A Whole New Mystery To...

Chapter 3

Hey everybody! Sorry for the mostly filler chapter ahead. I don't really know how long I want this story to be, but there will probably be a lot of chapters like this so just hang in there! I got done early. Yay! As always, please remember to read, review, and enjoy!

I woke up to the touch of callused hands on my jerkin shaking me. I felt the hands let go and heard a familiar gruff voice say mainly to himself,

"Better get the water bucket." I struggled to get up,

"No, I'm up. I'm up." I mumbled, and forced my limbs to move to sit up. I opened my eyes and saw Halt grabbing a water bucket, his head turned to look at me.

"Good, you're up." Halt said, "I thought I was going to have to drench you with water."

"So I see," I commented darkly. "Would that really have been necessary?" I questioned. He looked me dead in the eyes,

"Yes." He said. I mumbled some un-lady like words under my breath then, but Halt pretended not to hear me.

"Get some coffee and breakfast before we head out." He said before leaving the tent I had shared with Sophie the night before. It seems she had already gotten up for breakfast. Maybe I had been harder to get out of bed than I thought.

I tried standing up, but ended up stooping in the low confines of the tent. I quickly got dressed for the day and stepped outside, looking around as I did so. The tent I had previously occupied was the only tent left up. It appeared they had been waiting on me and I felt slightly guilty before remembering that I had a head injury and mentally shrugged. They could wait a few hours to spare them time later in the trip. We had camped in the middle of a clearing and I heard a stream nearby. This meaning Halt must have made sure all the water skins were replenished and I felt grateful that I wouldn't be drinking leathery tasting water. Yet I thought negatively before pushing the negative influence to the back of my mind. In the center of the open space was a fire and everyone was sitting around it, the rangers nursing cups of steaming coffee.

"Hey, you're up!" Will exclaimed, drawing everybody's attention to me.

"Here," Halt said, handing me a mug of coffee and some flat bread as he did so, "Have some breakfast." I gratefully took the bread as I had only just realized how hungry I was, but refused the coffee,

"I'm only 15." I said in explanation, but they seemed to think differently.

"So," Will piped in cheerfully, "I'm 15 too but I drink coffee." I gestured ineffectually with my hands,

"Yeah, but in our world only adults drink coffee."

"And college students who stay up all night studying," Sophie pointed out, "They're still technically kids until they turn 18." I glared at her to make sure she understood she wasn't helping, but she just shrugged and tried unsuccessfully to hide a smile.

"Whatever, the point is, most kids in our world don't drink coffee. It's not good for you, and parents have a tendency to ban things that aren't good for their children." I tried. Halt eventually shrugged,

"More coffee for us then." He said. I sighed in relief as I sat on a log between Gilan and Will with my flat bread in hand. I looked at it curiously,

"Is this damper?" I questioned. I remembered briefly hearing about it in the 9th book when Halt explained it to Horace. And later when Halt criticized Horace's attempt at making the bread. Halt looked up briefly from his coffee and nodded. I turned it over and saw it was slightly burnt on the bottom. I smiled to myself; maybe I can tease Halt about that later before biting down on it and realizing it was quite good.

We left half an hour later, after I had recounted my side of the story, with Sophie and me riding double with Gilan and Will. By some miss-chance I ended up behind Will; Not that I'm complaining or anything like that. We started talking about Sophie and my world because Will wanted to know everything about Earth and the future.

"Well, for example we don't say master and apprentice, we say student and teacher." I explained. "And we sit in a classroom all day even in college except for P.E. But, we do get to pick what we want to do in college so we don't have every subject."

"Wow," Will breathed, "That's complicated." I smiled. The system they had seemed complicated to me when I had first read the books.

"At least it's not politics." I said smiling.

"What are your politics?" He asked wide eyed. I sighed,

"I don't really know enough to explain but I'll try. What I know is there's Senators who make up the House of Representatives who work for the President. He's the one who's at the very top. Like the king, but the president shares his power with this thing called checks and balances..." I kept talking for what felt like forever until I sensed Will had gotten lost.

"Kind of hard to understand right?" I asked, a smile slowly creeping back on to my face, "Plus the fact that you had to deal with my explanation." Smiling now too, Will nodded and looked at Halt.

"Halt, are we almost to the plains yet? How far away is it? What will we do when we get there? Do we know where the kalkara are for sure? If we don't, how will we find out?" He asked. I put a hand to my mouth pretending to yawn but in all actuality smiling. Knowing Halt he would be very evasive of the answer and would probably sigh and roll his eyes too. Halt sighed and looked to the sky as if looking for answers,

"Do you ever stop asking questions?" Halt asked of the sky. "Surely your head must one day explode from all those questions?" I couldn't resist answering that question; Halt had left too good of an opening and I knew Will wasn't going to take the chance so someone had to.

"My head won't explode and don't call me Shirley." I said with a straight face. Halt twisted in the saddle to give me one of his infamous death stares. I managed a straight face for three seconds longer before I burst out laughing. I heard Sophie and Gilan sniggering too from Blaze next to us. Halt switched his gaze between Sophie and me for several seconds before twisting back around to face the front, muttering under his breath as he did so. I glanced at Sophie as she mouthed "Airplane" to me and I nodded, a smile breaking through despite my best efforts to contain it.

'"That was so cool!" Will whispered to me, his eyes as wide as saucers, "You actually got Halt back for one of his sallies! I would be too scared to anger him."

"Ah, well Halt's really just a pussy cat." I said, before realizing Halt could probably hear everything we were saying as he was right next to us.

"Is that so?" Halt said, turning his head to stare at me menacingly.

"Uh, well, you see, about that..." I stuttered, unable to continue. He continued to look at me for a few more seconds before nodding and turning back to face forward.

"That's what I thought." He huffed indignantly. He looked quickly back at me and I tried to shrink into the saddle, smiling shyly at him as he did so. Better not anger Halt I thought. Don't want to end up in some lake or up a tree for the night. And with that thought we reached the edge of the forest.

Hey ya'll please remember to review!!! I will be updating in a week or less depending on how much homework I get (fingers crossed for none even though I know it's not possible) and I will see everybody later, BYE!!!!!!