The Secret Message Read online

my perfectly arranged soaps, nail polishes, hairsprays, and lotions stood on my counter, next to my brush and hair accessories. I picked up my brush and ran the smooth bristles down my hair. I looked into the mirror. “Perfect, just perfect,” I muttered to myself. I picked out a sparkly pink bow from my basket of pink bows and clipped it into my luxurious, smooth, light brown hair and ran downstairs.

  Purple grapes and eggs were waiting on the kitchen table downstairs. I gracefully ate them, and then I heard footsteps. I looked up to see my younger sister Julia looking at me.

  “Hi, Jenn!” she said, while plucking a grape off the bunch and placing it in her mouth. “How is your movie coming along?” she said. My sister Julia was ten years old. She was pretty much like a younger version of me. She liked almost everything I liked, and looked just like me- except she got blue eyes from Dad, and I got brown eyes from Mom.

  “It’s going great! I have this week off, and I was planning to have Kayla over today. Ok?” I replied as I finished up my brunch.

  “Ok! Have fun! I’ll be at Lilly’s!” she said as she grabbed her coat and rushed out the door. Lilly is her best friend, just like Kayla is my best friend. “Make sure you tell Mom I’m at Lilly’s when she gets back!” she yelled from the porch. My mom was having a meeting with my agent today to sign me up for more movies.

  A few minutes later, I heard the doorbell ring. I ran to the door to greet Kayla. “Hey!” I said as she stepped in.

  “Hi!” she replied.

  “Let me show you the code. I’m sure you can easily crack it,” I said as we ran up the stairs. I pushed opened my door and walked over to my nightstand. I typed the code and pulled open the door. Sitting in the very center of the safe was the bottle. It sat there, waiting to be opened. I pulled it out, and gave it to Kayla. She turned it over onto her palms. “Go ahead,” I said to her. “Open it.”

  She pulled off the cork and unrolled the paper. “Huh,” she muttered. “What does that mean? Hmm… Jenn, I’m not exactly sure what it might mean… wait! This has to be scrambled!” She pulled out a pencil and made some markings. “Nope… no luck. Oh! It might be the inch code!” Again, with her pencil, she made some markings on the paper. It looked like she was crossing out letters. “Yes, that’s it! It’s the inch code!”

  “What’s the inch code?” I asked quizzically.

  “Oh, it’s real simple. An inch code is where every other letter is pure gibberish, it’s not meant to be there. If you cross, out every other letter, it makes this,” Kayla handed the code to me.

  “Help! I was taken prisoner at 2711 Kingsbrook Court! I am sorry for putting you to the trouble of having to figure out this code, but it must not get in the wrong hands!” I read. “Ooh! We could get Mr. Romereo to drive us and then we could rescue him or her!”

  “Do you really think a pair of female teenagers could beat at least one armed man?” said Kayla. Yep, that’s Kayla for you. Full of logic, and always thinking ahead.

  “I doubt it,” I replied. “But…” Tons of ideas whirled before my eyes, but I picked the one that seemed the most reasonable. “We could have a concert near there, and then our bodyguards can go in and save him or her!”

  “Or maybe- only if we use a lot of persuading- military forces could help them! After all, being taken prisoner is a huge thing!” replied Kayla.

  “Yeah, it is…” I said. When my dad was taken prisoner, it was a huge deal for me. I also had wondered for days whether he was still alive or not. I wish some famous teenage girl would’ve rescued him. I think the only reason I’m following through with this is because I know how it feels for his or her family out there. “So when should our concert be?” I asked.

  “I’d say we should schedule it next week, so fans have time to buy tickets,” replied Kayla as she checked her calendar on her iPhone.

  “Ok! That’ll give us enough time to figure out everything,” I said.

  The rest of the week Kayla and I had finished writing our new song to perform, found out where 2711 Kingsbrook Court is (It’s in North Korea), decided the perfect location to set up our concert at (at a huge restaurant- we had to email the owner tons of times to finally get him to say yes), and we also got the SEAL team to come with us. The last one was easy; all we had to do was say someone was taken prisoner, and there could be more than one prisoner there, and they were in.

  When we arrived at North Korea, it was night. City lights were glimmering everywhere. The restaurant we had chosen to perform at was way more than Kayla and I had expected. I had expected it to look kind of like the Cheesecake Factory (a local restereaunt in my area), but it was huge! It was about as big as a hundred one story houses put together. The floors were shiny and clean, and the ceiling had a huge, diamond chandelier. A crowd was gathered at the front.

  “Ready?” I asked Kayla.

  “Ready!” she responded. We walked towards the crowd, and every single person stepped to the side to let us through. Posters and signs were everywhere I looked with cute slogans on them. I gripped Kayla’s hand tight and realized that somewhere close by, a person was depending on Kayla and me to distract the city so the SEAL squad could break into a house and save them. The thought made me really nervous, and I usually am never nervous. We both stepped up onto the stage and gripped the microphones the manager gave us tight. I looked at Kayla. We have this best friend thing where we can pretty much read each other. My eyes caught hers.

  “Good luck! Remember, we can do this!” Her eyes seemed to say. I nodded at her, and we began to sing the song we had worked six hours on as the background music came on.

  “It’s possible! Anything’s possible!” We sang together as the song ended. The crowd thundered into applause! Kayla looked at me, and she was smiling like she had just won the lottery. We stepped off the stage and exited the building with our bodyguards following us, then our fans. Kayla and I opened the door to my limo and got inside.

  “Mr. Romereo! Please, take us to the suite,” Kayla said as she shut the door. Mr. Romereo turned around, only, it wasn’t Mr. Romereo. Instead it was a tall, slender, dark- haired man.

  “Hello, ladies,” the tall, slender dark- haired man said. “My name is Luke.”

  “Oh my gosh! Are you trying to kidnap us? Help!” Kayla started to say.

  “Actually, I work for the FBI. No need to scream for help. I’ve heard about the message you received from a victim of imprisoning. It turns out that when the SEAL team went in to save her, there were seven other people imprisoned with her,” Luke said.

  “So I was right! It was a girl! Who imprisoned them? I said. Kayla just gawked at Luke with her mouth wide open.

  “Actually, a man named Charles Heralds used them as slaves along with the help of another man named Alex Romereo.” He informed us.

  “So Mr. Romereo was on the bad side all along! I should’ve known, the way he acted about the message…” I trailed off. “So, who else was imprisoned with her?”

  “The woman who wrote the message’s name is Jane Lewis. She fought in a war in was taken prisoner seven years ago. She was the first prisoner, and she was used for slave work. Since then, many more people have been imprisoned. Four boys and three girls, the boys used for farm labor and the girls used for clothes producing. These seven people would like to thank you later. ” He informed us. “ And there’s something I find very interesting, Jennifer. Your dad was imprisoned with her.” He gave me a moment to let the information sink in as Kayla and I gasped.

  “So- after all his time... he has still been alive?! Can I please see him?” I stammered.

  “Yes, you can. He doesn’t know anything about your success after all of these years, and it was hard to not tell him, since I am such a fan,” He told me as I smiled. “He is waiting for you in your suite.” Kayla told me she would ride in a different car so I could have some alone time with my dad.

  On the way to the suite, Luke told me a lot about my dad. It turns out he was imprisoned because he wouldn’t give his op
ponents in the war food and water. One of the nobles got very angry because his army had suffered, and captured my dad and sold him as a slave.

  When we arrived, my heart was pounding. After all of these years, I would finally meet my dad I had been dreaming about since I was eight. I walked up the steps to my door, and I slid my purple key in the hole, and twisted the doorknob. I took in all of the purple in my suite and saw a man sitting on my black, leather couch. He looked almost like he had when he left. He had blue eyes and golden hair almost exactly the same, except five years older.

  “Dad!” I exclaimed as I ran up to him and reached out to hug him. He smiled and hugged me back. “Dad, I have missed you so much! Where have you been?” I said as a tear ran down my cheek.

  “Oh, Jenn, I have missed you so much, as well as your mom and sister! “He said to me. “I am so sorry; I was captured and sold as a slave in the war!”

  “Luke, the FBI agent told me. I am so happy you were found!” I exclaimed as I grabbed a tissue and wiped my nose.

  “Yes, and I am so glad you found me,” He looked around the suite. “Um, where did all of this come from, and why are you in North Korea, not at home with your mom and Julia?”

  “Oh, Dad, that’s a long story- “I began.

  “Tell me, I can stay here all day,” He told me.

  “Ok,” I said as I began to tell