Her Royal Madness

Her Royal Madness Part 2

Henry came out of his daze, somewhat, although without his normal swagger. He walked up to her, grinning like an idiot, and said "Um, hi. Are you, uh, new in town? I could show you around. If you'd like." 

Her response to Henry was exactly what frustrates him the most. Nothing. She didn't play along with him or shoot him down or even roll her eyes. She acted like Henry, Nicholas, and Martin simply weren't there. She walked around them without looking at them and stopped in front of me. "Madelaine Johnson." she said, "Come with me. Your life is in danger." Wow! Since when did I become so important that I needed an armed bodyguard to protect me from some mysterious danger? 

Not happy with being ignored, Henry rushed up and grabbed her by the shoulder, turning her towards him. He blurted out, "Now wait just a --" and then he was sailing through the air, landing with a thud. I didn't see her move. 

You've got to give Henry credit. He doesn't give up easily. He was back on his feet immediately. This time he didn't touch her. He just continued to rant at her, "Now look here, lady. I'm in charge of looking after my little sister, so you can butt out. How do we even know you're not the reason her life is in danger?" 

Again she didn't look at Henry, but replied directly to me, "Believe me, Lady Madelaine, if I was a threat to you, you'd be dead by now. Actually, your whole town probably wouldn't be here anymore. Subtlety's never been my strength. They'll be here any minute. We're leaving now. Your brother and the other males will come with us." Well at least she acknowledged that Henry existed. 

The questions started spilling out of my mouth faster than I could ask them, "But, who are-how do you know my-where are we-did daddy---oh! What's going on?" 

She remained calm, but I could sense urgency in her voice when she replied, "My name is Juna." She pronounced it Zhwoona. "I'll explain the rest later. We don't have time now. Come, this way." 

A second later, we didn't need any convincing. We heard a high-pitched whirring, then FA-WHOOMP!! The blast knocked me down. It took a second to clear my head and then I looked up. All around us debris from the explosion was raining down, but oddly enough, none fell on us. Juna had set up a force field or something. Her crystal was glowing and pulsing. Did I mention the crystal? No, I guess I didn't. Sorry. I forgot. A white jewel or crystal the size of an egg was hanging from a gold chain around her neck. It seemed out of place on her. Too fancy. I guess it wasn't a decoration. Oops, I'm wandering off the topic. So this force field was protecting us from the falling junk and she had her ray gun (OK I know it sounds stupid, but what else do I call it- it looks like a ray gun) pointed towards the source of the explosion. 

She said, "They only missed by 47 meters. The next one will be closer." The dust was clearing now and I could see a huge crater in the street half a block away. "OK, let's move before they charge up their cannon for another blast." Looking at the boys, she scowled and said, "Did you idiots hear me? RUN!" 

Nicholas took off like a rabbit. He was about the fastest student in the school, but Martin wasn't far behind him; he's surprisingly fast for his size. 

Henry, however, stood where he was with a defiant look on his face. He reached out a hand to help me up, saying, "You all right, youngster? We probably should get outta here. C'mon." 

Juna looked a little annoyed, "That's enough! We're going now!" She scooped me up under her left arm, took one step toward Henry, and scooped him up under her other arm, without breaking her stride. She sprinted off after the other two. 

It was becoming more and more obvious that this woman was no fair flower or damsel-in-distress. As Henry would say, she was one tough chick. I'm little. It doesn't take much to carry me. But Henry was at least as big as she was. If anything, he weighed slightly more than her, and she was carrying both of us and catching up to Martin and Nicholas. 

The whirring returned and she found an even higher gear. I braced myself for the explosion, but this one was much closer with a deafening sound. The blast launched us into the air. Luckily for us, our rescuer was not just a power lifter and a sprinter; she was also a gymnast. Instead of floundering off-balance in mid air, she tucked into a ball, flipped over and landed easily on her feet. Still carrying us, she was off running again without missing a step. 

Some small gravel from the explosion hit the back of my legs, and a couple of larger stones as well. At one point we stopped, took two steps to the right, two steps forward, two steps left and back to a run again. As I looked to the side, a large piece of asphalt landed right where we would have been if not for the little zigzag. She hadn't even looked back. She just knew the exact time to swerve. 

We caught up to Martin and Nicholas at the end of the next block. Nicholas was slung over Martin's shoulder. There was a big gash on Nicholas' right leg. Martin was about to keep going straight but Juna rounded the corner and called out, "No! This way! Alvonis is waiting for us." She wasn't even out of breath. 

The street she was taking us down led to the park. As we got to the edge of the park, a large object materialized in front of us. It was about eighty feet long with a pointed nose in front and stubby little wings protruding along the back half of its length. The back third of it expanded to about twice the diameter of the rest of the body, as if it held maybe a massive power plant. I looked over at Henry and said, "A spaceship?" 

"No!" he said. "it's a school bus. If it was a spaceship, there'd a bunch of the little green men running around."