Tamagotchi Blood

Prologue Part 1

Part 2

‘We interrupt this programme to bring you an urgent news broadcast. The government suspect that over two thousand gold blooded tamagotchis have been killed for blood in the last three days alone. We would like to remind all citizens of Tamagotchi Plains that killing another tamagotchi is punishable by a lifetime in prison. Social Safety Secretary David Townley has passed a new law, saying that police are allowed to imprison any tamagotchi they suspect to be hurting or killing others for personal gain without a court trial. We would also like to inform you that the police have killed a platinum blood. Although we are not supposed to broadcast this, we believe it was not because they are an illegal immigrant. We believe they are profiting from it. In fact, the tamagotchis who caught this tamagotchi are currently enjoying an expensive holiday in Rio de Janeiro. So, despite the fact that we may get into serious trouble for this, if you are a platinum blood, do not turn yourself in to the police. This is two platinum blood deaths in a short space of time. Do not turn yourself in. We apologise for interrupting this episode of The Flinstones. Thank you for listening.’

‘What makes you think that she was killed by the gold blood hunters?’ I asked, as we entered her house. Her house was very different to our own. Very neat, everything had its place. There were shelves littering the walls with everything from books to un-used gift vouchers and metal ornaments with silver and gold blood in them. There were posters galore and every board game, computer game and Playstation game had its place. In our house everything was just thrown over a chair or dumped on the floor.

‘I know she was taken, because she didn’t leave a note or anything,’ Lizzie explained, ‘I mean, my mother doesn’t just go out without telling me. Sometimes she leaves a message on the phone or writes it with magnets on the fridge door but she doesn’t just leave!’

Lizzie stamped her foot in frustration. For someone of her age, she was very small and mousey. She stood at just 4’8 tall (compared to my 5’4), had long wavy brown hair that went down to her shoulders and wore a green t-shirt (her favourite as it was signed my all of the members of TamaRock). She looked very young for her age, could easily have been mistaken for someone who was just 9 or 10. She was not flamboyant or loud, in fact she mostly just blended into the background. Apart from now.

‘We have to find her!’ Lizzie shouted, angrily ripping a photo of her father on the mantelpiece to shreds. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me if he did this!’ She pointed at another picture of her father. He and her mother had split up when she was three, and apart from the odd Sunday visit every now and then, she hardly saw him.

‘Right,’ I said, trying to be calm and controlled, ‘When did she disappear?’

‘Earlier!’ Lizzie screamed, annoyed that I hadn’t just pulled her mother’s location out of thin air. ‘She told me to go down to the shop to get some groceries. I left about half an hour ago and then when I got back, she was gone!’

‘Ok,’ I replied, writing this all down on a notepad like a proper detective, ‘You came round to mine about 10 minutes ago, which means she can’t have been gone more than 20 minutes. Now if, I’m correct, the traffic will be quite bad because it’s the football today, so therefore she can’t have got out of Tamagotchi Plains into another country or the human world yet.’

Lizzie scowled at me, as if I was trying to stop her finding her mother, rather than helping her.

‘We’re going to have to call the police,’ I said, ‘Then we can stop her being taken out of the country.’

Lizzie erupted in anger, her face going a bright purple colour.

‘WHY WOULD THEY WANT TO TAKE HER OUT OF THE COUNTRY!!!??? THEY’D KILL HER HERE! I’M SURPRISED THEY EVEN TOOK HER AWAY FROM THIS HOUSE!!!’ She flung herself at a chair, sending it crashing into the wall.

‘But you never know, blood may fetch more on foreign markets or something like that,’ I said, working it out in my head as I went, ‘So we need to call the police. And anyway, they might be able to find her.’

I picked up the telephone before Lizzie could have another verbal attack at me. I knew how she was feeling. I’d be going through turmoil if my mother went missing.

‘Hello, emergency services, yes I need to be connected through to the police please, urgently.’ I said, copying what I’d heard on detective films.

‘Hello, Tama Plains Police, how can I help you?’ a bunged up voice on the end of the phone answered.

‘Yes, I need a block on all airports, train stations, ports and I need you to stop anyone crossing the border by car who is called Mary Robinson.’

‘Umm… am I speaking to Chief Superintendent Baxter here?’

‘No, it’s Laura here, I’m 14 years old and I leave in the Rushmere District.’

‘I’m sorry little girl but you can’t do that, only the Chief Inspector, Superintendent, Chief Superintendent and the Commissioner can authorise that.’

I put the phone down. Lizzie was sitting down, literally tearing her hair out. Chunks were coming out in her hands, more and more by the second.

‘Don’t worry Lizzie,’ I reassured her, ‘We’ll find your mother.’

And so that’s where the troubles began.

First we conducted a thorough search of the house to make sure she definitely wasn’t there. We checked the bedrooms, the living room, the dining room, the kitchen, the garden and even down the toilet.

After that, we moved into the neighbourhood. We took a picture of Mary with us, and showed it to people in the street. We went to each house and demanded to search it, but everybody told us to go away and never bother us again except one old lady who must have been at least ninety. We searched her whole house but we didn’t find anything except her dead dog which she thought had run away over 6 months ago!

All day we looked but not a trace of Lizzie’s mother was found. During the day, Lizzie gradually got more and more distressed until around five o’clock, she was in tears and said she couldn’t continue any longer.

We walked back to Lizzie’s house and as we walked up the garden path, we could see a note taped on the door. At first I thought it was a note from Lizzie’s mother explaining why she was gone, but no. It was a ransom note.

‘We have Mary Robinson,’ the note read, ‘And we shall keep her until a ransom of £3000 is paid. We will take half a litre of blood from her every day. This will make her grow gradually weaker and weaker. Within 4 days, she will be dead from lack of blood. Instructions will come in the morning, if the £3000 is not paid within 4 days, she will die and you will not get her body back. That is a promise.’

Lizzie collapsed on the doorstep in tears. I knew what had to be done. £3000 had to be found to pay for the ransom. Although Lizzie’s family weren’t poor, I knew that Lizzie would never be able to get £3000 in such a short space of time. Maybe her mother had it in her bank account, but you can’t withdraw money from others’ accounts. So I knew what I had to do. I had to cut myself and get some of my blood. I had to sell it but not make it look like it had come from me or my whole family could die. Nobody knew our family’s secret. Not even Lizzie.

‘It’s alright Lizzie,’ I smiled, attempting to comfort her and stay positive, ‘I’ll find the money for you, somehow. You’ll have her back and she’ll be ok.’

I knew mother would be worrying herself silly if I didn’t get home so I said goodbye to Lizzie and took the long, five metre journey home.

As I walked through the front door, one of my least favourite people was there to greet me.

‘Hiya there Laura!’ Terri exclaimed, smiling a big broad fake smile. ‘I was wondering when you’d be back!’ Terri was sitting at the table with my father and my idiotic brother Mark.

Terri was wearing her best pearl earrings, made using only puny wood blood, her face made up with so much foundation, eye shadow and lipstick that you could no longer tell whether she was trying to look like a tamagotchi or a clown.

‘Terri’s here,’ my mother called from the kitchen, assuming I was too stupid to use my eyes.

My mother and I share the same beliefs about Terri. She is a horrible, common red blood who uses Mark because she knows he is wealthy. I liked Mark’s ex girlfriend Nora. She was kind and lived with us for quite a while, before Terri decided that she liked Mark and then started spreading rumours about poor Nora. I still see Nora every now and then. She works at a shop in town and she always smiles at me. She doesn’t hold a grudge against me (although I’m sure she does against Mark and Terri).

‘You know Terri don’t you?’ my big buffoon of a brother Mark asked me. If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought he was born without a brain. He is totally unlike the rest of our family. He works as a sales assistant for Bakers Grill, the bakery and I reckon he eats most of the stock because he’s so fat. His job’s a bit stupid really. I mean, do they really need someone to go up to customers and say, ‘Here’s a lovely piece of cake, only £1.50, do you want to buy it?’ It’s not that sort of shop. But anyway, that’s what he does and he works really awkward hours so it pays well.

He’s tall, like Dad and I and has spiky blonde-ish hair, like mother once had. He has a long fat nose, and yellowy teeth (because he rarely brushes them). I also think he has two left feet, but I don’t dare ask in case he falls on me and crushes me (I’m joking of course).

‘Terri’s my girlfriend,’ Mark grumbled, thinking he was introducing me to her for the first time.

‘I know who Terri is. In case you hadn’t noticed, we’ve met about 5 times before!’ I exclaimed.

‘Always the comedian Laura,’ Terri replied, thinking she was taking my side and making me like her.

‘Anyway, as I was saying. You know Paul who works for Tama Plumbers? The one who takes loads of young girls out on dates?’ Mark snorted in understanding.

‘Well he says that he went out on a date a few years back with this girl called Susie.’

I started listening intently, wondering what was coming next.

‘He says that she told him that she was a silver blood. Well, they went to this restaurant called El Doritos or something like that and…’

‘I think you’d better be going Terri, your family will be worrying about you,’ father interrupted, trying to end her story.

‘Nah! I’ve got ages yet!’ Terri laughed, pecking Mark on the cheek and leaving lipstick marks. ‘So yeah, they went to El Doritos and they ordered their drinks. He got a white wine spritzer and she got a coke, which he thought was a bit weird in itself. But yeah, so the drinks arrived, and her coke was in a can. So, because apparently she was so posh, she was used to having it poured into a glass by her butler or something so he couldn’t open a can!’ she erupted with laughter but nobody else followed suit. ‘But anyway, nobody cares about that. So yeah, she’s struggling to open this can of coke and then she cuts her arm on it. Apparently it was quite a bad cut, so it started to bleed. Obviously he was expecting her to bleed silver blood but it didn’t look quite silver. So at first he thought, she lied to me and her blood is actually only steel or something like that. But then, when he looks closer it turns out to be platinum blood!’

Course, he thought I know I’ll be rich so he got his wine glass and started trying to collect up the blood in it, pretending that he was only being thoughtful. But she guessed fairly quickly what was up and jerked her arm away and then stomped out.’

Father pretended to gasp with shock and Mark gasped genuinely, too stupid to realize that Terri was talking about his sister.

Terri looked at me, to see what I made of the story and I attempted to fake surprise. By the look on her face, she thought that she had just shared a real treat with us.

‘But anyway, that’s not the best part,’ Terri continued, ‘Paul was too stupid to realise, but if you join one of those sites, like Tama Relatives, it only costs a few pounds a month, and you can find all of these people’s relatives and where they live. Obviously, she must have platinum blooded relatives. So not only will I be able to find Susie and profit from her, I’ll be able to make more from her relatives as well! I’ll be rich!’ She gave off an evil cackle.

‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you,’ father shouted panicking, ‘Sites like that betray people. What they don’t know they make up. It won’t tell you the truth!’

‘But it will help me,’ Terri chuckled, ‘Susie Sweet, this person is called, Susie Sweet. Well Susie, you’re about to make me very rich!’

‘And me!’ Mark added.

‘Shut up you fool,’ Terri bellowed, her selfishness taking over, ‘In fact, I think I’ll do it right now!’

Terri pulled out a tiny laptop from her purple handbag and dumped it on the table. We exchanged nervous glances as she turned it on and the Tama Internet appeared.

‘The Internet isn’t very good here!’ mother shouted, appearing from the kitchen having just realised what was going on, ‘You probably won’t get a signal!’

Terri smirked, an evil grin appearing on her ugly face.

‘Don’t worry Mrs W, the internet is working fine.’

I rushed over so that I was standing behind her and could see what she was doing.

Tama Relatives appeared on the screen. Terri entered a few of her details and credit card information and then she had an account.

‘What’s that over there?’ I yelled, pointing at a blank spot of wall, attempting to divert her attention long enough for me to snatch the laptop away.

‘Your tricks won’t work on me Laura,’ Terri chortled, ‘I know you just want to get all of that money for yourself.’

I gazed in horror as Terri typed in the name ‘Susie Sweet.’ She make a big deal of pressing the enter key and was struggling to contain her triumphant laughter.

After a few seconds of loading, a family tree popped up.

‘Umm, I’m just going to go and get something,’ Father said, rising to his feet giving me a glance that said he was going to retrieve his shot gun.

‘No, don’t leave!’ Terri commanded, ‘I want everyone to see my amazing moment. I wonder how much money I’ll make. £6 million? £9 million? £12 million?’

Father sat back down. I was terrified. On the family tree it clearly said all of our names, and our address too!

Terri clearly realised what the information on the screen meant and she whipped round to face me, evil laughter erupting from her mouth.

‘Well, who would have thought it?’ she cackled, ‘Who would have thought it?’

Coming up in Part 3:

The police take control of the TV & Radio stations to make the gold blooded murder situation sound much better than it is

Laura tries to cut herself and get some blood to pay for her friend Lizzie’s ransom, but it leads to disastrous consequences when she can’t stop bleeding

Terri reacts in a surprising and unexpected way when she sees all of the names on Tama Relatives