Rita Alone

Chapter Three - At The End Of The Tunnel

Rita would have enjoyed the ride if she wasn't so shocked from falling through supposedly solid ground. In fact he had through a trap door that opened above an amazing tunnel slide. It was so smooth and so well polished that Rita shot down at lightening speed. Twisting here and turning there, spiralling and looping, on and on into pitch black forever. After what seemed like hours (though in truth it was only three minutes) Rita fell onto a pile of cushions, into bright light that blinding after being in total darkness. She tumbled down a ten foot high mountain of cushions and on to a small hill which was covered in soft, mint green grass. She would have kept tumbling all the way down the hill if she hadn't bumped into a pair of white sneakers. Rita looked up slowly, not because she was afraid but because that's what people always do in films when they land on the grounds near a pair of shoes. But this pair was empty apart from a white (slightly smelly) sock in each shoe. Rita stood up and pulled a bit of grass out of her hair. It was then that she noticed the owner of the sneakers standing to her right. He was a boy who looked a year or two older than Rita in a pair of rather worn jeans and a bright yellow shirt. He had sandy hair and his eyes were a warm, friendly brown. He wore a look of bewilderment.

Perhaps it was the shadow of a smile in the corners of her mouth, or the tiniest flicker of triumph behind his eyes. But something told Rita that the look he wore was not genuine. If she had been anyone else he would have fooled her. But because Rita was so quiet she spend a lot of time observing people when she was in public. She had learnt to read people like a book. She picked up on even the tiniest giveaways. The smallest twitch of the eyebrow or a slightly longer paused between breaths could tell her a great deal about a person was feeling or what they were thinking, if they were lying or truthful. And so far she had never been wrong.

Rita was shy, but she was also curious as I have already told you. This time her curiosity was strongest. She wanted to know where she was, why this boy was not surprised to see her and why he was trying to pretend otherwise. She looked the boy straight in the eyes, she had avoided looking anyone in the eyes for almost two years. But for some reason his eyes did not make her want to shrink away, partly because her curiosity had awakened determination that had lain dormant inside her for so long but also because of how warm and friendly they looked. She looked into his eyes so as to catch him if he tried to deceive her, the eyes always speak the most. "You were expecting me," she spoke in a slightly quiet but steady voice.

"Who are you and where am I?" his eyes were betraying him already, "and why can I see in your eyes that my face is familiar to them?"

He looked slightly taken aback but at the same time impressed. The boy pretended to fall over under some invisible weight grinning mischievously, "Argh! I've been attacked by an army of questions!" Rita kept a straight face, it was difficult for her because the boy looked so stupid rolling around on the grass in mock agony. But she wanted answers.

The boy was not an expert at reading people but he could see that Rita would not forget her questions and that trying to distract her was pointless.

"Alright I surrender," he laughed.

"I'm Jack."