Once I reach my homeroom I know I am late. Everyone is staring at the T.V waiting for brand new announcements. No one notices me which means I don’t need a late pass. So I am grateful for that. Then Renee starts talking about the breaking news and my ears perk up. “Breaking news Lanier School, A mysterious kidnapping has started through Clarience town taking smart children from this area. I would strongly suggest reporting this to your parents and make sure they lock you up. For your safety.” My heart starts pounding and I know every single eye will be on me. Every crisis that happens in this town is taken out on me because they think I have powers to ruin their lives or something. I feel the heat of stares and I start to sweat. The children stand from their desks except Ruth, who is putting on makeup in her own little world. Ruth loathes this type of stuff anyway. Or she has no care for it. I try to slide against the wall towards the door but they shut it so loud my ears start ringing. So now I look at it longingly like it’s my only hope that failed me. “What’s wrong Ivy, going somewhere?” a girl named Riley says with her crooked tooth smile with all the other children prattling behind her.
“I just need to go to the bathroom, so if you could just let me go I would be grateful.” I force. It is hard for me to talk when I am about to cry. They will beat me up just like they do every time something bad happens in town. I’m doomed. I thought. They let me pass and I run to the bathroom, knowing they won’t let me go out the front door. The odious smell brings tears to my eyes once I enter the bathroom. The Janitors Never clean this bathroom. The bathroom window is my only escape and I need to make it out. Then the door creaks. They’re coming I need to go now. I try lodging the window with my hand but it won’t budge. Time is running out and the door opens. I know I need to hide but it’s no use. My body is doddering so much I know I’m scared. I just wait for the beating to happen.
“Toodle-ooh! Don’t leave me out of your little adventure. You need a key to open that window and guess who has it! ME. That’s right I have it so let’s go.” trills Ruth and I let out a loud blow of relief. She hands the key to me murmuring something about chipped nails and labor. I snatch the key and open the window with a blast of cool air and the next thing you know, we’re slogging towards her house.

I am camping for the night to see her in her room and try to study this kidnapping. She may act dumb but she is actually the second smartest person in school. Her room is pink and fluffy. She has a canopy bed with a trunk at the end, sparkly embellished pink curtains with a pink rug and pink drawers. There is so much pink my eyes hurt. I hate pink and yet now I am in my nightmare. “Good night sweetheart! Sleep well,” yawns Ruth.
It’s late now and I fall asleep. I wake up to a crash in the kitchen. Probably her dad, always clumsy. I slap myself now trying to stay awake but my eyes droop. Then a huge bright light blinds me. My eyes are burning from the unnatural amount of light hitting them. The light is gone and Ruth is gone with it. I start to run out of the house because I know I’m in danger. The cold wind slaps my face and makes me tear up. The dark alleyways and town streets leave an uneven feeling. The town's lights leave a yellowish glow so it is hard to see. The clouds are hoarding the area with their gray bodies ready to cry down on us. The boggy streets splashing when a car drives by. The cold is biting me so much you could turn to ice, but the problem is it is May so it shouldn’t be this cold. I start to pant and my legs burn. I’m not the type of person who likes to exercise everyday. This is not what I planned on. Apparently I am going to die if I don’t escape and I need to save Ruth, I’ve got a lot of work to do. I think. When I am running I don’t really pay attention to anything so two minutes later… SPLAT! I end up on the floor because I tripped on a crack in the sidewalk. Thank goodness my mom isn’t here… "Bring on the bandages, call the police!" she’d say. My knee does really hurt though. I try to surreptitiously make my way into the nearest alleyway so the light loses me. But I am too slow, the throbbing of my knee is severe leaving my head feeling light. I try to focus but everything blurs around me. I feel myself in mid-air flitting around in a circle like a toilet bowl. I lose sight of everything and all I see is the dark.

I start to feel consciousness and I force myself to peel my eyes open. I’m exhausted and I feel chained to the floor. I look around only to see shiny metal that is blinding to the eye. I feel the smooth floor, with a quiet vibration coming from below. I wonder where I am. I thought. I prop myself up on one arm and see a strange tall and thin shadow approaching me. I try to shimmy away with my weak and tired body but I am too slow. The shadow comes up to me and it is a woman. She is tall and thin, with a crazy amount of pastel and glitter green on her eyes and mouth. She even has green blush which makes her look sick. She has a cape of transparent green slowly making itself a full color of bright vibrant green. She has a tight pointy dress that makes her look like she is going to suffocate in there. She also has green heels with elf points at the end. This is not my fashion choice at all.
“Welcome! To our high-tech fast flying machine! The Pleanicafantenica!” trills the woman.
“The pantrafenaciana what?” I say confused.
“Oh nothing. Just call it a plane. Oh my! I forgot to introduce myself, I am Dean Clarissa and you are here for a reason don’t worry your little head about it.” she screeches like it is something super exciting and important. She tugs me up looking struggled to not chip her acrylic green nails. She walks like a penguin as we go to another shiny metal place in the plane. The architecture is amazing. No one on Earth could succeed in making this and yet these people did. I see all these tin man looking people who are serving food and other things. Everything is robotic and can almost do everything a servant can do. I see all this crazy technology that could never be possible except in someone's imagination. This looks just like something I would like to do when I grow up, if I can go back.
“I can’t help but notice your interest in this place. It took us a week to build it and we have been using it for 200 years now. And we also had to add stuff over the yea-”
“You’re saying ONE WEEK? That is physically impossible. You can’t be serious.” I interrupt.
“With the proper technology and the largest brains, we are capable of many impossible things. We are the smartest people in the world and we go around the world in search of the smartest children. We pick them up and bring them to a place called, Brain Power Tower. This is a place where each kid must go from the bottom of the tower to the top. No one has ever made it out yet except for one child who was there for 70 years. He was Richard and he died at the age of 81 which was one year after he finished the tower. We made a grave for people to honor the only capable kid/old guy but yeah he was a good soul.” Dean Clarissa says in a hushed tone.
“So you are expecting me to go in that tower and complete it? So you kidnapped me so I would never have a family or anything again? You want to take away my whole life and not feel any guilt! I refuse to go in that tower, as long as I live. I want to go home and if that is too hard to ask from the ‘smartest people in the world’ then there is something wrong with you.” I yell into her face.
“Actually we do expect you to finish because we did after all pick the smartest kids in the world. At the bottom of the tower the questions and stuff are easy but they progress as you climb up the tower. Get one wrong, you go back to the start with brand new questions so you can’t just say the other answer. We find it fair since you shouldn’t have a problem. I mean after all, you do have a choice in partnership.” she pushes out like that makes it so much better.
“I’m not going in that monstrous tower and I order you to bring me to Ruth NOW.” I scream.
“Okay, toughy. Come follow me.” she says agitated.

I walk into a small room hearing quiet noises and sniffles. How could anyone be happy in this place anyway. I look around and I see her. Ruth, curled up in a corner weeping softly and I scowl at the Dean. I run towards Ruth and sit next to her.
“Hey, we will get home okay? I won’t let us go in that tower. Don’t cry, we will fix this. They may be smart but they have cold hearts made of thorns. How about we go and look around the plane?” I say in a soothing tone.
“I would like that very much. Just let me reapply my makeup please.” she sniffs.
“Haha, there's my Ruth.” I say.
She wipes off the tears of misery and puts on a fresh coat of makeup in a beautiful coral color, unlike that Dean with the ugly green. Ruth looks back to normal and we set out to look around. We only see a metal kitchen, metal game room, metal bathroom, metal bedrooms, and metal classrooms, and everything else was metal as well. I hated it so much. The future doesn’t just have to be metal like in people's imagination. It can be anything at all. We head to the kitchen for a meal and this random person in a metal suit and crazy red makeup sets us down at the dining room. She sounds horrible in her raspy voice saying, “What would you like to eat today young ladies? We have anything in the world. You say what you want, we get it.”
I have no idea what to order but I want to test her so I give her a hard one.
“I would love it if I could have perogies the way my mom makes them.” I say triumphantly. It feels as if I had won myself a little victory.
“I will take my usual. What I usually get at home every day. Thank you.” Ruth trills in a happy victory mood as well.
We giggle knowing exactly what we were doing. The lady nods and goes into the kitchen. Then in two seconds, she is back. She has fresh hot perogies that look like my mom's and she did succeed in getting Ruth's usual. We both gape at our plates. And the lady read our minds.
“We use something called Telekeninacable which is when we see through your personality to see what you wanted and we get it exactly how it is in your mind. I know it is confusing.” rasps the lady. And she walks back to the kitchen.
We are still shocked on how she got our food. Finally I move to take a bite. The instant taste of potato and pasta hits my mouth. The fresh goodness reminds me of my mom. The smell is just like my house when she makes them. But the thought of my mom makes me choke. I quickly finish my meal and run to Ruth’s room. I lay down on the horrible metal bed and turn to the wall. I will probably never see my mom again. The thought of that gives me the shivers. I’m as good as dead by now. I thought. Then Ruth comes in with her food and is snacking on it while she is trying to help me.
“You know, like you said, we will not go in that tower and we will survive. I don’t know why you are so worried! C’mon stay in a good mood for me please. You are the only reason I stopped crying.” Ruth pleads.
“Fine, but I was never crying if anyone asks okay?” I smirk.
“That seems like a delightful deal Ivy, okay. What should we do now?” she says.
And that is when we hear it.

The giant loudspeaker blasting through walls, deafening us with sound leaving ringing in our ears.
“Attention all students, and that means all children we took. You will proceed to the main hall because… WE ARE HERE! We can celebrate later but right now you need to come. Thank you! See ya there.” the Dean trills.
I have no idea how she can be so happy about this. She is basically killing these poor people so I have an idea.
“Ruth, don’t go. Like I said I would make sure we weren’t on that tower so if we stay here, they will leave without us! I am brilliant.” I whisper.
“Okay Ivy, I like your idea. But what if they come for us?” she asks.
“Well that’s easy. All we have to do is fight and fight and keep fighting, they don’t look like they are in good condition to withstand that.” I say.
So we wait in our room with brooms and our fists ready for a fight. A lady in a metal suit comes in with crazy brown makeup, which makes it look like someone pooped on her face. She comes in grabbing us and we fight back. The brooms disappear in mid-air and our fists are not very effective. We run, we hide, she is too unnatural. She finds us instantly she is as fast as us and we give up. She then surprisingly gently grabs us by the hand as if we weigh nothing and we slog along the uphill ramp to the main hall.
“And look children! Our latecomers are here. They missed the speech but they wouldn’t care for I already told them.”, she gives me a dirty look,”So without further ado let's get smarted!” she yells to the piles of children.

Everyone runs outside eager to start, we take one look and we know that this will not be easy. There is a horrible gray sky with lightning and storms. There is a giant tower -going higher than Jack’s beanstalk. We were doomed the moment we entered Ruth’s room. The tower had no windows and it was made of gray stone. It looked extremely old and rugged. I don’t know how people could even get as far as the second floor! The Dean said the only way home is the top of the tower. I smile. That gives me an idea once again.

Ruth and I run as fast as we can as we make our way around the tower instead of in it. Once we reach the back of it I tell Ruth my idea.

“Instead of going in the tower we can climb it from the outside! Then we can skip all of the stages inside.” I say.

“Um, I just did my nails, I am not fit for climbing I refuse.”

“Ruth, it’s either life or death, for me I choose life if you choose death, that’s what you get. Do you really want to die?” I ask

“I don’t want to die! I just don’t want to become ugly I don’t think I could make this long of a climb, you have to admit, it’s never ending. You can’t even see the top!” Ruth screams.

“I know, but we can always try.”
So we start climbing up the tower one step at a time, Ruth trailing behind constantly looking at her nails to see if they chipped. It gets pretty tiring pretty fast and I am panting like an animal. Once we reach the clouds I know we are near, or at least we have to be close by now. But then everything changes. When I climb one more inch, Ruth and I instantly teleport to the first stage inside the tower. I scream with pain, agony, and disappointment. My hands burn from every brick I touched and I did it all for nothing. Ruth is behind me sobbing for she chipped one nail for nothing, and little did she know, now her makeup is gone as well. The Dean comes up to us with an angry look.

“Well, well, well look who’s not following directions. You girls actually thought you could get away with your little plan? We have the greatest technology in the world, we saw you before you started climbing up the tower. The only reason we let you climb is so you were fatigued and angry when you got here. Let’s call this a little punishment for you.” She smirks.

“You are one evil lady! Also, you are so ugly even makeup can’t make you look better!” Ruth screams from across the room. The Dean doesn’t look happy but simply vanishes in mid-air and her voice goes on the loudspeaker. Stage one has started.

“Hello and welcome to stage one! Here you will be asked some simple addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division problems. If you want an exact number, it would be 2,500 problems. They become harder as you progress. Good luck students and let’s get smarting!” Her voice booms through the huge room filled with math equations everywhere. Ruth has a panicked look on her face as she runs toward the first few math problems. Before I have time to think, my body has already started running to the problems too. The equations cover the walls, ceiling, floor, and windows leaving me petrified. I start writing answers down one by one until my pencil snaps from the exerting pressure. I run towards Ruth, who is flying through problems like there’s no tomorrow, which there might not be.

“Ruth, my pencil broke, how are we supposed to do these problems now?” I say

“123 times 67769 is, yeah that’s right. Oh Ivy, I don’t know what to tell ya. My brain has never been abused like this before and I hate the feeling! Oh dear. Let me do as many as I can and then I will take a break while you do them okay?” She pants

“Okay.” I whisper. The room is silent except the scratching of Ruth’s pencil diligently writing.

I doze off and see a crystal in the center of a black room. I slowly start walking towards it as if it would run away. The vibrant blue color leaves me to blindness as I move towards the light. My finger stretches toward the crystal, urging to touch it. Once it makes contact a blast of white light covers my view, and everything is still again. I see burgundy fog inching towards me slowly, as if it had forever. I was not sure wether to go to it or run away. I figured I would stay where I was because it didn’t seem there was anywhere to run anyways. The fog is soon a few inches away and as it gets closer, I start to make out features. A face starts to appear and it is staring at me as if examining me. I begin to panic but keep a calm appearance. The fog starts to talk and I am appalled.

“Ivy, do you know who I am?” The burgundy fog says.

“You are a fraction of my imagination?” I question.

“This is not a dream, nor your imagination. This is real but in your mind. I am your father. I may be dead in human skin, but am still alive in spirit. I have come with an announcement.” He sooths. I catch myself with my mouth open wide and quickly close it. After seeing all this fantasy stuff happening in real life, it’s not hard to believe this is real too.

“Dad! I have so many questions for you to answer and we have soooo much catching up to do. Oh! I almost forg-”

“No time for that now. I don’t have a lot of time with you as it is. You are very special Ivy, I want you to know that but you have always had a missing piece in your puzzle of life. How did you survive the accident? You were born in a camp we had to stay in because we were nomads. The other nomads with us said it was too hard to have another living soul in the camp but we insisted on you staying. Later that night when we were all asleep, the nomads took you and threw you in a cave. Little did they know the cave had an element called blau vidre. Blau vidre is a bright blue crystal that holds powerful magic inside of it. There is only one in the world, and it can only be used once. The nomads threw you directly on top of it without even knowing and you took in its magic. We found you once we woke up and left the nomads to find a town to live in. Your mother did not notice the crystal beneath you but I did. I took the crystal and kept it just in case. We found this town called Clarience, which is the town you grew up in. When I brought you to work one day there was an accident, as you know. The magic of the crystal protected you and left me to die. That crystal holds powerful magic, and you do too. Learn how to use it and show me you are my powerful, beautiful daughter named Ivy.” He says. And before I have the chance to say another word, he vanishes and I am left in this blank, white room.

I wake up to Ruth pinching my arm. I didn’t even notice because I feel no pain. I instantly grab the pencil from her and start working. She got half of the room done! I am so proud of her right now, for she never does anything. I think about how I have magic powers until it hurts my brain. I go back to math and think of numbers for 2 hours. Ruth is sleeping against the wall and that gives me an idea. When I was sleeping, my father told me I can use my powers, what if I can use them to finish this room! I think. I instantly clear my mind and think about magic solving all of the math problems. Nothing happens. I try again. Silence. I feel agitated and try again. NOTHING. Then I realize the most important element I was missing. Patience. I calm my mind and body and when I am completely calm, I try again. I slowly feel myself rising and see blue sparkles around me. All of the numbers on the walls, ceiling, and floor glow a fluorescent blue. The numbers start to peel off the wall as if they were stickers and they all solve themselves in mid-air. Once they solve themselves, they go back on the wall as if nothing happened. I slowly go to the floor and look around. Every problem is solved. I run to wake up Ruth and she screams in pain as I pinch her awake.

“I finished all of the math problems! Ready to move on?” I shout. Ruth's face gives it all away and she doesn’t even need to speak. We both run to the stairwell to go to stage two.