up.” Jess put her hand on Olivia’s shoulder before running to Harry, hoping that he hadn’t gotten into any sort of trouble. It was hard to distinguish where he was in the massive crowd, but she couldn’t help wondering if the door wasn’t supposed to be closed. She plucked up the courage to ask someone if the door was normally open. Luckily, a man with almond-brown skin was right in front of her.
“Um, excuse me,” Jess mumbled, “how come the door isn’t opened?”
“Oh, didn’t you know about the Divinament’s orders? One of the Divinament people gave the orders! I thought everyone knew what happened around here!” The man smiled at her. I guess he seems nice enough, Jess thought.
“Actually, my friends and I are pretty new here,” Jess replied.
“Ah! Welcome to Diviniand. How have you found it so far?” he asked.
“Honestly, it is a bit strange.” She looked at an “animal” that was walking by. It was the weird creature she’d seen earlier that day. “What is that thing?” she asked, pointing at the plump little creature.
“It’s a diveel!” he replied. “They are the civilisation who lived before we started visiting!”
The creature was about the size of a dwarf and had a chubby, light-pink face. It wore red boots with a white shirt and black trousers. It wasn’t a very heavy creature by the look of it.
“Do they like people visiting their home? Because I know I wouldn’t like it,” Jess muttered.
“Normally they do, but they are a bit short tempered,” he said.
“Also, do people live here?”
“Oh no! That would never work out with the diveels.” The man laughed.
“So if people don’t live here, how come the Divinament are people?”
“Nobody knows…No one even knows if they are people or not!” The man paused for a dramatic effect. “Just kidding!” He laughed. Jess laughed nervously with him.
“Oh, wow, I completely forgot what you wanted to know!”
“Oh yeah. I was asking about the door.” Jess pointed at it.
“Well, apparently, three people came to Diviniand without a kind of gateway passport! Two females and one male, to be exact. The way they came in is why it was raining hard in England the other day!” The man exclaimed, “Can you believe it? Some people are so irresponsible. So to make sure that they aren’t trying to get in, they’re going to check our passes.”
“Do you know if they are kids or adults?” Jess asked, nearly choking.
“The Divinament, the Diviniand government, didn’t give us that information, but I’m pretty sure they’ll know.”
“I think my friends are waiting for me,” she quickly lied. “Thanks! You’ve been really helpful.”
“No problem. Just come to me if you need a favour.”
“I just have one more question,” Jess whispered. “What is the punishment?”
“I think it’s imprisonment,” the man said.
Jess couldn’t believe what she had just heard.
Chapter 10
Jess ran as fast as she could to Olivia before she headed back out to the place where they first camped.
“We need to get
out of here. NOW!”
“What’s the matter, Jess?” Olivia whispered.
“I just figured out that we are all going to be in prison if we come here without a passport or a licence of some sort!”
“WHAT?” Olivia screamed, but no one heard her because of all of the noise people were making.
“So get Harry, ’cause we are getting out of here!”
“One small problem, Jess,” Olivia muttered. “I have no idea where Harry is. Remember that was kind of your job?” She nervously smiled at Jess.
“Then what are we waiting for? Let’s find him!” Jess raced through the bustling crowd with Olivia right behind her. The crowd got thicker and thicker, which made it harder to find him. They finally got to the door he said he was going to unlock, which he had clearly failed at doing. The girls found him at the door with guards suspiciously looking at him.
“What mess has he got us into?” Olivia wailed.
“I honestly have no idea.” Jess shook her head. “Olivia, maybe we could use the map as our pass or something, but if we do, we’re going to have to split up.”
“Why do we need to split up? Wouldn’t it be better if we stick together?” Olivia asked her.
“Not in this case,” she replied. “The Divinament know that two females and a male came here without permission. If we go there together and say we both know Harry, we’d be dead meat.”
“I guess you’re right,” Olivia sighed. “I really don’t get why he thought he could unlock the door. By the way, is Divinament the Diviniand government?”
Jess nodded to say yes to her. “Do you think you could find another Diviniand object so then we would have three?” Jess looked desperately at her, and then Olivia nodded.
“We’ll meet here, then, Jess.” Then she set off.
Jess walked up to Harry and whispered in his ear, “What are you doing?”
“I tried to unlock the door, but it didn’t work! What is happening?” Harry looked bewildered.
“All you need to know is that we’re going to be in trouble if we don’t get out of here!” Jess whispered.
“What about the jewellery shop?” Harry replied.
“I’d rather not know about my family’s history than spend the rest of my life here! Let’s just get out of here.” Jess pulled Harry to his feet, grabbed her necklace off him, and then ran to where Olivia said she would meet them. Olivia finally came running up to them with a random object that looked like a match.
“Do you guys want to know the good news first or the bad news?” Olivia asked nervously.
“Good news,” Harry said quickly.
“The good news is that I think I’ve got a Diviniand object.” She showed them a match and put it in her pocket. “The bad news is that I could be wrong about the good news, and we can’t get out of here since they closed that door as well.”
Jess spun to the other door to see if what Olivia said was true, and it was. The large, black door was shut. They had no way out if they decided to abandon their mission.
“You have got to be kidding me!” Jess moaned. “What could be worse than this?”
“You might not have wanted to say that, Jess,” Harry muttered and pointed at a man’s pass. “The pass isn’t a Diviniand object at all! It’s an actual licence!”
“I think this is officially the worst and craziest day of my life,” Jess groaned.
“I agree,” Harry mumbled, and Olivia nodded her head.
“But that doesn’t mean we give up.” Jess gave them a friendly look.
“How? We have no passes, and all we have are some trash objects,” Olivia muttered.
“Well, guys, I guess we’re going to have to sneak in,” Jess sighed.
“You do realise that we now have two reasons to go to jail if we do this!” Olivia wailed.
“WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME THAT WE’RE ABOUT TO GO TO JAIL?” Harry shouted.
“Harry, calm down! We don’t want to alert the guards!” Jess glanced at them quickly and walked over to Harry. Olivia followed her.
“Maybe you should be angry at us somewhere else,” Olivia muttered. They walked Harry somewhere more private and let him talk.
“How can I calm down when none of you people told me that my reputation is going to be ruined?”
“How weird,” Olivia said, smirking. “I kind of thought your reputation was already ruined!”
“Ha ha, Olivia. You realise I’m being serious, right?”
“Just calm down, you two, but Harry is right,” Jess said. “We need to be serious! If we don’t find a way out of that door, we’ll be here forever, which I don’t intend to let happen. At. All.”
“Okay, okay, Jess, but I think we may have to go to jail for us to get in!” Olivia looked thoughtful, and Harry turned to Jess.
“She’s got a plan that might end up killing us, hasn’t she?” Harry croaked.
“Honestly, Harry, I hope you’re wrong.”
Then all three of them went to discuss Olivia’s plan.
Chapter 11
“Olivia, I thought you were smarter than this.” Harry shook his head in disbelief and looked at Jess. “You aren’t really considering doing this, are you?”
“I don’t know,” Jess replied. “I mean, if you’ve got a better idea, I’d like to hear it.”
“I think no idea is better than this one,” he muttered quietly.
“We’re not deaf, you know, Harry!” Olivia smirked and spun around to face Jess. “So can we go through the plan again?”
“Sure, Olivia!”
“Okay, so what we need to do is one of us needs to get caught by the guards, which will be Harry since he has caused a lot of trouble already—”
“Hey, it’s not my fault I thought I could open the door!” Harry protested.
“No offence, Harry, but it kind of is. Carry on, Olivia.” Jess gave a stern look to Harry, and he gulped.
“Thanks, Jess. Anyway, I was saying that since they know Jess was with him, they’ll probably go after her as well. Which means the guards would leave the door! Jess could lead the guards in the crowd, which means that they would lose her easily. Then, me and Jess could slip in, get Harry, and then we’re in!”
“We are all probably going to die because of this crazy plan, but I have to admit, it is pretty smart.” Olivia smiled at Harry and turned to Jess.
“Guys, we’ve just got to remember that me and Harry, and maybe you Olivia, would literally be fugitives on the run. The whole of Diviniand will be looking in every nook and cranny for us!” Jess complained.
“We’ll just have to be extra careful, then, Jess. There’s nothing to worry about. Right, Harry?”
Harry nodded at Olivia, and then Jess sighed, “Fine, but don’t say I didn’t warn you!”
“We’re going to have to do it now or never, though, guys. It looks like they’re preparing to see the passes,” Harry informed them.
“Harry’s right. We need to do the plan NOW!” Jess demanded. The three of them took their positions and recited what they needed to do inside their heads. Olivia nodded her head and Harry took his place next to the guards.
“Um, excuse me, I don’t think I have a pass thing. Should I have one? Because I kind of came here without one.” Harry sounded as if he wasn’t sure what he was doing, which sounded very convincing. Who knew Harry was an actor? Jess snorted but quickly turned it into a loud cough. She made a note to herself to tease Harry about this when she got the chance.
One of the guards took a walkie-talkie out of his pocket and said, “Boss, I think we’ve got one of the criminals who came here. Roger that, boss.” He turned to the other five guards and ordered, “The boss says for two of us to take him to jail for the time being. Axel, you’re coming with me to take him there.”
“Roger that, sir,” the guard apparently called Axel replied. Axel was a burly man with a black goatee and thick, dark eyebrows. His expression was fixed in an annoyed expression on his face which gave a frightening feeling about
him. They opened the door and both took Harry away, which left four more guards at the door. The door closed as quickly as it had opened.
“I swear that I saw a girl with that boy earlier today,” one of the guards said. As if on cue, Jess came along and stood in front of the guards.
“If you want to get me, you’re going to have to catch me!”
“GET HER!” one of them commanded. The remaining four guards chased after Jess, and like Olivia had told her to, she went into the crowd. Soon enough, the guards had lost her, and Olivia and Jess both ran to the door from their different directions.
“We need to open the door now, Jess!” Olivia sternly reminded her.
“Have you got a hairpin?” Jess requested. “I can pick locks!”
Olivia was already picking one out of her hair. “I do! I always keep one in case of a hair emergency, but I would never have thought that I would be using it for this!” She gave it to Jess, and Jess started picking the lock. Olivia jogged on the spot quickly and bit her nails at the same time.
“Done!” shouted Jess. Olivia stood still, and they both watched the giant door swing open.
“Let’s go and save Harry!” Olivia exclaimed, and the two girls walked into the unknown.
Chapter 12
The girls arrived in a whole different city. The door slammed shut behind them and somehow disappeared. The streets reminded Jess of London, but it was also as peaceful as a village. Towers, shops, and buildings towered over them. The city looked as if it had been used for hundreds and hundreds of years. The town gave Jess a rustic feeling. It was a beautiful city. There were many people swarming around them, including diveels. They must’ve opened the door! Jess thought.
“Jess, what is that little creature over there?” Olivia bent down and observed the pink creature.
“Oi,” it said, “just because I’m a diveel doesn’t mean you can look at me all day!” The diveel walked away muttering words that they were glad they couldn’t hear.
Adventures in Diviniand Page 3