Hazel opened her eyes, but it was still dark. A cold wind blew up and around her cheeks from the opened hatch of the time machine. Goosebumps ran down her arms as the smell of mud and leaves filled the air. It was night time, and they were outside.
She turned her head this way and that, trying to find any signs of her sister. A branch from a nearby bush scratched at her nose, and she pushed it away. They had landed in the bushes again, but where was Bess? And where were they?
Something told her not to call out her sister’s name. It was dark and unusually quiet. Hazel pushed her way free from the branches and the time machine, walking out to what looked like a small footpath in the woods somewhere, but she couldn’t tell for sure. All she could really see was darkness.
The stars and moon overhead were the only lights, and Bess was nowhere to be found. Had she run away and left her?
She couldn’t still be mad about Froggenstein, could she? Hazel was the one who rescued her frog.
An owl hooted in a nearby tree, and Hazel jumped, almost tripping on a root under her feet. It was cold and she was scared. She felt her nose stuffing up and her eyes welling into tears. She wiped them away with her arm and looked around. She needed to be strong, find her sister, and figure this out.
Hazel took a deep breath and tried to think of a plan. She could see a path through the woods, but she knew that before she went anywhere, she needed to make sure she’d be able to find her way back to the time machine again. But in the dark of night, and with the bushes that surrounded it, the time machine was almost impossible to see.
Hazel pulled out the ribbon from her perfectly combed bun, and tied it around a branch of the bush where the time machine was. She stepped back and watched it wave to her crazily in the wind. She hoped she’d be able to see it again. She hoped it wouldn’t blow off the branch. She knotted it around the branch one more time just to make sure. Good. It was definitely easy to see, even though in the dark of night, she couldn’t even tell it was red.
She still couldn’t believe Bess had really left her, but then, why was she surprised? Her sister never thought anything through before she did it. Never.
“B-B-Bess!” she whisper-called into the night. “Where are you?”
The wind picked up. She hugged her arms tightly around her body to keep warm. It was almost freezing cold and her sister was in a little fairy outfit. Hazel vaguely remembered her grandfather telling her to dress in warm clothes and wear good walking shoes. Poor Bess was in little ballet flats.
Hazel thought about walking the small trail to see if she could find Bess, but what if she went the wrong way? What if Bess was looking for her? Hazel sat down in the cold dirt of the path and tucked her head into her knees.
Something slimy and cold touched the back of Hazel’s neck. What in the world? She reached behind her and felt something squishy and damp…
Rrrrrrrr-ibbbbbetttt!
Hazel quickly turned around, looking up and into the eyes of her sister’s frog. A dark figure in a fairy outfit stood over her, holding Froggenstein and laughing. Hazel had never been happier to have frog germs smeared all over her in her entire life. She stood up and went to hug her sister, but remembered at the last second that she should be mad at her. “Bess, you scared me! Where were you? Were you hiding? That wasn’t funny!”
Bess put her frog back in his aquarium. Then she put the aquarium in the cloth bag she was carrying. “I heard voices. There are people walking this path. A whole group of them. I followed them, but I came back for you…”
“Well, that was nice of you,” Hazel said, sarcastically.
Bess pulled on Hazel’s arm. “Come on! We’ve got to catch up.” She pointed to her feet. She was clomping around in oversized dark brown boots. “I already have the shoes Grandpa gave us, and the bread Grandma made us is in the bag.” Crumbs fell from her face when she said that last part. Bess took off quickly up the path. She could move pretty fast in oversized shoes, but then, she was used to playing dress up.
“You better have saved me some of that bread,” Hazel said, running to catch up.
Hazel could see a large group of people just ahead of them in the shadows of the trees. Were they really about to follow a group of strangers walking a dark wooded path at night? Hazel wasn’t sure this was a good idea, but she really didn’t have any other plan.