Maria is Paulina's little sister and an honorary Thea Sister who first appeared in The Secret City.
Physical Appearance[]
Maria is an eight-year-old child whose height reaches up to Paulina's chest at least. She has brown fur a shade lighter than Paulina's fur, short dark brown hair tied in low pigtails and decorated with colored hair ties and pins (notably a heart-shaped pin on either side of her head), and brown eyes. Her debut outfit in The Secret City consists of a pink-and-pale-yellow poncho, a red or dark-orange long-sleeved shirt with lighter-colored hems, and denim jeans. Her reappearance in The Blue Scarab Hunt has her wear a nearly sleeveless peach-colored top and more form-fitting jeans.
Family[]
Maria lives in Cuzco, Peru with her Uncle Pedro and Aunt Nidia. She was only four years old when her parents disappeared, and now her only relative in her nuclear family is her older sister Paulina.
Personality[]
Maria is a hyper, enthusiastic and expressive child, always expressing her emotions in a very visible way and is able to chop and change between emotions very quickly (tackle-hugging Paulina as a greeting in every single one of her appearances, being very visibly upset when she wasn't allowed to go with the Thea Sisters to the Andes, and immediately lighting up and regaining her enthusiasm when Paulina and Violet give her tasks to do so she's still able to help them). She's seemingly mellowed down a little in The Blue Scarab Hunt.
She is very emotionally attached to Paulina and is very proud of her sister, apparently talking to her school friends about Mouseford Academy very frequently and openly expressing how she also wants to go to Mouseford one day and become a Thea Sister herself. She has a strong desire to make her sister proud by helping out however and whenever she can.
Her emotional attachment to Paulina, close friends and relatives is also to the end of protectiveness, as seen by her calling Paulina in The Secret City as the inciting incident of the story; and being extremely worried and distraught when Paulina, during the events of The Blue Scarab Hunt, was unable to answer for their scheduled long video calls for a couple days, so much so that she contacted Thea Stilton about her concerns, which escalated to a missing person's case with the Luxor police getting involved.
Trivia[]
- The English translation of The Secret City only describes Maria as "a tiny mouseling" when her parents disappeared, but the original Italian book specifies that she was four at the time.
- She and Paulina were separated for only a few months by the time The Secret City took place.