“I know just the place to go for anything,” she said presently. I followed her out the door and too the voetu, which she called again.
I wondered where the voetu went when it wasn’t being used. Every time we stepped outside, it wasn’t anywhere in sight. But when Myrie called it, the voetu was there instantly. I just didn’t get this.
We landed in the city (this was the city where the ring shop was. I think it was called Jashabar). Jashabar had these little landing pads for people in voetus. It was really cool. You flew your voetu around until you saw an empty pad. Then you landed on the pad. You got out of the vehicle and it flew away. You would then walk away to one of the transport stations, where you would be whisked off to the place that you needed to go. It was far more sophisticated than anything else I had ever seen.
Once we had successfully landed and the voetu had left, we made our way to the nearest transport station. I got into the little tubular-shaped pod. These pods ran in tunnels that were underneath the city. You would just step into one and say where you wanted to go. Then, the pod would lower itself into the ground and speed away. When it reached your destination, it would pop back up above ground and you would get off. There were thousands of pods moving at any one time. I wondered why they didn’t ever crash into each other, what with so many people all going to the same place. Then I wondered why I had never even seen another pod in the tunnels. The pods were made out of clear glass, so wouldn’t you see another one while traveling? I asked Myrie these questions.
“Well, you see, there is a magical protection on the pods. This makes it so that a person in one pod cannot see into another one. It also makes the pods unaware of each other, which means that they simply pass through one another. That way, nobody gets hurt from crashes, and the pods are a private way of traveling. Voetus are like this also.” The answer surprised and unnerved me. As we continued down the tunnel, I wondered if we had just passed through another pod. This was a scary thought. I was comforted by the fact that no one could see us in here, though.
We reached our destination. The pod popped up above ground. The sudden light startled me. The tunnels had been lighted, but they weren’t as bright as the two suns. Myrie and I were standing in front of a large restaurant. It was delicately decorated with shiny metals and beautiful gems. The gems were fake, naturally. A sign hung above the door. “Colton House of Fine Dining,” the sign read. So this was where we were eating.
The inside of the restaurant was even fancier than the outside, which I thought was impossible. It was apparently a very expensive place to eat; the kind of place that you didn’t go to if you had five people to feed on a low salary, like my family. The walls were painted a bright gold that glowed, even though there were no lights for them to reflect off of in sight. All of the seats were upholstered in maroon crushed velvet. The tables were draped in pure, crisp white muslin. Several waiters in fancy black suits hurried from table to table, taking orders and delivering food to the finely-dressed customers.
A polite yet cold waiter seated Myrie and I at a table in one of the corners of the vast room. He handed us hard-covered menus with gold tassels handing from the binding. I opened my menu to the first page. Various wines and drinks were listed on this page. The next page held appetizers. At the third page, I found what I was looking for. The lunch specials. I started to read some of the meals. Barbeque fish with sautéed vegetables, fried eggplant with scrambled eggs, roast pig with buttered sweet potatoes, and cold mushrooms with licorice and curry glaze were just a few of the odd entrees that I read through. ‘Myrie wasn’t lying when she said she knew a good place for anything,’ I thought. I couldn’t imagine a meal that they didn’t offer. I selected boiled chicken with asparagus and cheese. I also ordered pickled apples as an appetizer. Myrie got the mushrooms with licorice and curry glaze. For her side, she got fried pineapple dumplings. We both got water to drink.
Our food was surprisingly good. I even tried some of Myrie's mushrooms. They were delicious. After we finished our meals, we sat contentedly talking and slowly eating the vegetable and chocolate fondue that we had ordered as dessert. (Chocolate dipped veggies didn’t taste all that bad!)
“I can’t wait until we can start to travel!” Myrie exclaimed.
“What do you mean, start to travel?” I asked. She hadn’t mentioned traveling anywhere before.
“Oh, don’t you know? We are going to have to travel to each side of the planet. That way you will know more about the world that you are helping to keep safe.”
“We are going to travel all around the planet?” I asked excitedly.
“Yes, yes, of course we are! That is all an important part of your education. But first we have to get you settled in magic. This means that you have to learn a bit more before we go. We also need to get you some more things. We shall shop now,” Myrie said, standing. I realized that all of the vegetables were gone and the chocolate had begun to harden. Myrie took a wad of cash out of her pocket and plopped some bills on the table. This covered our lunch plus a generous tip.
We headed out the door and went to the pod station. We got into our pod silently, thinking to ourselves. ‘What has Myrie got to buy me? Maybe I’ll get a poithenus… I think Myrie said something about that…. Maybe there are other magical instruments that I will get too!’ were my thoughts. I had no idea what Myrie's were; the expression on her face was unreadable.
“I hope the money that your parents provided will cover everything you need,” Myrie said suddenly. “I can’t afford to buy you too many things.” ‘Hah!’ I thought. ‘You could afford just about anything! Your house is huge and you only eat the best food.’ But I didn’t dare say this out loud.