Lilly G

.The Book Club

In a Book

By Lilly G. and Nora B

(Lilly’s point of view.)

It’s Tuesday afternoon and my friend, Nora, is coming over. Nora is a lot like me. We both have blond hair, blue-green eyes, and we both love to read. We’re best friends and have known each other since we were little. We also have a book club together. Here’s how it works: I give Nora books, and she gives me books. When we finish reading our books, we return them on Mondays. We both do tennis on Monday, so that’s why we exchange books then. We give back the books we read, talk about them, and get new books. If we don’t finish a book by Monday, we “renew” the book for another week. If we have a play date before or after Monday, we only get one book. That’s how it works.

* * *

Ding-dong. The doorbell rang. I ran to the door to let my friend Nora in. “Lilly!” Nora exclaimed.

“Nora!” I shouted. “Did you bring me a book?”

“I sure did,” Nora exclaimed.

“Oh good,” I said. “Only one, right?”

“Yes, I know the rules, Lill.” Nora announced. “And you have one for me, right?”

“Ya, it’s called Dolphins at Daybreak,” I said. “And I’m done with Word of Mouse. It was awesome. My favorite part was when they all swarmed around the lab people.”

“That’s my favorite part too!”

“It was hilarious!” I proclaimed. “They own the mice, and they're afraid of them! It’s crazy!”

“I know,” Nora whined.

“Which book do you have for me?” I asked Nora.

“It’s called A Mango Shaped Space,” Nora announced. “It’s really good, but long.”

“That’s ok,” I said. “I’m a fast reader.”

“I know that Lill!” Nora shouted.

“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go to my room.” We walked upstairs to get to my room. “Here it is,” I told her. “Dolphins at Daybreak.”

“What’s that bookmark for?” asked Nora.

“That’s my favorite part,” I said. I handed the book to Nora. “Chapter eight.”

ZAP! Everything went black. We started spinning in a circle. I heard Nora shout, “WHAT IS HAPPENING?!”

I shouted back, “I DON’T KNOW!” Then it stopped.

Nothing moved.

* * *

(Nora’s Point of view.)

I opened my eyes and looked around. We were surrounded with water in a small submarine. Water was up to our knees. In front of us were two children who looked to be about seven and eight. The eight year old was a boy and the seven year old was a girl. “Where are we?” I whispered to Lilly.

“I think we're in the book,” she whispered back.

“That’s impossible!” I said a little louder. The two kids whirled around.

“Who are you?” asked the boy.

Lilly sat up and said, “I’m Lilly and this is Nora. Who are you?”

“I’m Annie and this is Jack,” said the girl named Annie. “Where did you come from?”

I glanced at Lilly. She looked at me. We both nodded. Then we told them how we got sucked in the book.

“Wow,” Annie said.“That’s cool. We get sucked into books too. We work fo-”

Lilly cut her off and said “We know how you operate.”

“We’ve got to get out of here,” Jack announced. “We’v-” Lilly cut him off.

“We know what you’ve been through.”

Jack and Annie nodded. Jack climbed out of the submarine and we followed.

When we got out, I realized that the sub was badly damaged. Jack and Annie started to swim towards the reef. Jack saw something. I looked in the direction Jack was looking in. A dark fin was zigzagging towards us! Jack, Annie, and Lilly started swimming faster so I swam faster too. Then I saw something in the distance. Was it? Yes! It was the tree house! We swam and swam and swam. It took forever to get just a little closer to the tree house. My arms were feeling sore. My legs were too. Jack, Annie, and Lilly were also struggling.

“Float!” Annie shouted. We turned on our backs and floated for a while. The more I floated, the more tired I felt. Then, I felt too tired to even float. I started to sink. Lilly, Jack, and Annie were sinking too. Then I felt something. Was the shark underneath us? I closed my eyes and waited for the worst. Nothing happened. When I opened my eyes, I saw a gray head. A Dolphin! I looked around. Everyone was on dolphin! We were safe! I grabbed hold of my dolphin’s fin. We finally reached the shore. I felt safe. My dolphin was taking care of me.

When we reached the shore, Annie and Lilly threw their arms around their dolphins.

“Thank you Sukie!” shouted Annie.

“Thanks a million Coral!” Lilly whispered to her dolphin.

“Thanks…Bimminey,” I told her, making up a name for my dolphin.

Jack just rolled his eyes and said, “Thanks.” We ran up the beach towards the tree house.

“Bye!” shouted Annie. The dolphins squeaked and swam away.

“We didn’t solve the riddle yet!” Jack shouted suddenly. He took out his pack. It was soaked. Everything inside was soaked too.

“We failed.” said Jack. “My research is all wet. We’ll never become master librarians.”

“Don’t think like that.” I told Jack.

“Let’s just go,” Jack mumbled glumly.

“Ouch!” Annie yelled.

“What?” asked Lilly

“I stepped on something,” Annie said in pain.

“An oyster,” I yelled.

“Boy it’s rough. Rough and gray as a rock,” Annie said.

“And as plain as can be!” shouted Jack. “We solved the riddle!” shouted Annie.

“What riddle?” I asked.

“The riddle Morgan gave us,” Annie told me. “‘Rough and gray as rock, I’m plain as plain can be. But hidden deep inside, there’s great beauty in me. What am I?’ That’s the riddle! And the answer is an oyster!”

Annie opened the Oyster. Inside was a big pearl.

“Now we can go home,” said Lilly. We ran in the tree house. On the riddle sheet, the word Oyster was shining in golden letters.” Jack picked up the Pennsylvania book.

“How will you get home?” asked Annie.

“With this,” said Lilly. She was holding a book with the picture of her room on it.

“Bye, Jack. Bye, Annie,” we said.

“Bye, guys!” they said.

“I wish we could go there,” we said. Everything went black. We were spinning. Then everything stopped.

“THAT WAS AWESOME!” we shouted.

“Let’s do it again,” I said.

“Which book should we do?” asked Lilly.

“How about A Mango Shaped Space?”

“Ok.” Zoom!