The Micki Adventures

                                            by Linda Bindner

                                      Chapter 14: Unlikely Heroes

        “Em, what are you doing here?” Queen Madge asked.

        It wasn’t that the Queen was yelling at her.  It was how tired the Queen sounded that truly unnerved Micki.  “I’m helping,” she said at last.  Though being thrown in the Tower followed by the dungeon had technically caused more trouble than help.  So her reason sounded more like an excuse than a reason.

        “Helping,” the Queen repeated in a tone so flat that Micki knew without a doubt that she was in major trouble.  “Please explain to me how this is helping?”  And she gestured a wave at the surrounding room, taking in King Feston and all of Hammondy at the same time.

A feeling of utter foolishness swamped Micki then, which was probably her mother’s intent.  It must seem to the Queen like she was running away again, as if she had been having one of her adventures, though this was about a whole lot more than simply having fun.  However, experience had taught her that acting sorry now wouldn’t help.  Being firm in her convictions would work out better for her in the long run.  So she squared her shoulders and said, “Yesterday --”

“It’s my fault, Your Majesty.”  Al’s voice rang out loud in the stone room.

Micki looked at Al in amazement.  “You know that’s not true!”

Al ignored her.  “It was my idea to come here to ask for help with The Disease and to use Alice to translate and to take the family vehicle and --”

“She’s lying,” Kale interrupted.  “It’s my fault.  I asked them to come.”

“We all did,” Kallie said next.

Kimmie burst in to claim, “We’ve been in contact with the princess for months and--”

        “Have you all gone crazy?” Micki yelled.  “If you don’t shut up right now, we’re all going to be in so much trouble!”

        “We’re not shutting up,” Al said in a determined voice.

“That’s right,” Kendra lazily said as if what she saw was obvious.  “You can’t shut up the truth.”  

Micki stamped her foot hard to gain everyone’s attention, demanding, “Will you please be quiet!  That’s not the truth, and you know it.”

        Kendra stepped out of the line then to address both her father and Queen Madge.  “But fault is not important.  Al and the princess are my friends.  I don’t want them to get sick.  We must help each other or The Virus wins.”

        Micki blinked.

Wow.  That was blunt.  Though very true.

Obviously there was a lot more to Kendra than first met the eye.  She could be very dreamy, and some might see her as lazy, but she was razor sharp when it mattered.

King Feston and Queen Madge shared a look as if to silently ask each other how the adults had so quickly lost control of this conversation.  Then King Feston loudly cleared his throat and the weird moment of communication was over.

“The point,” he said, sounding unknowingly like Kallie, “is that The Virus has overrun our country.”

‘“And invaded mine,” Queen Madge added.

“It won’t be long before it wipes us all out,” the King continued.  “We might not like it, but that’s the reality of this situation.”

Micki blinked again.  Like Kendra, King Feston was obviously fond of telling the truth, no matter how uncomfortable it made him.

“So,” King Feston went on.  “As much as I would like to swat annoying children away like flies…”  His threatening tone was not lost on Micki, who anxiously eyed the guards and guns surrounding them.  “... swatting children won’t help.  My people are still dying whether you’re rotting in the dungeon or not.  So… Princess Kallie, you said you have an idea?”

“Yes.”  Kallie gave a nervous nod, and a cloud of dirt ballooned from her hair with the movement.  “Why don’t our doctors get together with the healers from Ruralusia and the other medical people from the other countries to share our knowledge?  Only together we can outwit this Virus.”

Kallie’s words fell flat.  The plan that had sounded so reasonable in the dungeons now seemed simplistic and naive in this room full of adults.

As if to prove this point, King Feston gave an irritated choke.  “We already tried that.  Over a hundred people gathered, but The Virus hit the camp just as things looked promising.  Two weeks later…”  His voice trailed off dramatically.  “Only ten survived, and only two of them were doctors.”  His dramatic voice turned sarcastic.  “Any more bright ideas?”

“Hey,” Micki instinctively said, instantly angry that he was treating her new friend as if both her and her ideas were idiotic.  “She’s trying.  She probably doesn’t have all the information because you didn’t think to share it.  Don’t talk to her like that.”

It was clear by King Feston’s surprised demeanor that he was unaccustomed to someone so completely defending someone to him.  Unfortunately, Micki’s calm remarks only caused the man’s attention to fall on her.

Arms grasped thoughtfully behind his back, the King deliberately sauntered toward her.  “So, this is the princess who has caused so much trouble,” he casually noted.  “From what Queen Madge has told me, you secretly escaped the palace, stole food, wilfully absconded with a personal vehicle, caused much distress to your parents, you were all captured, put the lives of others on the line, did --”

“Okay, okay!” Micki contritely wailed.  “I know I messed up.  But I was only trying to help.”

Al added, “And she didn’t make me come along.  I volunteered.”

“It’s like the Queen said yesterday in the throne room,” Micki said with one quick glance spared for her mom.  “If we could have asked Hammondy for help, but didn’t because it might be hard, and then someone died who might not have, I could never live with myself.  Besides, I had a better chance than anybody else that nobody here would outright kill me.”

The sound of a forceful growl came from King Feston’s general direction.  Micki was so remorseful by now that she would have missed it if the room hadn’t been so silent.

“Why did you think we wouldn’t just kill you immediately and be done with it?” King Feston asked Micki.

Micki gulped, wishing she had thought through her defense more carefully before leaving for another country that morning.  King Feston sounded like nothing would please him more than to kill her now in spite of the Queen’s presence.  “Um,” she tentatively said.  “Hammondy likes violence, doesn’t it?  Mom… the Queen said so.  Just like Rulric the Red.”

King Feston muttered in irritation, “Will we never outlive that man?”  To Micki he said, “Rulric the Red lived hundreds of years ago.  The Hammondy of today is nothing like the Hammondy he lived in.  We’re much less violent now.”

Micki blinked, but in confusion this time.  “If you’re less violent, then why do you have so many guns?”

All six princesses gazed at the many guards surrounding them carrying guns.

Kimmie said, “She has a point, Father.”

Kallie counted quietly to herself.  “There are 17 guns in this room alone.”

“And there are probably other guards with guns in the rest of the palace,” Kale said.  She looked at her sisters, puzzled.  “Aren’t there guards with guns at the border, too?”

Al and Micki shared a significant look.  “We can definitely say that there are.”

Kendra huffed a rude noise as if her patience was wearing thin with this topic.  “Guns are useless against The Virus,” she said in irritation, as if that were obvious again.

King Feston’s gaze turned from Micki to Kendra then, and his eyes narrowed.  “Perhaps you know what to do about it?” he said to her, his tone heavily sarcastic.

“No,” Kendra said.  “I don’t.  Maybe you do?”

King Feston groaned and sent another look to Queen Madge.  “No, I don’t.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know what to do either,” the Queen said, a sudden droop to her shoulders.

King Feston turned a frustrated circle, as if he had too much energy locked inside him to stand still any longer.  “This is intolerable!  There must be something we can do to stop this Virus before it infects all of us!”

Queen Madge crossed her arms on her chest.  “We tried to keep it out of our country altogether.  That worked for a while.  But now…”  Her voice trailed off in defeat.

Micki caught herself staring at her mom, idly thinking, She looks like Rachel with her arms crossed like that.  She remembered how Rachel had so tightly crossed her arms that day in the Ruralusia throne room when she was trying to convince her mom to let her visit Al at her home.  That’s when she had met all of Al’s family.

Except Tank.  She’d met Tank at the same time she’d met Al.

That day, she’d been thinking about The Disease while staring out her window.  She hadn’t known much about it then.  She still didn’t know much about it now.  It wasn’t like the healers had changed and were suddenly telling her all about it.  She didn’t know how anyone caught it.  She didn’t know if there was a treatment or a cure somewhere.  She certainly didn’t know why anyone anywhere ever survived.

Micki’s forehead wrinkled then.  Now that she thought of it, The Disease wasn’t such a good disease after all.  If it was, no one would survive.

Micki called out in a small, thoughtful voice, “Did anyone think to check the survivors?”

King Feston whirled back to face Micki.  “What?”

Her voice stronger now, she asked, “Why does anyone survive?”  Her voice echoed in the big room.  “I mean, is there a reason there are any survivors at all?”

When no one spoke, she faced King Feston to further explain, “You said that hundreds came together, you know, that one time when the Hammondy doctors met with all the healers from the other countries.  The Disease hit all of them gathered together.”

“And only ten survived,” Kallie added.  “You said so.”

Micki gave a shrug.  “Why those ten?”

They all looked at each other in silence.

“Yeah,” Kale said, always the princess ready to try something new, like wearing pants instead of a dress.

“Maybe they simply took a bath,” Al said, “like I did with all the baths I had to take.”

“Or maybe they did something else special?” Kale asked.

Her voice dreamy again, Kendra added.  “Are they all young?  Are they all old?”  Apparently Kendra’s sharp moment was over, and she was back to her usual self.  Which meant that people would ignore her again.

But that would be a silly mistake.  Micki vowed to herself never to ignore Kendra in the future, no matter how her voice sounded.  Kendra had a way about her of unexpectedly getting right to the heart of a matter.  If she ignored her, she might miss something really important.

Such as now.  Did age really have anything to do with The Disease?

“At least it’s an idea,” Kale said.  “A place where we can start looking for a treatment, or even a cure.”

 Micki was somewhat relieved to have thought of anything.  “Maybe this trip wasn’t a waste after all.”

Kendra sighed a sound of complete happiness.  “It’s never a waste to make new friends.”  The smile she bestowed on Micki and Al was full of delight.

That smile warmed Micki’s heart.  Her gaze took in the four Hammondy princesses.  Meeting them had made being thrown in the Tower and the dungeon worth it.  Even if she was in big trouble and was punished for the rest of her life, she had made four new friends.  That was worth anything.

Al squeezed her hand.  Micki knew without even asking her that Al thought the very same thing.