Mr.FORTISQUE

Chapter-6

THE TINY LETTERS

When my mom called me today for breakfast, I was talking to Amanda via phone. We were discussing about the diamond locket. Yesterday, we found a little old, rusty key to the locket. We took turns and tried opening the locket, and to our disappointment, failed at our hundredth attempt. The key exactly fit the keyhole, but it just wouldn't click open. When it was Amanda's turn to try and open the locket, she pierced herself on her pinkie finger with the rusty key. The scream she let out is still ringing in my ears. Her finger turned bluish-black. As the key was rusted, her finger became septic. Amanda's already sensitive, then this, so she sobbed hard. We had to call Mrs.Ellerby immediately to take her home. So, yesterday ended in a total fiasco. Today, Amanda was feeling better, so we planned to meet at the park(our official meeting site). After breakfast, I rushed to get my bicycle, as I also had to pick Scorpius on the way. But interruption arrived in the form of my mom. "Shelly dear, you and Ish have to go and help Mrs.Koothrapalli with her plants. She is repotting some of them. She asked me earlier today, and I told her that both you and Ish are free today." I couldn't say no to my mom. I called Scorpius and told him that I'll be a late for the meeting. I also told him that he would have to tag along with Amanda.

Ish and me finally went to help out our next door neighbour, Mrs.Koothrapalli. She was a nice woman, but when it came to her plants, she was damn serious(remember Fantales?). Mrs.Koothrapalli basically made us take out all the mud from the pots, mix them with some natural manure, fill the manure-mixed mud into the pots again, plant a few saplings and water them. I was the one who did most of the work, while Ish played with the mud and stared at me potting plants. I was deeply exhausted after all the work. It took about forty five minutes to repot all the plants. After we were(I was) done with the work, Mrs.Koothrapalli gave Ish and me two giant lollipops.

I returned home, took the diamond locket and key, and hurried to the McCaffrey park on my bicycle, with the lollipop in my mouth. By the time I got there, I had sucked the whole lollipop and only the stick remained. Amanda and Scorpius were waiting for me by the great banyan tree. Amanda's finger was bandaged and she looked quite okay today, although she looked really vexed about something. Scorpius gave me his I-didn't-do-anything look. We sat on the round bench under the great banyan tree. I took out the locket and the key. I tried my hundred and first attempt to open the locket. I pushed the small key into the keyhole and bam! it clicked open! We were all too startled to make any sound. We had tried all day to open the locket, and now it just clicks open? Where did all this magic come from? What did this mean?

Once we returned to the normal world, after all the wondering and pondering, we decided to investigate the locket. Scorpius slowly opened the locket (amongst us three, only his hands were the least shaking). A really tiny scroll of paper was stuck inside the locket. I patiently took the scroll out of the locket. The paper was so tiny that we had to use a pair of tweezers from Amanda's bag to straighten out the scroll. Amanda had really weird stuff in her bag like a lightsaber, but she also had handy stuff which come really useful at times like this. We managed to straighten the scroll of paper without tearing it. On the paper, were most probably the world's tiniest letters ever. We couldn't even figure out what language it was or what it said.

Scorpius suggested that we go to his house. His dad, who is a microbiologist, has a microscope, under which we could apparently figure out what the letters said or meant. I am really eager and excited about this Jammy Berry Pie-finding adventure.

More to come!!

Yours excitedly,

Sheldon Fortisque