Wood Between the Worlds 3 Not New York

I sighed and sat down on the ground. “Great,” I said. “We are stuck in God knows where for who knows how long with no apparent means of getting back.” I was interrupted by Billy, who was shouting “Hey! What’s that?” We all turned to look- it was a guinea pig. On closer inspection, it had a yellow ring taped to its middle.
The yellow ring was identical to ours.
“James,” I said while the younger boys were playing with the guinea pig. “James, what if that yellow ring was what brought us here? And what if the green ring will bring us back?”
He looked thoughtful. “It is a possibility, except we are all wearing green rings and we’re still standing here.”
I looked around. “That pool we came out of- do you think that’s London?” He glanced over at it. “Very possibly it is.”
“And these other pools- do you think maybe they lead to other places in the world? Like-like other countries and cities. This pool over here might lead to France. And this one could be New York.”
James looked into the pool we had come out of. “I don’t see anything there now. But maybe you are right.” I nodded. “Come on; let’s try to go somewhere else.”
James called our little brothers and we chose a pool. “Okay, everybody put on your green rings because the yellow rings bring us here,” I said. The four of us held hands and were about to jump when Billy cried out “Wait!” We stopped and looked at him.
“Do we know where we are going? We could land on a sunny beach in the Bahamas, but we could also land in the middle of the Sahara. Or we could land in the middle of a tribe of cannibals,” he said.
“Billy, that’s why we have the rings, now let’s go!” I said before he could think of anything else. I was only half-convinced myself, and I didn’t have any confidence to spare.
We counted to 3 once again, and jumped.
We landed in the middle of a cobblestone path, and large buildings loomed on either side of the street. The buildings were made of a shiny element which seemed to be pure gold. James walked up to one and examined it. “It’s engraved!”
We all hurried over and sure enough, every inch of every building was covered in thin and beautiful designs. “Wow,” I breathed. “It’s amazing.”
James looked at me. “Somehow I think we didn’t land in New York.”