And if she hadn't been a barmaid – if Krawk Island had had much else in the way of employment – she wouldn't have been abducted by those pirates. Oh, how long ago that seemed. But in reality, it could only have been -
Now, that was puzzling. How long had it been? Not more than a year, Jess thought – she hadn't celebrated a birthday on the ship. But on a ship without calendars, how could she tell?
Jess brushed these thoughts out of her mind and finished her apple, throwing the core overboard into the sea. Not that that was good, but the pirates would notice an apple core in the bin, eternally drunk or not.
"Yo, pirates!" Jess called into the rooms below deck, where all the pirates slept. "Breakfast's ready!"
"Now, I'm very disappointed with you, Mr. Smith." The voice came from a stern, official-looking Yellow Eyrie, who was glowering at the Baby Kougra as if there were no tomorrow.
"I'm sorry, sir," Tigger mumbled pitfully. "I didn't mean to fall asleep... in fact, I don't even remember..."
"Silence!" barked the Eyrie. Tigger shut up immediately. "You had four months more work to go here, yes?"
Tigger stared. "I... uh, think..."
"Let's add two years to that, shall we?"
Tigger was horrified. "Two years... for a nap?"
The Eyrie smiled grimly. "Those who think my punishments are harsh are those who break them," he announced. "I'll see you in twenty-eight months, Mr. Smith."
Tigger stared in frustration at the floor. Twenty-eight months.
He hadn't even remembered falling asleep.
"Sister," an imperial-looking Light Faerie almost breathed the word. "What do you know of the stranger?"
Canda, elegant as always yet somewhat overshadowed by the grand Light Faerie, was the only one in the room to reply. "I know nothing," she replied. "He does not tell me."
The Light Faerie stared shrewdly at Canda. "Use your telepathic abilities," she ordered.
"I did, Sister," the Air Faerie told her superior. "He does not know."
"There is no place in society for one who knows nothing," the Light Faerie decided loudly. "Keep him alive for twenty-four hours. If he does not remember in that time, he must die."
Canda bowed. "Yes, Sister."
Blanche glared at the wall. She was at home now, in her bedroom: the wall was blue and not covered by posters.
"There is something terribly wrong about this place," she informed it icily. "Do you know what it is, wall?" she sighed as the wall remained relentlessly silent. "I don't."
She stood up and paced slowly, her soft silver paws cushioned by the fuzzy blue carpet.
"It must be something very obvious," she sighed. "What am I overlooking?"
"Honey?" a voice echoed up the stairs. A voice Blanche recognised immediately as her owner's... but it couldn't be, could it? "Honey? Talking to yourself is..."
"I know, I know," Blanche called back.
"Have you done your homework?"
Blanche glanced at her homework sheet: to draw a rainbow, the colours ordered blue, brown, red, green, black, pink and purple.
"Yes, mum," Blanche shouted back.
She hadn't, obviously, but Ms Bottamus wouldn't have minded if she'd stolen someone else's schoolwork, let alone reused her own.
"Zoey Li! Where is your interdimensional physics project?"
Zoey groaned. "I'm sorry, Miss Thuman," she apologised. "I didn't do it."
"Zoey!" the old Pteri complained. "It's not that much to ask, is it, a twenty-thousand word essay on what you learned in Interdimensional Physics class in the last fortnight?"
Well, yes, Zoey thought, but she wouldn't say that to a teacher.
"I'm very sorry, Miss Thuman," she apologised, "but in between two English essays, a History presentation, French tasks... um, well, of course I couldn't do it!"
"Everyone else managed perfectly," said Miss Thuman, gesturing at the class. "I'm terribly afraid, Zoey, that I'm going to have to assign you a week of after-school detentions."
Zoey's classmates buzzed with excitement. Tears welled into her eyes. "Not... not detention, please, Miss Thuman..."
"And for that cheek, eight days," Miss Thuman said. "You can't talk me out of giving you what you deserve I'm afraid."
What she deserved!
Zoey might have deserved many things – being shouted at, for one, a phone call to her parents... yard duty... but detention – detention! Zoey Li did not deserve detention. Zoey Li also happened to receive a lot of detentions, thanks to homework that never went into her planner, and yet she remembered it when being asked where it was.
And Zoey Li was a very thorough writer of homework.
aussiejewel finally gave into hunger and slowly ate the disgusting slushy mess left for her consumption. She didn't bother to voice her disgust. The days of personal opinion were long gone. Survival was all that mattered. Every bit of her, every trace that had made up aussiejewel, had been beaten out of her years ago. Now she was just a hollow shell, resisting food as long as she could manage, eating as little of the disgusting mess as she could...
She supposed that was her last trace of identity. Her sleek brown fur, over a nice round body, had all but dissipated. She was gaunt, skeletal, weak. Constantly ill. She didn't even bother to scream at the rats or the cockroaches who shared her living space any more. It just wasn't worth it. They weren't scared of her. No guard would come in and help her plight. She was worthless – worse than the rats and cockroaches.
They at least weren't deathly.
Alexa relaxed back onto her bed, her strained muscles ruthlessly punishing her for overworking them. But it wasn't her fault – she had to work, or else she'd be punished. And everyone knew punishment was terrible! Worse than overworked muscles. Much worse.
Alexa would have shuddered at the thought, but if she'd done that her muscles would have troubled her even more. If only she could remember how she got into the whole mess, anyway...
Blanche lay uncomfortably in her bed that night. She couldn't be sure of anything, she decided. She wasn't even certain of her own existence any more.
"This is taking so long," complained an American Chinese girl, yawning. "When's the next flight to Meridell, Jess?"
"Two hours, fourteen minutes," a brunette, Caucasian reported grimly. "Oh, thirteen."
"Isn't there any other way?" the American one asked despondently.
"I might know a way," a Brown Uni exclaimed, her face brimming with recognition. "Follow me!" she exclaimed.
The others followed her all the way to a cave.
"I dug it out ages ago," the Uni said proudly. "It took me almost the whole month."
"Good girl," smiled the American girl. "Well, come on, everyone! There's adventure on the other end!"
Blanche awoke suddenly.
Adventure on the other end indeed.
It was then she noticed that she wasn't in her bedroom at all.