The Ultimate Summer Vacation
Chapter 4
The next morning, Kari and Gatomon were awoken by the clamor of kitchen utensils and appetizing aromas that drifted through the spacious hallways to their enormous guest bedroom.
Gatomon lifted her nose to the air. "Nothing like waking up to smell the bacon!" she said as she leapt off the bed in search for breakfast.
Kari, on the other hand, took a little more time getting ready than her digital friend before meeting the others in the kitchen. Mimi's mother was standing at the stove, a cookbook propped open on the counter while T.K. and Mimi sat at barstools in front of a spacious granite counter top. Gatomon and Patamon were perched beside them sharing a stool.
"Good morning Kari!" Mimi's mother called. "I'm making French Crepes!"
"My mom's been taking fancy cooking classes," Mimi whispered to her. Kari nodded but didn't complain, whatever she was making smelled delicious.
Kari didn't notice the bag Mimi had set on the floor beside the counter until they were finished eating. Mimi threw the bag over her shoulder and grabbed a large textbook off the kitchen table.
"I'm sorry I won't be able to show you guys around today, but I have school," said Mimi.
"Summer school?" Patamon asked.
"No silly, high school. Our summer vacation doesn't start for another two weeks!"
T.K. gave Kari a surprised glance. Mimi had told Kari that her school was still in session over the phone, of course, but Kari had felt the need to come anyway. She hadn't told T.K. for the fear that he would try to persuade her to delay their trip until Mimi was completely available.
"Anyway," Mimi continued as she headed toward the elevator. "I've left a map and a list of places you guys might want to check out while you're here."
Mimi's mother handed Kari a sheet of paper. "Our home phone number's on there too," she said. "If you guys need anything just give me a call! I'll be here all day!"
The elevator door opened and Mimi stepped inside. "Goodbye! I'll be home around three o'clock! See you later!"
Mimi's mother finished tidying the kitchen and left them alone to T.K.'s angry stare. Kari was saved from confronting him, however, when her D-terminal emitted a loud beeping noise. She rushed to answer it, if only to avoid answering the questions she knew T.K. was getting ready to ask her.
"It's from Davis," she told him as she opened up the email.
"What does it say?" Gatomon asked.
"It says they're at the beach. He's teaching Veemon how to play beach volleyball, and Cody and Upomon are building a sandcastle, and Yolei and Poromon are relaxing in the sun," she read aloud to them. "He says he's sad because Ken couldn't go with them because his soccer team made the national finals and has to compete all week." She showed them the picture he had attached with the message.
T.K. grunted a reply. Although he and Davis were friends, he had never been too happy about Davis' infatuation with Kari.
"It sounds like they're having lots of fun," Patamon said, "is there a beach around here we can go to?"
T.K.'s glare faded as he laughed. "We're near the ocean, but you wouldn't want to go swimming, Patamon."
"It's much too cold," Kari agreed.
"What are we going to do today then if the beach is out?" Gatomon asked.
"What would you guys like to do?" T.K. asked after he read off the list of places to visit Mimi had made for them. "The Museum of Natural History sounds interesting."
"Yeah and it's by the park," Kari pointed it out on the map. "Do you think we could go back? I want to take more pictures there."
"Sure," T.K. said, already in a much better mood than he had been when Mimi left.
Not too much later, they were wandering the streets of New York, hopelessly lost. Gatomon grabbed the map from T.K.'s hands turning it around trying to find anything that looked familiar.
"Do you think we're going in the right direction?" Kari asked.
"I'm not sure," T.K. said peering down at the map in Gatomon's gloved paws. "I don't even know what street we're on."
Gatomon turned the map back over to T.K. as she leapt into Kari's arms. "Let's just keep walking this way and we'll have to recognize something eventually," she said.
"Yeah," T.K. said, "when we see Florida palm trees."
Kari giggled as T.K. folded the map back into a small square and slipped it into his pocket. "It'll be an adventure," she said, fingering the string around her neck that held her camera. When they stopped at the next intersection, she slipped the camera's cover off.
"Let's take a picture!" she said. "We'll call it 'Lost in the Big City.'"
"Ok," T.K. said, "can you send it to my D-3? That way we can send it to Davis and the others."
"You bet!"
He moved to stand behind her but even though the camera flashed, the picture wasn't able to send to his D-terminal.
"Let's try again," Kari said.
"Ok," T.K. replied, setting up the camera once more. "Ok, here we go," he moved to stand behind her once again, "Smile!"
Again the camera flashed but and at the same time an error message popped up on his D-3.
"It didn't go through?" Kari asked.
"No," T.K. said, picking up the device to examine it.
"What's wrong with it?" Kari asked.
"I don't know." He could find anything wrong with the camera or the D-3, but the picture still wouldn't send. "It says all lines are busy. There must be some sort of electrical surge."
"So what do you think we should do now, T.K.?" Taking pictures had been the whole reason she had wanted to go to the park in the first place. Besides, she noticed the clouds were getting thicker, almost completely blocking the sun, and the wind was picking up.
"How about lunch?" Gatomon asked.
Kari was about to remind her that it had only been an hour since breakfast, but she got a funny feeling in her stomach. She looked up to see the neon signs of the convenient store across the street from them flickering. Then she heard a noise that almost sounded like a growl.
"Hey, did you guys hear that?" she asked, feeling more than a little anxious.
T.K. gave her a blank look, "Did we hear what?"
Uh oh, Kari thought, maybe she was hearing something in her head like the last time. Gatomon blinked her big blue cat eyes at her. This didn't feel like last time, this felt much worse. The voice she had communicated with before had been deep and menacing but not evil.
"I'm getting the feeling that there's something really strange out there, but I'm not quite sure what it is yet," she told the others truthfully. "It needs our help, though." She surprised even herself when she said that; she couldn't exactly pinpoint how she knew, but she just did.
There was a noise above them and they both turned their heads to look up. A "One Way" street sign above them was twisting on its pole, seemingly of its own accord. A mailbox crashed off to their right.
That definitely qualified as strange. "I hate it when I'm right," Kari said. A streetlight flickered overhead. She had a funny feeling that a digimon was causing the destruction. If there was a digimon here in the city they had to find it!
She started running, not really sure where to, just following the invisible wrecking ball and electrical surges.
"Hurry, T.K.," she called, urging him to follow her. "It's over this way!"
She was in such a hurry she almost ran right past it, and probably would have if T.K. hadn't stopped. There in an alley was the same digimon he had thought he had seen from the top of the Empire State Building. He had been right about the size, it was enormous! Huge and brown, with big gorilla like arms and long yellow hair. What was even more unusual was the blond boy standing in front of it.
When Kari turned around and caught up to her, he said, "A digimon."
"I'm not sure it is a digimon," she said.
"All right, tell me," the boy said to it, "what do you want?"
The digimon opened its huge mouth to say, "Go back." And then it disappeared. Kari gasped. She had never seen a digimon disappear before. When they died they sort of dissolved gradually into little pieces of data, they never just disappeared like that.
T.K. stared in wonder, gripping the fence. "It vanished." He rattled the chain link fence and yelled, "Hey, kid!" He recognized the boy as the same one he had crashed into the day before chasing after the digimon.
The boy looked up, surprised to see them standing there.
"Come here!" Kari urged, wanting to know not only about the boy and the rabbit-like digimon at this side, but also about the huge vanishing monster.
The boy didn't listen to Kari, however, but simply scooped up his digimon and ran in the opposite direction. "Don't follow me!" he yelled back to them. "You're in danger!"
Kari wanted to run after him but there was no break in the fence.
"Leave it to me," Patamon said, "I'll find out where he's going." He flapped his wings and flew over the fence in pursuit of the boy and his digimon.
"What does he mean we're in danger?" T.K. asked Kari suspiciously. Maybe he and Kari both knew something he didn't; if only she would tell him.
"All I know is," Kari said honestly, "he needs help."
They didn't have to wait long for Patamon to return. He told them everything the boy had said to his digimon, Terriormon, and that they were headed someplace called Colorado.
"Colorado!" T.K. said, "That's a long way from here!"
"We have to go, T.K.," Kari said, "we have to help him."
T.K. felt a shiver all of a sudden. "Kari, does this have anything to do with the Sphere of Hope? Or the other things that you won't tell me?"
"I don't know, T.K. I just know that we can't let him face that big digimon alone. We're needed, I can feel it. Don't you feel it too?"
He did feel it, which is why he felt so uncomfortable about everything. "What are we going to tell Mimi?" Kari smiled, glad for both his approval and agreement.
"How about the truth?" Gatomon asked.
"We can email her on the way," Kari said.
"And how exactly are we getting there?" T.K. asked. "We need to think this through."
"We can take the subway," Patamon said. "That's where the boy was heading."
"Patamon the subway doesn't go to Colorado. We need an airplane, or a bus, or a train." T.K. told him.
"The train!" Kari said, "T.K. get the map out, let's find the closest train station."
T.K. sighed. Sometimes he wondered just how he got himself into these things.