“Probably the squid must be in the middle of the area guarded by those ghosts” said Jolly.
“Did your teacher tell you about the specific location of that squid?” asked Maureen.
“May be, let me think. No! She didn’t tell me all this but once in a book about I read something about diamonds” Jolly said.
“What something? Do you remember that?” Luke asked.
“Well, it was something like, hmm, wait, and let me think”. Jolly paused for a moment and tried to recall something.
“It was like,
JUST GO THROUGH THE ELEMENT
GHOSTS AND YOU WITH THE
HELP OF A SHADOW OF THE
RAINDROP WILL FIND THE SQUID.
JUST FOLLOW THE TIP OF THE RAINDROP”
Jolly replied.
“What is that supposed to mean?” Luke asked while I was resting on his back and listening to all what Jolly was saying.
“Hey Maureen! Do you have a pencil and a paper? We can just write down this riddle and try to figure it out”.
After hearing to what I said Luke looked relieved because now he can put me down for a while and rest.
CHAPTER 6: SOLVING THE RIDDLE
We all sat down in a circle and Jolly wrote the riddle on a paper. He wrote that riddle in ghost’s language.
“What are you writing?” asked Maureen.
“The riddle” answered Jolly.
“Aaah, alright you must be writing it in the ghost’s language. Ok! You can write it and then I am going to translate it into English” said Luke.
Well after writing the riddle, it took us the whole to figure out about the raindrop and its tip.
We sat down on the rocky surface and tried to understand the code words used in the riddle.
“May be the raindrop is actually a rock which is shaped like a raindrop” I said to rest of my mates who were still trying to think and figure it out.
“Hey you might be right!” shouted Luke, “May be it’s a rock.”
“I don’t think that it’s a rock” said Maureen, “I mean a rock cannot be shaped like a raindrop, or is it?” she uttered in confusion.
“Maureen has a point” said Jolly.
“I just don’t understand all this. There must be something still missing from this riddle. Jolly just try to remember, is there some else that you can think of related to this riddle and about the diamond in that book” I asked.
Jolly gave me a look, showing how confused he was. “I just don’t remember” he said.
“Come on Jolly! Think, think!” said Maureen. She was the most impatient among all of us but now I was also getting impatient and intolerant.
“Now we should assume that raindrop is some kind of a rock and try to find out the squid” I said to everyone else.
“I think we should look for something which looks like a raindrop and after finding it we should wait for the dawn. And in the morning with the help of raindrop’s tip shadow we will get to the squid” said Luke and picked me again on his back to walk further and we started searching for the thing so called a RAIN-DROP.
We were carefully searching each and every corner of the mine. Luke was tired because of the fifty four kilograms on hanging on his back which was me so I asked to put me down and drink some water. I sat on a rock and m foot was all sour. I just wished we had gone to the water park instead of the corn maze. As I was thinking all this, sitting beside the mine wall, I saw a really precious thing. It was a big coal piece which exactly looked like a raindrop.
I shouted excitedly, “Hey guys! Look what I just found, isn’t it looks like a raindrop?”
First everybody looked at me, and then to where I was pointing. The rocky coal was to my left about half a mile away. We all were so excited, Luke was so happy that he hugged me and pulled me to his back. We all almost started to run towards it. Now we had to wait for the dawn to see the rocks shadow which would eventually lead us to the squid and diamond. We were so happy that now we were so close to our success.
That day we ate the best dinner from our backpack, which was, roasted mushrooms with sweet corns. Now it was time to take a good sleep so that the next day, we could start searching for the diamond. That night we put Jolly on guard. We didn’t put anyone on guard before because we knew that the element ghosts were protecting us, but now we were really near to the squid and if somehow the invisibility pills stop working, the squid could see and kill us.
Next day, Jolly woke us all up at the dawn to see the rock’s shadow. When sun started to rise, we saw that the tip of the rock’s shadow was touching an enormous thing. We knew that it was the squid and only four of us had to fight such a giant creature. But I knew that my help didn’t count much and I was going to stay at the back foot because of my injured foot.
Well, we ate our breakfast, along with the invisibility pills and started to plan. We planned that we would go near the squid with our weapons and my pistol, and attack the squid. I decided to stay little far from it and will try to shoot it from a distance, whenever it would get out of control.
CHAPTER 7: FIGHTING AND MINING
After an hour of planning, we decided that we should finally attack the squid. So I took my position from a distance, at the back. Rest of my mates wore their armors and took their weapons. They went near the squid which was guarding a bid wall. As we were invisible, it could not see us. I could see his large tentacles even from such a distance. My friends were so near to this enormous creature, I could not even imagine how much scared they might be feeling.
Well, I saw that Maureen fell down and collapsed to the squid’s tentacles. I think the squid sensed Maureen presence and it became alert. It opened it eyes and suddenly its pupils widened and its eyes became yellow. May be it was trying to concentrate really hard to see, if someone was there. Suddenly it raised one of the tentacles and gripped Maureen. When I saw this my blood ran cold and suddenly pulled the trigger of my pistol and fired directly at the tentacle without even thinking that after getting hit by a bullet, the squid is going to release Maureen and if she falls down from such a height, she could get some serious injuries. But thank God that Maureen was safe because she landed in soft mud. Although after landing she looked angrily at me but I was still relieved that the squid left her. The tentacles were the squid’s strongest weapons and Luke tried to harm the tentacles from his sword and spear. But Jolly was the most intelligent among us. He ran on to the huge tentacles, landed on the squid’s face and then went towards its eye to squish it with his foot.
Jolly did it and the squid was not able to see us anymore. After that I came a bit near to the huge creature which was going out of control and I fired it, in the eye this time. This final attack damaged much of its brain and it fell unconscious to the ground. Finally Luke took his spear and forced it into the squid’s heart. At last, squid was dead. I couldn’t believe it. Finally, we fought and got rid of that rude creature on our own.
We all were so glad that now we are eventually going to mine out the diamond, present it to the governor and will return back to our homes.
We took our spades and spears and started digging the mine. Jolly was really proud of the whole situation.
“So, finally we made it to the mine and killed that gee-gee squid” Jolly said with sheer excitement while trying to dig the mine.
It took us really long to find the diamond, about one and half day. Maureen was really impatient, jumping here and there and not even helping us. I was a little fed up, “Come on Maureen, could you please help us with this spade?” I pointed out towards a spade lying down on the mine’s surface.
“Hey, why are you speaking in such a sarcastic way?” Maureen shouted angrily.
“Don’t be rude Maureen, I was just asking you to help” I replied.
“Oh come one! Stop it both of you and Maureen, please take this spade and help us. I promise I’ll give you the nutty bar of chocolate from my backpack” requested Luke.
When heard a
bout the chocolate bar, she instantly picked up the spade and started digging the mine with all of us. I just sighed as my foot was also hurting me too much. Well now we were really tired, so decided to eat something for our dinner and sleep.
The next day when we woke up, we had only one invisibility pill left for each of us. We decided not to have it until we go out of the mine after digging out the diamond.
We picked our spades and spears and started digging from the point where we left it the day before.
“How long will it take? This mining job is driving me crazy now!” said Maureen. I was expecting that from her and I think everyone else was also expecting the same so no one replied her.
Well we mined and mined and mined for almost four hours continuously. Our hands were really hurting and all of our finger were bruised and swelled but there was no sign of that diamond. We decided to take a break as my foot was really giving me a tough time as well. While we were eating chocolate chip cookies Jolly asked something which made every one of us silent. “Why do we believe that the diamond is inside the wall? Why don’t we look somewhere else?” he asked.
“What do you mean by that?” asked Luke
“What if the diamond is hidden somewhere else? It’s not necessary that the squid was guarding the wall of the mine. May be we should look somewhere at the surface or ceiling of this mine as well” added Jolly.
“You are absolutely right. Why it didn’t come to our mind? I must say Jolly, it would never be possible without you. Okay let’s finish eating and look for this pathetic jewel everywhere around the dead squid” I said eagerly.
That new idea gave us an extra energy and will to work harder and find the diamond. We decided that Maureen and I would look at the surface and the ceiling because it was not so difficult as the ceiling was very low. I started digging the surface because of my injured foot and Maureen handled the ceiling. After few minutes of digging, Maureen stopped angrily and complained again, which made me frustrated. In anger I pushed the back of my spade to the right corner of the ceiling forcefully and suddenly a small rectangular brick fell down straight on the head of dead squid. We all looked at that space from where the brick fell down. There was sparkling light coming out of that space. Our eyes opened widely out of sheer curiousness and excitement. I knew there was something special in that space. May be the same jewel we had been looking for.
“Did I hit the right place?” I shouted excitedly, “If it’s true then I must say that sometimes anger can be a blessing too.”
“Let’s check it out” Luke suggested.
We all rushed towards that shiny space. We had to move the dead squid from the surface. The squid was so heavy; we could hardly move its one of the tentacles to the corner. Somehow we were able to make some room for all of us to stand and look inside the rectangular space.
“Jolly, you look in first” I said.
“Alright” Jolly pulled up his neck towards the ceiling and looked inside. I was standing beside him and suddenly I felt the grip of his cold hands on my arm. I knew he found something, something that could be called a diamond.
“Can you see something inside Jolly?” I asked. Jolly pulled his face down. His eyes were filled joy and excitement.
“Yes I think I can see the diamond up here” he pointed towards the empty space.
“What!” we all shouted impatiently and breathlessly.
“Yes the diamond is up there stuck inside this space and I think we need to dig more to pull it from this ceiling” Jolly explained.
“Ok! Let me have a look as well” said Luke.
“No way! I will look into the space first. It was my place from where we found this precious jewel” Maureen protested.
Luke and Jolly looked at me and we all smiled but didn’t say a word. Although I wanted to take the credit but I was not in the mood to start another argument. I left it for later and asked Maureen to look into the ceiling space first.
“Maureen! Can you please do the honors?” I asked politely, “I’ll be grateful if you give your first looks to this precious diamond”.
“You are being sarcastic again” Maureen said angrily.
“Oh no! I don’t have that much energy to do it right now!”
“What do you mean by doing what?”
“Come on Maureen, you know what I am talking about.” I explained calmly.
“I know what you are talking about. You want to take the credit. You always try to be the smart one. Don’t forget you can’t even walk on your own and you should thankful to the poor Luke. His back must be hurting badly. And yes, you killed the squid but don’t forget that you made me fall down from such a height. It could have hurt me seriously. But all you want is the credit of this whole victory! Please everyone give a big round of applause to Miss Abigale. She is genius, she is the hero! Wow!” Maureen couldn’t stop.
“Hey wait, wait, wait ladies. Maureen! What has got into you? If I am not complaining that I am carrying Abigale on my back, then what’s bothering you?” Luke tried to calm down the situation, “All of us are friends and we have to help each other in this difficult situation. Abigale was not the one who wanted to go to the corn maze. It was your idea and we all are paying for it”.
“It’s Ok! Just calm down all of you” Jolly interrupted, “It’s not the time to fight with each other. We have to stay united and we should be happy that we got the diamond”.
All of looked knowingly at each other because it was not the first time that Luke, Maureen and I fought like this.
Well after that, we tried to figure how to dig the diamond without damaging it. We decided to dig the rectangular space with our spears with a lot of care and delicacy. So we concentrated on digging and I tried to forget whatever Maureen said to me. After all she was my very good friend. We dug with care to get our hands on the diamond. After few minutes of digging with delicacy we finally got our hands on the precious jewel. Jolly showed that beautiful thing to all of us. I had never seen anything like it. I cannot describe what that priceless jewel looked like.
We took that jewel and putted it into big glass box and decided that we would go out of the mine and when we reach the guest house we would hand over the diamond to the governor. I was the person on guard and everyone else went to sleep. It was about the midnight time when Maureen woke up and came to me.
“Hey Abigale, I am sorry about whatever happened today. I don’t know what went wrong with my stupid, clumsy brain. May be I am tired and missing home badly. I know you are my closest friend and you really care about me. Even though you are hurt, you showed a lot of courage. Sometimes I just feel envy, but I truly know that you are smart and brave, even smarter and braver than me. I also know that I am a short tempered person and react without even thinking, and shouldn’t do that. It was my mistake and I know you would forgive me, because you are one of the best people I know.”
With tears in our eyes we both hugged each other. I really wanted a moral support from someone like Maureen. I said, “Its ok Maureen. I know you very well. From inside you are very kind hearted person. Partially it was my fault as well; I showed anger to you without any valid reason. It was just that my foot was hurting a lot and I already felt bad that Luke had to carry me on his back. So I was a bit angry on myself too. I reacted too much on this. It’s not the right time to fight and to point out mistakes of each other. We are friends since such a long time, and we know each other. I hope this would never create any distance between our friendships. I am really sorry as well; please forgive me from the bottom of your heart.”
“Haha, Abigale you are my best buddy and all times favorite. Friends don’t say sorry to each other. Now you should go and have some rest and I’ll be on the night guard” Maureen asked politely.
“It’s ok Maureen, I can do this till morning. Now we don’t have much to do. We just have to wake up and move back from this mine to the rest house with this diamond” I said.
“No dear, please you need to rest. I need to do t
his for you, please.” Maureen insisted.
I smiled at her politely. “Thank you Maureen!, I think you are right. I need you to wake all of us up at the first sight of dawn from the mine exit.”
“Ok, don’t worry, I will. Good night.” said Maureen.
“Good night” and I went down the side rock to take a little nap.
Next day Maureen woke us up early in the morning. We took our breakfast which had almonds and small cartons of milk. The breakfast seemed so delicious. May be it was the inner joy of victory and success. We finished our food, packed our things and started our journey to roll back from the mine. We uttered a last good bye to the dead squid as now we all felt sorry for it. On our way back, we discovered that it was such a difficult passage that we covered, but initially we were so worried that we didn’t notice. Now we were free from all worries and were really proud of ourselves that we found the diamond which the demon couldn’t find. While moving back we met the element ghosts once again. They all were really glad of our victory and proud of us. They reminded us to take the last dose of invisibility pills while passing through the demon’s army which was trying to find the diamond we had.
After passing by all the working ghosts, and covering a long distance we finally reached our rest house. It was evening time and sun was about to set. We were really tired and hungry. When we reached there Laura came in and greeted us. She was very happy on our return and achievements. We really thanked her for helping and guiding us. She went to the kitchen and came back with 4 glasses filled with a purple shiny liquid.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“It’s a healing portion. When you will drink it, you’ll be completely fine as your every pain and bruise will go away” Laura explained.
We drank the portion happily as we all wanted to feel fresh and healed. Magically that drink took away all our pain and I was extremely happy as my foot was perfectly fine now. There was no more pain or swelling anymore. Now it was time to enjoy the lovely dinner made by Laura especially for our victory.
“Enjoy this meal, I made this especially for you all” Laura came out of the kitchen with a huge platter of roasted chicken and large bowl of hot noodle soup.