The Adventures of the Junior Phoenixes, Part 1: The Pendant of Life

Chapter 12: A Towel and an Owl

Chapter 12

     Echo blinked her eyes a few times. She found herself staring at an unfamiliar ceiling, the wooden beams and tresses visible. There were cobwebs in the corners of some of the beams and the nails holding the tresses together looked old and rusty.

     “I think she’s wakin’ up,” a girl with a Southern accent said. “At least I hope she is. She’s kinda twitchy if y’all ask me.”

     “Well stop poking at her!” another girl’s voice, this one younger and rough, told the first voice.

     “She might want some water,” a small, mousy voice said, with a British accent.

     “Hand me a towel, Dan, will you?” a man’s voice spoke.

     “You got it, boss,” a boy’s voice said.

     “Perhaps I should prepare some tea for her when she wakes,” another girl with a British accent spoke.

     “I’m tellin’ y’all, she’s wakin’ up,” the Southern voice spoke. “I don’t think she needs all the hullabaloo about tea.”

     Echo’s eyes widened, and she jumped up. “Where am I? What the heck is going on?”

     “Calm down, Tiger,” the man’s voice said, “You’re okay!”

     Echo looked around her and panicked. There were students sitting and staring at her. “Where’s my wand? Give me my wand!”

     “Hold on, hun,” the Southern voice told her, “You ain’t in the best of shape t’ be getting’ all yer engines runnin’ without any gas.”

     “What?” Echo retorted, scowling. “Who are you?”

     “You’re in good company, Echo,” the man said. “We’re not here to hurt you, promise.”

     Echo rubbed her eyes. A wet towel was on her head. She looked around the circular room and saw Shade holding her hand and smiling at her. Around the room were the others she recognized from classes she shared with some of them; Sam Meadows, Star Saoirse, Dan Titan, and two of the exchange students, Rain Fox Cloudstorm and Ignatia Jones.

     Echo snapped her hand away from Shade quickly, glaring at him. “What the hell are you doing? Where am I?”

     “You’re in the north guard tower, along the castle wall,” Shade told her. Everyone’s eyes were fixed on her. “You’re safe. We brought you here after you passed out.”

     Echo blinked a few times, looking around and shaking her head a little. “You were all in the forest,” she remembered. “Those little jelly things were attacking you, right?”

     Everyone nodded.

     “Yeah, you turned them blobbers into popsicles, remember?” Sam told her.

     “Globbins,” Dan said. “They’re called Globbins.”

     Echo looked at Sam. She then shot a mean look at Shade. “What were you doing in my forest?”

     “Your forest?” Shade asked her.

     “It ain’t your forest, little Miss Tiger,” Star said, gruffly.

     “It’s more my forest than any of you dummies. What were you doing in there? Are you idiots or something?” Echo wore an angry look.

     “Look here,” Sam scolded her, “We brought your knocked-out behind all the way back here. Don’t make me slap the stupid out of you!”