Chapter 1. Arrival 

This is the story of me, Alex Lioh. I’m a fourteen-year-old girl who just moved from Florida to North Dakota. We couldn’t afford our home with just the money my mom was making from her full-time job, and my dad had recently died in a car accident, so we moved to North Dakota and bought a small house. Since then, I had been saving up my money for years, hoping to be able to help our small family when it was needed. 

My father, Gregory Lioh, had life work that was very private, but he would sometimes tell me about it.  

“Alex,” he would tell me in a hushed whisper inside his secluded study. “There’s a secret country that only I, and those who live in it know about. And now, so do you.” 

“What’s it called? Where’s it at? Can we go there?” I would shout excitedly as a little girl. 

“Calm down, little one!” he would chuckle. “It’s called Ranna, it’s fairly north and a long ways out. Maybe some day you and I could visit, oh to visit Ranna again…” He trailed off, not finishing his sentence. 

In the proceeding years of then, my father would draw maps to Ranna, and its neighboring countries. He would write down many facts about the landscaping, history and weather. He had species profiles on all sorts of creatures I had never heard about. He was almost completely finished with them when he died. When we were packing to move, I snuck into my father’s secret study and took whatever was there about Ranna. When I was examining the map and some of the papers with it, I noticed it looked like the bright, sunny, and warm country was in North Dakota. I didn’t see how this was possible, because North Dakota was so cold, but I trusted my father.  

“I’m going miss you…I love you.” my mother, Lauren, told me. Mom thought she was sending me off to summer in Florida from the airport, as did my best friend Vanessa’s mom. “I love you too.” I said back, feeling guilt in the pit of my stomach. I had told Vanessa all about my father’s work, because I knew I could trust her. 

[center]"You can't tell anybody this," I told her as we huddled under our "fort" made of bedposts and blankets. 

"I won't. I promise!" She had cried, lenaing in for the juicy secret. 

I leaned to her ear and whispered "My daddy knows of a secret place, a country. He's been there, and he's goning to take us some day."[/center] 

We’d dreamt of going to Ranna and meeting all sorts of creatures. So, we went out and spent all of our savings on a trip from Marshall, North Dakota. It was 250 miles from Marshall to New Rockford, North Dakota.  

“I hope you have a lot fun sweetie,” Mom said.  

“I will, Mom,” I said. 

I normally wasn’t a very good liar, but I’d practiced this one.  

“Do you have enough money to buy your tickets? And do you have enough clothes?” She asked, pulling a stray lock of black hair out of my face and tucking it behind my ear. I liked it better over my eye. 

“I’m pretty sure. I’ll go by my ticket now, ok?” I said pulling Vanessa by the hand as I spoke. 

We got to the counter, purchased 2 two-way tickets to New Rockford, stuffed them in our bags, and returned to my mom. 

“It’s too bad your mom couldn’t come to see you take off, Vanessa,” Mom told her. 

“It’s ok,” Vanessa assured her. “Mom had to go to that job interview.” This was true. Courtney, Vanessa’s mom, had a job interview to go to and wouldn’t be able to make it to see the plane take off, which was actually good. It makes one less person to lie to. 

I heard the sound system announce our plane was boarding. “Okay, we go to go, Mom. Florida’s waiting. I love you.”  

“Love you too, sweetie.”  

She sounded so sad… I hated adding lying to the list of things she would be upset about. 

We went through the gate, and had our heavy hiking bags -which held food, water, blankets, heavy jackets, extra hats, coats, and socks, scarves, clothes, and other living necessities- checked. We were quiet most of the plane ride. 

Once arriving in New Rockford, we hiked as far as the map would take us, and a little further. We walked for what felt like hours, and it very well may have been, but we still had not found the warm, sunny country my father had told me so much about. My ears were numb from the stining cold, and my legs felt like gelatin. 

“Maybe… maybe my dad was wrong… maybe there is no Ranna,” I said quietly. 

Vanessa paused a moment. “There has to be. We’ve come way too far to turn back now.” 

“No, face it. There’s no Ranna. My father was wrong.” 

“There’s got to be. We came all this way.” 

“No, come on. Let’s go back to the airport and head home...” I said, turning in the other direction. 

Suddenly, there was a craaack noise coming from beneath our feet. 

“What was that…?” Vanessa asked in a frightened whisper, stopping in her tracks. 

“Don’t move,” Was all I responded with. We watched as the ice beneath us cracked where we had been standing. It slowly spread beside our feet and kept on proceeding ahead of us until we couldn’t see where it was going anymore.  

“What do we do?” Vanessa whispered, careful not to move and jostle the ice, but before I could respond, the ice we were standing on collapsed, and we were falling. Down we fell. I was expecting to fall into the water and die a slow death of hypothermia, but I was very wrong. If anything it was the opposite! As we fell it got warmer and hotter until finally –thud. We landed at the bottom of a mountain, it appeared.We stood up and looked around. I craned my neck up and looked at the sky. There was no evidence that we had just fallen from an impossible vortex in the sky. 

Vanessa took out all the maps, handed them to me, and watched as I studied each of them closely.  

“This is it!” I shouted excitedly. 

“This is it? We’re here? We’re in Ranna?!” Vanessa asked hopefully. 

“Well, no we’re not in Ranna, but we’re in the Diminutive Desert, which is just south of Ranna!” 

“Oh, that’s great! How far till town?”  

I examined the map intensely again. “Hmm… quite a ways, but there should be some creatures called Noones that will give us a ride.” 

When we reached the Noones (which looked to be part human, part horse, part lion, and the size of an elephant)we were baffled to see them TALKING amongst themselves! My father had never mentioned anything about them talking before! One was in the middle of a sentence when it noticed us.  

“Hello… who are you?” he asked in a deep, curious voice. 

“I’m Alex, and this is Vanessa. My father was Gregory Lioh.” 

“Ah… Lioh. I haven’t heard that name in a long time.” The Noone said, appearing to be deep in thought.  

“You knew my father?” 

“Well not personally, no. But he is greatly known here…” 

“What is your name?” I spoke up, asking the Noone. 

“My name is Obel but you can call me Obe. Now, what can I do for you?” 

“We would like a ride, if you would be so kind.” Vanessa asked quietly. 

“Of course! Grab my tail.” He instructed us. 

We grabbed onto the creature’s bulky tail and he pulled it up and set us gently onto his back. We traveled at a slow pace, the large creature slightly bouncing with each step, but it was interesting to learn about Noones and other creatures in Ranna, and the humans as well. Finally, we stopped outside of a forest.  

“This is as far as I can take you, young ones.” Obe said serenely. 

“That’s okay, Obe. We can walk from here.” I responded. 

“Farewell children.” And with that, he set us on the ground and changed direction. 

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Comment and Critique Please!  

-Rach