• I woke up in the middle of the night. Everything was quiet, the only sound that reached my ears was the singing of the crickets and soft breathing. I looked around, dark, really dark. Everyone was sleeping around me. Boa to my left, Trek and Jen to my right. Kert sat against the wall right next to the door, his head kept bobbing up and down and side to side. He glanced up at me with his droopy eyes and smiled.
    "Your...okay?" then he fell forward, finally sleeping.
    He stayed up all night for a long time just to make sure I was okay. A tear ran down my cheek as I closed my eyes.
    Roger...

    There was something heavy on my stomach. I groaned as I tried to get the weight off.
    "mmmmnnn...I like you too, Oopa"
    I opened my eyes and saw Trek, he was laying on me, like I was a pillow! I sat up and he rolled off, hitting his head on the wooden floor.
    "Did I hurt you?!" Trek shouted out as got up really fast, staring at the blank wall. Jen grumbled then woke up. He stretched and his arms hit Boa, then he woke. They were staring at Trek who was looking around as if he didn't know where he was. Kert was the last to wake up.
    "you look like a blind fool.." he snickered.
    Everyone started yelling and play fighting each other then stopped really quick, as if someone just decided to freeze time. Before I knew it, they all came rushing towards me asking if I was okay over and over.
    I nodded yes.
    "You sure?"
    "Are you positive?"
    "So your really, really, really okay?!"
    I stared at them and nodded yes then looked at the ground. Someone put their hand on my head. I looked up to see Kert, smiling.
    "Its okay, its okay" he said.
    That made me think of Roger, when he came to my cell and said that. It almost made me cry so I bit my tongue to try to stop from crying. That didn't help because I was shaking a little, on the verge of tears. Everyone noticed and they all got closer and gave me a big hug, except for Kert and Boa who went outside with a blank, serious look on their faces.
    "don't cry, Anysa!" Trek begged.
    "yah, listen to him!" Jen agreed then came to a low whisper, "just this one time though"
    My chest burned and it felt really uneasy.
    "come on, lets go do something" Jen smiled. "its a nice sunny day! Want to go play with Kerts toys outside?" without waiting for an answer, he got up and grabbed things from the table at random, Trek did the same.
    Kert and Boa were still outside. What were they doing? I crawled over and sat under the window, my back against on the wall.
    "What do you think?"
    "..I don’t know"
    "They were really close, weren’t they?"
    "yah…yah they were"
    "Then why? What...what exactly happened?"
    "I don’t know! They told us to go outside beca-"
    "of the box. Listen, we've got to do it"
    "How? When?"
    "Today, at midnight. We'll meet-"
    They were cut off as Trek slammed the door open and ran outside yelling and screaming, carrying loads of Kert’s things. Jen stumbled as he followed behind. I heard Kert gasp really loud as he saw his inventions being carried off so recklessly.
    "What are you idiots doing!? Get your hands off my things!"
    "I’m sorry" I said as I walked through the doorway. "I wanted to...play with them"
    "Yah, she wanted to play with them! Don’t get so mad, Kert" Trek stuck his tongue out at him.
    "Yah, don’t get so mad!" Jen copied Treks expression.
    "yah, Kert, control your anger! Don’t be so mean towards Anysa" Boa snickered then ran to join the other two, now all three of them were doing the same thing.
    "you idiots...stop doing that!" Kert demanded.
    I walked over to the pile of inventions that were behind Jen and started looking through them. I lifted something small, the size of two fists, and it was made out of wood.
    "that’s a boat!" Trek chirped.
    "yah, its a mini one" Kert said.
    I stared at it. "what’s a boat?"
    Kert walked up to me and pointed to the back, where there was a flower shaped thing that was connected by a thin cylinder. "that right there...is the rudder, the paddle. It moves the boat"
    "it cant move" Boa said.
    "yes it can! here, you see this small hole one the side?"
    "you mean the keyhole?" Boa laughed.
    "yes, the keyhole-"
    "you said it was a hole!" Trek interrupted.
    "shut up! Its a keyhole okay?! Well you take the key from inside the boat, just lift the door on the surface right there" he pointed to a little handle.
    I didn’t do anything for a few seconds then pinched the grey handle and opened the small door. I reached inside and felt something metal, something cold. "this is the...key?" it glint as I held it in the air, a yellow gold color.
    "mhmm. Put the end piece right in there"
    Nothing happened as I put the key inside the keyhole.
    "...then you turn it"
    "oh.." I turned the key to the right halfway.
    "turn it as much as you want, the longer you turn, the farther it goes"
    "...kay" I turned the key more and when it made a full circle it clicked.
    "that’s suppose to happen" Kert smiled.
    Trek, Jen, and Boa started looking through the pile and grabbed numerous things. Kert answered questions they asked, giving him no time for a breath of air. I kept turning the key over and over, hearing the click come continuously.
    click, click, click, click- krrrrrrrk!
    I turned around and saw something long and green wiggling through the air like a snake.
    "wow oh wow!" everyone stared in awe. "how can that thing stay in the air?" Boa asked Kert.
    "to complicated for your brains to understand" he did something with three yellow colored balls and then they started to bounce on their own, jumping all over the place. He fiddled with all of his inventions one by one and they all did amazing things, moving by itself. Flying through the air, running, sliding, gliding, swimming, making music, it was all so great! The last invention blew bubbles all on its own, it was so big and so much came out. Trek, Jen, and Boa were laughing and running around cheerfully.
    Kert came to me "here, lets put it in the lake" he grabbed the boat and our hands touched. He squeaked as he quickly pulled his hand back. "s-sorry!"
    "its okay.."
    "uh...right" He took the boat and pulled the key out. The paddle moved in a circle. I smiled as the boat moved forward.
    "man, I wish Roger was here!" Trek shouted out. Boa gasped then jumped on Trek, telling him to shush, then he whispered something to him.
    I looked down in the lake, staring at my reflection. Kert put his hand on my shoulder and smiled. "lets go have some fun, shall we?"
    I nodded "ya"

    The day went by so fast. We were all playing and laughing all the time. Trek was the most energetic of us all, always running non-stop. Jen got real jealous because Boa said the fastest is never the longest so he decided to run all day long to prove he was better. Boa was with me all the time. He kept messing up my hair and pinching my cheeks then he would laugh. After all his teasing, he began to tell me stories of all his clever escapes. Kert was making more and more interventions. He does it really fast! It seems impossible to invent things so quickly and have it work in one try. The sun set and night time came along with the crescent moon. We were laying on our backs staring at the starry sky.
    "oh yah...what was that brown bag for?" Trek asked blankly.
    "nn...what bag?" replied Kert.
    "This one" he held up a long bag that looked really full.
    Kert stared at it for awhile as if he never saw it before then his eyes widened and he sat up. "Oh, I almost forgot about that!" he took the bag and dumped everything that was in it out onto the ground.
    Everyone’s face brightened. "Fireworks!" they said at the same time.
    Kert handed me and the others a long, thin and red stick with a flimsy paper piece hanging on one end. Everyone was mumbling to themselves excitedly.
    "Oh man!" Kert groaned. "I don’t have a lighter!"
    "What?!" Trek and Jen shouted.
    "lets make some fire then" Boa said calmly.
    "How?" Kert asked
    "Wood, of course!" he shrugged his shoulders "I thought someone of your brains would know that" everyone laughed.
    "Shut up!" his face was turning red, he didn’t like being made a fool of. "who’s going to get the wood? It’s not going to be me"
    "Not it!" Boa and Trek said in unison. They looked at Jen. "go fetch thy wood, servant!"
    "Oh be quiet!" he groaned as he stood. Right when he began to leave, I asked if I could go with.
    "You don’t need to go" Kert said.
    "I want to"
    "but-" he was cut off as Jen picked me up.
    "aww don’t worry daddy, I’ll bring her back safe and sound!" and with that, he carried me off through the forest. Once we couldn’t be seen, he put me down. "now, now, these trees are rather mutated giants, aren’t they?"
    I looked around and saw that the trees were about ten times taller and wider than a house.
    "you think I can climb to the top and break off a branch?"
    I shook my head. "You’ll never be able to go that high and it’d be impossible for you to break off one of those branches"
    Jen looked as if he'd been stabbed in the heart. "that...that...that really hurt!" he fake cried as he backed away from me. "but never fear!" he saluted "Jen is here! And I shall gather wood!"
    I lowered my eyes. Its not that hard finding wood, there’s a whole bunch lying on the ground. I was silent as we picked up fallen branches. Jen was whistling a strange tune, it sounded ancient, magical, but at the same time, haunting. As we finished gathering all the fire wood we could carry, we started heading back tp the others.
    "Jen...” I began to say as we walked.
    "mmhmm? What is it?"
    "Kert and Boa...they're going to do something"
    "..as in lighting the fireworks..?" he asked, confused.
    "No. Tonight at midnight"
    "What do you mean?"
    "They’re going to meet each other somewhere to...to do something"
    "Like what exactly?"
    "I..I don’t know"
    "Well if they're going to go sneak around somewhere, why would they need to meet each other? We're all staying here tonight, again"
    We stare at each other, wondering what was happening. "maybe they're going to split up separately to do something then they would...meet each other after they finished their task.." I suggested.
    He grinned "your a smart one! So what are we going to do about it?"
    I thought about it for awhile, and then when we reached the top of the hill to the others, I said quietly, "We’ll follow them"

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