Marissa Ash

2

The sleepover was awful. All the girls talked about were boys and diets and makeup. When I was fed up with them I had my dad call me and tell me he needed me to do something for him.

"Thank you Daddy. Would it be okay if I went to my room? I want to work on something." He nodded.

I walked slowly down the glass tunnel that had plants and pictures everywhere. My dad built it when he built the shelter and the studio. I loved going into the little hidden room we built together, it was about 10 feet underground but it was pretty big, I had decorated it with pictures I had taken, of my friends and I, my favorite animals that had come through, pictures of Dad and I on vacation, at dinners, I also had one picture of my mom. I had my dad's old laptop down here and I had put my favorite books along with a sitting area that I had put together. I then realized something was missing.

I climbed the ramp back up to the tunnel and went into the house.

"Dorie!" I called. Dorie came running to me and I gave her the signal to follow me.

When we finally settled down I grabbed a photo album of almost every person I had met when Dad and I traveled the world for years. I flipped through the pages upon pages of people's pictures, the people in the pictures ranged from waitresses to authors to photographers to common people.

I soon fell asleep with Dorie's head in my lap, but I was awoken when I heard a knock and the door of my little room opened up.

"What are you doing here?" I asked Puck.

"I came here because I wanted to talk to you."

"About?"

"You dropped one of your notebooks. All those plans you have? How did you come up with all of them?" How had I missed my notebook falling out?

"I just did. And why were you reading my notebook?"

"That isn't important. You know with all those ideas you could really change the world, Marissa. And I want to help you." At this point in a cheesy romance novel we would have leaned in and kissed each other. But this book hopefully won't be one of those books.

"Prove it to me."

"Prove what?"

"Prove that you are worthy of working with me on these projects. Show me that you really, truly, honestly care about these things."

"I will. Here's your notebook back." He handed me the beat up notebook and left.

I wonder if he's really telling the truth, I thought as the hatch closed.

That next Monday I found out that he was really telling the truth.