The Micki Adventures

                                             By Linda Bindner

Chapter 2: Freedom

        She was in the center of Walltown half an hour later.  Micki took a deep, cleansing breath of air that smelled of fish.  A bright smile burst across her face in spite of the fact it was so cloudy and gray.  People were everywhere.  They obviously weren’t worried about The Disease, even though they had to know about it.  The borders of Ruralusia were carefully guarded against people accidentally bringing The Disease into the country.

But that didn’t seem to be causing much concern judging by the busy town market square.  Merchants in colorful make-shift stalls yelled to potential buyers.  Those potential buyers yelled right back.  Children ran everywhere, screaming and laughing, weaving in and out of the stalls, chasing each other, climbing on buildings, their parents, occasionally the merchants, creating chaos.  Micki loved it.

        Suddenly something hard plowed into Micki’s back.  She pitched forward, smashing into the stall directly in front of her to land hard in the dirt.  Tiny grains of sand ground into her cheek.

“Gotcha!” a male voice hollered.  He roughly yanked her onto her back, then straddled her so she couldn’t move.

        Stunned, Micki got a good look at the boy.  He wore a grungy, untucked shirt, torn trousers, and no shoes.  His triumphant smile showed two missing teeth as it suddenly darkened to a frown.

        “Aw!  It’s just some dumb girl!”  He jumped off her so fast, it was like she’d burned him.  “I don’t want no girl!”  His tone made it sound like girls were only a step above the slime on his foot - and he prefered the slime.  “Stand up so I kin beat ya inta next week!”  He hauled her up by the front of her dress, drew back his arm, and prepared to hit her.

        A much bigger boy stopped him to stare right at Micki… or rather, stare at her clothes.  .  “Look at them threads, Tank!  This here is an opportunity.  Let’s see what she’s got before you go beating on her.”

        “I haven’t got anything,” Micki said through the dirt stuck in her teeth.

        “That’s what they all say.”  The boy leaned in close and breathed his lunch right into her face.

Micki gagged, hoping his lunch had tasted better than it smelled.

Smelly-lunch grinned wickedly.  “I bet you got some money with clothes as rich as yours.  Cough it up.  Or I let Tank beat it out of you.”

Tank grinned too.  He was clearly looking forward to a good beating.

Micki’s thoughts raced.  She didn’t want a beating.  But she also didn’t have any money.  What would a princess do with money anyway?  Especially if that princess stayed in the palace like she was supposed to, slowly growing stiff from boredom.  Would they go away if she gave them her shoes?  Probably not.  “I told you, I haven’t got anything.”

Smelly-lunch leered at her even more.  “I see you’re wearing a bracelet.  It’s silver, or I’m a horse.  How about we take it off you?  Grab her arm, Tank!”

        Tank wrapped greasy fingers tight around Micki’s wrist near her Bracelet.

Micki struggled in his grip.  “You can’t take it off.  Only I can take it off.  And I’m not going to.”

        Smelly-lunch barked a laugh and flicked a knife from his pocket.  “Then we’ll cut it off, and take your hand with it.”  Tank held her wrist steady so Smelly-lunch could run the cold blade across her skin.

Micki struggled even more, but Tank just squeezed her wrist tighter.  Unable to get away, she closed her eyes against what was sure to be horrible pain.

A harsh female voice stopped him.  “Hey!  Theodore!”

Tank’s head whipped around at her cry and his grip on Micki’s wrist loosened.  Micki ripped her hand away from Tank just as the new girl yanked both Tank and Smelly-lunch away from Micki.

The girl shook Tank as if trying to shake some sense into him.  “What is this, Theodore?  Extorting money from innocent people?  Beating those people when they don’t cough it up?  Wait till I tell Mom how you spend your free time!”  Then she whirled on Smelly-lunch.  “And you, Steven Morgan!”

Smelly-lunch, or Steven Morgan, didn’t look so mean all of a sudden.  He just looked young.  “My name’s Blade.”

The girl’s withering sneer showed she was unimpressed at his protest.  “Your name’s Mud after I string both you idiots up by your toenails so I can whack you like a baseball!”  She threw Theodore into Smelly-lunch.  “Now get out of here before I get really mad!”

Not waiting to discuss the issue, both boys spit on the girl’s shoes, then disappeared into the crowd.

“Those morons,” the girl grumbled, wiping her shoes on the edge of the stall Micki had fallen into.  Slime stuck to her right shoe.  “Ew, gross!”

Micki rubbed her wrist as the girl scraped.   “Thanks,” she said enthusiastically.  “Thanks a lot.”

“Don’t mention it.”  The girl stepped back.  “My name’s Alasondra.  What’s yours?”

“Micki.  I just got here.”
“Hello Micki-I-just-got-here.  They didn’t hurt you, did they?”

“No.”  Micki shook her head.  “I was just about to kick their -”

“You don’t want to finish that!”  Alasondra laughed loudly.

Micki laughed with her.  “No, I guess I don’t.”

“You mean they don’t.”

The two girls laughed together again.

At last Micki calmed enough to ask, “People don’t really call you Alasondra, do they?”

“No, that would be an awful mouthful.  When someone desperately wants to get my attention, they just call me Sondra.”

Micki declared, “Then I’ll call you Al.”

“Al.”  The girl gave a pensive nod.  “I like that.”  She laughed again.  “But that’ll mean you’re really desperate if you call me that!”

“Okay,” Micki agreed.  “You’re Al only when I’m absolutely, completely, undeniably desperate.  In the meantime, I’ll call you Sondra.”

“That makes sense,” Sondra said, then jerked a thumb over her shoulder.  “Hey, want to get some ice cream?  You know, to celebrate those idiots not hurting you?”

Micki couldn’t suppress a laugh.  “You mean when I didn’t hurt them.”

“Yeah,” Sondra instantly said, laughing.  “That’s what I meant.  Well, you wanna?”  She held out her hand.

Micki grabbed it.  “You bet!”

Laughing, the two girls ran off together into the crowd.

                                                ~~~

        “I’m ten,” Micki said as she licked the chocolate ice cream dripping down the side of the cone in her hand.  “How old are you?”

        “How old do I look?”

        Micki gazed at Sondra, thinking.  “You look… about… twelve.  My sister is twelve.”

        “Then you must know what twelve looks like.  But not in this case.  I’m ten, not twelve.”
        “Really?”  Micki was delighted to be wrong.  “Thank goodness for that.  And that Tank -”

        “Theodore.”  Sondra rolled her eyes.  “My brother.  He’s been trying to get us to call him Tank for years.  What a dumb name.”

        “I hate dumb names.”

        “Yeah.  I mean, Tank has nothing to do with Theodore.  It would make sense if he wanted us to call him Theo or Teddy or even Dore.  But Tank?”

        “Yeah, what a dork.  My sister’s name is Rachel, but I call her Rache.”  Micki smiled devilishly.  “Rache the Roach.”

        Sondra giggled.  “Rachel.  Same name as the princess.”  She fingered the fish being sold at one of the stalls.  The stall’s merchant grabbed his fish away, giving her a dirty look.

        “Ew, fish… disgusting!” Micki declared.

        Sondra brightened.  “You know what’s not disgusting?  Fish sticks and vanilla pudding.”

        Micki wrinkled her nose.  “What?  That sounds more than disgusting.”
        “No, I’m serious.  My dad made it for us once.  It’s a lot better than it sounds.”

        “If you say so,”  Micki didn’t believe her for a minute, no matter what she said.  “I’d rather have ice cream!”  She slurped some more of her ice cream for emphasis.

        Sondra giggled.  “As long as it’s chocolate ice cream.”

        “Is there any other kind?”

        Micki and Sondra laughed, then skipped away.

                                                ~~~

        “Hey, how come you’re wearing a dress?” Sondra wanted to know.  She jumped down three steps of the Central Post Office building, then hugged the lion statue by the front steps as she slid onto its stone base.  She sat down, swinging her feet.

        Micki looked at all the women and girls in the central market square.  “Everyone’s wearing a dress.”

        “Not the boys,” Sondra pointed out.

        “They should be.”

        “And no one is wearing a long one like you are.  How come yours is so long?”

        “To make you ask questions,” Micki said, mimicking something Rachel had once said to her.

“No, seriously, why?  Yours is at least a foot longer than mine is.”

Exasperated, Micki sighed.  “It’s not that much longer.  Besides, you already have a foot.”  Sondra swung her feet.  “Two.”

Sondra giggled.

“Okay,” Micki said.  “I’ll make you a deal.  I’ll tell you why my dress is long if you tell me why you giggle so much.”
        “Dad calls me his Giggle Queen.  I can’t help it.  I guess I’m just a happy person.  Now… dress... tell.”

Micki sighed.  “It’s long because…”  She considered lying.

“The truth,” Sondra demanded.

Micki’s sigh turned reluctant.  “Okay, the truth.”  And her eyes grew wide when she intoned the word ‘truth’ as if she was imparting a big secret.  “It’s long so I’ll be so busy tripping on it all the time, I won’t have time to run away.”

        Sondra’s eyes grew just as wide, though in disbelief.  “Really?”

        Micki laughed.  “No.  I was playing dress up, and forgot to change clothes before leaving home.”

        Sondra laughed with her.  “Oh, that makes more sense.  Why would someone want to trip you, anyway?”

        “I know!” Micki exclaimed.  “I would just land flat on my face.  My tutor says -”

        “Tutor!  How can you afford a tutor?  What are you - rich or something?”

        “You might say that,” Micki vaguely rambled.

        Sondra jumped down from the lion statue.  “Well, having a tutor must be fun.  You’d be by yourself all the time, no one to bug you, no one to bully you.  Like at school.  I hate school.”

        “I hate having a tutor.  Alone all the time.  Having to always know the answer.  I’d love someone to bully me.”

        Sondra’s eyes grew wider yet.  “You’re kidding!”

        “No,” Micki wistfully said.  “Rachel bullies me, but all sisters do that.”

        “None of mine do.”

        “I thought you just had a brother.”

        “Yeah, three of them.  And I have four sisters.”

        “Four!  And three brothers!  Plus you, that’s -”

“Eight.”  Sondra sounded like having so many brothers and sisters was the worst thing in the world.  “It’s horrible.”

Micki was thinking that if she had so many brothers and sisters, she wouldn’t have to worry so much about the throne of Ruralusia all the time.  There would be others to do the worrying, leaving her alone.  “Are any of them older than you are?”

“Yeah, I’m the seventh.  Tank, I mean Theodore, he’s the eighth.  Mom says he always acts out and runs away and wants to be called Tank because he’s the youngest and is looking for attention.”

“What do you think?”

“I think he’s just a spoiled brat with jerks for friends.”

“Yeah, that one with the knife is a real jerk.”

“Him?” Sondra scorned.  “He’s a saint compared to the others.”

Micki shuddered.  “Then I don’t want to meet the others.”  The shudder turned into a smile.  “But you sure drove them off quick enough.”

Sondra shrugged.  “I just yelled a lot about telling Mom they’re being jerks.  Theodore knows she’ll make him hang out the laundry… for all eight of us.  Works every time.”  She laughed.

Micki laughed with her.  She grabbed Sondra’s hand and they ran off together through the crowded central market.

                                        ~~~

They stopped next to the jail to catch their breath.  The jailhouse with its bars on the windows seemed to be laughing at them.

“Let’s not stop here,” Micki said, instantly nervous.  This was where the prisoners were kept.  Where people were tortured.  Where people died.  Wasn’t it haunted or something?

Sondra clutched her side and heaved air.  “I have a stitch in my ribs.  Hang on a minute.”

But less than a minute later, a line of glum, raggedy people halted in front of the jail.  Five guards ringed around them.  The people must be their prisoners, wanted for some sort of crime.  A guard shoved a man onto the dirt.

The man immediately looked up and begged, “Please, sir, let me go, and I’ll pay, I promise!”

“That’s what they all say!”  The guard kicked him in the ribs.

The man rolled over, clutching his ribs.  It looked like his ribs hurt a lot worse than Sondra’s.  He looked pitifully up at the guard who had kicked him.

The guard sneered.  “You owe taxes!  We all have to pay our taxes!”

The man rose to his feet, pleading, “I already told you; I don’t have any money!”

“A likely story.  Everyone has money.  Into the jail with you!”  The guard pushed the man so hard in the direction of the jailhouse door that he fell into the dirt again where he lay still, moaning.  One of the other prisoners in the line tried to pull him to his feet, and the same guard raised a whip threateningly.

“Help him, and you’ll wish you hadn’t,” the guard said.  The prisoner retreated.

Under her breath, Micki complained to herself, “Why does something like this always happen?”

“Huh?” Sondra asked, recovered from the stitch in her side sufficiently to notice what Micki was doing.

But Micki didn’t pay any attention to her question.  She reached for her Bracelet and tugged it from her arm, begging all the while, “Please don’t be mad at me, Al.”  With a flick of her wrist, the Bracelet expanded into a large silver circlet, which she jammed onto her head.  In a ringing voice that carried across the market with ease, she yelled, “I command you to stop, in the name of the Queen!”