Chapter 8: First Answer
"Alright!" Mindy cracked her neck from side-to-side as she bounced on the balls of her feet, "Eleventh time's the charm! Count me down Dakota!"
"Three…two...one… GO!"
She charged towards the bars with a fierce battle cry…only to be sent hurdling backwards from the impact. Similar to the previous ten times she had done this, she was left with nothing but a throbbing pain in her abdomen and the rattling of the bars which seemed to mock her for her failure.
Dakota offered her his hands, "You okay?"
"I've been better." Mindy admitted as she let him help her to her feet and dusted herself off. She then prepped herself up to run again with a half-crazed look in her eye, "Okay, disregard that last attempt! Twelfth time's the charm; right?!"
"Woah, slow down there kiddo!" Dakota stopped her before she could dart forwards, "Heh, maybe we should take a breather for now! Besides, if something goes sour, we don't have any medical supplies to take care of the boo-boos."
"You make a fair point." She relented, "But is that our best option? Sitting here and doing nothing? That seems counterproductive."
"Maybe, but it's not like we can do anything else." He pointed out as he crashed onto the grimy splintered floor, "We're not, you know…cartoon characters! Speaking of which, am I the only one who thinks that this is COMPLETELY INSANE?!"
"Ha, insane is one way of putting it." Mindy replied as she joined him… she was silent for a few moments before she said, "I'm so sorry for dragging you into this mess Dakota."
"To be honest, I'm kind of glad you did."
"But didn't you just say that this was all COMPLETELY INSANE?!"
"Well yeah, but that's what makes it fun!" Dakota chirped, "Think of it this way, I could either be back home doing my Physics homework, OR be held captive on a pirate ship in freaking Neverland of all places!"
Mindy raised a brow, "Uh, did you miss the being held captive part?!"
"Obviously, that's not great." He blushed and looked away, "But look on the bright side! At least neither of us has to go through this alone."
She couldn't help but crack a smile at his ridiculously optimistic outlook, "I guess that's one good thing that came out of it." Mindy then rested her chin on her knees as a downcast expression took over her features, "What if…what if we never get back to Mulberry County?"
"Hey, hey, don't say that." Dakota didn't hesitate to put a hand on her shoulder, "It's not like they'll keep us in here forever."
"Uh huh you're right, eventually they'll make us walk the plank!" She grinned although on the inside she was seconds away from having a psychotic break, "And-and if we're lucky, they'll feed us to the crocodile to make our deaths as painless as possible!"
He started to sweat…"Ha! Good one Min!"
"Heh, heh I wasn't trying to be sarcastic or funny!"
The uncomfortable silence afterwards was deafening.
"Dakota, can I ask you something?"
"You just did."
Mindy suppressed a roll of her eyes, "When you gave me this necklace today, what did you mean when you said that it was a blast from my past?" she instinctively grabbed the pendant and started to rub tiny circles around it, "Did you somehow know that this was going to happen?"
"I don't think anyone could have predicted this." He laughed, "As for your first question, I have no idea where it came from or who bought it. All I know is that you, Scar, and I used it as a sort of a trophy for whoever won our rounds of trivia. You always won whenever we drew the Disney category from the hat, so I figured you should have it."
"Thanks…I-I think I remember those games." She said with a fond smile, "The Harry Potter category was the hardest with its constant vagueness and spinning anagrams."
"Whenever the spot the difference section came on, we used to dash to the TV, and practically pressed our noses up against the screen!" Dakota remarked.
"Scarlett's mom always said that our eyes would be permanently damaged if we kept doing that."
He pushed the bridge of Mindy's glasses with a teasing smirk, "Turns out she was right for two-thirds of us!"
She wheezed before doing the same to his, "God, her mom is so awesome! Remember when she used to pick us up after school and drive-thru McDonalds to get us dipped cones?"
"Yeah but the ice cream machine never worked so we'd end up going to Baskin Robbins instead!" Dakota suddenly perked up, "Hey, wasn't there some stupid song we used to sing every time we went?"
"Hang on!" Mindy's eyes scrunched up, "It's on the tip of my tongue! I just don't remember the words! Uh, it was something along the lines of: Duh, duh, duh, duh dum, duh dum dum!"
"OH! I GOT IT!" He started to dance as he belted, "EVERYBODY LIKES MCDONALDS! EVERYBODY LIKES MCDONALDS LET'S EAT! EVERYBODY LIKES MCDONALDS! EVERYBODY LIKES MCDONALDS LET'S EAT!"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah!" She bobbed her head as she joined in, "EVERYBODY LIKES MCDONALDS! EVERYBODY LIKES MCDONALDS LET'S EAT!"
They guffawed at their rediscovered childhood memories, and once again the necklace emanated a now blinding yellowish aura. Dakota sprung backwards with a girlish yelp as Mindy stared at it with silent terror. Almost as soon as they had stopped laughing, the glow dissipated…
Dakota was the first to speak, "What…was…that?"
"I don't know!" Mindy burst out, "But it's been doing this all freaking day, and it's driving me up the wall! No one I trust is giving me any explanations as for how we got here, what this necklace does, or why these characters know who I am and call me princess of the Dreamo-whatever! And I've had it up to here with it!"
He stared at her for a moment before opening his arms, "Would you care for a hug?"
"Always." She was snuggled up against his chest in an instant as her eyes flooded with frightened tears, "We've gotta get out of here Dakota…if I hadn't made that rookie mistake of letting Hook find a loophole, then we wouldn't even be here in the first place!"
"It wasn't a rookie mistake." He assured her as he rested his cheek on the top of her head, "At least you didn't get captured immediately like I did."
Mindy stifled a laugh, "I got kidnapped and taken to Skull Rock almost as soon as I had stepped foot onto the island."
"But you made it out! Well, for a short while." Dakota gave her shoulders a comforting squeeze, "Just hang in there… we'll find a way back home, figure out why we washed up on Neverland, and what is up with that necklace opening a scary, magic, portal thingy. Nothing stays the same and in hard times, things will always get better in the end…you'll see."
When she didn't automatically respond, Dakota frowned…then he got an idea, "Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Mindy… Happy birthday to you."
Mindy sniffled, "Thanks bud."
"What are friends for?"
Once she had regained her composure, Mindy recounted to Dakota her misadventures leading up till this point from waking up in Mermaid Lagoon, rescuing herself and Tiger Lily from the pirates, The Native party (although she deliberately left out the part where she made a spectacle out of herself), and her disagreement with Peter Pan. Dakota was a patient listener, and didn't even stop her when she went on tangents out of nowhere but instead let her reel herself back whenever she realized what she was doing.
When she'd finished her narrative, the conversation naturally shifted to irrelevant things such as if there were other colors in the universe that humans couldn't picture in their heads because they'd never seen them before, and why someone who pours milk before their cereal shouldn't be trusted under ANY circumstances. They then started making up their own dad jokes that weren't even that clever to begin with, but still made them laugh because of how stupid they were. When they'd run out of material, they resorted to singing some random songs in order to appease their boredom ranging from "I Want it That Way." To "Sweet Caroline." and even:
"Beelzebub has the devil put aside for me…for me…FOR MEEEEEEEE!"
They were in the middle of attempting to do the rap portion of "Determinate." from Lemonade Mouth when they heard the pirates returning from kidnapping Wendy, John, Michael, and the Lost Boys from Hangman's Tree. Mister Smee came down and informed them that he had been instructed to not let them out of his sight, and that he had his heart set on staying awake at all costs.
Mindy insisted that this was their chance to escape.
Smee was nefarious for being a neglectful (yet loveable) idiot, and all they needed to do was to wait until he inevitably fell asleep, snatch the keys, and get the heck out of there.
Dakota had his reservations though.
He thought it was a safer option to stay put, try to get some rest, and see what the morning had to offer them.
After some lengthy bickering, Mindy gave in and attempted to fall asleep…
The key word being attempted.
Her muscles absolutely refused to relax while in Dakota's arms. It didn't help that she couldn't seem to turn off her ever constant train of thought either. How was she expected to sleep when she'd just had the craziest birthday experience ever? No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't stop replaying all of the things that had happened that day, and it was driving her to the brink of tears.
And to top it all off, Dakota was snoring directly into her ear.
She couldn't take it anymore, and eased her tired, crusty eyes open.
Biting her lip, she shimmied out of his constrictive grasp and tiptoed over to the barred doors. She poked her head out, and noticed that their keeper had inadvertently passed out in his chair. She wrinkled her nose when she saw the puddle of dribble on the floor next to him. Tilting her eyes upward she also heeded the set of keys dangling from the first mate's belt buckle.
Extending her arm out as far as she could manage, she tried to grab ahold of the ring as beads of sweat trickled from her temples. To her annoyance, her fingers were centimeters away from brushing up against them, but it wasn't enough. Mindy crawled back to Dakota, and compared her arm to his. She was dismayed to find that they were (surprisingly) shorter than hers.
Her self-esteem plummeted tremendously.
Letting out an aggravated sigh, Mindy sprawled across the floor (she could care less that it was moldy and probably covered in multiple splinters and possibly rat poop). She then snapped her head back towards the keys glinting in the lamplight. She wracked her brain for ideas, but she'd never planned a full-out jailbreak before so she had no clue where to start.
A ridiculous thought formulated inside her head and she withdrew the necklace from the inside of her dress. Flipping over the pendant, her eyes scanned over the riddle again: I can be cracked, I can be made. I can be told, I can be played. What am I?
"The bane of my existence." Mindy huffed as a playful smile danced across her lips, "That's what you are."
She closed her eyes in thought…
People could be broken down and put back together based on their experiences. Life was a rollercoaster full of dips, sharp turns, sudden stops, and ascents but that was what made it worth living. She was reminded of Mrs. Lynn's example from earlier that late afternoon: Reading a book where the protagonist doesn't learn from their mistakes was boring.
Just like dealing with the highs and never the lows was considered to be boring.
When she thought of being told and played she considered the topic of manipulation.
In Mrs. Lynn's class, she recalled writing a story about a hero and a villain who manipulated each other all the time but secretly admired each other's intelligence. They even grew to have a sort of frienamieship. They teased each other, tried to kill each other multiple times, and even kissed when they admitted their true feelings and-
Her eyes flew open.
Wait…where was she going with this?
Oh yeah, the godforsaken riddle…stupid thing.
Speaking of stupid things, she found herself chuckling a bit as she recalled one of the stupid dad jokes Dakota had told her: "Once you've seen one shopping center, you've seen the mall."
Mindy had cried/screamed/squealed with laughter until the tears poured out of her nose. It was so stupid and yet she'd been laughing, with Dakota following suit. Of all the people she could have been stuck in a cell with, she was glad that she'd gotten stuck with him. She knew for a fact that if Scarlett had been in her shoes, she would have punted him into the sun for telling such a painfully cringe-worthy joke.
Imagining that alternative scenario made her giggle again and her eyes cast downward to see the necklace emanating an all-too-familiar golden light…
Then, it hit her.
She sat up and declared, "The answer is a joke."
Almost as soon as the words left her mouth, a burst of illumination exploded out of the necklace. She shielded her eyes until the lighting in the room somewhat went back to normal. When she peeked from the crook of her elbow, she was taken aback when she found that the light hadn't immediately vanished like the previous times it had done this. Instead, it lingered for a couple seconds before the pendant absorbed it (particularly the citrine jewel on the far right).
Mindy sat there wide-eyed and breathless.
She frantically looked between the two men surrounding her, and her rattling heart was instantly put at ease. Neither of them had been disturbed from their deep slumbers as a result from… whatever the hell just happened.
She wasn't sure what she was supposed to do from there.
In terms of magical phenomenon, Mindy had little to no experience other than with the "Scary, magic, portal thingy." she and Dakota had been sucked into. Was she supposed to wait for something to happen, or ignore it and move on? But how was she expected to ignore something as outlandish as this?
Well…if this were one of my stories, I guess the main character would finger it absentmindedly and something would happen to move the plot forward. Mindy predicted.
Having nothing to lose (except for her sanity) she did just that, and a golden shimmering substance coated her hand. Letting out a tiny squeak, she flailed her arm in an attempt to get it off of her. To her bewilderment, it drifted into the atmosphere and caused the loose strands of hair framing her face to hover in midair.
Mindy panicked when she felt a sneeze coming on.
"A….A….AAAAA-choo!"
She had always hated her sneeze.
Dakota had compared it to a kitten when he'd first heard it. Scarlett had died of laughter and proclaimed it to be the cutest sound that'd ever graced her eardrums. Mindy could see how these comments should have been taken as compliments, but it didn't help that she was nearly 4'11 and had to look up at everyone who towered over her.
Yeah…the nickname Sneezing Kitten had stuck with her ever since.
However, at the moment she was grateful for her quiet (albeit adorable) sneeze. Mindy didn't know how it was possible, but there was no doubt in her mind that the mysterious substance was in fact pixie dust.
She didn't question it, and instead focused on how to use this to her advantage.
Wasting no time, Mindy tiptoed back to the prison bars and eyed the keys attached to the first mate's belt buckle. Taking in an uneasy breath, she stretched out her arm as far as she could and flicked a sprinkle of dust onto the ring.
She restrained a squeal of delight when the keys floated off of the hook.
Once it hovered close enough, she snatched them out of the air, and pumped her fist in triumph. As luck would have it, she unlocked the rusty doors on the first key that she tried.
Still bubbling with excitement, she bounced back to Dakota and shook him gently, "Hey…hey…come on sleepyhead… it's time to wake up."
"But I don't want to go to school mom… I need to get to my yoga class."
Mindy's brows rose in amusement, "What?"
"The Man in the Yellow Hat from Curious George said he'd be there this time, and he's a straight up hottie."
"Haha, I'm sure he is sport." She played along with a smirk, "But right now, we need to get the curse word out of this cell…but before we blow this popsicle stand, I owe a certain favor to a certain fairy."