The Micki Adventures,

                                           By Linda Bindner

                                 Chapter 1: Boredom in the Bedroom

Ten year old Micki stared out her bedroom window.  To the left of her field of view marched the dark trees of the woods at the edge of the palace grounds.  The palace play yard stood empty.  The air boards swayed on puffs of wind that attacked their rope hand holds.  The swirly-wirly swung in slow circles, its squealing traveling all the way up to Micki at her open window.  Even the twists and turns of the metal glide seemed to call to her.  Play on me for a while, it said in her mind.  Climb my ladder to the top, then go down my metal glide straight to the bottom where you’ll land on the nice soft sand.  You’ll feel better.  Promise.

 Not that it was like a metal glide could talk.  It was just metal.  It didn’t have any amazing properties of conversation hidden in its first turn, or its second, or its third.  It was just a dumb metal glide, sitting all day under the clouds, the same as the gray and lifeless lake, day in, day out.  Nothing ever changed around here.  Nothing ever would.

Actually, nothing could.  At least, not until The Disease went away.

Micki didn’t know exactly what The Disease was.  She only knew that if you caught it, you died, plain and simple.

At least, that’s what she thought happened.  Didn’t people die from The Disease?  Always?

But that didn’t make sense.  An illness didn’t always cause people to die.  Did those people who died do something they weren’t supposed to?  Not do something they should?  Eat something?  Or forget to eat it?  The healers of the palace always got really serious when she was around and they were talking about The Disease.  They immediately stopped talking.  They wouldn’t look at her.  They snuck looks at her from the corners of their eyes, as if they couldn’t help themselves.  Then they whispered so that she couldn’t hear what they said.  As if by pretending that she couldn’t hear, they were keeping her from getting The Disease.  Not saying anything about it might keep her alive.

Micki barked a laugh that was sarcastic and rude.  It wasn’t like she was going to break if she knew about The Disease.  It wasn’t like she was too dumb, or fragile, or too young to know what was going on.  They treated her like… like… a princess!  It was very annoying.

No, it was more than annoying.  Just because she was a princess didn’t mean anything.  She was not dumb.  She wasn’t fragile.  And she was ten years old!  How old did they want her to be before she was allowed to understand what was happening right there in her own back yard?  Or in her own kingdom?

Or was the kingdom really her back yard?  As well as her front yard?  And the side yards.  And the vehicle house out back, the one with the dogs in it, standing guard like beasts with long sharp teeth just waiting to bite anyone in case they tried to steal one of the royal vehicles.

Personally, Micki suspected the dogs were there just to keep her and her older sister, Princess Rachel, from escaping the palace.  But that was just her opinion.  If that was true, then they were doing a great job.  Micki hadn’t gone out in…  How long had it been?

Two months.  No, three months.  No, four.  

Micki sat back on her heels, stunned.  Had it really been that long?  She thought hard.  It had been winter the last time she’d snuck out of the palace grounds through that hole she’d found in the wall surrounding the palace.  There had been snow on the ground.

Her older sister Rachel had predicted the guards would catch her in an hour, but she’d been wrong.  It had been two.  Two wonderful hours where Micki had wandered around the town surrounding the palace, called Walltown, eating the pale blue bread eaten by everybody who wasn’t royal, drinking water from the well in the town center like she wasn’t supposed to, crunching the snow not yet trampled to slush.  Alone.  Totally alone.

        Meaning no Rachel.

        Micki’s lips curved in a smile.  She hated her older sister.  She really did.

        Okay, no, she didn’t hate her… not exactly.  But Rachel truly had to be the most annoying person on the planet.  More annoying even than the healers saying she was too young.  More annoying than actually being too young.  Rachel was two years older than Micki, and boy, did she make sure Micki never forget that piece of basically useless information.  She was just so… so… so… ugh!

        Air gusted out of Micki’s mouth, fogging the edge of the open window she rested against.  She looked out the window again for what was quite possibly the millionth time.  Again nothing had changed since the last time she’d looked out just a few minutes ago.

She remembered how it had felt to be free that time she’d escaped all those weeks ago.  That time without Rachel.  That time in the half darkness of winter.

Now it wasn’t winter.  It wasn’t dark out.  Of course, it wasn’t sunny, either.  It wasn’t anything.  It was gray, and cloudy, like it had been for weeks and weeks.  It was absolutely boring.

        Micki sighed.  There was nothing to do.  Well, okay, there was nothing Micki wanted to do.  That was an important distinction.

        Micki supposed she could play in the play yard.  But there was nobody to play with.  All because of The Disease.

        The Disease.  Micki hated that name.  It was so dumb.  Just ‘The Disease.’  Who had thought that one up?  Did someone think that name was particularly clever?  Particularly descriptive?  Why didn’t they call it The Circle Disease?  Or just The Circle?  Well, okay, that didn’t give any indication it was a sickness you could die from.  But The Disease didn’t, either.  Though Micki supposed the name did give you the idea that it was an illness, and didn’t people die regularly from illnesses?  Micki wasn’t sure.

        There was so much Micki wasn’t sure about.  She hated not being sure.

        Which would just make Rachel laugh.  Rachel was always laughing at her.  Though now she was twelve, Rachel didn’t laugh so much anymore.  She was serious.  She was serious because now she was an adult.

        Micki didn’t know how just being twelve years old made you an adult all of a sudden, but she did know she wanted no part of it.  Being twelve obviously meant you had to walk down the hall instead of run.  It meant you had to eat all your vegetables, and talk in hushed tones instead of screaming like you wanted to.  It meant you had to be nice to everyone, always, no matter how dumb they were.  Most importantly, it meant you had to be serious.

Being an adult sounded so boring!

        In fact, everything was boring.  It was because of The Disease, Micki had decided.  That’s right.  She remembered now.  She’d rather think about The Disease than Rachel anyway.

        The Disease....  What was The Disease?  Did she even know?  Well, Micki knew how it started even if she didn’t know what it was.  It started out as tiny, round bruises, no bigger than the tip of your pinky finger.  The first would appear on your arm.  Then your thigh.  Then your face.  And the next thing you knew, you were covered in them, one big bruise.  Or lots of little bruises that flowed together to make one big bruise.  Then you couldn’t breathe.  Then you couldn’t walk.  You couldn’t lift your arms.  You couldn’t hold onto anything.  It was like your muscles all froze up at the same time.  You were cold, but you had a fever, so you were really burning up.  Then in an hour or two, you would choke, claw for breath, then die with a terrified look on your face, as if you had seen something really horrible.

Micki gave a wicked smile; maybe people dying from The Disease saw the dogs from the vehicle house during their final moment.  Those huge, slavering, growling dogs would terrify anybody.

The healers didn’t know what caused The Disease.  They didn’t know how to cure it.  They didn’t even know how to treat it.  So they thought it best if no one in the kingdom of Ruralusia caught it in the first place.  That included every member of the royal family, especially the princesses.

Because even Micki knew she shouldn’t ever get The Disease.  Because if she caught it, then she would die… probably.  Because then maybe Rachel would get it, too, and then she might die.  And then their parents, the queen and king, might get it.  They might all die.  Then there would be no more ruling family.  Then what would happen to Ruralusia?  To the people, to the animals… the ones that weren’t the dogs in the vehicle house?  And if everyone in the palace caught it and died next?  Who would make the food?  Wash the clothes?  Buy the groceries?  Change the lightbulbs?  Reach things left way up high?  The worry about that gave Micki a stomach ache every time she thought of it.

Okay, all this thinking and worrying and feeling sorry for herself was pointless.  Micki wanted to do something.  Then she wouldn’t be so bored.  Maybe then she wouldn’t think so much.

Micki stared at the empty play yard again.  She noticed the darkness of the wall surrounding the palace property.  She noticed the area on the wall where that hole was she’d snuck through last time.  It wasn’t being guarded at the moment.

Micki perked up.  It wasn’t being guarded.  It was as if the palace guards hoped that if they didn’t call attention to it by guarding it, she would forget that it was there at all.  But she hadn’t forgotten.  And they hadn’t fixed it yet.  She could see the slightly darker stain of it on the already dark stone wall.

That hole in the wall called to her now.  She bet that she would still fit through that hole.  She hadn’t gained much weight since the Winter.  She had grown up, but not out.  She could… could escape.  Again.

Well, what was she waiting for?  An invitation?

She glanced around her room.  There were no maids picking up the clothes she’d thrown on the floor yesterday.  There were no cooks making sure she ate something.  There were no healers pretending she was deaf by whispering behind the open door.  Rachel wasn’t even there being annoying and serious.  There was nobody.

How unusual.  Had this ever happened before?  Happened during the day, that is?  Micki was never left alone.  She was a princess of the royal house of Ruralusia.  She must be kept safe at all costs.  Above all, she must never, ever, ever be alone.  For, if she was left alone, she might do something reckless.

Micki loved being reckless.

Without a second thought, she jumped up and ran out the door.