Finding Treasure

Characters
Cerise Hood

Ramona Badwolf

Kitty Cheshire

Story
“No”

“Not here”

“It isn’t here either”

“Where is it?”

Cerise continued her search, but no matter how hard; she could not come up with any results.

“Damn, it’s not here either.” She said as she continued to rummage through the bushes in courtyard.

“Hey, what are you doing, Kitten!” a voice came up from above.

Cerise sighed, irritation showing on her face. “Hey, Kitty…” she wasn’t exactly sure what she has done to have the girl use this new nickname; but at this moment, she didn’t really care.

“What’s wrong with you?” bringing herself into existence next to the young girl, Kitty Cheshire looked over her shoulder – trying to see exactly her favorite pet was doing.

“Nothing!” Cerise barked without looking the other woman in the eye.

Then silence fell between them.

Cerise sat back and sighed in defeat. “Look, I’m sorry,” she said leaning her head backwards to look at the young woman that stood behind her.

“It’s okay,” Kitty said, taking notice of the tired circles that underlined her eyes, “So what’s wrong?” she asked, deciding that this was one of those moments that she had to take serious.

Cerise sighed. “I lost my locket,” she said as she looked into the bushes.

“Locket?” Kitty asked in confusion.

“Yeah, it has a picture of my…” for a moment, Cerise was almost hesitant to say the words, “of my family?” she was getting tired, she was getting worn out by all the searching she was doing.

“Of your family?” now this was interesting to Kitty, she quickly knelt down onto her knees to be at eye level to the young girl. “You want me to help you find it?”

Cerise snarled a bit to herself, disappointed at the fact she has failed this bad. “I just can’t remember where I put.” She continued. “I mean, I don’t wear it all the time for obvious reasons; but when I had gone to my dresser to get it this morning, it was gone.”

Kitty was listening intently.

“This entire morning I went through the Dark Forest, checking all of my usual spots, my daily routine trails, but nothing. I can’t find it.” Cerise looked defeated as she said this. “I even checked with Blondie, but Cupid said she hadn’t seen anything like it in the stuff that Blondie had ‘picked-up’ recently,” she sighed. “I just don’t know where it’s at…”

Cerise felt a hand on her shoulder; she turned to look at the woman next to her.

“Hey, don’t worry,” Kitty smiled – not a Cheshire smile, but an honest to goodness real smile. “We’ll find it.”

“Thanks,” Cerise smiled, feeling a little bit better.

“No problem,” Kitty said, “Look, I’ll go see Maddie, perhaps it’s in her hat. If anything gets lost, there is a good chance that it’s in there.”

“Really? You’ll help me?” Cerise asked; almost shocked for words.

“Hey, don’t be like that Kitten,” Kitty said, feigning hurt. “We’re friends.”

Cerise was feeling really good about this, “Thanks, Kitty.”

With a smile, the daughter of the Cheshire Cat disappeared; and Cerise was left alone.

She couldn’t believe just how much has changed in Ever After High, at first it seemed that she and Kitty would be bickering all the time; but after the incident with the Wonderlandian Tea Party, it seemed that the two girls had buried any type of grudge between them. It seemed that the cat and the dog had both become friends.

Cerise smiled and returned to her rummaging through the bushes in the school courtyard.

Meanwhile, in the school hall way; Kitty had brought herself back into existence as she made her way down the hall way and to her dorm room.

But there was something else.

She stopped in the middle of the hall, there was now another problem. Kitty could feel herself hissing to herself as she stared at the woman that stood before her.

“Kitty!” the young woman that stood in Kitty’s way waved.

“Ramona…” Kitty tried her best to keep her voice from hissing.

The two of them just stood there in the hall way, the tension between the two almost seemed to be one-sided.

“Ummm,” Ramona Badwolf scratched her neck, “okay…” she cocked her eyebrow to the young lady that in her way. She wasn’t exactly sure what was Kitty’s problem with her was. Was it the whole dog-cat thing? Was this a type of racism?

“What do you want?” Kitty asked, and not even with her typical kind of spice.

Yeah, Kitty really did hate Ramona.

“I just wanted to ask you if you have seen my sister.” She asked.

Kitty sucked her teeth in annoyance; as she started to walk forward again. “What’s it to you where Cerise is at? She doesn’t need you.”

The tension was thick.

“I was just asking.” Ramona, not wanting to cross eyes, snarled. “Geez.”

Kitty stopped as she stood next to the other girl; she turned her head to look at Ramona. “Well, if you must know…”

Ramona turned her head to look the cat in the eye, confused.

“She is looking for her locket.”

And Kitty smiled.

She smiled that dreadful Cheshire smile.

Ramona stood still, watching as Kitty walked away from her – It was as if she had left her with an open ended threat.

Ramona didn’t feel good about any of this. She ran off to find her sister.

Cerise was digging again, but this time she was on the book-ball field. Recently she was watching one of the games, so perhaps this would be the place. She was searching on all hands and knees; she was determined to look in between every blade of grass if she had to. She was going to find her lost treasure.

“Now, if I was a boy, I would find this as an attractive sight.” A voice came from behind Cerise, “Though to be honest, even as your sister, I find this quite tempting. Perhaps if you wagged your ‘tail’ a little for me.” She could hear the voice chuckle a bit to herself. “I could just eat you right here, right now.”

Cerise sighed, irritation ringing in her voice. “Hello…Ramona…” she rolled her eyes.

“Hey, what’s up with the attitude?” Ramona crossed her arms in irritation. She was not going to let her sister get huffy and puffy with her. “First it was the cat and now you!”

Cerise sighed again. Now today was beginning to feel like déjà vu.

“I lost my locket.”

“Come again?”

Cerise turned to look up at her sister; it almost seemed that tears could pour from those eyes. “I lost my locket, the one that dad gave to me a couple of years ago.”

Ramona was taken aback.

“Oh,” she said, clearing her throat, “You mean that old thing?” she rolled her eyes. “Why not just ask dad to get you another one?”

Cerise turned her head back away from her sister, shaking her head. “No, my locket has our family picture in it.” Her voice sounded like it was starting to get hoarse.

Ramona started to relax her arms, letting her arms drape down to her sides. She sighed with a bit of a half a smile.

She, silently, got down on her knees.

SLAP!

Cerise yelped like a puppy. She turned to look over the shoulder, just to see the woman that had attacked her behind.

“Alright, alright. You win.” With a proud look on her, “Let’s find your locket,” Ramona smiled, as she started to crawl up next to her sister.

“Thanks, Ramona.” Cerise Smiled.

The two sisters spent the entire day searching for the lost treasure.

As day turned into night and all students started to get ready for bed, Ramona walked back into her dorm room; finishing drying her hair with a towel. She was still talking on her mirrorphone.

“Sorry that we couldn’t find your locket, Cerise.” Ramona said into the speaker.

“It’s okay,” the voice carried over from the other end, “I’m going back to look for it tomorrow,” Cerise spoke.

“Okay,” Ramona replied, “I’ll be out there first thing to help you.” She said as she sat on her bed.

“Thanks, Ramona. I appreciate your help.” Cerise said.

“No problem, what is family for?” She said with a smile.

“It’s getting late; I’m going to head on to bed.”

“Okay, get some rest.”

“Okay, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Alright, I will see you then.”

“Good Night.”

“’Night”

But before either one of them could hang up the phone.

“Cerise, wait!”

“What?

…

“Love you.”

A little laugh came out from the other end of the line. “I love you too, Ramona. Good Night.”

“Good Night”

And the phone went dead.

Ramona placed the mirrorphone onto the nightstand next to her bed. She sighed, feeling her tiring muscles from all the digging and searching the hood-wolf siblings did that day. It was okay, Ramona thought to herself. If it was for Cerise, then she had no problem doing all this. Sure her sister will probably not find her locket again, but it was just the matter of her trying that was important; and as her sister, Ramona felt she needed to be there through it all. She should always be there for her Cerise.

Ramona sighed to herself.

It was quiet in the Room. Justine Dancer, her roommate, was off getting private lessons from Duchess Swan this late at night. So for the next few hours, she was going to be by herself.

She looked around the room. She was all alone.

She placed one hand into her shirt as she started to dig around. A moment later she pulled out her key. Everybody had some kind of treasure. For Cerise it was locket; for Ramona, it was her precious sister.

Leaning over to her nightstand, she placed the key into its corresponding hole. With a click it opened up without any resistance. Placing her hand into her private draw, she started to rummage through all of her important stuff she had in it. Then she pulled something out and took a close look at it.

In her hand was a little silver locket, shaped like a leaf pointing down. It was the one that Cerise had lost.

Holding it out in front of her, Ramona couldn’t help but feel sadden as she looked at her sister’s precious treasure. With both hands she opened it up.

Inside it was a family picture. In the family portrait was an image of a Husband and Wife, a happily married couple. Standing in between them was their only child.

Ramona closed the locket.

It was okay to play pretend, wasn’t it?

It was okay to play “family,” right?

Deep down, Ramona knew her story was going to end one of these days, but she wanted play the role just a little bit longer.