Jessica
“I can’t believe you got us lost, James.”
“Me! You’re the one who dropped the compass in the mud!”
Hold it! You’re probably a bit confused right now, so I’ll explain things. By the way, I’m Jessica Smith. I’m eleven years old, and last year, I was diagnosed as gifted. That means that I’m smarter, or more talented in certain subjects, than most people. In my case, those subjects are foreign languages, math and music. Right now, I’m lost in the jungle with an elite group of explorers. And, by “elite group of explorers”, I mean five of my gifted classmates.
Elizabeth King is a Glee fanatic whose goal in life is to collect all of the erasers and “fruit stickers” of the world. She’s the sporty, adventurous one of the group. She usually wears her golden brown hair in a bun. I think it’s because she doesn’t want it in her face, but whenever I ask, her cheeks flush and she hastily changes the subject.
James Parker is the sciency one and a bit… odd. He always keeps his blond hair in a buzz cut, and will wear a fedora whenever given the chance.
Christopher Wilson, known to everyone as Chris, has a knack for social studies, and is always the man with the plan. Like me, he enjoys studying foreign languages, and, like James, he always keeps his black hair in a buzz cut.
The only ones left to tell you about are the twins, Lisa and Mary Collins. They share a love for art, and always know what to say when one of us is down. Anyway, now that you met us all, it’s time to get back to the story.
“Well, if you hadn’t bumped Jason into that quicksand,” I shouted at James, “We’d still have him and the map!”
Oh, yeah! I almost forgot! We had a seventh member of our group, Jason Moore, but, well, things didn’t turn out so hot for him.
“Has anyone seen Mary?” piped up Elizabeth, in a desperate attempt to change the subject, her deep blue eyes full of a mixture of desperation and fear. She had been otherwise silent for the past half hour. James and I ignored her, and continued arguing.
“At least I can read a map!” James retorted, his blue eyes shining with malice.
“Hey!” called a voice from off the side of the path. It was Mary, and her hazel eyes shone with excitement. Her brown hair was falling out of her ponytail in strands. “Guys? Guys! YOU GUYS!”
“WHAT!” James and I shouted in unison. I could feel my face glowing red with anger.
“You guys have got to see this!”
“See what?” Chris questioned.
“Just follow me!” Mary said, and she took off through the foliage. I glanced at Lisa. She just shrugged, and ran after her sister, the rest of us not far behind.
When we finally caught up with her, Mary had reached a clearing that seemed strangely familiar to me. It took me a while, but I finally recognized it.
“Mary, what’s the big deal?” I asked, “We were here two hours ago, looking for something we could use, and found nothing!”
“Yes, but,” She started rummaging through her bag, and pulled out her sketch pad. “I drew a picture of every place we searched, and when I came back here, I noticed something strange.”
She seemed to have found the picture she was looking for, because she stopped flipping through the pages. We all crowded around her. Lisa was the first to notice the difference between her sister’s sketch and the clearing.
“There used to be a tree there!”
She was right. In the sketch, right where Lisa was pointing, there stood a large palm tree. However, the scene was now dominated by what looked like the entrance to a cave. As we drew nearer, I noticed some strange markings at the top. James must have noticed them too, because he pointed them out to the rest of us.
“They look like runes of some kind.” Lisa observed.
“Mayan,” Chris said. He sounded shocked and a bit scared. When I glanced up at him, his face looked the same, his black eyes glittering with apprehension.
“Do you know what it says?” James asked him.
“Yes, I do, and you’re not going to like it.” Chris said, his voice now trembling with fear. He looked like he was resisting the urge to run. “It says, ‘Entrance to the Cave of Hidden Secrets. Travelers, take heed to this warning, and do not enter, lest you risk facing the horrors within.’”
After a moment’s silence, Elizabeth started walking towards the mouth of the cave, but before she could reach it, I grabbed her arm, so as to stop her going any farther.
“What are you doing?” I hissed in her ear.
“I want to see what’s inside that cave.”
“But remember what it said? ‘Do not enter, lest you risk facing the horrors within!’ Does that sound very pleasant to you?”
“No, but it also said, ‘Entrance to the Cave of Hidden Secrets,’ and if there’s a secret, I want to know what it is.” And, having wrenched her arm out of my grasp, Elizabeth ran into the cave, and was swallowed by darkness.
“She’s going to get us all killed, you know that?” said James. “She really is.”
