Author's Note: Ugh, I hate making MORE excuses, but you've got to understand why it's taking me so long to update. When I get up in the morning, about 5:30a.m., I get ready for school and then I go to 1-Act Play practice until school starts. 10 minutes after school starts, I'm expected to be ready for volleyball practice and in the gym. Volleyball only gets out at five on Wednsdays and Pep Band Days - and we've still got to lift after practice - which takes over a half hour. On Wednsdays, as soon as I'm done with lifting, I have to make myself look presentable (Me after volleyball is not a pretty sight) and go to CCD until 8:00p.m. On nights that there is a home football game I have to play pep band for pre-game, (and have to get all my band stuff ready right after practice) work concessions for the first half of the game, and then play pep band during half-time. I don't have any study halls and I doubled up math (I'm taking geometry and Advanced Algebra this year), so when I get home I have to work on homework and then go to bed. On nights I have a volleyball game, we're required to stay for the varsity games so I never get home before 9:45, and usually not until about 10:30 or later. Then I go to bed and start over again.

Sorry if I'm boring you, but this is why I'm having trouble updating as often as I would like to. Please understand and don't get too bored with the sluggishness of my writing.

I'll see if I can make up for it by making this a longer chapter... And Nathaniel WILL BE IN THE NEXT CHAPTER!!!

Please Review! And thank you so much for sticking with me so long! Thanks!!!

Jemima was downstairs; I wasn't sure what she was doing. If I tried to leave, surely she'd know. She must have some sort of a fairy-alarm system. Or probably she had a tracking spell on me - she did promise Mandy she'd take full responsibility for me, and I was postive that fairies didn't take that kind of thing lightly.

I knew that Jemima had cast an enchantment on her dwelling, as well as the immediate vicinity, so that no one could just appear or disappear and intrude upon her; so she'd have a warning when she had visitors, and she could keep out unwanted ones. That's why Mandy and me had appeared as far away from her as we did.

So how could I get past Jemima so that I could get past those boundries?

I would have to make up a good excuse.

Unless she was busy and I could sneak out...! That would have been perfect!

I sat up - almost leaped up - and walked - well, darted would probably be a more accurate word - out the door of my unbelievably large quartes - it was like having my own apartment - but each room was roughly the size of a high school gym (except the bathrooms and my reading room) and there were seventeen rooms like that. I decided not to add any more than seventeen, because I'd been seventeen when I'd first met Nathaniel.

But anyway, I made my way through room after room, almost flying and wishing the entire time that I hadn't been so extravagant in my decorating job and room-selection size.

Finally, finally! I made it to the fountain and stopped running. I paused for a second - but only just long enough for my breathing to return to normal and my heart to stop racing.

I trudged down the stairs at a normal speed - but I was internally dying at the slow speed of my feet.

Jemima appeared at the bottom of the staircase.

Her head was wrapped in a towel and her body was encased in the fluffiest robe and slippers the world ever saw or would ever see. She was swinging a back-scratcher and whistling.

Jemima had taken to my "Foreign Things!" with as much delight as a child does to Christmas.

I'd shown her a lot of stuff from my world, and she used them all the time.

She stopped whistling once she saw me.

"What's up?" she asked, and giggled. (She loved the way I talked sometimes, and demanded to know what each word/phrase of slang meant.)

I was extremely exasperated. Every second I spent making an excuse would be more seconds away from Nathaniel! Why, why did she have to pop up now?!

"Well," I said, making sure to keep all my desperation out of my face and my voice, "I was thinking: Why not cloud-gaze for a while? I haven't done it in forever!"

I actually had only cloud-gazed once, when I was visiting my Grandma in Pennsylvania.

"Cloud gaze?" Jemima asked, totally enthusiastic.

But they could-gazed in Frell, didn't they? At least the kids?

"Yeah - where you lay on the ground and stare up at the clouds. You find pictures in them. Maybe one'll look like a frog, and then it'll look like a dog..."

Jemima grinned, "Ohhh! Sounds like fun! Let's go!"

No! No! No, no, no, no no no nonononononononono!!!

"Are sure you want to? I mean, it's a long process. Usually you end up lying in the grass for hours - the clouds move really slow..."

"Yes! But of course we won't have to acually lay in the grass. We could make it much more comfortable!"

"But that ruins the experience!"

Jemima's brow puckered, "How?"

"You don't get the full effect."

"Oh. Well - I guess - hmmm. I suppose I could lay in the grass. But don't you suppose it's - you know - dirty?"

"Oh yes. It's filthy and wet. It's quite disgusting."

Jemima frowned.

"Well - I suppose - if I found the right kind of outfit - I mean, it isn't as if I couldn't clean myself easily afterward, but still - the idea is slightly repulsive..."

Then I had an amazing idea! Probably the most amazing of all the ideas ever thought by me.

"Jemima! I have a brilliant idea! How about I transport you to New York for a few hours! You'd love it! And you could obviously come back whenever you want and... it would be so amazing!"

Jemima's face lit up; all thoughts of cloud-gazing gone.

"I was so hoping you would offer that - I wanted to ask if you would but I felt - and now - oh, thank you! I'm 'dying' to go there and find out the relationship between the two worlds!"

As Jemima was talking, fluffy pink trunks, suitcases, purses, carpet bags, duffel bags, and pretty much every type of bag that ever existed started piling up around us.

"I might be gone longer than a few hours, if you don't mind! Finding out what happened to a supposed non-existant being over a who-knows-how-time-period could take a while. I'll be back in three weeks! Practice what I've showed you and make yourself at home - but don't change any of my decor, or I'll be incredibly angry with you!"

I grinned. She'd be gone for three weeks! This was working out much better than I'd expected.

"Of course I don't mind! I'm really curious too! You'll need this though..."

And I closed my eyes. I wasn't good enough to make something apear without closing my eyes, unless it was something I needed. I pictured another purse, this one bulging with active credit cards and cash in Jemima's arms. I saw it. I felt it. I opened my eyes.

The bag was in her arms, but she was no longer wearing the robe. She was wearing a ruffled yellow mini-skirt with black leggings, stilletos, and a yellow halter over a black shirt. Her hair was very-natural-looking blonde and the top of it was pulled back into a huge bump on the top of her head. From her ears hung the biggest loops I'd ever seen.

She looked like she just stepped out of the magezine.

"Well done, Sasha!"

"Thanks! This is your money. I told you about money. There are credit cards too, which I also told you about. You remember, right?"

"Yes! Of course I remember! And I have all the bags stuffed with clothes out of those magezines you showed me!"

(I'd made magezines from New York appear - obviously.)

"Oh Sasha this is so exciting!"

"You may want to go slightly less conspicuous when you snoop around alone though."

"Of course I will! No worries!"

"Okay. Well then, see you in three weeks!"

"Yes! I will!"

I was still grinning when I closed my eyes again.

This time I let New York spring up before me. I made sure to very carefully make sure that I only felt like viewing this scene; I didn't want to go in it. I saw it - and it was like I was watching it through a screen - Like I was standing very close to a big-screen TV. Only it was clearer. And I could feel and smell New York - it only seemed to come through a filter first - or something. It was a very pevuliar sensation.

I flew threw the streets in my mind - dodging people, trucks, signs, and buildings, until I found a 5-star hotel.

I flew through the suddenly open door into the most fancy lobby I'd ever seen. It looked the lobbies my parents were in when they'd sent me pictures.

I flew behind the front desk and looked at the computer screen.

Jaramillo, Yanamaria and Miguel were supposed to be checking in tonight. Probably they could afford somewhere else.

A second later, Jaramillo, Yanamaria and Miguel became Laine, Jemima.

I couldn't make Jemima appear in the middle of a lobby - there were too many people around. I had to get them out of there somehow.

That's when I noticed the emergency sprinklers on the ceiling.

Nobody was looking. The manager was in the bathroom, so therer was nobody on the computer. I would feel bad ruining all the data, so I laid a tarp over the computer and papers.

Then I set the sprinklers off.

I felt the water spray down on the guests with a vengence. I made it pour in there.

People started screaming and running for the door. The manager came back in at the sound and stared, dumbfounded, for a second before yelling, "If everyone could just stay calm. Please exit in an orderly fashion. There seems to be a problem with the sprinklers in here - but the rest of the hotel is fine. Please go back to your rooms until we get this figure out."

The manager's voice of reason helped the people to calm down. The did as he said, even though quite a few of them were angry.

"... pants cost me $547.60!"

"...just wanted to relax and got soaked!"

"...never coming here again."

"...lucky I don't want to spend money on a lawyer..."

Finally, they were all out! The manager was telling the last guest that he'd speak to maintenence immediatly. Then he was out of sight.

I smiled.

Instantly the sprinklers stopped. The furniture and floor dried. All the newspapers and documents and whatnot looked exactly as they had ten minutes ago.

Perhaps they were in better shape.

The tarp was gone from the computer.

The place sparkled.

Jemima and her pile of luggage appeared in the middle of the grand lobby.

Her face was one of pure rapture.

"Thanks you Sasha!" she whispered. She couldn't see me, but she knew that I could see and hear her.

Upstairs, the guests' clothes, bodies, and hair were drying. They felt hazy - they couldn't quite remember what had just happened. They had - thought that they had been soaked, but they were perfectly dry. They couldn't really remember why they had left the lobby in the first place.

With a contented sigh I pulled myself out of the vision. It felt like I was pulling my head through the screen.

I gasped and opened my eyes.

I was at the bottom of Jemima's staircase again.

Jemima was no where in sight.

I'd done it!

Jemima was gone, and I was free to find Nathaniel.

With a deep breath, I took a step toward knowlege -

Knowledge that either would make me the happiest person alive...

or knowledge that would nearly kill me.