Once in a Mouse Hole

Chapter 9

"Wait, every one from every tribe will come?" 

"Yes, and we will read off a list of everybody new so that the older kids will know their names. It is also nice because then we will know if everyone is there. Sometimes kids don't even make it into the tribes and we will have to go get them."

"Sounds fun, is it a fancy party or not?" Morgan asked.

"Not that fancy, but you should probably wear a dress or something like that."

"Is there anything else we should know?" I asked. I wasn't taking chances. You don't want to make a bad impression at the party.

Mr. Stewart thought for a second. "Not really, except for that Tom will pick you up and that you should make some friends. The older kids are harder to make friends with until we start training."

"Okay, sounds good," I said.

"Oh, I'll tell Tom to fix the mirror. It seems that we haven't fixed the settings sense the last person was here. We had to keep watch on him, he wasn't exactly a rule follower."

Then he disappeared from the mirror and all returned to normal. "We've gotta hurry. He said we only had half an hour."

"Okay. Lets get going."

Morgan opened my dresser and grabbed a fancy-ish dress. Although it wasn't that fancy, I didn't want to wear something like that. "How about this one?" I advised. I held up a dress that I liked that was quite comfy.

"No, that is too simple. This would be best." 

"Morgan, really. This is my dress." 

"Fine, but next time, you listen to me." 

I grabbed the dress and walked into the bathroom. I realized that we had not yet cleaned up. I would do this later, right now I needed to get ready. Who knows what Morgan would do if I stopped getting ready. 

I shoved on the dress, and called out, "Hey Morgan, can I come out or are you changing out there?"

"You can come out." I did and then Morgan came into the bathroom carrying her clothes. I went to the laundry shoot and pored my old clothes down. Then I went into the closet and grabbed my new boots. They looked like they would go with anything, so it didn't seam like a bad idea. 

. . .

There was a knock at the door and I turned to Morgan. "They're here," I shouted. 

"Kay, I'll be right there," She said. She walked out of the bathroom with her hair done up in a bun.

"Wow, Morgan don't you think that's a little fancy?"

"Well we are going to a party, aren't we?" 

"Yes we are, and we should get going." I opened the door to greet Tom. 

"Hello, Cora. Are you ready to go?" 

"Yes. Are you ready?" I said to Morgan who was shoving on a shoe.

"Uh uh. I am," she said, although she was clearly not.

"One second," I said. I went into the bathroom to put away the little bag of bathroom stuff that I had forgotten to put away. It would be late when we went back and I intended to go right to bed. 

I looked down and I saw something flash in the light. I reached down and saw that it was a note made out of a strong, purplish black shining material. As soon as I touched it it flashed and stopped glowing. That was weird, I thought. After I had touched it a weird sensation went from my fingers and slowly trailed off. 

On one side it said my name. On the other side it read, "You really aren't that different from me, really." 

I gasped. What a creepy note! And it wasn't just the note, it was what it did that made it even weirder. What note glows?

"Cora, what's taking so long?" Morgan asked. 

"Coming!" I yelled as I shoved the stuff into the bag and put it next to Morgan's already cleaned up one.

Before I left, I looked into the mirror at my shoulder length blond hair. Something was off, but I didn't have enough time to find out what before I rushed to the door and turned to the others.

"I'm ready."

"Then we should be on our way," Tom said. As he turned the doorknob he looked at it closely. "I suppose I should get you a working lock, too."

"Good," I said, "I was wondering why people so easily walked into here."

As we walked down the hall that was surprisingly empty, I asked Tom some questions. "Why have we seen so much of you, but not anyone else?"

"Well, I'm the closest one here to finishing and I thought that being Stewart's assistant would help me learn more. It turns out it just gives me a little more power and a little less time."

"Okay, why are the hallways so empty? They were packed earlier."

"Everybody is getting ready. This really isn't supposed to be that fancy, but everybody still takes a long time getting ready."

By now we were downstairs. "How will we get to the party, and where?" I couldn't help but be curious.

"Well, how did you get here?"

I didn't have time to blink before everything disappeared and I was standing in the middle of a very nicely set up party.