A/N We wanted to put together two of the most annoying series there are… The famous five and the baby-sitters club. If you like it, tell us and we'll write more. If you don't, don't bother telling us, because unless we get reviews then we won't write more anyway. We need praise and flattery to work (hint hint hint.). Please R/R. Hope u like it! (If you recognise it, we don't own it.)
Stef
Chloe
The dark haired girl scowled violently and wiped off the sweat stinging her face.
"Lighten up, Claud!" exclaimed another girl, with chocolate brown hair swinging out of a baseball cap
"You're the one who likes camping," Stacey McGill, a blue eyed blonde replied shortly, "You and Dawn."
"I don't mind the camping," said Mary Anne Spier, "It's the trek I hate."
Claudia Kishi shrugged and tossed her backpack on the ground and unzipped one of the many pockets.
"Crunchy bar, anyone?" she offered, "Or M&Ms….I have some jellybeans here, too, somewhere…" she pawed through the contents of the bag again.
Dawn Shafer shivered and reached out for her own bag of trail mix. Claudia wrinkled her nose at the offering and unwrapped her Crunch bar.
Jessie Ramsey accepted the offer of trail mix and had two jellybeans- the ballerina wanted to keep in shape. Her best friend, Mallory Pike, took Smarties
"Very appropriate," Jessie told her sardonically, referring to the fact that Mallory had received a scholarship to one of the top private schools in the country.
"Hey guys, are you coming!" yelled Abby, far ahead of them. Kristy frowned slightly when she realised how far ahead Abby was
"Yeah, sure," she called back, and jogged up to meet Abby.
"Let's go, Claud," said Stacey, who couldn't eat the food offered because of her diabetes, "Let's go."
Claudia shouldered her pack and caught up with the others.
***** ~~~~~ ***** ~~~~~ *****
Meanwhile, the clearing that the group of girls were heading for was already occupied. A group of four with a dog. They parked their bikes, checked for any punctures, and Dick fixed his puncture. He always got punctures… it was a sort of joke for the others. Not so funny for him, though. An older boy set up a tent, as a girl with very short, curly hair struggled with another tent. The older boy finished setting up his own tent, and chuckled when he saw the younger girl struggling with hers.
"Need a hand, George, old fellow?" He asked, smiling lightly.
"Ju! I can put up a tent just as easily as you can!" George said, rising to the occasion with a glare and a stomp of her foot.
"I say, old sport, I didn't mean to say that you couldn't! I was just being a gentleman and offering a helping hand!" The boy known as Ju, or Julian said.
"Then yes, please, Ju! Thankyou ever so! I say, aren't these hols going to be fun? Just us, Timmy, and alone in the woods for a whole week! It will be the best!"
"Brill!" Dick put in from over his tire. He stood up, with a smudge of dirt on his face. "There, finished! Now, why don't I help you with that, Ju, and George can go and find Anne. I'm sure she's found some wild berries and flowers already."
"Okay, Dick, thankyou. I'll go." George left, not a trace of her former anger visible on her face. After she left, Dick and Julian quickly finished putting up the tent, and then put waterproof covers over the bikes, just in case it rained. They were always prepared! Then Dick heard voices.
"I say, Ju, do you hear people coming? Do you think they're smugglers?"
Instead, what the boys heard were the sound of American female voices.
"That's the clearing, Kristy. At least, I think so."
"Americans," mumbled Julian. Dick groaned but then brightened
"Maybe they're American smugglers!" What they heard wasn't promising
"Dawn! Is that the clearing?"
"Hold on. Yeah, it is."
"All right. Where's Mary Anne?"
"Is 'Mary Anne' American smuggler code?" asked Dick eagerly
"I dunno. Mary Anne!" yelled a tall blonde girl
"Oh my Lord. MARY ANNE!"
Screams of 'Mary Anne' surrounded them. Meanwhile…
As they walked to the clearing, Mary Anne had noticed a bright splash of wildflowers. She stopped back to look closer, and no-one had noticed. Looking carefully at them, she noticed a patch of bluebells ahead in a patch of green sunlight. One, she saw, was white, although she wasn't certain. Eager to check, she had veered off the path.
The patch she found was large, and it was indeed filled with bluebells. Also, strawberry plants intertwined among them, and a bush of sweet smelling blackberries was to her right.
"Oh I say! Bluebells and strawberries! What a feast!"
Startled at the British accent, Mary Anne lost her balance and found herself sitting in the patch of flowers when the petit blonde girl saw her
"Oh I say! Are you all right?"
"Uh…" Mary Anne stood, embarrassed, "Yeah. Hi."
"Are you camping here?" asked the girl
"Uh…not here exactly, I mean, my friends are up ahead."
"So are mine! Well, Dick and Julian are my brothers, and George's my cousin, really. I went to find flowers and berries. Would you like to help me find some?"
"Uh…" unsure and not very willing, Mary Anne nonetheless agreed.
Anne (that was her name) seemed very well informed about plants. She discovered wild mushrooms which she swore were edible and found a wild rose bush. Everything she found she picked a little of, and soon their arms were filled with scented blossoms and food.
It was then that Mary Anne realised she had forgotten her friends. Panicking, she turned round when she heard a voice say,
"Anne?"
"Yes, George?" That voice was Anne. Mary Anne realised that the caller must be her cousin, George.
"Oh Anne! I was looking for you everywhere, and I couldn't find you, and then Timmy sniffed you and ran off, and, oh Anne, I was lost, and…" she looked really distraught, but Anne said,
"Oh, don't worry George, dear. You're all right now! Look, I've got all these flowers, and there's plenty of strawberries, be a dear and help me take them back! And look, here's Mary Anne, she's here with some friends of hers. You're camping in the clearing, aren't you, Mary Anne? Oh good! Well, we can all go ahead together." And Mary Anne had thought that Kristy talked a lot! Soon, Anne had them all linking hands and walking back together.
As they approached the clearing, there was a ruckus.
"What do you mean, girls shouldn't be camping alone? We are quite capable of taking care of ourselves, thanks! It's the twenty-first century, for crying out loud! Girls don't need boys to look after them all the time!" Mary Anne recognised a classic Kristy tantrum when she saw one. She immediately dropped the bluebells and strawberries (earning a reproachful 'oh!' from Anne), and ran over to Kristy's side. The other members of the BSC were surrounding Kristy, glaring daggers at the boy in the funny shorts and hair-cut.
The boy facing her looked just as stubborn as Kristy did. "Look, I know girls like to think they can look after themselves… look at dear old George… but you just can't. And whatever you mean by 'twenty-first century' is just a load of tosh. You know as well as I do that it's the year 1945! So tell me, who is it that you're travelling with? Your fathers? Because if you've run away… we've had experience with people who've run away, and they always lead us into trouble."
Anne dropped her bundle of flora and ran over to Ju. These girls were dangerous! Whatever were they up to? She noticed with horror that George was walking resolutely over to Kristy's side. It was probably because of the comment about 'girls like to think that they can take care of themselves, but they can't!'
"Oh for God's sake!" cried Kristy, "Look, see my watch?" Julian peered at it, "It says '2002' under date. I mean, that makes it pretty obvious who's insane."
"Your watch has stopped," replied Julian flatly, instinctively glancing at his, "So has mine."
"So has mine," said Mary Anne
"Dick? How about yours?"
"Stopped as well."
"So has mine."
"Mine, too."
"Oh my Lord."
"What does this mean?"
Julian frowned
"The year is 1945 and we're camping in a forest a bit away from Kyrran, a village."
"Uh, no," said Dawn icily, "It's 2002 and we're camping in a forest in the Ozarks."
"See!" exclaimed Dick, "I told you they were smugglers! They are speaking in code!"
George inched away from them a little then. It was Mallory who hit on the idea
"A time warp!"
"A what?" exclaimed both Kristy and Julian together
"A time warp. I read about them in a General Physics class in my school. Certain plate tectonics have high levels of energy and when they meet the high energy causes a warping of time and place that can last for any amount of time- days, weeks, even years."
Julian, Dick, Anne and George looked completely blank and the BSC members just looked confused
"Just accept that that's what happened, okay?" said Mallory, disconcerted
"So where are we?"
"I think we're in…I suppose the best word to use is…Limbo."
It would have been a profound moment, but Anne said "Limbo?" confusedly, clearly ignorant of the word
"A place on the astral plane which can manifest within the physical or corporal world," replied Mallory, as if that explained anything, "A sort of pocket of time and energy in which people can enter but not leave."
Claudia inhaled sharply
"Does that mean we're stuck here…forever?" she whispered.