On A Mission

• Marley Mcgee, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2011

The caves were beautiful. Ferns hung off the walls and the blades draped down to the ground sweeping the mossy floor. Pointed rocks dangled from the uneven roof and the small entrance protected Quinn from the howling winds of the night. The caves were full of life. Though one had to have good enough eyesight to realise this. Small bugs littered the walls and the occasional birds flew in to shelter from the raging storm. Quinn sat down hard against a wall and brooded. He had a problem. A big one in fact. It’s not as though he could just go home and get whatever he needed. So he had to be cunning. With no money and no food he had to find a way to survive the rest of the tiresome journey. Once again; for about the fifth time that night, he pulled the letter from his pocket. It was its entire fault he was there. All alone, in the grey darkness of the night. The letter was from a girl called Amber. Quinn didn’t know who Amber was, or why she had sent him the letter, all he knew was that it was important he did what she said. He could be rich and famous if he found that creature. The one she talked of. She called them Water Vampires, but she said they were really called Trixies. A combination of vampire, human and mermaid. With bluish, purple colour skin, green eyes and long, cascading shimmery white hair. They could only breathe underwater and they all had long fish-fish like tails, but unlike mermaids, they were not scaly. Their tails were smooth, but not skin and were the same colour as their hair Trixies had bright red lips, with sharp teeth, if bitten; you would only be able to breathe underwater, not on land. They could not talk but they sang. Amber had said to Quinn in the letter, you must find one. Be careful. Right now though, Quinn was desperate for something. And it definitely wasn’t to find the Trixies. It was to find Amber and food and shelter. Which he could not do at one in the morning. In fact, he didn’t even know where she lived. He knew that she lived in this town though; it was going to be like finding a needle in a haystack. This did not bother Quinn, as he had already done that once, for real. Quinn sighed and lay down. But even asleep he couldn’t get any real rest.
His dreams troubled him, and he always had the same one. He was running down a deserted street at full speed, a small girl with long black hair was with him, suddenly, it turned into a river, he swam on and on with the girl. Coming to the surface gasping for breath. He awoke, covered in sweat and gasping. He breathed heavily, then remembering his mission; he jumped up and slipped down the rocks. He ran to houses, many people answered the doors, grumpy old men in dressing gowns, teenagers who told him to get lost and kind ladies who offered him fruitcake. He knocked on a door and a smiling old woman came to the door.
“Amber?” Quinn asked.
“Amber! She lives next door!” The kind lady smiled at him, but was smiling to an empty street. Quinn was already ringing the doorbell in the next house.
“Amber!” he gasped, as a small girl with long black hair answered the door. She smiled in reply and shut the door.
“Quinn?” she asked, and Quinn knew at once this was the girl from his dreams. He nodded at her, and they began to walk off over the cobblestone path to the lush green mountains. Quinn hated happy endings in books and movies, but right now, it was just them, off to complete a dangerous mission. And at that moment, Quinn was wishing as much as he could for a happily ever after ending, and by the look on Amber’s face, she was wishing the same.