The next two days passed as slowly as possible but finally it was Friday. The bus that would be taking everybody to the Challenge place was leaving at five after school. It was particularly hard to convince my parents to let me go but in the end they gave in. I zoned out in school the whole day, so five o'clock came pretty fast compared to the rest of the week. My mom drove me back to school, which was the meeting place before everyone got on the bus.

"I don't see anyone, honey. Are you sure it was today?" She asked.

"Yea. They're probably just inside or something. It's okay. See you later mom." I got out of the car and started to walk towards the building, but my mom still refused to budge. Not wanting to look like the baby who needed her mother to stay and wait to see just incase, I pretended to wave to someone inside after I rounded the corner. Then I turned around and waved her off. I guess she was satisfied with my less than stellar performance because she drove off. I sat there, in the middle of the sidewalk; not knowing what to do, since there was in fact no people anywhere in sight. Then out of nowhere a small gray car came into the parking lot and pulled up in front of me. The window rolled down and Mr. Lewison's head popped out.

"Hey, Anna. I guess you didn't get the message. I tried to call everyone, but the bus people backed out at the last minute so everyone was supposed to meet there. You want me to give you a lift?"

"Uh sure." I got into the car and we sped off.

About an hour later we were on the road in some kind of woodsy area. I sat quietly in the passenger seat and took in all the scents of the car; the vanilla air freshener that hung from the rearview window, Mr. Lewison's pine cologne, and the odd scent of cheap plastic that wafted up from the back seat.

"So just where exactly is this place? In the middle of nowhere?" I asked him. He laughed a bit and looked down at me,

"Yea, something like that. We're almost there though. You can turn on the radio if you want." Not seeing anything else to do, so I did. I flipped the channels until I found a suitable station that was playing the new Madonna song.

"Here we are." He announced as we pulled up to a wood cabin. I got out and looked around.

"Wow, this place is really beautiful." I told him, gazing out at the setting sun. I turned around to see if I could find Claire among the crowd that was gathering near Mr. Lewison's car. I looked at everybody, but I realized that I didn't know one single person.

"Mr. Lewison, who are these people? I don't recognize." I felt a sharp pain in my neck as everything went black.