The Ringmaster's Keeper

Chapter 32: Trekking

I took me a while to get back to sleep after that nightmare, but I eventually fell asleep. Eventually.

***

"Beth, get up!" I opened my eyes at the sound of Lili's voice and looked her up and down to make sure this wasn't another erratic dream. It wasn't.
"Morning." I said in response to the command and smiled at her.
"Morning? More like afternoon. It's nearly one o'clock sleepy head." I furrowed my eyebrows.
"Serious?" I asked, not sure if she was joking or not.
"Serious. Get up and get ready, we're leaving soon."
"Leaving?! Already?!"
"Uhh, yeah. Hurry up." Wow, time flys when your having weird nightmares about being torn between two guys. Or when your having fun, either way, time flys.

***

"Ok, everybody, up the ladder, we're going now." Oscar commanded all of us as we stood at the bottom of the ladder.
"Everybody got their crystals?"
"Yes." We a chorused back.
"Good." We all slowly filed out of the house and into the clearing of the woods. Once we were all at the top, we all talked until Oscar and Lili figured out what to do with Nikki. Once they'd figured that I should look after her (great), we all started walking through the forest. We walked for hours on end. Nikki never really let go of me unless she was offered food or drink.

***

Our first stop was somewhere in the tropical rainforesty area where we all sat down and rested for half an hour. Stopping was the easy bit. Getting walking again was the hard bit. I was so tired from the heat and the constant buzz of bugs in your face. I wouldn't have minded just curling up into a ball on the ground and sleeping for an hour. Apparently Lili and Oscar minded. We started walking again when we'd been resting for exactly thirty minutes. No more, no less. We were on a tight schedule.

***

The second stop was in some bush scrub that you would apparently (according to Oscar) find in Australia. It sucked. It was hot, there were gum trees everywhere, there were kangaroos (and their poo) everywhere. It was all very Australian. Too Australian. We sat on a fallen log and ate some food and drank water from what they call a 'billabong'. The water didn't look sanitary to me so I just drank some bottled water. Nikki would ask a question every now and again, but was rather quiet apart from that. Maybe because it was too hot to be bothered talking, maybe because she was scared, who knows?

***

It only took nearly a whole day of trekking, but we made it to the stupid palace in the end. It was massive. It looked like something you would only see in the movies. Like at the start of those Disney films when it's pans across that palace. It was like that, but more fancy. It was something that you would on dream of. We all stood in front of the palace in awe of it. Oscar finally realised that if we stood there in awe for too long, then his very taught schedule would be messed up.
"Ok everybody, yes I know, it looks amazing. It's not all that good though so just follow me and we'll be on our way." He walked up the smooth, polished stone staircase and stood at the edge of the very large moat that kept us from getting to the gate. We all stood there for a couple of seconds when Oscar spoke.
"Umm, hello? Claudius? Are you i-" Oscar was cut off by the loud groaning of the drawbridge that came down very slowly. So slow that three granny's tied together with rope could've ran around the palace three times already and could've knitted a metre long scarf each by the time this drawbridge had only just fully lowered. Yeah, it was that slow. You would've rather watch paint dry than wait for this drawbridge to lower. It was excruciatingly slow. We all sat and waited for it to lower, and when it finally did, Claudius was standing on the other side of the bridge with an annoying smirk plastered across his face.
"Asshole!" Lili shouted out to him as we all got up. He gave Lili a glare but cut it short when his smirk came back.
"Welcome," He said in a booming voice, "to your escape."