Leah And Isabel's Adventure With The Mugwumps

• Jae Jaensch, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2007

Leah silently wiped away a tear, brushing her silky black hair out of her blue eyes, trying to hide her sadness she looked down at her turquoise dress and silver shoes.

…. “Here lies Isabel Rose Scott”, continued the priest. He was saying the words with no expression and no feeling. He also kept glancing over at the men in black, they looked like security guards. Wait, they don’t have security guards at funerals.

The rest of the day passed in a blur, relatives Leah had never met were asking her how she felt. “Fine”, she lied. I mean how would they feel if one minute they were waving good-bye to their sister at soccer practice and the next getting the phone call from the police and paramedics saying there was nothing they could do.

Leah ate dinner in her bedroom keeping to herself, she wanted to talk to someone but what would she say? They would expect her to be crying but something about the priest’s actions kept bothering her.

Leah tossed and turned in bed trying to forget the day’s events, when she heard the screeching of tyres and a man yelling, “Shut up! You’ll wake up the whole street. There is to be no flaws in my plan. We could’ve been ruined by that girl umm… Isabel.” Leah hurried over to the window trying to catch more of the conversation. She overheard words like ‘lab….DNA….Mugwumps’. All this made no sense to Leah. She decided to follow them, something about Isabel’s funeral was wrong.

She pulled on her dressing robe and raced downstairs. By the time she got to the front door they were preparing to leave. Without considering the consequences she slipped into the back of their van. There was so much equipment; it was like stepping into a hospital. There were heart monitors, fifty computers and even fold down beds. But before she had time to adjust to her surroundings someone slammed the door shut.

They had only travelled a short distance when the van screeched to a halt in front of an empty warehouse. After untangling herself from the wires she slipped out of the van, anxious to hear what the men were saying.

Silently she slipped through the open door. Inside it was eerily white and sterile. As she drew nearer to the voices, she noticed a room that was quite unlike the others. There were cages, wall to wall, and there were things inside quite unlike she had ever seen. Creatures whose skin was light blue with cat-like eyes, elfish ears and webbed feet. They were actually kind of cute in a strange way. Across the room, in one of the cages, Leah saw something that made her face turn white.… Isabel. She ran over to the lifeless figure,
“Isabel can you hear me?” she whispered.
Isabel opened her eyes.
“Leah what are you doing here? Have they got you, too?”
“Got me? What do you mean?” asked Leah, stunned.
“Oh, don’t you know what’s happening?” Isabel exclaimed exasperatedly.
“No, tell me!”
Isabel launched into to her story. Leah became more shocked by the minute. The facts that she gathered were: After soccer training Isabel had gone home with, what she thought, was a friend. She turned out not to a friend at all. Instead he brought her to this lab and fed the police a story about a car accident. The wreckage was so devastating that the body was beyond recognition. Dental records were switched and everyone assumed the body was Isabel’s. At the lab Isabel was locked in a cage. Later discovering (mostly through eavesdropping) that this company had founded a new species called Mugwumps which had heaps of uses like curing diseases and helping crops grow. At first the company just sold the Mugwumps to local organizations but soon discovered they could make millions selling them internationally. However a problem soon developed. They were running out of Mugwumps and their breeding season only went for a month. That’s when the company came up with the idea of altering human DNA to match the mugwumps! Isabel was to be the person for this experiment.

Leah would need to act fast! First, she needed the keys to the cages. She slipped into the room where the men, deeply emersed in conversation, were sitting and snatched the keys off their hook. Quickly she ran back to Isabel and unlocked the cages, collecting the Mugwumps as well. Pulling open the front door they were confronted by what seemed like hundreds of scary-looking soldiers advancing row upon row from every angle. They were trapped.

Suddenly something quite unexpected happened…Leah and Isabel started to fly. The Mugwumps had lifted them off the ground and were taking them to safety.

Well it all took a lot of smoothing over with the police but eventually all the employees were arrested. The Mugwumps were put into a wildlife sanctuary. Isabel and I also have a new sister, Christie (the Mugwump who saved us) she lives with us now and things have never been better.