Birthday Bash: A Tale of Sisterly Rivalries

“Lucille come on we have to go or we will be late,” I yelled up to my sister. We were going to my two best friends Abby and Macy’s birthday party.

Though my sister, the fashionista, took forever to get ready. “I coming, but you know Matt is going to be there and I want to look good!” She yelled back. I rolled my eyes.

“Whatever, I’m waiting in the car,” I replied, walking out the door and into the car.

“ Kate what is taking your sister so long?” Mom asked as I got in the car.

“Matt, like always,” I smirked. Lucille runs out of the house with her present in her hand. She looks amazing and makes my dress look like I found it in a dumpster.

“Wow sweetie you look amazing! Now come on let’s go, let’s go,” She jumps in the car and mom pulls out of the driveway.

“You’re here, you’re here!” Screams Abby excitedly.

“Hi thing number one,” Lucille squeals getting out of the

car and running to hug her friend.

“Come on in the party is about to start.” We walk in the house to see everyone is already there. I know Lucille is happy about being fashionably late.

“Where do we put the presents?” I ask since now suddenly I’m holding both presents.

“On that back table over there,” she points to a table, already filled with presents.

Macy’s and Abby’s house is decorated in pink and blue, with balloons, food, and people. Their backyard it is set up like a fancy tea party. It looks amazing. Their mom always goes all out for their parties.

I grab some punch in one of the fancy cups and sit down. Everyone’s having a great time and I am too I just don’t like all the commotion.

“Time for cake!!” the twins mom sing. Everyone looks happy because that little fancy finger food that is set out, is not filling. We all sing happy birthday and then cut the cake. Abby and Macy get the first pieces. Lucille gets third piece and hurries to sit with Matt. I take my cake and sit at a table with Abby and Macy. “Mmm this cake is really good,” I say. “It so is,” Macy agrees. I try and savor every bite because this is the best cake I had ever had.

After cake most people start to leave. Me, Lucille, Matt and Ryan stay after to watch the twins open their presents.
“Ok let’s open Kate’s present first,” Macy says. “Ok,” Abby agrees.

They start daintily unwrapping the paper to find two beautiful sparkly white bracelets. “WOW these are beautiful,” the twins admire.

Then inside the bracelets a swirling blue circle opens up in the middle of both. The bracelets open up and start grabbing each and every one of us. We are being sucked into this portal of blue. “Nooooooooo,” the girls start screaming attempting to grab onto something. The guys try grabbing a chair, but the chair just gets in pulled into the portal. I see the world floating away into a sea of darkness.

We seem to float in this darkness forever. It felt like hours we were in there. When finally we hit rock bottom and are exposed to a city covered in snow. People running to find cover in this blizzard with whipping wind and mounds of snow.

My skin instantly chills over. Matt and Ryan grab us and we all huddle. We stand there freezing none of us able to say anything, do anything, or move. After about five minutes of standing in the cold a lady comes up to us.

“Poor things are you alright? Standing in this blizzard in summer wear. What are yall doing?” she asks us.

“Actually,” Ryan says, “We got sucked into here by a bracelet and we don’t know where we are or what happened.”

“Oh my goodness, being in that cold too long got you brain not working right. Come with me to get some hot chocolate and some coats.” We follow her to her apartment building. “Where are we?” Abby asks when we get to her room.

“You're in New York City. Why are you guys dressed like it is summer out, don’t yall know it’s winter?”

“Technically where we live it is summer. We live in California and we don’t know how we got here.” I clarified.

“Here are some blankets and coats, I’ll go start on the hot chocolate.” We grab eagerly at the coats and blankets. “ First things first, how are we going to get out of here?” Lucille asks worriedly. I could see the fear on her face. We have never been anywhere without Mom or Dad and now we were all the way across the country in New York City with some lady we don’t even know, and our best friends in the middle of a terrible New York blizzard.

“Hey guys everything will be fine we will get out of here,” Matt assures us. We are all huddle together on her floor when the lady comes back.

“ Hi kids, I’m Mrs. Potter. Apparently you come from halfway across the country from some portal, and I surprisingly know what your talking about. I have been studying these portals since I was a young girl. My best friend got taken from one of the portals and I haven’t seen her since I was ten. I have been studying and I know how to get you home.”

“You do?” Macy squeaks out.

“Yes I do. You guys have to go through all of these natural disaster,” She handed Ryan a book, “ and once you have survived every last on you will get home.”

“Wait did you just say survive each one?” Abby asked her, “ Not only do have to travel from natural disaster to natural disaster we have to survive too? Great.”

“ I will start you off giving you the gray bracelet for a tornado. For each natural disaster there will be a different bracelet. Dorothy will give you the next bracelet,” she told us.

“Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz? That’s my favorite book,” Lucille says.

“Good it better be your favorite because that tornado is the worst in fictional history. Now here take the bracelet set it on the ground and the portal should open.”

“Thank you so much Mrs. Potter, we will always remember your kindness,” Matt thanked her. Abby grabbed the bracelet and set it down on the floor. “By the way you might wanna take these,” Mrs. Potter told us handing us each a book bag. “Thanks,” I said.

The portal opened and Abby grabbed Macy’s hand. Matt grabbed Lucille’s and Ryan grabbed mine. Two by two we jumped into the portal, not looking back once.

The drop was shorter this time and we all fell onto the grassy yellow plains. I saw the sky was already a reddish, gray and could see the funnel cloud forming.

“We need to find Dorothy,” I said glancing up at the sky. “Agreed, I mean look at the sky it looks terrible,” Macy agreed.

“Kids over here,” a girl yelled. She was dressed in a checkered blue dress with a little brown dog trailing up behind her.

“It’s Dorothy,” Lucille admired. “Yes, it is. Now hurry inside the cellar if you want to survive the tornado,” Dorothy called out to us. Dorothy led us to her cellar door. She led the way down and then went back up to lock the door.

“Aren't you going to Oz?” Macy asked. “No of course not, I don’t need to go to Oz. I’ve learned from trying to go back when they didn’t need my help. It was painful.”

“Oh right,” Macy mumbled off. That’s crazy I thought I always thought once there was a tornado that took her to Oz she could always go back apparently not. “Guys once you survive the tornado you guys will get the next bracelet.”

“Ok,” we all replied. And then it started the alarm went off and we all huddled near the corner. The tornadoes whipping winds could be heard from miles away. I was more scared then I had ever been before. I thought we would be safe when the tornado ripped the door off the cellar, and started dropping into the cellar

“Dorothy what do we do?” Lucille screamed. “Stay still, the tornado can sense fear and movement.” Lucille held on to Matt and hid her face in his shoulders with as little movement as possible. I tried staying as still as I could thinking about puppies, kittens, and anything that wasn’t the giant tornado in the cellar. The tornado looked around again and went back up the ruined steps and went back up into the sky.

“We survived. For a second there I thought it was over for us before it really even started.” Abby explained, “Could we have the next bracelet now?”

“Yeah sure. Here you go,” Dorothy handed Macy a yellow bracelet “ This is the drought bracelet. Do you have the waters in your bags because you guys are going to need it. There is very little water there. Good luck”

We gave nervous glances to each other, but Macy still put the bracelet on the ground and watched as the portal opened.

The place was gross and the land was hard and cracked. The people who were in the city looked hungry, thirsty, and just sad. “Umm guys how do we get out of here? Dorothy never told us who to talk to, to get the next bracelet.” Ryan asked.

“Maybe there will be like a local scientist who know something,” I put in. “Good idea,” Lucille said.

Have you heard about the meteor that's coming? Yeah I thought a drought was bad but know a meteor is about to hit Earth right here in North Carolina. This could destroy so much of this state and hurt so many people. This is terrible. We were eavesdropping on someone's conversation and found out we needed to get out of here quicker than we had realized.

We started looking all over the city to find someone who can help us get out of here. Checking museums, local shops, labs, schools, you name it. We still didn’t find anyone who knew what we were talking about. A teacher led us out of the school and told us good luck when we saw the meteor about to hit Earth. It was lit up like fire and was coming towards the ground really fast. The teacher handed us a blue bracelet and said, “hurry save yourselves it may be too late for us but definitely not for you.” Abby and Macy set the bracelet on the ground and we all shoved to get into the portal.

Plump! I landed in the warm beachy sand. I looked around. The ocean was in really far. Uh oh this can’t be good. “Guys, uh guys.” I panicked, “The ocean is in really far,” “So it’s tides,” Ryan shrugged.

“No it’s not it is going to be a tsunami. Whenever the ocean goes in really far it is going to be a tsunami. I learned about that in Mrs. Andras class.” Then suddenly the ground started shaking so violently and I fell to my butt so did the others. “It’s an earthquake we have to get inland.” We tried walking up the beach but the shake was to violent and we kept falling.

It started the giant wave washed over the beach and hit us. The water took me under, filling my lungs. I kept trying to surface to breathe, but the vicious, uncaring waves kept getting pulled under the water. I looked for the other the moments I was on the surface, but saw no one. I saw my life flash before my eyes. I was feeling tired and felt like I was going to drown. When the waves started to recede and the water was slowly floating away and I could breathe again.

I was coughing and spitting out water. My nose burning along with my eyes. I saw Macy and Matt, but I couldn’t see any of the others.

In the distance I saw three people walk toward us. Phew, it is Ryan, Abby, and Lucille. I walked around the beach and saw another bracelet. It had a note attached. Good Luck on your journey friends, I hope you make it home- Ariel. “I found the next bracelet. Is everyone alright because we need to keep going.” I heard I’m goods and alrights throughout them. “Ok good.”

We jumped through the portal once again. I could tell we were in New Orleans as soon as we got there and I knew we were going to get to experience Hurricane Katrina. One of the worst hurricanes in history.

“This is Hurricane Katrina, of course.” Lucille said, “ We need to get to the Superdome come on.” We got on a bus and rode down to the Superdome.

I had a good feeling we were going to find the next bracelet there.

Finally the bus made it to the Superdome. It was bigger than I had imagined. I was in awe. So was everyone else. We went inside. Less people were there than I had thought there would be. Suddenly I remembered we were the only ones who knew Hurricane Katrina was coming.

A few hours later the Superdome was getting more packed by the minute. There were families, dogs, food, toys, things people were trying to hold onto knowing their homes would be destroyed. We all sat in the corner. “I’m thirsty and our backpacks got washed away during the tsunami. I’m going to check and see if someone can lend us a few bottles,” Lucille announced to us.

“I’ll come to,” concurred Matt. They got up and started walking away to find some water. When they came back Lucille had three water bottles, and for some reason Matt had a puppy. “Dude, why in the world do you have a puppy?” Ryan

challenged

“Isn’t it cute? When we get back home me and Lucille are going to help take care of it.” I shook my head I, knew there was no way Mom and Dad were going to let Lucille keep that dog. But it sure was cute. I took it out of Matt’s hands and I immediately felt a connection between us. I pet him for a while and lost track of time.

BOOM! The thunder sounded, and I heard rain. The puppy who was sleeping on my lap startled awake. It started to whine at the patter of rain. I soothed as much as I could, but it jumped off my lap and ran straight for the Superdome door. “Oh no puppy come back!” I screamed. I got up and started running everyone following me. The puppy jumped, leaped, ran under and around. It was so hard to follow. Then when my hands almost grasped around it, it ran out the door. “No, what are we going to do?” I asked

“Go out there,” Lucille responded.