Chapter Five - Time Travel
Dawn struck rapidly with dark clouds following behind, they had to find shelter over the remaining afternoon; before it was nighttime. Nearly everybody but Mallory accused Fernellah because they were lost, so there was a huge disagreement between how they should follow Fernellah or be guided by the map. Unexpectedly, a bolt of lightning struck menacingly. Pursued by a brisk raindrop. Then another, and another. Soon, there were millions of raindrops scattering all over the place. Hallie hid the map in her jacket so the map wouldn’t become all soggy and wet.
“Uhhg!” Hannah condemned, “It’s common sense over here! I need an umbrella.” Before anything was spoken, IceFire passed out a word of misleading by Hannah.
“Psst!” IceFire had begun a short message of notice. “Remember! Don’t become deceived of her nagging, she still is odd, and nothing will change that,” IceFire whispered solemnly to Mallory.
Hallie spoke first, “Hannah, we’ll find that dumb shelter soon. Just don’t be so irritating and…” Her voice trailed off by a sound of a bushel of leaves. The parade all stared toward the direction of the din of the busy commotion. And there it was; a golden bird perched on top of a distant bush, pacing away from the rainy clouds, which followed the band of six-including Fernellah.
“ ‘Tis no harm,” a shadow announced coming out of the leaves. “May I favor a polite request upon the kindness of mule glory and Hallie?” The bird, which was now flying closer, was taking shape of a golden fluff of fur, cawed in an atrocious shrieking voice. Hannah giggled, followed by Hallie’s laughter. Mallory answered back in quite a ferocious tone, far better than a voice you need to win a stupid shouting contest.
“How dare you midgets!” Mallory spitted back, “Mule glory, or whatever that spitball said meant me! Mallory! I’ll give that nutcase a hammering in the head! I’m MALLORY!” In spite of the bellowing, the shadow showed its self… It was that messenger before, the one that gave them the map, only she had a better temper this time. And she was silently pursued by a golden bald eagle.
She began reading from a long parchment, “The President of Magical Requests invites Hallie and her company to a feast prepared by thou’ King. In return, he will favor you to become His Majesty’s Royal Fairies of Wild Beast Hunting. May you except?”
IceFire started to leap around, suddenly boost with energy with the sound of becoming a Royal Fairy of Wild Beast Hunting.
And then, the messenger added, “Not just for a period of time, for permanent.”
~
The talk about time travel had not just made problems worse, but had created a huge fuss between Hallie and Fernellah.
“Mother will obviously punish me and Mallory when she discovers what really happened!” Everyone within a mile could hear Hallie shout to Fernellah.
“But she’ll understand if you explain! Time traveling is dangerous, many fairies,” Fernellah did a short gesture, showing her hand tucked underneath her chin, “away of such treacherous actions! You don’t know the experience!” Fernellah retorted improvingly.
“We have to go back to change the current beliefs! It’s important to think at different angles!” The argument continued without a single word from any of the people other than Hallie and Fernellah.
They discussed about how matter-of-factly that in order to get home safely, they needed to make confusion for Mother somehow and then arrive home just before Mother gets home. But Fernellah suggested that instead of user a time traveling device which many fairies are forbidden to even touch, they should exaggerate slightly an say, “Sorry, IceFire scurried out the window and MoonFire copied the demonstration, so I began chasing them.”
~
They were ready, everything was planned, now the only two things left to do was the leading parts; make the time traveling potion, and- time travel…
First, Hallie, Fernellah, and IceFire needed to scavenge for many items listed on a piece of large candy wrapper found in Mallory’s pocket. And Mallory, Hannah, and MoonFire already started to gather up some items they needed for a little potion. Since Hallie’s group has the most rare items, Fernellah agreed to be with Hallie. After all, she is the one who wrote the lists. They were already separated in order to find those objects soon. Mallory and her band flew over the never-ending ocean and was currently lost in the Sandwich Islands, while Hallie was fortunately having better luck with Fernellah and the map. Although they were searching a way to fly out of the dry Sahara Desert.
“Let’s ‘ee, 3 strands of hair from a sleepy lupe, a footprint of a fairy cybunny on a ball of pure melting snow, spit of a…” IceFire stopped, “ WHAT IN THE WORLD? A howl morphed into a drake! Are you crazy Fernellah? Howls are the most self-centered animals, so why would they morph into a drake if they feel so important?”
“Aye, oh, um… Excuse me but what in the name of your world are those creatures?” Hallie wondered.
“Well, first off, a sleepy lupe is a species of common animals in the Magical World, secondly, a fairy cybunny is any color of cybunny that works for the president’s defenses or is a lawyer for His Majesty. And lastly… A howl, howls are identical to this world’s owls, they are very good eavesdroppers. They have developed a habit that makes everyone criticize them more than any other magical species. But worse, is the fact that we have to get a drake that was born a howl! That’s the nightmare, we can’t just go around asking the whole species of drakes if they were once a howl, they’ll think I’m nuts!” IceFire replied intelligently.
“Who cares? Anyways, there is ONE last possibility, although it is slightly risky.” Fernellah announced wisely. Unexpectedly, the wind stopped howling in everyone’s ears, the grass finished swaying by the wind, trees brought an end to their rumbling, and the rain began tapping silently, instead of fast hail-like drops of water. They seemed to be waiting for the clever Fernellah to say what they could do instead of searching for all those items.
~
“Mallory, are you positive that those stupid ordinary and seen everyday objects in our world are what need?” MoonFire questioned Mallory.
“Yep, I’m 100% guaranteed! What are those turtle prints and saffies anyway?” Mallory shot a puzzled glance back to MoonFire.
“As you may have figured, a turtle print is obviously those toad-stuck-in-a-shell animal’s footprint, a saffy is a dull species of glittery, lighting, and flying bug. Its relation can trace back to those earthy named fireflies. And one thing, are those toad-stuck-in-a-shell rare or common?” MoonFire explained with a slight questioning tone.
“We’ll have absolutely no trouble finding one, right Mall’?” Hannah finally spoke up.
“Hannah! If you keep up Mall’ as my name I’ll call you Han’!” Mallory replied.
“OK, no more,” MoonFire tried to end the arguing. “We’ve got to get scavenging!”
~
“Here’s the plan, to get all the items for the potion in a split second, we need to go to the Magical World, where there is a portal to The Forbidden Lands once owned by our Great Majesty, that is now conquered by the witches, lost in a-”
“Fernellah! You’re not supposed to be teaching history to Hallie!” IceFire blabbed.
“Whatever! Anyhow, in that tunnel to The Forbidden Lands, it also has entrances to other places like ‘The Witchcraft Corridor’, ‘Transfiguration and Other Books For Early Magicians’, and, ‘Collector’s Den’, our plan 2 destination. But things are never so easy, remember? There’s a guard protecting the portal entrance, it picks passengers randomly and asks for their Magical Transportation License. If you aren’t able to show it to him, you’ll be reported to the Magical Permitting Society of Law-Breaking and Other Troubles.” Fernellah answered cunningly. “Ready for action? We’ll just have to get Mallory’s items too.”
“OK, but how do you know about the tunnel when I don’t?” IceFire murmured half asleep.
“Because I’m an official member of the Magical Permitting Society of Law-Breaking and Other Troubles!” And with that, they took off…
~
“On three!” Hallie instructed. They had arrived, just millimeters away from the portal’s exit; where for the ‘Collector’s Den’, was an entrance. A sudden whoosh of wind filled Hallie’s cheeks, she felt like a piece of dust being sucked in by a vacuum cleaner.
The tunnel was full of dense fog and mist, it was narrow too. So small you could feel either IceFire, Hallie, or Fernellah breathing on you! Like Hallie imagined, the portal was rainbow colored, but you could barely see it with the perspiration on you. There were many, many doors painted rainbow, and on top was a sign telling were the doors led to. Only there was one main difference of the real tunnel and the Hallie’s imaginary tunnel, the fictional portal was dug up so you could jump in and fall. But this one was sideways. You walk through it, just like a subway station.
Suddenly, when Hallie finished counting, she pulled the door to the shop ajar. And there it was, the ‘Collector’s Den’. To be honest, it looked just like any other shop on Earth, but if you observed with detail, you’d see that the products were all labeled, ‘FREE!’ or, ‘PRODUCT IS A DONATION FROM THE MAGICAL WORLD’S SENATORS AND REPRESENTATIVES!’ No wonder I didn’t get money from the bank with IceFire, it’s all free! Hallie thought.
So swiftly and easily, they grabbed the ingredients, even the footprint of a howl morphed drake! They have ALL the stuff!
Later, IceFire flew back to the ‘earthy’ world, and soon found the lost Mallory, accompanied, by her group. They announced them the good news and found a glass jar. They dumped all the ingredients into the jar and began to mix them together. An hour flew by, than another. Until they all had a chance to stir the objects to create the potion, it was dark, much, much dark.
Stars began appearing from the south, the moon shone it’s brilliant glow again and later, there was not much to say than, “Are you down yet?” or, “Quit yapping, when you get your turn, your wings will be as sore as when you have a frog in your throat!”
At last, the recipe was created! It looked like a blur of lilac combined with a few drops of dew. Disgusting! “Now what Fer’?” Hannah asked hastily.
“Don’t call me that, you can say that to anyone else! Just not me. Now then, which one of you want to go?”
No one raised there hand, instead, they backed up by 2 steps. “Hello! Magical World to Earth! Magical World to Earth! Who would politely volunteer?”
Finally, IceFire raised a wing, followed by Mallory’s reply, “If no one wants to go, I’ll do it!” Suddenly, everyone volunteered.
“OK, I can’t go.” Fernellah stated, “We need to find the most useful people to go. So, er… It would be best if both dragons go. And now we can only serve one more person with this tiny jar. Hallie, you and Mallory decide, Hannah will stay here to be on the safe side.”
“You may do it, Hallie. You get answers in a snap while I have to eat chocolate to get brainpower.” Mallory insisted.
“Sure Mallory!” Hallie smiled, a smile that reached ear to ear. Picturing making a mess for Mother, she always wanted to feel the feeling of sneaking on something. Not to mention her dreams of making a huge confusing mess for someone. For the first time ever, Hallie considered making trouble a surely funny thing.
“Now, let’s talk about how to get back in time, you’ll need to drink 3 gulps of yours and let your arms or wings float freely in the air. Soon, you’ll feel fur grow on top of your skin, DON’T rub it off. The coat is the same fur of what snow dogs have. Snow dogs are magical animals that can time travel. You’ll be limited one hour to do this, then you must get back or anything could happen. Oh, and the fur coat will shed when you reach the time your going to. Just count to 7, which should do it. When you reach 7, you should be seeing the time Mom is driving home. Simply jump out of the scene and you’ll be there! Think of something to stop her and you’ll be successful. If you reach one hour’s limit you will be automatically seeing what happened in the past with us except fast-forward. Good luck! Just a reminder don’t get your past self to see your current self, they’ll think it’s a clone of them and attack on you.”
As Fernellah the Humble predicted and instructed, they arrived at destination. They had been there for almost 45 minutes, soon before mother will come home. Their minds were blank! So were they pressured, instinctively, Hallie saw her chance. There was a bottle labeled, ‘Oily Ice, Never Melting Too!’ So maybe she can poor some onto the ground and then Mother would slip while carrying the milk! Ok, so she tried, it worked like matching jigsaw puzzle pieces!
Exactly after their time limit, there turned to the future and found Fernellah, Mallory, and Hannah. But unfortunately, Hallie never got to finish her plan so the only thing she could do was hope it did more than being ‘Oily Ice’.
When Hannah called to go home, they all greeted a last farewell. Only Hallie was still worried. The ice would only slip her, but would it hold long enough for the 3 days they were gone? Hallie doubt it.
