Chapter 1

“They hurt papa!” Elliot Abby’s little brother ran in screaming as loud as a lion. “What?” Abby shouted “And who are they?” Marla askses. “Calm down and explain slowly.” Kenya said. “I don’t know who they are.” Elliot said ”And there is no time for questions I’ll just show you him.”. Sometimes Elliot has a way of saying things like he’s a lot older. “So where is he?” Marla askses “At the big hollow tree.” Elliot answered. “Oh great we have to run all the way across campus?” I said “Stop calling it campus, this is where we live now.” Sheila said. “Well do you have a better name? It’s way too small to be a village or town.” I argued. “Can’t we just stop fighting?” Marla asked “We need to get to him before we’re too late, I’ll carry Elliot meet you all there?” “All right.” Evelyn and Kenya agreed “Let’s get going then.” Sheila said.

“Ok we all here?” Marla asked “Yes.” I replied “Ok Elliot where is he?” Abby asked “On the other side of the tree.” Elliot explained.

  Abby peaked around the corner. “OMG!” Abby screamed “What happened?!” she clapped a hand over her brother’s eyes. “Hey I want to see!” Elliot complained he grabbed Abby’s hand off of his face “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” he screamed. Abby put her hand back over his eyes. Evelyn stepped forward, “Can I take a look?” she asked Abby nodded. “Well it’s not as bad as I thought.” Evelyn said “But uh his leg could use some medical attention right now or uh it could be um lost forever.”. We all gasped. Abby screamed some more. “Okay less screaming and more helping” Marla said “So who is going to help me carry him across campus or whatever you want to call it to Abby’s house?”. Marla can be very direct and serious. Me and Kenya volunteered “All right.” Marla agreed “That means the two of you have to carry Elliot.” she said pointing to Shiela and Kenya “Oh, great.” Sheila groaned.

“Um do you think you could ring the doorbell for us Evelyn?”Abby asked who decided she wanted to help carry her father Mr.Ravern who is almost as heavy as a boulder. 

“Sure” Evelyn replied. Kenya and Sheila hadn’t arrived yet with Elliot unless they were already in the house but the house seemed pretty quiet. Ding dong ding dong the doorbell chimed slowly, the door opened “Creeeak”. Mrs.Ravern screamed, “It’s worse than I thought.” she whispered looking horrified. “You knew?” I asked “Yes,” Mrs.Ravern replied slowly “Sheila and Kenya arrived carrying Elliot a few minutes ago.”. “Oh! You’re all here.” Kenya said, appearing in the doorway “Yes, we are.” Marla said, still out of breath. “Well come inside then” Sheila said, appearing next to Kenya.

    Chapter 2

“Well where should we put him?” I asked “How about in his bedroom.” Abby’s mom Mrs.Ravern replied.

  “Evelyn do you know any nearby doctors that could get here by noon tomorrow?” Aria asked. “I can’t remember any right now. I can do some research ” I replied “Can I go to the library with you?” Kenya asked. “I guess that’s fine” I replied “just be quiet.”. “I think we could go back to the woods to look for clues,” Aria proposed “Who wants to come?”. Marla and Abby’s hands shot up immediately.

 We were splitting up again. Personally I would prefer we stick together but really I don’t think I could handle more than one girl with me. Usually when I go to the library it’s when I get to be alone but sometimes Kenya comes. Aria, Marla and Abby raced off toward the woods and Sheila and Mrs.Ravern walked toward the kitchen to start making dinner. Elliot ran to keep up with Sheila and Mrs.Ravern he has a good sense of taste so usually he tastes whatever they are making for dinner.

Me and Kenya headed towards the library. “Do you think you can really find something in here?” Kenya asked. “Of course” I replied “I organize this library every Sunday.”. “Really?” Kenya asked ”I don’t think Sheila would be very impressed.”. 

“Well, Sheila only comes on Sundays right after I organize so she doesn’t see all of this.” I said motioning to the library.”That makes sense.” Kenya said “Do you think I could get some quiet while I try to find these books?” I ask “Ok” Kenya replied.

 I went over to the book stand where I keep the organizing book that Sheila made for me. She made the book so I know where to put the books back but really I only use it on Sunday and when I’m trying to find a certain book that I don’t know where it is.

 Hmm I haven’t searched for this book in a while. It starts with a C so I think I’ll start in that part of the book. It’s cool that she made the book in alphabetical order kind of like a dictionary. Ok I found it. Section D in the library and under letter j all right, let’s see. 

“Ouch!” “What’s wrong?” I ask whirling around to face Kenya. “I don’t know, I think the noise came from the walkie-talkie.” she replied. “Hello are you all right?” Kenya asked into the walkie-talkie. “Yes” Marla replied “I just tripped over a knife’s blade.”. We heard footsteps through the walkie-talkie. ”A knife’s blade? What’s that doing in the forest?” Aria asked. “Do you think it could be a clue? We should have Shiela analyze it.”. “But she’s making dinner. ” I replied “Well I guess I could cook and she can help analyze it.” Kenya offered. “You would help cook the gumbo? Awesome! Thanks!” Marla said.”.

Chapter 3

Well sure that could work I guess.” I said after they had explained what they had found and that Kenya would help make the gumbo for dinner.“Yay! Thank you sooooo much!” Abby exclaimed.

Dinner was delicious, I nearly forgot how good Kenya cooks! Also, I asked the girls to meet me in the library at 9:00 pm after Elliot went to bed but Mrs.Ravern said “No.” because she thought it was too dangerous after what happened today. So now it’s after dinner and we’re about to talk about it and now everyone is going to sleep in my house since it is the biggest and the only one with a table so we always eat here.

“All right. So about the knife we found…” I started to say.”What did you find?” Marla askes at the exact same time Aria askes “Is there a chemical element that leads to a certain place?”. “Will you just let me explain?” I ask. “All right but you have to answer our questions too.” Aria replied.

“So when I tested it for fingerprints I found one that I can show you tomorrow if Mrs.Ravern lets us go to the science lab. But she probably won’t you know, after how she acted at dinner…”. “Or I can try sketching the fingerprint but it probably won’t look like the real thing.” 

“And answering Aria’s question yes there is a chemical element but it leads to a bigger space than you might have imagined.”.”So tell us where!” Aria exclaimed “Hey, I was just getting to that part! Anyways it leads to the forest in the circle of clearings by the big hollow tree.”. “Oh gosh that is a big space.” said Abby. “We can go tomorrow and start looking around if your mom lets us.” Marla pointed out.

Chapter 4 

That night there were so many things swirling around in her head it felt like there was a tornado in her head of horrifying thoughts, random ideas and mixed emotions. She was scared of the journey ahead of them even though she knew Marla would protect everyone at all costs and that Aria would fight whatever came their way. She was worried for her father and her little brother that she loved so much. And she came across horrid thoughts like them never getting home and that made it a very restless night her horrid thoughts seeped into her happy dreams taking them over and turning them into horrible nightmares.

The next morning we made breakfast and convinced Kenya to be the head chef. And every ten minutes at breakfast we begged my mom to let us go on the adventure sounds like we made a plan on how we did it? Well if you thought that we did you are correct and Aria will probably call you as keen as a hawk. Anyways we decided I would beg last to give it an extra boost because she is my mom of course. None of us thought it would work. She said “All right but promise me you will be careful, take care of yourselves and each other and finally try to come back.We’ve already lost so much this past year.”. And of course we all promised.

We all gathered food all morning. We didn’t want Mr.Ravern, Elliot and Mrs.Ravern to starve and pack enough for us plus, we didn’t have a lot of money. I cannot believe that Sheila let us use two of her silver candles and one gold nugget to pay for a doctor for my father. I am so thankful! And Evelyn found a doctor and he’s hired! We just finished packing and we all packed like way to overstuffed backpacks that looked like a baby giraffe was crammed into them. Sheila got the finger print printed with Aria’s five dollars and stuffed it into her already jammed backpack.

Chapter 5

That night we picked a clearing to sleep in. We were all so tired we fell asleep immediately. The next day we wandered around the clearing searching for any clues. We also picked berries and mushrooms for a stew. Kenya got the broth started and Evelyn found some herbs and spices. So then we ate and discussed if we’d found anything, these clearings are each so big that we assigned ourselves to a portion each. And then we went to sleep. So basically we repeated a version of that for a week. Then we discovered a clearing that had bits of food and trash everywhere, well mostly everywhere and were about to talk about it.

“So,” I started to say “It’s clear from what we found that people were here a few nights ago. And they are  probably the same people we are looking for.”. “Why don’t we move on in the same direction we’ve been going in and stop when we find they’re campsite?” I asked. “All right that seems reasonable.” Aria agreed. “Okay.” Sheila, Evelyn and Kenya agreed after a minute or two. So we moved on. Now we are at a clearing that looks like a campsite is still in progress. We decided that only some  of us should sleep in the clearing and two should not so they can help us in case we get caught. Also Kenya and Aria are going to sleep in the bushes not with us. We decided two was good because we wanted enough bait (that’s who is in the clearing) and we wanted (in case we got caught) who is trying to rescue us to have a partner.

We ate dinner and went to sleep. Some hours later…”Owwwwww!”. Everyone woke up. I realized the scream came from Abby. Someone had a knife cut into her leg. We looked around and realized it was the same people who had hurt her dad. They were all white men. We were in a cage and they were pulling us away. I’m pretty sure I saw Kenya and Aria’s heads above the bush before we lost complete sight of them. The ride definitely was not pleasant. I guess we were carried into a dark cave because all of a second it was pitch black. It smelled rotten and they must have gagged us because in a few minutes we were all out again.

Chapter 6

They were gone. Aria insisted we go after them right away but first we took some things from their campsite that we might be able to use. When we got to them they were bound around a tree with blindfolds on. It was still night so there was no one in sight. I didn’t want to gag them but I guess Aria was right they might have thought we were the capturers and scream and that would alert the real capturers. Then we undid all of their bounds and finally ripped their gags away and they woke up.

They were up and like forever we thought and thought and thought some more (though really it was only a few hours.). We decided to use their own trap against them. We found their campsite and we gaged them so they wouldn’t know what happened, good thing they were in deep sleep or we would have woken them up. Did I ever mention that I’m not very good at being stealthy? Anyways, then we tied them to a tree and went to sleep.

The next morning we packed up and went home. We were so glad to be home! We made it to Abby’s house where everyone was. We were so happy to see Mrs. Ravern and Elliot! We all hugged. Then Abby asked a question that we were thinking about how to ask it. “Is Dad okay?” Abby asked we could all hear the worry in her voice. Mrs. Ravern smiled and said “Why don’t you come in and see.”. We were all glad to see he was great and up. We celebrated with a party. See you on our next adventure!

About the author

Mikaela Ho lives in San Francisco and goes to Live Oak school. She lives with her younger sister, mom and dad. She spends most of her free time reading and drawing. Mikaela Ho wrote Justice Adventure because justice, equality and racism are important to her. She also loves biking, gardening, making crafts, basketball and playing with her sister.