"Shadi, what did you just do?" Myanh growled.
"Hey! It actually worked, I think," Shadi laughed carelessly, looking around the clearing.
"What the f worked, Shadi?" Miliko hissed menacingly, upset and wondering if she would ever be able to get back to her own house, she had homework to do.
"The spell. You know, Dark Goddess, Great Mother. Well, if it worked, we should be in Tortall." Shadi explained, and then did the unthinkable and giggled. She looked at the shocked expressions on Myanh and Miliko's faces and sobered immediately. Myanh looked fit to kill. "Why you little-" But she never got to finish what she was going to say, as at that moment Miliko started to scream.
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN, WE'RE IN TORTALL! THAT'S A FICTIONAL PLACE, NOT A REAL ONE! WE'RE GOING TO DIE! OH MY GOD, I'M TOO YOUNG TO DIE! MISS PACKER WILL KILL ME! OH MY GOD, WOLVES!" Miliko yelled at the top of her voice, getting louder and louder.
"Personally, I think we have a much bigger problem to worry about. Such as you know, the wolves that re starting to surround us," Shadi said calmly.
Miliko stared at her. "I just said that! You and your-," she huffed, unable to think of an appropriate word and decided to just continue with her sentence "you're going to get us killed! I could have stayed home and reread Lord of the Rings, but NO! I had to agree to go to that stupid riding competition! I hate you!" she exploded.
Myanh turned to see the wolves that Miliko and Shadi were going on about, then her eyes widened. "WE'RE GONNA DIE!!! HEEEELP!" Myanh yelled.
Shadi had a different idea.
"Hey, would there happen to be any sentient beings willing to help us right now? Because we're kind of in a tight spot here," she cried. Miliko felt fire rolling down her arms and pointed at a wolf that looked intent on killing her. A small bolt of a pale yellow flew from her finger to touch the wolf. It screamed, and then collapsed, dead.
"Neat! Can I do that?" Myanh asked. She concentrated, and then screamed. More than half the remaining wolves were surrounded by pale pink flames, consumed instantly, turning to charred bones before Shadi, Miliko and Myanh's eyes. This left only seven. The forest creatures that come and surrounded Shadi after she had called for them attacked. The remaining wolves were pecked, scratched, bitten, stung and torn limb from limb.
"I'm going to have nightmares for years after this," Miliko said faintly.
"Well," Myanh said, sounding extremely calm, completely uncharacteristic for her, likely to scream at the sight of a mouse, let alone wolves being torn apart before her eyes. "At least they didn't touch our bags." Shadi and Miliko stared. They hadn't had any bags with them when they were in the library, but here were five bags per person, with their names on. Miliko looked down, and sighed with relief. "Our clothes aren't ruined. Thank god for that."
Shadi looked down. It was true. Her black T-shirt with 'who's god?' printed on it was not creased, although she had had birds and bats, cats and a dog sitting on her. Her jeans should have been dirty, but they were cleaner than they had been in the library. Her black and silver slip on sneakers looked brand new. As she ran a hand through her hair, she could feel it was still all in place.
It was the same with Myanh's pink strapless top and long red velvet skirt was not mussed her red and white sneakers also looked brand new, her hair still straight down her back, her lip gloss and eye shadow were as perfect as if she had just put it on.
Miliko and her glittery outfit were better than the rest, looking as though she had just bought it. Her hair had purple glitter spray all through it, and was smooth and silky, her eye shadow, lip-gloss and mascara looked fresh, sparkling every time she moved. Her white peasant blouse was the only thing not glittery, and looked perfect. Her dark denim skirt showed no sign of the many washes it had had, looking almost as though it was made of glitter, with a small line of blue glitter stars lining the bottom hem. Her white pumps sparkled, no sign of dirt or grass, the amount of gold glitter only slightly less than it had been that morning.
"Well, that's a blessing," Shadi said sarcastically. "Instead of being eaten by wolves, we're going to be blinded by Miliko's outfit. Such a blessing. As soon as we get home, I'm going to church to praise God."
"Yeah, it is a blessing; do you want to see your favourite people from the books in dirty creased and torn clothing? 'Cause if I remember rightly, this is the place where Tamora Pierce writes about. And by the way you go on and on about her, Kel is your fav character. And, by his description, Neal or Cleon would be my favourite character." Myanh flicked her hair over her shoulder.
Miliko smiled dreamily. "I just love green eyes. Though grey's an interesting colour," she sighed. "Wait. No, I just want to go home! Shadi, send me home!"
"No. Just pretend this is all a dream. Besides, I didn't read the return spell, so there," Shadi replied.
"There better be enough cute guys to give me a good sized entourage. I couldn't stand to have no horribly cute guys head over heels for me." Myanh looked thoughtfully at the sky, reluctant to move.
Then she remembered their bags. "Let's go check what's in our bags." Myanh suggested.
"Sure." Shadi replied. "We can't do anything else till our guards come." She stopped to tilt her head towards the horse that looked as though it was taking to her. "Hey, where did those horses come from?" Myanh asked, perplexed. "Hm? Oh, they came when I called. This is Kougra," she pointed to a dappled silver mare, "and this is Lupe," this time she nodded her head to a pure black stallion, "and Pika," this time she went to the horse's side. "Kougra and Lupe say that they want to be with you, Miliko. Pika is mine." Shadi broke off, as she looked up to the sky.
A flying horse was flying towards them. It landed a short distance from Shadi. "Uh huh, yep, yeah, yes, I'll tell her that." She said intermittently.
"Myanh, this name is Rabidash, and for some insane reason wants to be your mount. When we want to ride together he'll walk but if you're on your own he'll fly for you. Um, hang on." She stopped, and then spoke again. "He said he'll get us a set of men's tack for each of our horses. Myanh, your lucky, not even the Wild mage can say she has an immortal for a horse, though she does apparently have a dragon." While she was talking, Rabidash had set off. Myanh, Miliko and Shadi sat down, and started looking through their bags. They each had the same things. In one bag, there was an equal amount of five of their favourite lollies.
In Myanh's bag, there was an equal amount of sour squirts, sour spray, TNT's, K-bars and milk bottles.
In Shadi's there was an equal amount of Dragon sours, hearts, hubba bubba, all kinds of chewing gum, and K-bars.
Miliko's bag, however, there were only three different types of lollies. Two fifths were K-bars, two fifths was candyfloss, and the rest was canels chewing gum.
Seeing the others staring, Miliko said, "so I only like three different kinds of lollies, who cares?" Myanh and Shadi looked away.
In their second bag, each had five packets of their favourite chip flavours, A/N their bags are sports bags three of their second favourite chip flavours, and more of their favourite lollies.
Shadi had the works and sour cream and chives for her chips.
Myanh had sour cream and bacon, and pesto for her chip flavours.
Miliko had chicken, with sour cream and chives for chips.
"Yum! At least we ain't gonna run out of junk food any time soon." Myanh said, then looked at her perfect figure. "I'll have to watch my weight though."
"We'll just have to exercise a lot, you idiot." Shadi laughed.
"Heh, doesn't bother me," Miliko said, looking down at her figure. "But I hope they have archery, fencing and Karate here, and horse riding." Miliko said, smiling happily.
"We still haven't looked in our other three bags yet, you know." Shadi interjected.
"Right. Well, let's get looking." Myanh said. "I'm praying that we have makeup and money. I couldn't live without those two things."
So they opened their third bags. Myanh was right, in a way. The next bags were three quarters filled with money, which Miliko told them was gold nobles, and the rest was makeup. Myanh's held one of each colour lipstick she ever wore, and eye shadow. Miliko's held glittery lip-gloss, mascara and eye shadow. Shadi's just held lip gloss in different shades.
"Good." Myanh approved. "Now, the fourth bags." These bags contained bottled drinks. In Shadi's there was an assortment of energy drinks. Myanh and Miliko's held a mixture of vanilla coke and G- force.
In the last bags, there was an mp3 player and a portable charger that ran on batteries, and an assortment of clothes. Shadi's held only breeches and shirts; Miliko's held an assortment of dresses, breeches and shirts, mostly dresses. Myanh's held only dresses.
"Nice clothes. Somehow whoever packed these bags knows exactly what we want." Myanh said. "Of course." Shadi said scornfully. "The Great Mother Goddess packed them for us." Before Myanh could ask whom she was talking about, Rabidash came flying back, three sets of men's tack.
He head butted Shadi.
Shadi then turned to the other two.
"Rabidash says that you won't need any tack to ride him, Myanh, and that he would carry whatever tack we don't use. And four riders are coming this way."
As Shadi finished talking, they heard hoof beats.