DAY ONE

Meg's Journal

I'm very scared. Somehow I ended up in the middle of a jungle, I'm all alone, and my dress is too heavy for all this heat, and it's really humid and musty. I lost one of my shoes a ways back, and I just stopped to take the other off, and I'm going along in stocking, dirty feet. It's terrible. I need help! All these animals are chirping around me and I don't like it. Strange things I've never seen before have crossed my path, and I'm literally shaking in my boots. Well, shaking in my nylons, at least. My dress is ripped, my hair is standing on end, and I'm having the worst day of my life. I just want somebody to find me!

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Meg tromped along through the brush, stumbling and climbing over gigantic plants she didn't know the names of. Her feet were killing her, and she frantically searched for anybody. Dread overcame her as she realized that she was hopelessly lost, and hungry at that. She decided to take a rest against a tree that stood at the top of a steep hill. Meg groaned and rubbed her feet, blowing her hair out of her face. Sitting against the wide trunk, she came to thinking about how her life couldn't get any worse.

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I had to stop after a long time of my terrified wandering. I didn't know how I'd ever get out of there. I had gone so far already, and it seemed as if I hadn't walked ten feet. The jungle just went on and on forever, and there was no escaping it. When I'd finally given up and chosen a tree to support me, I didn't know what horrors laid in store. I had completely underestimated this jungle. It could get worse; and it did get much worse.

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Meg felt a slight tickling on her arm. When she looked to see what it was, she saw the biggest spider she'd ever laid eyes on; even bigger than the spider she'd seen a couple weeks earlier when rummaging around an old prop room in the third cellar.

For a few moments, she froze in terror, but she suddenly snapped out of it, screaming bloody murder and shaking her arm violently to get the bug off of her. The spider, which she later found out to be a tarantula, fell off her arm and onto its back, squirming its legs around for a few seconds before toppling back onto its belly and scuttling off across the forest floor.

Meg leapt back to see where it had gone to, overbalanced, and fell backwards into a very smelly flower. She recoiled and tried to get to her feet, but slipped on her dress and went tumbling headfirst down the hill. She shrieked and flailed, trying to stop herself from tumbling, but to no avail could she seize to roll on such a steep slope.

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I was having awful luck, one bad thing leading right to another. A spider snuck up on me, surprised me, and when I finally got it off I fell into this really putrid flower. My dress caught under my feet when I tried to stand again and I fell down a hill to my death, I thought. I was at a climatically horrified state as I was going down that hill, because I couldn't stop myself and I had no idea where it would take me. I hadn't thought to look into the valley beyond when I was resting safely by the tree.

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Meg abruptly stopped rolling when she rolled her way straight into a pond. She fell with a kerplunk! and it took her a while to untangle herself from around her billowing dress to come up for air. When she broke the surface, she spat out a mouthful of water, screamed again, climbed out of the pond ungracefully and burst into tears. She tucked her knees up to her chin and sobbed loudly and pitifully, not caring about the way she was behaving because there was nobody around to tell her to act like a lady.

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I wept for a long while after that hill. I just couldn't take any more, and I had lost hope, entirely. I'm a ballerina! I'm not an explorer! The wilderness and I clash, and I can't even handle being alone in the wood in my backyard, let alone a big, unfamiliar jungle. I was sick of it, and I was scared and tired and lonely and hurt. I wished more than ever for a city, to be back in Paris, where there were no tarantulas. As if a part of my wish had come true, I heard the scream of not some ugly, too-big, bizarre animal, but of a man. A human male. I instantly regained my composure to go find out where it had come from.

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Meg heard the loud shout of surprise of someone she didn't know, who was actually Erik and had just discovered the sloth on the end of his branch. She didn't care who it was at the time, though, and was only relieved to know that there was somebody else out there. By the sound of that scream (and Meg was good with screams) it seemed to her to have come from about a mile to her left. She immediately stopped crying and wiped her eyes while hurrying to get up. She ripped her dress in her excitement, and decided to tear the longer hanging skirts off, completely.

"Wait!" Meg cried as she started to run in the direction of the voice. "Can you hear me? Stay where you are, let me find you!" She hopped on one foot as her stockings were falling down, and she tore one off, then the other. She ran barefoot in capri-length nylons that had numerous runs from her recent adventure through the forest, and burst through the trees with a hopeful heart.

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I do believe that I was running very quickly through the deep jungle, for I had at one point believed that I was the only person there. Knowing that I wasn't, and knowing I wasn't mistaken in hearing the sound of a person screaming (for I am good with screams), I continued swiftly on. I was unfaltering and not at all winded, even though I was sprinting quite fast, and I thanked my dance years for that. But as luck would have it, mine ran out as fast as I was going...

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Everything around Meg was a blur, so she was unsuspecting when she crashed headlong into something that had moved into her way. She didn't know it, but when she knocked the creature off its feet, it hit its head on the ground and became very dizzy and irritated.

"Whoa!" Meg shrieked, somersaulting a few times and stopping suddenly when she hit a rock. She immediately glanced frightfully around for the thing she'd bumped into and came face to face with a pair of enormous eyes and a broad beak. She screamed again and leapt over the rock for protection, huddling up and whimpering.

The bird, which it most definitely was, angrily stepped around the rock and screeched at Meg with a powerful voice that echoed among the trees. Meg covered her ears and began to scream and cry again. She knew for sure this bird would eat her. What she didn't know was that this was an ostrich, and if she'd known anything about ostriches, she'd know they only eat bugs and plants and stuff. The only thing she knew, was that this thing was huge and angry.

"Don't hurt me, please!" she sobbed. The bird pecked at her dress and she screamed some more.

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I had an encounter with a bird that seemed to come from the dinosaur age, and I was sure it was. As far as I knew, there might have been dinosaurs lurking in the bushes, just waiting to chomp me in one bite. This place is definitely big enough. Anyway, I think the bird tried to attack me while I panicked, praying for my life and hoping it would just go away. But I soon discovered that I could take matters into my own hands. Literally.

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Meg sniffled and breathed heavily in fright as the ostrich kept biting at her dress. She eyed it strategically and it ignored her for the most part. Meg decided that when the bird was open to attack, she would try to strangle it by the long, thin neck. It was her only hope of escape. Her chance came when the ostrich lifted it's head to see over the rock at a noise it had heard, and she shot her arms out in front of her, grabbing the ostrich's neck in both hands and holding tightly.

The bird went ballistic and struggled powerfully, beating its wings and stomping its feet in protest. It began emanating choking squawks, but Meg hung on until she felt its disgustingly sinewy neck skin wiggle around its throat, and she had to let go in revulsion.

Meg jumped up and ran for her life, with no idea that an ostrich can easily outrun a human. Once she discovered that the bird was chasing her, she jumped a few feet in the air, screamed yet another time, and doubled her pace, the ostrich right at her feet. She felt the animal's breath on her neck as she bolted across the forest, and she knew the only way she could get it away from her was to somehow trick it.

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I began to strangle the bird, but its neck was so nasty and strange that I had to let go and decide to run for it. I had no idea that the creature would follow me, and you would not believe how scared I was at that moment when the thing decided to chase me. I just kept running and screaming that I hated the jungle for all it was and all the animals it contained. I got a bright idea, though, and it probably saved my life, just then.

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Meg halted, spun around on her toes and threw her foot out in front of the ostrich. The bird, with its knobbly, gangly legs, tripped and tumbled into the nearest fern. Meg cackled maniacally and hurried off in the direction of the voice she'd heard.

She ran a few yards more and finally came to a clearing where she saw a thing on a stick and a man sprawled across the ground. She assumed it was he who made the scream, and she dashed into the middle of the muddy grass to stir him.

Meg knelt next to the boy and turned his face up to see who he was, and she was surprised to find that it was Raoul.

"Monsieur le Vicomte," Meg said both to herself, in surprise, and to him, shaking him gently. "Wake up! I heard you, and you must help me find my way out of here." She shook him again, and he groaned and opened his eyes. "Monsieur," Meg addressed him. "What has happened to you?"

"Eh…drugs, I think…" he grumbled, sitting up with effort. Meg steadied him with a hand on his back and peered fearfully into his eyes.

"Do you know why we are here?" she asked him.

Raoul slowly turned his head to the right, then to the left, up at the sky, then back to Meg. He immediately burst into tears.

"I'll take that as a no," she muttered under her breath. Raoul continued to cry. "Monsieur… do pull yourself together," she said loudly to him. "If you had any idea of what I've been through…" He ignored her and she sighed, slightly annoyed but comforted by the human contact, at any rate.

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I tripped the bird and hurried the rest of the way toward where I heard the voice, only to stumble upon Monsieur Raoul le Vicomte de Chagny. You could imagine how startled I was to see a Parisian gentleman unconscious in the middle of the jungle, but by then I was exhausted and scarred for life, and I have come to the point where nothing would surprise me in the unlikely fashion since everything I'd been through so far was unbelievable. But there was more bad news.

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The bushes around the clearing rustled and voices could be heard by Meg and Raoul. They both shouted out to whoever it was and waited in anticipation for people to come out of the brush. What they saw emerge was not what they expected.

Several dark and primitive jungle people made their way eagerly out of the bushes. When Meg saw them with their painted faced and poison-tipped spears, she gave a classic scream of fright. Raoul stopped crying and just stared at them in fear.

"Naomba chakula moto haraka!" the leader said, waving his arm over the clearing and glancing at Meg warily. He wiggled a finger around in his ear.

"Sorry," Meg mouthed. A very hot jungle man approached Meg and inspected her.

"Unakwenda wapi?" he asked her. She blushed.

"I don't understand you," Meg said, feeling a bit more comfortable with the strange people.

"Nipatie kinywaji baridi, tafadhali!" the chief said sternly, beckoning the young man Meg had blushed at to come back to him.

"Wait!" Raoul cried as the men turned to leave. They turned back around and glared at him. "Maybe they can help us," Raoul said to Meg. He stood up. "We-" (he waved an arm between himself and Meg) "-are lost." He extended his arms in confusion and looked at the sky as if searching for something.

"Hujambo?" one man in the background asked another, looking generally offended.

"Saa mbili kamili asubuhi. Karibu…" the other responded.

Every jungle man there snapped their heads toward the awkward pair, hungrily.

"Uh oh," Meg mumbled.

"Ninaweza kusema Kiswahili! Nimekasirika!" the chief barked, tromping up to Meg and grabbing her by the arm.

"Hey!" Raoul objected. "Unhand the lady!" The rest of the men pointed their sticks at him. "No way," he muttered under his breath, letting one of the men take him by the collar and lead him away from the clearing behind the chief.

"Help me," Meg cried as the chief began to drag her off into the brush. She searched for the hot jungle person, but couldn't find him, especially since the chief kept yanking her to face the other way.

"I hate this stupid jungle," she whined, giving in and moving with the pack of primitive jungle people.

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We were ambushed by savage men in loincloths and paint, who carried long spears and made us come with them through the jungle. Certainly they were taking us back to their village, but I had no idea what was in store for us. Would they hurt us? Would they put us in a gigantic pot and boil us? I could only hope that by some freak of luck they would make us their gods, but I was already doubting even the slightest chance of that.