Read if you Dare

This is a book I wrote with my friend, just because we were bored. Here's the first chapter.

Ella

It was raining in Venice. But I didn’t care. I was overjoyed to be here. Venice! It had been my dream ever since I met Alice and she showed me the pictures she found in various places. I met Alice when I was nine years old and we had been best friends all the way up until we finished school and now we were travelling Europe together. She stood beside me, not bothering to stand under my green umbrella that I purchased in Paris. She was reading a map that was slowly becoming soaked from the rain. I probably shouldn’t have given her the job of finding our way to the hotel. I probably just doomed us. She was once pathfinder on our trip to Melbourne, and that added seven extra hours to our trip. But she had never been to Venice before. That added quite a bit to my doubt we would ever see the hotel. Alice started walking across the bridge.

“I think it’s the other way, “ I said.

“Oh. Okay, umm… good point,” she walked off in the other direction. I sighed and followed her. Half an hour later (we took a twenty minute detour along the Grand Canal) we arrived at the hotel. Rumour had it the hotel used to be a huge estate belonging to a rich lady. I went to reception and picked up our room key. In the room we dumped our bags, claimed our beds and checked out what the minibar contained. After that we went exploring to get our bearings.

We wandered for some time, then came upon a large church with stained glass windows and large stone blocks. It looked like a historical site. We went inside. Alice gasped. The inside of the church was bigger than the outside, and filled with food! It was like an alternate reality where everything was edible. It was actually outside, inside the church, but edible! There were bushes with pies growing on them and trees covered in candy apples. Patches of chocolate-covered strawberries. There was also a tofu tree, which I made a mental note to steer clear of.

We heard footsteps behind us. Alice and I turned around to find ourselves facing a short old man who looked like a priest.

“Welcome to my church! Feel free to eat whatever you want. No charge.” He said.

“Thank you,” Alice said. We walked over to the pie bush. I picked a pie and broke it open. Steam rose off it. I sniffed.

“Blueberry,” I said. I took a bite. “Needs ice-cream.”

“Look to your left,” said the priest. I looked. A wall, with a light blue door marked ‘cool room’. I took the pie and entered. Inside was a mountain of snow. Rainbow snow. Only it wasn’t snow. It was ice-cream. I walked over to the white ice-cream, hoping it was vanilla, and put some on my pie. I walked out of the cool room and took a bite. Perfect! Meanwhile, Alice was sampling the grass.

“It’s mint grass,” she told me. We walked around the room and tried more of the food. When we were done, we walked to the entrance of the church. As we were about to leave, the priest blocked our way.

“You may not leave!” he shouted.

“But we want to,” said Alice.

“But you can’t,” said the priest.

“But we can,” said Alice and threw a jug of lemonade at him. We ran past.

Author's Note

It hasn't been properly edited, but I think it's okay.