Chapter 4 - Tumbling into Danger

After everyone had been walking for a while into nothing but sand, the sun finally decided to set. The girls set out their sleeping bags, and the guys took their backpacks off and used them as pillows. Courtney tossed and turned a good couple hours before she dosed off to sleep.

Early the next morning they woke up with a chill. They felt triples of water on their long bodies. All looked up really tired, and down came the rain. They start to smile from ear to ear.

“RAIN!” everyone screamed at the top of their lungs, except for Courtney. Everyone got up, and started dancing with their arms and tongues out. Courtney starts freaking out about her outfit getting all wet.

Mcayla tumbled to the ground in a groan. Everyone crowed over her, worried.

“Ow! My ankle hurts really bad!” Mcayla whined. They all looked at each other nervous. Michael asked,

“When you move it, does it hurt so bad, that you can’t even move it a muscle?” So she tried to move her leg.

“Ow! It really hurts!” She started rubbing her leg, and then said it even hurt to touch it.

“Then it’s broken?” Courtney asked.

“But it can’t be broken,” Mcayla interrupted. “I didn’t do anything bad enough to break it. This is nuts!”

“Calm down,” Michal insisted. “Stay calm. Take some deep breaths.”

 “Easy for you to say,” Mcayla whined. She tried to stand up, but she just flopped back on the ground with more pain.

“Calm Down. You need to calm down Mcayla. I know something that might help.”

“I wish our cell phones would work out here. There are probably no signals, since WE’RE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DESERT! I wish that we would all be safe while we are here in the desert,” Courtney complained.

“That’s it!” Jerrin yelled. “I’ve had it with you girls complaining all the time!”

“That doesn’t help Jerry,” Michael insists. “We do have our phones though, so we can call 911.”

“Have you people been ignoring me? We’re half way in the desert. WHERE would we get a signal?” Courtney kept saying.

Michael took out his cell phone and dialed 911.

“Hey, I got a signal! I got a signal,” Michael exclaimed excitedly.

“Hello, what’s the emergency?” the operator asked.

“Hello, this is Michael. We believe we have a broken leg, and she can’t do anything, not even…hello? Hello? Great. Lost signal and…wait. Oh brother. My phone died.”

“So did mine,” Mcayla admitted. “Jerrin?” Courtney asked.

“Dead.”

“Courtney?”

“I have one bar left, but I want to save it for an emergency.”

Everyone looks at Courtney in unbelief that she would say such a thing.

“Courtney, use your phone now. This is an emergency,” Mcayla argued. Courtney rolls her eyes and looks at her phone. “Oh bother, I don’t have 911 on my speed dial.”

“COURTNEY!” everyone yelled.

“Fine, fine, fine.” She rolled her eyes again then dialed 911.

“Hello, what’s your emergency?”

“Yeah, my sister’s hurt. My phone is going to die. So, you better hurry up, cause I need this for an emergency.”

“This isn’t an emergency young lady?” the operator asked.

“I don’t believe so, but…hello? Hello?”

“Great…now they don’t think it’s an emergency. Thanks Court,” Mcayla complained.

Michael glared at Courtney then walked over to Mcayla. When he was at her side, he squatted down beside her.

“Are you okay? Do you feel dizzy or anything?” He asked concerned.

“I’m fine. I just need to calm down like you said. But how did you know what to do in a case like this? Not calling 911, but with the breathing, calming down and stuff. It’s usually a woman that knows all that info.”

“So you’re calling me a girl now?” Michal joked.

“No, no, no. I was just saying that it is unusual for a guy to know even the basics. I guess you could just call yourself unique.”

“I like that word,” Michael admitted. Mcayla started to smile with him. Then after about 5 sec. Courtney realized that they were starting to look at each other in a way, Mcayla never looked at someone before. A Way of Love, Courtney called it. Courtney’s eyebrows raised. She was very confused. She thought that Mcayla told her she would never fall in love with someone, and just help others.

“Now that Mcayla is falling in love, means that she’ll probably let me fall in love now,” Courtney thought to herself. So she started to stare at Jerrin in a loving way. When Jerrin looked over at her he blushes, and then looked the other way. Courtney just smiled and then looked back at the other two love birds.

Out of nowhere they heard a small sound,

“Ring roo…ring roo.” They look everywhere for to see what was making that noise. They looked down, and saw a small ambulance; as small as a thumb.

“Are one of you the one with the broken leg?” They all looked at each other thinking,

“This is the ambulance we called?”

 “Yes, I am the one,” Mcayla answered tired of hurting.

“Alright everyone in formation.” All the little people got out of the ambulance and went straight for Mcayla’s leg. Six of them went to Mcayla’s shoulders, three on her right side, and three on her left.

“Lay down please,” they asked her. Once Mcayla was down, the 6 on her shoulders gave her some medicine. When she was asleep, the people down at her leg started to work.

When Mcayla woke up she saw that Jerrin and Courtney weren’t there, but Michael was looking over her when she opened her eyes. When she came to full conciousness, and realized how Michael was staring at her, she started to blush. She sat up embarrassed and asked,

“Where did the little people go? Are they done? What are they going to do with--” she looks down at her leg and sees that she doesn’t have a cast on it. “I thought when a bone gets broken, you are supposed to put a cast on it.”

“Well,” Michael began. “They somehow completely healed it. Try moving it.” Mcayla tried, and there wasn’t any pain.  She was able to touch it, move it and walk on it.

“Wow! There’s no pain whatsoever! Wait a second, where is Courtney and Jerrin?”

“Oh yeah, they went out to walk with the little people back to their hospital to pay the bill.”

“But Courtney doesn’t have any money, and neither do I.”

 “That’s okay, Jerrin and I have money, we’ll pay for it.”

“Okay, then I’ll give you the money when we---”

“No. We are paying for it.”

“But---”

“No buts, ifs or what’s about it. We are paying.”

“Alright, thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Michael looked up ahead and asked her, “When we do get back to our houses, would you like to get together sometime?”

“Sure, I’d love to,” Mcayla answered excitedly. When she agreed, Michael looked down at her softly smiling. Mcayla’s face turned a soft pink, and realized he wanted to be a little more than just friends. She didn’t know what to do, so she just looked the other way blushing.

“What’s wrong?” Michael asked confused. Mcayla looked back quickly.

“Nothing, I…I…I just like the view, that’s all. It’s beautiful.”

“You can’t pull that one on me Mcayla. It’s a desert.” Mcayla gave him a cheesy smile as Michael just looked at her even more with puppy eyes.

“I don’t get pulled in with puppy eyes Michael. So don’t even try it.” Michael was shocked. Every girl fell to their knees in high school whenever he pulled that trick.

Michael didn’t know what to do anymore. He was disappointed, but decided he would try again later. He did a soft sigh, then sat next to her and started a conversation about their interests.

About fifteen minutes later, they see two people coming towards them. It was Jerrin and Courtney. Once they got really close, they saw two little people walking with them; they were helping them find their way back to Mcayla and Michael. Courtney told Mcayla,

“I asked them if they had seen a forest anywhere close, but they said I was crazy. But the hospital is actually not that far from here. We just got a little busy talking, and finding out what to do incase we had another incident.” Jerrin rolled his eyes.

“Right…Courtney’s the only one that got busy talking.”

“Yeah right,” Courtney corrected. “You’re the one that held us up. You kept talking and talking, longer than I did. I admit, I talk forever, but you talked even longer.”

“Alright, that’s enough. We don’t need any more problems,” Mcayla argued. Jerrin and Courtney just rolled their eyes.

“Fine,” Jerrin and Courtney said. Mcayla told them,

Courtney started whining, “Now what do we do?! We’re stuck out here in the desert!”

“Stop your complaining,” Mcayla commanded. “I can’t concentrate with your blabbering. So zip it.” Mcayla started pacing while everyone else thought quietly to themselves. “Maybe it really is hopeless.” Mcayla stood up and stared at her cell phone. “Our phones are dead, and no one seems to know about the forest out here.” Jerrin walked over to Mcayla as he put his hand on her shoulder and assured,

“I’m sure we’ll find a way out of here, for where there’s a will, there’s a way.” Everyone smiled at each other, then sat down. Once everyone was sitting, Jerrin whispers in a concerned voice, “stay extremely still. Don’t move a muscle.” Both girls looked behind them with sweat rising from their brows. Right behind them was a quarreled rattle snake. Mcayla looked at it closely, without getting too close. As she looked at it, she took out a pencil from her pocket and poked it softly to see if it would strike.

“It’s asleep. Everyone needs to back off very slowly, and be very quiet.”

“How do you know it’s asleep?” Courtney beckoned.

“Because it is laying very still, and I just poked it with my pencil. But it is coiled up, so you can never be sure. They don’t have eyelids. They have these special type of eyes that lets them fall asleep with their eyes open. Well, to us they are open,but to the snakes they are closed. The only reason you see the snakes eyes open, is because they always are open. But they are protected by immobile, transparent scales.”

“What are transparent scales?” Jerrin asked.

“Lets move away from the snake, then I’ll tell you.” So they started walking the opposite way of the snake for about five minutes, just to make sure they were far enough away from the snake. Once they were far enough away from the snake Mcayla told explained,

 “Transparent means that it is capable of transmitting the light so that objects or images, is able to be seen as if there was no intervening material. And then you should probably know what scales are, but I’ll tell you anyways. Scales are one of many small plate like dermal, or epidermal structures. They characteristically form the external covering of all sorts of fish, reptiles, and certain mammals, which there aren’t many of.”

“Wow, how do you know so much?” Jerrin beckoned.

“Because I study all the animals in the forest. And there are snakes in the forest after all, just different kinds; but that doesn’t make them a different type of reptile.”

“That’s amazing,” Michael admitted. “How long did it take you to learn all the information about the forest and animals? Plus memorizing?”

“One animal with all their information took about a month, and with how many animals there are, that took a long time. Then I did the same for the plants. I don’t really know how long those took, but I do know that it took a really long time.”

“Amazing,” Michael and Jerrin whispered.

“You know what is really amazing?” Courtney asked trying to get attention. “I remember all the names of the animals, and plants.”

“That’s pretty amazing,” the boys admitted.

“I know I couldn’t do that,” Jerrin said.

 “Can you remember all the information too?” Michal asked.

“Well, uh… what’s so important about it anyways?” Courtney tried to brew away from Mcayla’s ability. 

Mcayla looked at Courtney in a smirky smile. The smile of nice joke, now back off. Courtney replied with a death stare.

“Sorry,” Courtney apologized. “It’s just that…Mcayla, plug your ears.” Mcayla did just that, but partway opened them. Courtney continued on, “Mcayla is much more mature, and she makes it seem like memorizing is so easy, and when I tried, I just couldn’t do it. She is much better at things than I am.”

“Did you practice as much as she did?” Michael asked her.

“Well, I…” Courtney bowed her head. “Not really.” She looks up and her face looks like it is about to explode. “But what does practicing do anyways? Mcayla doesn’t practice. Every time I see her, all she does is look over one page of her book every day for weeks. And then she closes her eyes, and when she isn’t looking I look at her book.”

 “Well,” Michael taught. “Mcayla was practicing. She looked over the exact same stuff every day. Also, if you want to learn something, you have to practice; otherwise you won’t really be able to remember all of it. You may be able to memorize one word, but you will never remember all the things you wanted to learn. That is why Mcayla is so good.” Courtney rolled her eyes.

“We’re done Mcayla,” Courtney said. She removed her hands from her ears. Courtney looked at her. Mcayla started walking toward her, took her hands and told her,

“If you just told me that you wanted to learn my material, you should’ve just asked me to help you. Maybe you would’ve caught up to me, while I was still studying.” They gave each other a warm, giving hug.

“Let’s go see the Eifel tower,” Jerrin joked thinking anything is possible, since the two girls are getting along so easily. The girls looked confused as they broke apart their hug.

“He’s just joking since you two are getting along so easily.” Michael explained. The girls put their hands on their hips, and shook their heads. Jerrin put his hands on his cheeks and cried out in sarcasm,

“Oh no! I’m in trouble! Help me! Two girls are going to slay me! Oh no!” They all laughed.

“Jerrin’s ticklish,” Michael lipped to the girls. They got one of those evil smiles starting to grow onto their faces. Then, they start whispering into each other’s ears. Once Jerrin stopped his blabbering, the girls had on their revenge smile.

 “You know what? Two girls really are going to slay you,” Courtney admitted with a little giggle in between her words. Jerrin’s eyebrows raised.

“Oh are you now? With what?”

“Like we’d tell you,” Courtney said. Courtney started to back up, and Mcayla walked to the side of Jerrin. Jerrin just stood here thinking he was untouchable. He thought to himself,

“These girls are ridiculous. Go ahead, try to tare me down.”

Courtney was about 10 feet from him while Mcayla was about a foot away from him. All of a sudden, Courtney started running towards him, with a big happy smile across her face. Mcayla just started walking, with that little smirk on her face. BAM. Jerrin fell to the floor laughing his head off, while Mcayla held him down and Courtney tickled him.

 “Alright, alright, you had your fun,” Michael announced. “But it’s not over yet.” Everyone looked confused.

“Because it’s my turn.” Jerrin got real scared. Things were about to get tricky.

“Michal went to Mcayla’s ear and told her to go behind Jerrin, and pin his shoulders down. Then he went to Courtney and whispered in her ear to pin down his feet. The girls smiled as they went to their places.

“Oh great,” Jerrin thought. When the girls were at their places, they didn’t pin him down quite yet. Jerrin asked,

“What are you guys doing?”

Don’t worry,” Michal started.   

Then, out of nowhere, Michal yells,

“NOW!” At that time, Jerrin was sitting up so, Mcayla pushes him down while Courtney held his feet, practically sitting on them. Right after he was pinned down, Michal bounced to the right side of him, and started tickling with all his might, while the girls keeping him down. (At least trying.) He tickled in all of his most ticklish spots.

After about 2 minuets of tickling him, Michael and Jerrin got up with laughter in their throat. Mcayla and Courtney stood up from their positions and went over to the boys laughing. When the girls got to the boys they overheard them talking about staying here over night, since the sun was already setting. They all made a nice shady place for them to sleep under their umbrellas. It made a pretty good place to stay over night. They all fell asleep very quickly, except for Mcayla. She was still shocked that such little people were able to fix such a big leg, and not even a cast was needed. About an hour after thinking it over and over, she finally thought herself to sleep.