Disclaimer: The characters you recognize from Ella Enchanted are not mine, duh; they all belong to the wonderful lady, Gail Carson Levine who wrote Ella. Other than that, it's all mine, hehe. The Change belongs to Steven Curtis Chapman. The Battle of the King belongs to me though. I know its lame, but it's the best I could do. I'm not very good at writing songs or poetry, hehe. If you have any ideas to replace it (just about anything that she might know), PLEASE email me!!

I updated this so that now this is ONLY Chapter Three and Chapter Four is seperate.

A/N: Thank you so much to all my wonderful reviewers! I never thought I could get 8 reviews in one day! I promise I'll update as often as I can. I'll try to write at least one short chapter per day, but I tend to make them longer than most and I'm writing an original version (not Ella Enchanted related) of this, and I have to write completely different chapters every time, so it may take a bit longer. But keep reviewing and I promise I'll keep updating (this is too fun a story to write to stop anyways, lol)!

Chapter Three: Friends

"Come on, let's go down and see what Mum thinks." Kaetlin grabbed my hand and hauled me out the door and back down the stairs again.

"Mum!?" Kaetlin hollered in no obvious direction.

"Kitchen!" Came a call from the right. Kaetlin dragged me towards it.

We entered the room to see Shean talking on a tube thing and their mother sitting at a table with paper spread out around her. She sighed.

"Bills, dear. Sorry, not now."

"No, Mum, I didn't come down to ask anything. Look. Well, what do ya think?"

I felt like I was on display, but I smiled shyly. Their mother raised both eyebrows.

"Well, that's certainly an improvement... what did you say your name was again, dear?"

"Avalla, but please, call me Val, ma'am."

The older woman smiled. "Then you must call me Sylva." I nodded.

Just then, Shean put the tube-thingy onto a... thing (I didn't know what it was called) and turned to look at us. He whistled.

"Wow, Kaet, you sure can turn people around in a hurry."

I creased my brows, not sure if it was a compliment or not. Kaetlin smiled and blushed slightly.

"Thanks, Shean." Probably a compliment, then, if she said thanks.

"So, where do you live, dear?" Sylva asked.

"Kyrria."

"And where is that?"

"Um... it's near Bast."

Sylva's forehead wrinkled. "Bast? Where's that?"

"Well, it's beside... oh, never mind. I don't know. I'm starting to think I'm in the wrong world." As I said the words, it hit me. I probably wasn't!

Now it all made sense! The door, falling, Shean saying they lived in 'Washington'... wherever that was. I had left the world where Kyrria existed and entered another!

"Oh, you poor dear! You don't even know where your home is. Did you get taken here?"

"Um... yes. Yes, I did." Well, it was the truth... sort of. I had sort of taken myself here, but she never asked if I had been taken by someone else.

"You must miss your family terribly."

I nodded and started feeling my nose tingle, which always means I'm going to cry. I've always prided myself on being a rather good actress, and I could make myself cry on command. I started letting the tears run down my cheeks and didn't bother brushing them away because it heightened the effect.

"I miss my mother, and I miss my father, and I miss our cook, and all my friends!" Not that I had many. "And all of my pets and I'm lost and I don't know how to get home!" I sobbed, hoping that this would work. If it didn't, I had no idea what I would do for the three years it was supposed to take till I could get home.

"Oh, poor lovey!" Sylva gathered me into her arms and I kept crying as Kaetlin and Shean stared. I was really getting into it now, but now a few tears were real.

"Um, Mum?" Kaetlin asked hesitantly. Sylva looked up as Kaetlin continued. "Um, what if Val stays with us?" I stopped crying and brushed my tears away as I quickly stood up.

Sylva bit her lower lip as she considered the idea. "But Kaety, that's quite different from picking up a stray cat or dog every once in a while." I got the impression that Shean and Kaet had done this more than a couple times. "We can't just find another home for a teenage girl!" I easily pulled my face into a hopeful expression and looked up at Sylva. I wouldn't mind living with the O'Connors at all if I could. The two kids and Sylva seemed very nice and I was willing to bet that Mr. O'Connor was nice, too.

Sylva still looked hesitant and I started letting my eyes fill again as I looked at her. She sighed. "Oh, its so hard to say no to three pitiful faces. I'll have to talk to your father." She directed this last bit at Shean and Kaetlin as she gathered up the papers and left the room.

I looked up at Shean and Kaetlin to see them grinning. I hadn't realized that Shean was getting in on the act too, but I was glad he had.

"Thanks, Shean!" Kaetlin gave him a little hug and a big grin. He shrugged.

"Heck, what are big brothers for? Besides, I always wanted another little sister to torture." He gave us what must have been supposed to be an 'evil' grin, but it looked too lopsided to look sinister. We both laughed.

"Oh, I think we can convince Dad that it won't be much different than the exchange students we have every year, but I doubt you'll be able to terrorize Val like you do me. She's not a wimp like me." They both grinned at each other and I guessed that this was a little joke between them and they were really rather nice to each other (for a brother and sister). Shean turned his 'evil' grin to me.

"Oh, she looks too little to be tough." I knew he didn't mean it, but I always got tired of people judging me for my size, even if they were just playing around. "Come on, show me what you're made of, little lady..."

He put up his fists in a mock fighting stance. I gave him a 'nasty' grin.

"Well, you asked for it." I kicked. Both legs. I didn't come even close to hitting him, but he flinched as my foot went as high as his head. He's about seven inches (give or take a few) taller than me, but I could easily reach his head height and still be able to kick maybe an inch or two higher. I also did a front snap kick and a half-decent roundhouse kick to finish it off. I stood in front of him with my hand on my right hip and gazed at him with a cynical smile on my face, silently daring him to challenge me again.

He stared at me, eyes round and I half expected his chin to drop to the floor. Kaetlin grinned.

"See? I told ya!" Shean nodded dumbly.

"Uh, yeah." He gulped. "I, uh, I gotta go!" Kaetlin and I blocked the empty doorway. I grinned at him.

"Oh, come on, I'm not going to bite or anything. I'm not a bully." I said the word with disgust. I hate bullies. "I just hate it when people think I'm a pushover just because I'm little. I'm fifteen and I can hold my own against you or anyone else who's seventeen." I shook my head at myself. "Oops, there I go again. Sorry. Once I get started, I go on a rampage." I gave a little self-disparaging laugh.

Shean gave me a look. "By the way, I'm not seventeen. I'm only fifteen. And Kaet's thirteen."

"Oh, sorry. Well, you look seventeen."

He grinned. "Thanks. So, what are you guys doing tonight?" He asked, sliding into a chair with a sigh. Kaetlin shrugged.

"Oh, not much. I was going to see if the other girls wanted to go to a movie or something." Shean rolled his eyes.

"Do you guys always go to a movie?"

Kaetlin shrugged. "What's the matter with that?"

"Well, you always see a 'romantic' movie or something." He made it sound like a bad thing. I cocked my head. He stared at me. "Romantic movie. You know?" I knew what romantic was, in a sense, but not a movie. I shook my head and he stood up. "I love you, darling. Will you marry me? I love you with my whole heart. Be mine?" He stared at me as he said this and puckered his lips for a kiss. I shook my head vigorously and Kaet laughed again.

"Shean, you're such a nut. You really should be an actor." He grinned and sat back down.

"Confirmed," he said, folding his hand behind his head and propping his feet up on the table with a content grin on his face. I breathed a lot easier when I realized he had only been showing me something. I wasn't sure what it was or what a movie was, but it must be very strange.

He suddenly dropped the feet of his chair back onto the floor. "Hey, why don't you just get the girls over here and I'll get the guys and we can just watch a movie here?"

Kaetlin considered it for a moment, and then smiled. "Sure, that'll work. I'll call them now."

She walked over to the tube-thing that Shean had been talking into earlier. She pressed something on a little box and then held the tube up to her ear.

Shean grabbed my arm and I jumped. I had been watching Kaetlin as she talked into the funny tube.

"Come on," he whispered, "she'll be on there for forever." He rolled his eyes as we walked out of the kitchen. "Girls and their phones!"

A/N: Do you think you know what happens next? Tell me! Since I write this freehand (no outline), I don't know what's going to happen next either. So if you think that so-and-so's going to do this, or this-and-such is going to happen, post it in your review or email me. There's a good enough chance I might put it into the story or rewrite a chapter to include it! So let me know what you think and help write a story!