Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6 "Hello!" Merle called out into the pitch-black aluminum tunnel, his voice echoing off the metallic walls. He felt a sudden twinge of panic as he remembered being lost in the cave near the Dead Sea. Some memories, even ones that are 2,000 years old, don't fade easily. "What am I doing down here?!" he said to himself. He turned around and shouted, "Pearl, can you hear me?!" "Right here," Pearl's slightly annoyed voice answered faintly. She was much more interested in her book than she was in what Merle was up to, but just hearing her voice helped to reassure him that he was not lost. Suddenly, a very fast and very cold wall of air hit Merle head-on. "Whoa!" he yelled. "It's dark, cold, and windy, Pearl! This may not be the home we're looking for!" The rapid movement of the air carried Merle's voice

clearly to Pearl, but she chose not to answer. But even if she had, her voice would not have carried back upstream. Though he didn't realize it, Merle was experiencing modern air-conditioning. "It's like winter down here!" he yelled. But just as he was about to give up and turn back toward Michael's room, he spotted a faint light up ahead. "What's that?" He pressed on through the frigid headwind. After making his way forward a few more yards, Merle found himself looking up through another set of metal bars into a room above. With a little effort, he was able to push the grate up and out into the room. Definitely not a jail, he concluded, popping his head up into the room.

Merle found himself in a new world, one very different from Michael's room. This was a very pink world with lots of pillows. So, so many pillows. Merle crawled up out of the vent onto the floor, looking at walls lined with princess posters and a bookshelf full of dolls. "It's so... fluffy," he said out loud as he made his way into the center of the room. "Not exactly my style, but very comfortable." Merle was beginning to feel proud of himself for having discovered this amazing, fluffy world under the ground. He wondered if this was what he was missing out on by not being a ground squirrel. "Pearl is going to love this!" he said as he turned to see a big, white, fluffy bed in the corner. But his joy quickly turned to terror when he saw that on top of that big, white, fluffy bed sat a big, white, fluffy cat. "Meow?" said Mr. Nemesis. In cat language that means, "What do we have here?" or "My, don't you look delicious."