Chapter 1
The Night Storm
Boom bang crash! Dark clouds covered the sky while I was inside my bedroom with my sheets over my head. I looked at the photo of my father on my nightstand. Me and my mother were looking at a bunch of stuff that was my father’s and found this photo. This was the only photo of him, he hated being in photos! My mother knocked on the door.
“Here is your dinner, Miranda,” my mother, Sarah, said.
Once I saw my mother, a thought just automatically popped into my head. How did Dad disappear? It was just like my mother read my mind.
“We will never know. That night when he went to the lab, he just disappeared into thin air. Anyway, help your little brother with his homework.”
The next morning I went to my cousin Dawn’s house. We both were determined to find out what happened to my father. So we asked Dawn’s dad to drive us to the lab. He was overprotective of Dawn, so he set up a place where he would question us.
So he said in a very serious low voice, “What’s your favorite flavor of ice cream?” he asked me. “I always wanted to know.”
“Um… chocolate,” I answered. Anyway, Dawn’s father continued speaking. He asked a lot of questions, so we thought the easiest way was to lie out of them, of course we learned that the hard way. We just said that there was stuff from the lab that belonged to my father. After A LOT of convincing, he FINALLY drove us to the lab. Okay, now step two, I thought. The guards. Me and Dawn talked about this. Our personalities were very different; I was on the dark side while she was little miss sunshine, so this is how the conversation went.
Me: why don’t we threaten to stalk them for the rest of their lives?
Her: they will be threatened by two little girls?
Me: good point. Then why don’t we cut off their toes and put them where they are not
supposed to be?
Her: NOOOO!!
Me: fine.
Her: why don’t we just use the same excuse that we used on my father: to recover my
father’s belongings.
Me: if you want to do it the boring way, sure. Why can’t we just knock ‘em out?
And that’s how the conversation ended.
Chapter 2
The Lab
Then guess what method we used? Yes, Dawn’s method… such. A. Great. Method. But of course we got in. We went into the lab dressed how people who work in labs dress. White lab coats, goggles, and an evil smile on my face. We went to my dad’s workshop in the lab. It was empty with just a cement floor and a wood table, on the wall was a metal vent. We looked ALL over and found nothing!
Just as I was checking under the table, Dawn shouted, “Miranda, there’s a switch here on the vent!” I rushed quickly over there and without thinking, I switched the switch down. Just then, the room transformed into a whole different place: potions filled the room, several different robot machines were roaming around from inch to inch. Paper was covering my dad’s desk from corner to corner. The room was pretty messy. Then, a whole different room appeared. There was a gigantic machine—his part was the only place in the room that seemed tidied up. The screen was showing the words “The Jurassic Times.”
Dawn looked really confused and I looked just as confused as her. Dawn was the one with the good eye and noticed a note on the machine. As she picked it up, she accidentally pressed the red button that said GO. Just then, I started to feel dizzy and the world started spinning. After a few seconds, things started to ease down.
Chapter 3
The Jurassic Times
I came to my senses and looked around me. I panicked because there were dinosaurs EVERYWHERE! Me and Dawn spent many hours running for our lives. We didn’t even have time to catch our breath. By the end of the day, we found a cave that was animal-free. We set up two beds that were made out of grass and hay. We also created a section for all the berries we picked to eat. We FINALLY had time to rest. Our cheeks were both red and we were breathing really hard. We looked at each other for a long time without saying anything. I finally broke the silence.
“So…” I said between breaths, “we sure know what the machine is for now.”
“Yeah” she responded.
“I knew that your dad was smart but not so smart that he could make a time machine,”
she remarked.
“We REALLY need to know how to get back!” I exclaimed.
The next day, we emptied our pockets to see what we had: I had a half eaten chocolate bar, a pack of gum, some money, a picture of my dad, and an iPod. Dawn had the note, she took some string, a pencil and paper. The note said: colonial times 828.
“What does 828 mean?” Dawn asked.
“No idea,” I responded. “Do you think Dad went to the colonial times?” I asked Dawn.
“Maybe? Anything else?” Dawn asked.
I checked all my pockets. “Oh yeah, I have a potion that I took from dad’s office.”
“What is it called?” Dawn exclaimed.
“It doesn’t have a name,” I replied.
Chapter 4
The Colonial Times
We drank the potion, then I accidentally looked at the note, then I went dizzy. After
that, we just blacked out. But this time, we ended up in a place where all girls wore dresses and bonnets, and boys petticoats and baggy pants. We looked down and saw that our clothes were different. Perfect! We wore the same clothes that everyone else wore! The time traveling with the potion came with clothes! Then I realized something! We were in the colonial times!
For the rest of the day, Dawn and I went looking for my father. We searched everywhere! We still couldn’t find him! At the end of the day, we stayed with a nice couple that said their names were Maria and David. They gave us a bedroom for the night.
“What do you think made us go into the colonial times?” Dawn asked.
I looked a bit guilty. “Um… I accidentally looked at the paper that said colonial times 828, that’s what probably triggered us to go here.”
“Ohhh, that makes sooo much more sense to me!”
“Yeah,” I responded. “So tomorrow…”
“Um, do you still have the picture—” I interrupted Dawn.
“Yeah,” Dawn finished her sentence. “We can show the people here it and see if they’ve ever seen him.”
Every time we showed people the photo, they started murmuring to each other and started pointing at us. One person dropped everything she had in her hands and shouted, “WITCH!!” After that, with every step we took, people started backing away. Then, finally, Maria came out of the house and I showed her the photo. She looked shocked.
She said, “Child, your father went to the place.”
“The place?”
Apparently I looked so confused that she started telling the whole story.
Chapter 5
“The Place”
“Once, there was a man and that man was your father. One day, he came out of nowhere. Everyone thought he was crazy because he kept saying that he came from a time machine from the future. They officially named him wizard of the year. This was the first time in 20 years they named a wizard of the year. Not since this one man who every time he snapped, a person in the town died. Everyone thought he was dangerous, and still thinks that. They think he is so dangerous that they built a special prison just for him. Anyone who goes in can’t get out. No one knows what to call it. So we just call it the place.
The legend states that the only way to bring a person out of there is if a person makes a potion strong enough to get out of there.”
Dawn murmured something under her breath so quietly that you couldn’t even manage to make out the words. Maria finished her story and nobody knew if that potion even exists. I was shocked! Dawn and I went back into the house.
Right after we closed the door, Dawn exclaimed, “The potion that we have!”
I answered, “What do you mean? That potion was only for time traveling!”
Dawn explained, “When we went time travelling, do you know how much time it took to get here?”
“No?”
“Um, ten minutes and two seconds. And do you know how long it took to get to the jurassic times? 15 minutes and 56 seconds.”
“How do you know?” I asked.
“Oh I set a timer,” Dawn said. She continued speaking, “it’s like the potion wants us to be here.”
“Ok then what are we waiting for, let’s go!”
Chapter 6
Dirty Work
We walked and walked and walked and finally got there! It was in the middle of the woods. The place was very simple with stone walls and a moat around it and alligators snapping at you. It was so very welcoming! SO. VERY. We still had two things to do. Get past the alligators and get past the guards. Time to use MY method! This conversation was a bit different.
Me: this time, let’s knock ‘em out.
Her: can’t we just sweet talk them into letting us in?
Me: no!! We did your method last time, this time we’re going to jump on the alligators’ back and then they’re going to bring us to the guards. Then you go in the front and start talking to them. Then I sneak up on the back, knock them over and take their weapons.
Her: you can knock over the guards?
Me: I’m going to try, then you’re going to help me.
We jumped on the alligators’ backs, then they knocked us over.
I shouted, “Change of plans, we’re going swimming!”
It took longer than we thought, dodging all those alligators. We finally got to the castle and had to climb a bit. At least the plan with the guards worked. With a little help from pepper spray. When we got past the guards, we went to find my father.
“Miranda, is that you?”
“Hello? Dad?”
“I’m here.”
I turned around, then I saw him. He was nothing like how he looked in the picture. He looked older, dirty, like he hadn’t taken a shower in months. There were smudges of dirt all over his face. I gave some potion to my father.
Then to Dawn, I said, “We’re going to drink it on the count of three, okay? One. Two. Three!”
I went dizzy then blacked out. We were back home. I saw my father and Dawn on the sides of me. I knocked on the door.
When my mother saw me, she exclaimed, “Miranda, thank goodness! Where were you?”
When she saw Dad, all the color drained from her face. She screamed, “Ashton, come down here!”
“Ashton? ASHTON?” My mom went inside to look for my little brother. “Where’s Ashton?”
The End!