7. The Little Detective and the Secret Workshop
“Shh... Miu, don't sneeze! Hold it in for now, okay?” Mile whispered, barely making a sound. Her hands clamped tightly over Miu's chubby nose behind the folds of the thick velvet curtain.
The Archive Room's door stood wide open. The sound of the night wind sweeping in accompanied Mama Dari's dignified footsteps. The distinctive cinnamon-oil scent of the Head Fairy's robe stabbed sharply into Mile's nose.
Through a gap in the curtain's stitching, Mile narrowed her eyes. Her heart pounded. She saw Mama Dari walk straight toward the center table, where the tin box engraved with crossed crayons sat.
Mama Dari froze. She reached out and felt the surface of the now-closed tin box, but its position had shifted by a few inches. The Head Fairy's hawk eyes narrowed suspiciously.
“Milea...” Mama Dari murmured softly. Her voice did not sound angry. Instead, it carried a deeply worried note. “Were you the one who came here? Do you already know everything?” she continued, her voice trembling.
Mile held her breath behind the curtain. Guilt pinched at her chest for a moment. Mama Dari had always been like a mother who protected her very well, even if she was a little strict. But the fact that her parents were still trapped in the Eternal Recipe Dimension made Mile's resolve unshakable.
Crash!
Suddenly, Miu leaped out from beneath the curtain! The brown potato cat deliberately knocked an empty paper scroll into the corner of the room, then rolled around foolishly while chasing the end of the curtain cord, as if he were nothing more than an innocent, lonely cat's tail.
“Meooow?” Miu sounded innocent as he stared at Mama Dari with wide, guiltless eyes.
Mama Dari let out a long sigh and rubbed her temples. The tension in her face slowly faded. “Miu... so it was you. Wandering around again in the middle of the night. Where's your chatty owner? Come on, get back to bed!”
“Meooow.”
Mama Dari then picked Miu up, stroked his chubby back for a moment, and walked out of the Archive Room, locking the door behind her again. Mile, still hiding behind the curtain, breathed an enormous sigh of relief.
“Phew! Miu really is a top-secret agent!” Mile whispered admiringly.
Once the coast was clear, Mile slipped out the window and crawled back to her room along the pink chewing gum steam pipe. As soon as she landed on her foam mattress, Mile spread out the spoils of her raid: a map of the Dark Cloud Forest and a scroll written in gold ink.
“All right, Miu! Mission: Rescue the Cartographer Duo officially begins!” Mile whispered, striking the coolest pose she could imitate, just like a real detective.
Miu, who had just entered through the gap beneath the bedroom door, immediately jumped onto the bed and gave Mile a resigned look. Mile pulled a wooden box filled with the palace's discarded belongings from beneath her bed. Nimbly, her little fingers began assembling the “Super-Advanced Detective & Explorer Tool.”
She tied her cloud-crystal magnifying glass to a copper handle, attached a spray bottle of gum-softening steam, and removed Miu's magical compass necklace, placing it around her own neck so she could feel its needle, which always pointed north. And, of course, she tucked the map of the Dark Cloud Forest neatly behind the waistband of her loose cotton pants.
“Based on my logical analysis as a genius detective,” Mile declared, acting like a know-it-all as she twirled her magnifying glass, “before I charge into the Dark Cloud Forest, I need to test all these tools on the palace fairies tomorrow morning. If my tools can uncover their little secrets, that means they're ready to use for rescuing my parents!”
Miu yawned widely, then sprawled his chubby body right on top of the pillow beside Mile's.
“Meooow,” Miu replied lazily, as if he knew that tomorrow morning the Cloud Palace would once again be thrown into an uproar by his owner's chatter.
Mile smiled broadly as she gazed out her bedroom window toward the dark clouds in the north. “Wait for Detective Mile, Dad and Mom!”