My name is Harper Crown and today is my best friends Tina Pink's birthday. She is turning fifteen and ever since she was little she has always wanted to spend her fifteenth birthday in New York City. She watched this movie about a fifteen-year-old girl who goes to New York and finds her soul mate. Her great grandmother gave it to her. They both love romance. So here we are prepared to spend the whole weekend in N.Y.C.
I have been here plenty of times. In fact I lived here for the first 2 years of my life. So I know all of the cool places to go. Tina on the other hand has never been here before but she did look up all of the exciting shops and fancy restaurants so she knows some stuff.
We both wrote a list of places we wanted to go to. I put down almost all of the museums and of course the Empire State building and the Statue of Liberty. None of my places were on her list. I guess the places I want to go aren't as cool to the rest of society as they are to me. Tina, being the birthday girl, gets the final word to where we go so we aren't going to most of the places on my list. But she did agree to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art because they are having a special exhibit with medieval art from London. Tina loves history especially medieval Europe.
That is where we are headed to right now. She figured if we start at a place made to educate then the trip could only get better.
"Here we are" says the Taxi driver as he takes the money from Tina's mom.
I had suggested that we walk because walking is part of the NYC experience but Tina disagreed by claiming that it is to far to walk in her new high heels.
The museum is just how I remember it; a huge building with columns in the front, each one with a different banner showing what new exhibits they have inside.
After I take it all in I realize that Tina and her mom have started walking towards the entrance already. I run to catch up.
We head straight for the medieval art section because, according to Tina, that is the only reason why we are here so we don't need to see anything else. You got to love my best friend!
Our friendship is weird. We are similar in some ways then polar opposites in others. We balance each other out.
Anyway, it doesn't take us long to find part of the museum because it is a huge room with a giant sign in front of it that says "Medieval Art".
I don't really enjoy this period of art. The colors are cool and everything but I like looking at scenery. My favorite art is photography, not so much this, but Tina seems to be enjoying herself. She has found a chest of dresses that you can try on. They are supposed to be like the ones in London a long time ago.
"Harper we have to try these on. Mom can you take a picture of us in them?"
"Of course girls. It looks like there is are changing rooms over there."
I walk over to the chest and Tina is looking through all of them trying to find the prettiest one. Once she is done I chose the one on the top and we each go into a stall.
The dresses are so hard to put on. First of all I don't understand how anyone would have fit this over their body. Second of all, now that I have it somewhat on, how am I supposed to close the back? It looks like someone has to tie it. Why did dresses have to be such a trouble back then?
"I may need help tying the back of this," I say to Tina.
"I will help once I'm done buttoning the back of mine."
"Yours has buttons?" I can't believe hers has buttons and I ended up with one that has to be tied. Maybe I should have searched around for the perfect dress like her, or at least one that has a perfect back.
"I'm coming in Harper," says Tina as she opens the curtain. She comes in and starts to tie. As usual she looks she looks amazing. Tina is very tall and has straight, light, brown hair that flows just beneath her shoulders. Our appearances are some of the things that make us different because I am short and I have very curly, long, dirty blonde hair.
The dress she is wearing is a light purple with a white clear cloth that covers part of the purple. My dress is royal blue with a dark swirly pattern.
Tina says, "done!" and suddenly there is a flash of light.
"What was that?" I ask, as if Tina would know.
"Maybe it was just my mom taking a picture with the flash on."
"In a fully lit room?"
"Maybe she forgot to turn it out." I don't believe that's the case and it looks like neither doesn't Tina. We open the curtain to find Tina's mom to get our picture taken but there is no museum room and Tina's mom is nowhere to be seen. Tina screams.
"Where are we?" she cries as she grabs my arm and hides behind me, which is kind of difficult for her because she is a head taller than me.
I turn back looking for the changing room hoping that if we went back inside and changed back everything would be normal again but there was no changing room. All I see was a forest that surrounded the clearing that Tina and I are in. There is one path leading into the part of the forest that is not as dense as the rest. I think I can even see some sort of town.
"We should try and find some people maybe they can help us or they can at least tell us where we are." I say trying to reassure myself. Tina just nods.
I wonder where we are. I'm trying not to freak out because Tina is doing enough of that for the both of us. She is breathing really heavily and she is squeezing my arm extremely hard, so hard that I can feel my pulse. There is probably… hopefully… a perfectly good explain for this.
We walk down the path and soon reach a town. Something is not right because everyone is dressed in outfits like Tina and I, so old. The houses are all small and made of wood. The roads are dirt and the only type of transportation I can see are horses.
I laugh nervously and say, "this must be one of those places where they have a bunch of old houses to look around and people who dress up and ride horses to give you the feel that you are in the past."
"Yeah… I mean what else could it be? Right?"
I go up to a woman and ask her where we are. Apparently we are in Maclote. I have no idea where that is so I have to ask her where Maclote is.
"It is in Great Britain of course!" the woman gives me a funny look and walks away. I'm pretty sure that Great Britain is now called England and no one calls it Great Britain anymore. I go over to a boy who is playing around in the dirt with a toy horse and ask him what year it is.
"It is 512 AD." When I hear this I let out a squeal and look at Tina. She looks like she is going to faint.