A Taste of Hollywood

Six

It was two days later - Monday after-school. Destiny, Olivia and I had spent the day exaggerating tales of our sleepover. Some of them were pretty great.

I was in my room, doing some research for a science project I have to do on my laptop. I was sitting at my desk.

WHEN WAS VENUS FOUND?

I kept typing in the question, but all I got was bogus nonsense about some guy named Galileo Galilee. We learned about him, and he did NOT discover any planets!!! Stupid Google!!!!

I was starting to get frustrated when I realized I'd typo-d myself - I'd written WHO was Venus found!!

I slammed my head on my desk.

Suddenly, the room got light.

I looked up.

The golden-ball thingy.

It was hovering just a few feet from my desk.

I got up and lunged for it.

This time, it just backed up a bit, towards my bathroom.

I stepped and lunged again. It swerved and went behind me.

I whipped around. I went for it on more time - and this time I got it.

It felt warm and solid.

It went forward a bit, so I was dangling with just my heels on the ground. And then it turned wet. I looked over my shoulder. The floor was OPEN! There was a trapdoor behind me!

My fingers were slipping. I was about to tumble into a secret tunnel because of some ghost-ball-thingy-ma-jigger!

I got a better grip...

And it bucked forward, causing my fingers to slip off.

I screamed as I tumbled headfirst and backwards down the dark tunnel.

🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹

I landed on something soft. But it still hurt. It just broke my fall.

I rolled over to see a sparkling gold wall below me, hovering a few centimeters from the concrete wall.

"Ghost-ball?" I whispered as the sparkles formed together to make the golden ball again. I slid gently to the cold floor.

I jumped up. "Where did you take me?" I demanded.

It turned and headed down a hallway.

Not wanting to be left alone in the dark, I hurried after the glowing figure.

"Where are we going?"

Of course, it didn't answer. It just kept floating.

As we reached the end of the hall, there was a single wooden door with a torch on it. In big, bold letters it said:

JAA
8, 15, 12, 12, 25, 15, 15, 4

"What does that mean?" I wanted to know.

Of course, no answer.

The ball went inside.

I gulped and groped for the doorknob. When I opened it, ghost-ball was nowhere to be found.

The room was filled with a dim red light. All I saw was what looked like an ancient chemistry lab. There was a long table with beakers, tubes, and vials - everything was dusty and empty. In the back were cabinets. There were nothing in them.

I went behind the table. I was just looking at the tubes that were strangely tinted pink when my knee knocked into a metal handle sticking out.

I grabbed my knee and bent over. "Ouch!" I shouted. My words echoed eerily, so I shut my mouth.

I grabbed the handle and yanked the door open. Inside were bottles, bottles, bottles filled with red liquid with a stained red cork and with a silver rosary around it.

"What the...?" I wondered. Suddenly, ghost-ball appeared again. She was by the door. She wanted me to leave. I rushed after her, out the door, down the hall, and finally, up some stairs. I was back in my room.

"Ella? Ella!"

Mom was calling me. She sounded urgent and worried.

"Thanks," I whispered to ghost-ball. If she handed gotten me back up here, Mom would've probably called 9-1-1 for a missing child.