In a few minutes Hattie was sound asleep. I closed my eyes. I felt the gentle moving of the carriage beneath me. It was very rhythimic. I soon felt myself falling into a deep sleep as well.

When I woke up, Ella was reading and Hattie and Olive were both asleep. I moved to the spot right next to Ella.

"What are you reading?" I whispered.

Ella looked up, startled. She hadn't seen me move.

"Oh, this." she handed me the book. It was opened to a story entitled, the Shoemaker and the Elves. I put my thumb on the page and flipped through it.

To my astonishment, I saw a picture of my condo.

The condo I lived in in New York City.

The picture was of our kitchen.

I gasped, and Ella looked over.

Myra, our housekeeper, was making something. My parents were sitting at the table watching her. My parents! What were they doing there? They looked bored.

How was that possible? Was there really magic here? A magic book? Myra and my kitchen looked just like I left it - so the picture couldn't have been taken that long ago.

"Where is that?" Ella asked.

I told her, "My condo! In New York!"

She looked at me, confused. I gave an exasperated sigh.

"It's where I'm from. That's where I live. That's our housekeeper, Myra, and those are my parents. Carmen and Todd. How is this possible!?! Does this show past or present or-"

"Present."

"Oh. They don't look like they even care that I'm gone. They don't even know where I am and they don't care! I knew if I disappeared it wouldn't matter! This is proof! I knew it!"

I was close to tears, and Ella watched me solemnly.

"My Father doesn't care about me either. Mother did, before she died." I looked up. She looked close to tears as well.

"I'm sorry. I know I'm being a big baby, I should have gotten over it years ago."

"It's... alright. At least I had one caring parent for a while." A solitary tear trickled down from the corner of her eye. It traced her cheek and dripped off her chin. I felt like bursting out in tears, but I didn't. I turned the page in Ella's book and to my amazement, I saw an article in the New York Times. It was small, but it was about me. Underneath my school photo from this year was this:

MISSING!:

name: Sassandra Adams

Age: 16

Height: 5' 6"

Eyes: Brown

Hair: Brown, shoulder length

Parents offering $500 reward for any information concerning the whereabouts of their daughter.

I gasped and Ella did as well. When she was done reading it she asked me, "What is that?" she pointed at the dollar amount. I felt even worse than I did before.

"It's an amount of money. They really don'tcare about me. $500 coming from them is like a dollar to someone else, but I imagine they only offered that much so they wouldn't look bad."

"Your book must be fascinating. Let me see it," Hattie told Ella. She handed it over, and Hattie looked surprised. Shoot. Her eyes practically jumped out of her head.

"You enjoy this? 'The life Cycle of the Centaur Tick'?" She turned some pages, "'Gnomish Silver Mining in Hazardous Terrain'?"

"Isn't it interesting?" Ella asked in reply. I nodded in agreement.

"You can read for a while. If we're going to be friends, we should have the same interests." Ella continued.

"You can share my interests dears," answered Hattie's.

When we got to the hotel, I went right to bed. The place depressed me. It was dreary and poor-looking and so old-fashioned that I almost threw up. I couldn't stand to look at it for long. I spent most of the night wishing with all my might that I could go home, but when I woke up, I was still in the gross old bed.

At breakfast, Hattie claimed Ella's breakfast was unedible. I told her to shut up, and I told Ella to eat it if she wanted.

I could tell Hattie hated me for getting in the way of putting her knew discovery to effect, and I could tell that she planned on taking revenge on me. She spent the majority of her time glaring at me.

Funny, had I not known or liked Ella, and had I been at school in New York City, I probably would have been the one using this against Ella.