A Journey, A Coincidence, A Memory

Chapter 29: Maisie

January 21, 2022, 8:30 pm

"She's still not answering!" Richard complains.

I take the phone from him and ring Mrs. Jenny's phone number again. Lara's still sobbing after looking at her actual science test mark; David really is a scoundrel.

The phone continues to make this irritating, old ringing sound. They should really update this sound.

"Maybe she's not available. Let's call her another time," I say.

"Okay," Richard replies, but at that moment we notice that Lara is gone. "Where's Lara?"

"I don't know. I guess we'll have to find her."

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We search through the giant mansion, looking in every bit of the house. In the middle of nowhere, we spot Rose and a professional-looking dude entering the house.

"Hey there!" Rose marveled. "This is my dad," as she points toward the professional dude.

"Hey Rose's friends," He says joyfully. "I am Mr. Leonardo, nice to meet you!"

"Nice to meet you too," Richard replies; I am not going to do the talking.

He heads his way back to his limousine, where he leaves the mansion. Rose, looking at us, asks "Where's Lara?"

"We are actually trying to look for her, do you happen to know where she is?" I ask.

"She might be in her room, follow me," she directed.

We follow Rose to the cluster of rooms ahead. I have no idea how she can recognize which room is what, but I guess if you live here your whole life, then you will know your house very well. I wish I would be raised in a house like this then I would always invite my friends over and we'd go on scavenger hunts. That would be totally awesome.

We reach a room with a modern cream color door. We enter the room to see Lara playing video games on her tablet; not as expected.

"That's what you do when you're sad?" Richard leered.

"It's the only thing that could make me feel good again," Lara agrees.

"By the way Lara, I was looking for you to tell you that my mom needs you," Rose announces. "And also the two of you," as she faces me and Richard.

"For what?" Lara asks.

"For a surprise, I don't know."

We exit Lara's room and follow Rose to the so-called 'Grand Room'. We sit on a majestic-modern couch across from Mrs. Caroline who pulls out a box on the glimmering table in front of us. She opens the box and pulls out a giant-sized cake labelled 'Happy Birthday Lara'.

Mrs. Caroline faces toward Lara and jabbers, "Your friends here told me it was your birthday yesterday, but unfortunately, you missed it. So we decided that it would be delightful if we celebrated your birthday here."

A look at that chocolate-creamy-crispy cake made Lara the most joyous ever. "Thank you soooooo much!!!" she screamed contentedly.

"Your welcome, now let's slice the cake!"

"More like, let's kill it and devour it!" Richard jokes. That same-old Richard; who's a jokester at any point.

"I've gotten the knives sharpen," Rose giggles. Who knew Richard has a family generation of comedians.

"Hand it over to the master killer," Richard chuckles.

Lara jests, "Here we go," and the cake is sliced elegantly. "Let's eat it now."

"We're going to devour it into our intestines," bantered Richard.

"And mix it with whatever acid is in our stomach," Rose adds.

"Could we get out of this topic?" I command. I hate learning this topic in science.

"Follow Queen Maisie's orders you all," Richard boasted.

And that's all that we do, listen to Rose and Richard's jokes for the rest of the day.

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Hours later, I head to my room and pack my stuff when Lara's phone rings in my bedroom. She must've left this in my room when Richard was continuously babbling all his jokes.

It's her mom calling. I should probably attend it since we were trying to do it earlier.

I answer and Mrs. Jenny divulged, "Lara?"

"Hello Mrs. Jenny, I'm Maisie, not Lara," I reply.

"Oh, you're Maisie? Where's Lara?"

"She's asleep, it's late here,"

"Wait, what are you talking about? It's like 2 pm," I guess she doesn't realize that there is a seven-hour time difference here.

Or if I should tell her we're in London ...

"Well, umm ..." I start nervously. I am still not sure whether I should tell her or not. But I guess a decision needs to be made, "We're in ..."

"Where? Where are you?" she asks curiously.

"We're in London."

That really gave her a heart attack.