one of us dared to move. I looked at Irina and Terisa, who were both staring at me. I felt obligated to do something.

"Irina, Terisa, go get Alyssa and Katie, and tell them to bring some type of defense mechanism."

"You can't tell me what to do-"

"Just go!" Terisa rolled her eyes but followed Irina into the cave and out of sight. I turned my head back to the place where Terisa spotted the mysterious person. He was still there, and he seemed to be looking around, to see if anyone was watching him. What if he saw me?! My heart started pounding away somewhere in my throat, and I crossed my fingers that Terisa and the group would be here soon. I suddenly noticed I was breathing quite loudly and tried to breathe softer; the man might notice me if I breathed too loudly. I started thinking about who he could be. Whoever he was, he was breaking the law. Our Middle School district owns this place, no one else is allowed to be here. I felt something on my shoulder. I almost screamed when I whipped my head around to see what it was. Good thing I didn't. It was only Terisa, Irina, Alyssa, and Katie. Our cover would have totally been blown. Katie was carrying the pistol. She handed it to me, with disapproving looks from Terisa. I pretended not to notice. I placed my hand how I'm hopping is the right way on the pistol, and took a deep breath. I walked forward.

CRACK. Oh. No. I had stepped on a twig. They guy's head spun around and looked in our direction. I froze.

"You do know that pistol isn't real, right?" Katie muttered. WHAT?!

"What?" I asked, hoping she wasn't saying what I think she's saying.

"It's my brother's toy. The worst it could do is give you a nasty bruise." God, why does everything have to fail me right now?

"Is anything in it?"

"I put a little rock in their." Well, at least, she's not totally hopeless. I refocused my attention on the guy, who seemed a lot closer than he was a few seconds ago. Oh my God. HE'S ABOUT TO LOOK IN THE BUSHES! I don't know what made me do what I did next. I didn't think about it or anything. But, it was actually pretty impressive. I vaulted over the bushes, holding the toy pistol in front of me, screaming,

"Put your hands up and don't move!" I landed like one of those spies in a high - tech spy movie, with my feet apart and the pistol pointing right at his face. He did indeed put his hands up and didn't move. My friends were right behind me, all striking warrior princess poses. I brush a stray strand of thin, brown hair behind my ear, just for effect.

"Do you actually know how to shoot? You're just girls," the guy says. Uh, no, I think, but I don't say that.

"Yes," I lie. "Uh, once this bad guy broke into my house, and uh, my parents were out or something, and well, I just grabbed my Dad's gun and shot the window next to him and he ran out of the house and yeah." Irina's eyes widened and her eyebrows raised slightly: Good lie!

"Well, um, you're not planning on shooting me, um, are you?" I relaxed a little. Good, this person was buying into our little scheme.

"That depends," I reply, stroking the toy pistol. I want to keep the tension going. It gives me an odd feeling of… control over the situation. "Unless you are planning to attack us, we do not plan to shoot you."

"So, um, who the heck are you?" asked Terisa with a disdainful air. Ugh, she can't stand not being in the limelight for ten seconds! Kind of annoying.

"I'm… Valjean," says Valjean.

"My name is Terisa, and these people are Katie, Alyssa, Irina, and Selina." So now we're standing in awkward silence when I hear a voice.
"Did you guys hear that?" I suddenly asked?

"Hear what?" said Katie, who was quite calm despite being deep into the woods late at night with some sort of criminal. I heard it again, this time it sounded like to voices, talking to each other. They sound as though they belonged to middle - aged men. I looked at Valjean just soon enough to see his face turn gray and dashed into the nearest bush. I was right - he must be a criminal! Then these men must be the police! Waaaaait… I'm still holding a pistol… I throw the pistol into one of the nearby bushes a millisecond before to guys in really old - fashioned police uniforms.

"Did you see a man run by here?" One of them inquires. I glance at Terisa. Do we give Valjean or not? She shrugs. Some help that was.

"No," I say uncertainly. Valjean seems okay, I can't think of a reason to turn him in."

"You seem rather uncertain about that…"

"No. We haven't seen anyone." I answer stubbornly.

"Well than why are you sneaking around here in the woods at night?" I try to lie, but I can't think of anything. I glance at Terisa again. She wanted the spotlight, she gets it. Okay, Terisa, let's see what you got. She just stands there with her mouth open for a few seconds, when Alyssa saves the day and says,

"Does it matter? This is OUR private property! And YOU'RE trespassing! That's against the law. You do know that, don't you?" Wow Alyssa. She's always been sort of quiet, I didn't know she had that in her. So much for stealing the show, Terisa. Well, this really ticked this one guy off.

"Of course I know! I'm a police inspector! Back to the question! Have you seen a fugitive running around here!"

"No!" I shout.

"Fine!" He spat. "If you see him, report to me immediately!" I consider rolling my eyes, but that would probably just tick him off even more.

"Okay," I reply. He and the other person walk away. After a few seconds, Valjean emerges from the bush.

"Who was that guy?" I ask him.

"Whoever he was, he's extremely rude," added Irina, who has been silent for some time now.

"His name is Javert," began Valjean, "and he's after me."

"Are you going to tell us why?" said Terisa, who was back to her disdainful air.

"I stole some bread," he muttered. Terisa was about to give a lecture on that, I could tell. I gave her a look. She looked daggers right back at me, but didn't say anything. I can't come up with anything else to say.

"Well, we're not going to report you," said Katie, breaking the awkward silence.

"We're not?" Terisa tossed her hair over her shoulder. God, sometimes she is such an airhead. Why the heck is she on Valjean's case like this?

"No, we're not," confirmed Irina. Terisa glared at Irina but didn't object.

"Thanks," said Valjean. Once again, I could come up with nothing to say. I glance up at the moon. I'd say it's about 3:30. We should probably head back soon. I was about to say so when Valjean asked,

"Why is that girl dressed up like a dog?"

"Oh," began Irina, "we were on our way to another campsite to steal their marshmallows when we ran into you. This is a disguise." I couldn't help it, I rolled my eyes.

"Okay…" replied Valjean, who evidently thought that action was a little strange.

"Okay, so, I think it's getting kind of early, we should probably head back if we don't want detention," I pipped up.

"Yeah," agreed Terisa, who hasn't spoken for some time. "We'll be going now." Valjean looks upset.

"But we can come back!" I say, not wanting this adventure to end just yet. "We leave in a few days, but we can come back tomorrow at like, midnight."

"We will?" said Terisa exasperatedly. "I'm not sure I want to…"

"Well, if you don't want to sneak off into the woods with us and have adventures, that's fine with me," I replied.

"Fine, I'll go, but it had better not be a total waste of my time."

"We can bring some other people, too!" squealed Alyssa. She's very social.

"I'm not sure if that's a good idea," I began to reason, but Irina interrupted,

"We can ask Alex to come along." My stomach lurches. I picture myself, only much cuter, running through the woods at sunset, Alex close behind me. We jump over a rock and slide down a steep hill when we come to the edge of a cliff. We are overlooking an ocean of trees, with a flaming sun setting behind them. I look at Alex and he looks at me. His hands are around my waist, mine are on his shoulders, he's getting closer and closer…

"Well?" Irina wakes me from my perfect romance.

"Huh? Oh, uh sure!" I reply.

"One question," Terisa begins. Oh no. I can tell from her tone of voice she's going to say something really offensive. I'm about to stop her when she says, "Where are you from, the 19th century? What the he-"

"Terisa, shut up," I snap. She is NOT going to mess this up with her airheadedness. Is that even a word? Valjean looks mildly surprised.

"Actually, it is the 19th century. It's 1805, I think." What. The. HECK?!

"Say that again," I say slowly, just to make sure I didn't misunderstand Valjean.

"It's 1805," he replied questioningly, thinking we were psycho or something. We all stared at each other. 1805?! This couldn't be happening. This wasn't happening. How the heck?!

"That cave," I said, having no idea where this sentence was going. "What if the cave was a time portal or something?" It seemed absurd when I said it, but then, why couldn't it be true? This entire night was impossible on it's own! A little magic would only be a slight stretch.

"What the heck? Uh no, that did NOT happen," contradicted Terisa. "That's like, impossible."

"Actually, I think Selina might be right," Katie chimed in.

"WHAT?!" screamed Terisa.

"Yeah. Remember when the light went out? That must be because we were in an inter - time zone!"

"Wait. What's going on?" said Valjean. We had all forgotten he was there.

"Oh, uh," I say, a little flustered, "well, um, where we come from, it's 2015." Now it's his turn to be surprised.

"2015?!"

"Yes, yes, we've had this conversation, we have traveled back into the past, time travel is real, bla bla bla," provided Terisa in a superior air.

"Wow."

"Yup." Alyssa looked down at her watch and screamed.

"GUYS! It's 6:30! We need to go back, like, NOW!"

"Now you tell us you have a watch!" I retort, annoyed yet scared. "She's right, we have to go NOW if we want to be alive tomorrow."

"Okay, um, can you come back at midnight tomorrow?" Valjean asks. I wonder why he cares, but now doesn't seem like the time to ask.

"Sure," I confirmed. "Now we really have to go. We'll see you later!" The girls and I dashed back into the woods, sprinted through the cave, down the hill and into the tent, where we lept into our sleeping bags and pretended to be asleep.

Not ten minutes later did our teacher come into our tent and wake us for breakfast. Talk about cutting it close!