The Dragon Flower: Part Six

      “Hi, Amina,” said Po, the baby Tuskaninny.

      “Hi, Po! Do you hear that banging?”

      “Yeah, it’s Lopina. She has been doing that for quite a while now.”

      “May I go in, please?”

      “Of course you can!”

      Po unlocked the door and Amina walked in. Lopina was on the right side of the wall, banging her head against it!

      “Lopina, stop that! You do NOT need to give yourself a headache!” Amina exclaimed.

      “Amina, I can’t take it anymore! I’m so bored! I don’t know what else to do! There’s only so many games I can play with the dust mites, and there aren’t any weapons left in here at all!”

      Amina mentally heaved a sigh of relief. She could hardly imagine what kind of trouble Lopina would have gotten into if there had been any kind of weapons left! “Well, first of all, banging your head against the wall won’t solve anything. Second of all, you need to come and eat,” Amina scolded her sister.

      “Fine,” Lopina said with a sigh.

      When Lopina walked towards her sister, there was a loud squeak and a crack from underneath her foot. “What was that?”

      The girls investigated the board and found that it had cracked under her weight. Lopina pulled the cracked board out and looked down into the hole.

      “Oh, WOW! Bring me a candle quick! Maybe this is a secret passage and I can finally get out of here!” Lopina blurted out, and her eyes danced with excitement and mischief.

      “Where do you think you will go? To the sky underneath the boat!” Amina retorted.

      “Well... maybe... there is... a secret stash of food! Or something! Anyway, I just want to look down the hole! Please, please, please!”

      Amina rolled her eyes with disgust and replied, “Fine, I will go tell Rox to save you again!”

      “Hey, that IS uncalled for!”

      “Oh, did I say that out loud! Silly me,” Amina gushed.

      “Hmph. Just get that candle,” Lopina grumbled.

      “Oh, very well, master!” Amina said sarcastically. Amina grabbed the lonely candle and held it over Lopina’s head.

      “Oh great, that is perfect, I can see right into the hole.”

      “So, master, what is in the hole?”

      “It’s a treasure chest!” Lopina exclaimed as she lifted the chest up. “But it has a lock on it.”

      The chest was no bigger then one of the girls’ heads, and the lock was oddly shaped. The chest was quite dusty and dirty.

      “This is sooo cool!” Lopina said.

      “That it is, but you need to eat, before I have to leave. You can look and drool over it later.”

      “All right. I can clean it up and maybe figure out what that lock is.”

      “What!? You clean? Now the world will surely come to an end!”

     “It ended already, you just weren’t paying attention,” Lopina replied and looked down at her plate. “Who in all of Neopia puts eggs on peanut butter and jelly cabbage! Honestly!”

     “Well, the cook was feeling creative and you are the lucky volunteer!”

      “Oh... joy... peanut butter and jelly egg cabbage. Yummy.”

      “Well, if you are not going to eat this tasty experiment, then I have to go. Let me know if you need anything when I come back later.”

      The usual knock at the door came around, so the girls hugged each other and said their good-byes.

      That evening when Amina was bringing Lopina her second meal, she found her sister running around the small room with great excitement.

      “Hey Amina, guess what!?”

      “What?” Amina asked and set the tray down.

      “I figured out the lock on the chest! Do you remember the pendant I found? I think that’s the key!”

      “Really! I will go get it right now!” Amina exclaimed and raced out the door.

      The pendant was located in Lopina’s suitcase and was easily retrieved; however, on her way back, she saw Mr. Coco walking slowly in her direction. Amina quickly walked into the kitchen and began washing dishes, knowing that if he saw the pendant, Mr. Coco would figure out what she had been doing.

      “Hello, Amina,” Mr. Coco said as he walked into the room.

      “Hi, Mr. Coco.”

      “How are you doing? You are staying out of trouble, correct?”

      “I am fine, and yes, I am staying out of trouble. Captain Mendanbar makes sure of that. Not only do I have to do my duties, but also Lopina’s duties as well,” Amina said with a long sigh.

      “Well, I am glad you are staying out of trouble.”

      “Mr. Coco,” Rox interrupted, quite out of breath. “Captain Mendanbar would like to speak with you.”

      “Very well. You may tell him I am on my way,” Mr. Coco said and the Eyrie flew out of sight. “Amina, keep up the good work.”

      “Yes, sir,” said Amina. She finished the dishes and ran to Lopina with the pendant.

      “What took you sooooo long?” Lopina grumbled

      “Mr. Coco saw me walking down the hall towards you, so I had to find something else to do for a time. I ended up in the kitchen doing the dishes... and man, there was a lot of dishes.”

      “Oops, the dishes were part of my duties. Sorry about that. Does Captain Mendanbar have you doing my duties as well?”

      “Yes, but that does not matter right now. What matters is this...” Amina excitedly held up the pendant. “Would you care to open it?”

      “Absolutely!”

      Lopina took the pendant and both of the girls knelt over the chest. Lopina placed the pendant in diamond shaped lock and they heard a CLICK. They looked at each other and smiled. Lopina removed the pendant, while Amina grabbed a candle.

      “Are you ready?” Lopina asked.

      “Ready whenever you are,” Amina replied.

      Lopina opened up the lid and Amina held the candle down towards the open chest.

      “Wow!” Lopina exclaimed.

      “They look like jewels! But I have never seen any jewels like these.”

      Within the chest, five green objects glittered like emeralds. One was the same diamond shape as Lopina’s pendant, while the other four were triangles all the same size.

      “Amina, who do you think that these belong to? Do you think that one of the crew stashed it in here for save keeping? And why did we find the pendant that was the key to the chest? And...”

      “Whoa, hold on a minute! I am in the dark just like you,” Amina said. “Let me talk with the Captain about this room, and about the chest.”

      “Don’t tell him about the chest!” Lopina yelled.

      “Lopina, we cannot just keep this chest for ourselves, that is stealing. Besides, I don’t think the Captain will tell anyone else, so CHILL!” Amina said. “I have to get going, I will see you later.”

      “Okay,” Lopina said with a sigh. “Promise me that you will come back, I get so bored in here.”

      “I will come back. Don’t worry, you only have two more days in here anyway.”

      The two hugged and Amina left.

     ~~~~~~~

      “Did you talk to the Captain?” Lopina seemed restless the next day when Amina brought in her breakfast.

      “I did,” Amina replied. “And he said that this room belonged to a crew member, before it became the weapons room. That crewmember is no longer living, and her name was Dragon Flower.”

      “Was that her real name?”

      “I asked that too. Captain Mendanbar said that her real name was too hard for the crew to pronounce, so they called her Dragon Flower because she always carried a Draik Flower with her. According to the Captain, she was the one who found out what the Draik Flower does. It is a restorative from Shenkuu.”

      “That’s cool! I wish I had a cool name like that! Did he say anything else? Like about the chest?”

      “I did tell him about the chest, and how we found the pendant near the orphanage. He said he didn’t know that there was a chest in her room to begin with. He said that since the original owner is gone, we are more than welcome to have it because we have the key.”

      “Woohoo!”

      “Lopina, keep it down! Mr. Coco might hear you!” Amina sighed. “I think we should keep the chest here.”

      “Why?”

      “If Mr. Coco sees these jewels, he will undoubtedly ask where I got them. If he finds out that it came from in here, I will be in big trouble.”

      “Agreed. I don’t want you to get in trouble as well.”

      “Anyway, I would like to stay and chat more, but Captain Mendanbar said that we will be docking tomorrow. So he gave me a huge list of things to do and I need to get started on it, but I will be back this evening.”

      “Really? I get to get out of here tomorrow?” Lopina asked.

      “I would think so,” Amina replied.

      “Yay! I can NOT wait!”

      “I’m sure you can’t,” Amina said with a smile. “I will see you later.”

To be continued...