Evadeen Brickwood - Children of the Moon

Later at dusk, Trevor searched for another time warp in the school garden. He didn’t tell the girls. They wouldn’t like it after all the trouble with Natasha. But what if Katherine was right and things didn’t pan out? He had to find out. By himself.

The warp was weak. He detected some faint vertical waves, but no sign of a vortex. Trevor managed to keep the waves going for half a minute.

Not a bad result so close to the school building. He was convinced that the device would do its job in Carter Valley. During the week, Katherine and Trevor were busy with last-minute changes in the lab, while Chryséis made a provisions list. On top of the list, she wrote plastic water bottles and cans of soft drink. They were useful even when empty.

Then emergency food like granola bars, peanuts, beef jerky and dried fruit. Chryséis wrote down lighters and matches; toothbrushes, water purifying tablets and aspirin. Something for stomach problems, antiseptic cream, lip balm, underwear and sandals. An old discman, which could also record and three music CDs. One CD for each of them.

A palmtop computer with memory stick (the vacuum battery could now be used for recharging) and a tiny digital camera. A Swiss army knife would come in handy and sunglasses, plastic bags and paper tissues. Then the smallest and lightest Sherpa sleeping bags available. She read the list again.

Was that overkill for a short trip? Maybe, but better safe than sorry.

A Frisbee maybe... no, a rainfly which could be folded really small… and moon bags. An electric stunner as self-defense might be good, or pepper spray. But they were too young to buy these at the shop. Chryséis wrote ‘make a plan’ next to these items. She trimmed and changed the list until it looked about right.

After dinner, they went over the list together and started packing in secret. The girls couldn’t keep their activities hidden from Sally Holfield, though.

“Why are you packing so much stuff for a daytrip?” their roommate wanted to know. Chryséis had to think on her feet. “Just to be prepared,” she answered curtly.

“Prepared for what?”

Chryséis just shrugged her shoulders and stuffed a Frisbee into her daypack. Sally was puzzled. Gifted kids often did things differently, she thought, forgetting that she was also a gifted kid. So Sally kept quiet.

All the excitement had an undesirable side effect on Chryséis, though. She had one of her rare sleepwalking episodes. Getting as far as the passage window, she turned around, nearly mistaking a cupboard in the passage for the dorm room. Being sound sleepers, neither Sally nor Katherine noticed anything.

It was just strange that Chryséis lay sleeping on the floor rug next to her bed in the morning.

There was another more serious incident, however. Sally saw a pretty aliceband with a little black box on Chryséis’s bedside table. The virtual invisibility device!

Admiring the fab hair accessory, Sally put it on in front of the mirror, stroking her light brown hair back for effect.

She was about to touch the critical button when Chryséis walked in. Seeing the horrified look on her roommate’s face, Sally handed the aliceband over without a word and ran red-faced from the room. “How could I have been so stupid, Katie? On the bedside table!” she said to Katherine the next day. They had just finished lunch and were on their way to the lockers.

“Odd that Sally should touch your stuff like that.”

“Do you think Holly put her up to it?”

“Nah, I think she just wanted to look pretty.”

“Well, lucky nothing happened,” Chryséis grunted. “We must be careful with Holly hovering and watching us and all. Anyway, where’s Trevor?”

“Oh, he got a link by the golf course and decided to take a little trip on his own.”

“What?!” Chryséis’s eyes grew wide with surprise.

“Lighten up. It’s a joke. Trev’s in his room to change. He has tennis this afternoon.”

“I thought for a moment... oh, don’t do that to me. You nearly had me there.” She nudged her friend playfully and they started laughing.

“Nearly? Hah…”

“Yes nearly. Think of all the green scales he’d have seen this time...”

Holly and Natasha passed them looking blankly ahead. Chryséis narrowly avoided Natasha’s shoulder. Icy stares flew between them. “Wonder what they have to laugh about,” Natasha said in a spiteful tone.

“Well, we’ll know soon enough,” Holly smirked. “Sally was a bit unhappy this morning. I’ll speak to her later. I’m sure she’s in for a bit of a deal.”

She still suspected the girls of playing the frog prank on her and couldn’t wait to pay them back.

“Good thinking, Sweet revenge—” Natasha hissed and they strutted away.

Trevor made sure that he was alone in the room when he quickly packed his lot of the provisions. His roommates were fairly safe and more interested in a good game of chess or golf. But he couldn’t take chances now.

Was underwear necessary? He decided that it was. Where had he put the camera Chryséis had given him? Oh, that’s right, Chryséis had already packed it. They were still unaware of Natasha’s and Holly’s scheming.

By Friday evening, everything was ready and finally Saturday morning arrived. During the excursion everything worked without a hitch.

At last, the young time astronauts stood on the rocky platform right by the escarpment. The time warp was shimmering right in front of them and moved in waves. The wave motion began to accelerate and then churn. Trevor already knew the process and was proud that his calculations had proved correct. There was hardly any interference around.

“I’m going to activate the first time span now. Get ready.”

Chryséis and Katherine grabbed each other’s hand. Trevor had integrated time-spans ranging from 10,000 to 50,000 years, because that’s how they had applied the formula. It was a giant leap. What they knew was that no monsters, volcanoes or oceans would wait on the other side. Well, quite sure.

Katherine tried to be brave. It had been difficult enough to leave her home in England. Never mind travelling back to an ancient past now. Her father had written a postcard from Lagos in Nigeria last week. That was also pretty far away, wasn’t it? She consoled herself that she would be away for only a short while. In any case, they would arrive back in the present at the precise same moment they had left. But her courage left her, when the time portal made its appearance. Katherine stared at the swirling vortex that formed in front of the boulder now.

A real vortex!

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