Dillon's Adventure Through Time

Chapter 1

My name is Dillon Baker. I live in a small house in the middle of the woods with my mom, dad, and sister, Katrina. My sister and I attend Oakland High. She’s two years younger than me; I’m thirteen.
Since it was such a beautiful day, Katrina and I decided to eat outside. We walked out to a clear blue sky and a scolding hot sun and sat down on a huge boulder smack-dab in the middle of our yard.
As I reached for my turkey and cheese sandwich, an enormous crow swooped down and knocked my sandwich to the ground.
I sighed. “Maybe we should eat inside.”
“Good idea,” Katrina complimented.
We proceeded into the house to finish our lunch. Katrina reported the incident to our mother.
Instead of offering to make another sandwich, she retorted, “Well you’re not going to leave it lying on the ground are you?” As if it was my fault!
Katrina giggled.
I walked back out to retrieve my lunch. As I reached for the sandwich lying limp on the dark, thick grass, I felt cold are blow into my face. I moved my head over the left a tiny bit. I didn’t feel the air anymore. I began looking for the source of the cold air, and placed my hand where I thought it was coming from.
“Katrina!” I shouted. “Come here a minute!”
She walked out and I showed her the hole I found against the rock.
“Do you think this boulder is covering up a huge hole, and this is only a fraction of it?” She thought about it for a second, then replied a very well thought out and intelligent answer. “Nope.”
She began walking back to the house. I stopped her half way. “Katrina, maybe we can just… give it a try?”
She hesitated a moment, shrugged, and finally walked over to where I was kneeling.
We each took a side of the rock and counted to three.
“One, two, three!” we both shouted.
It hardly budged. We tried again and yet, it still didn’t budge. After a couple tries, it moved about four inches, uncovering a fraction of a huge hole. Both of us bent down and our mouths dropped open. We stared in amazement, into the huge, dark hole, right in the middle of our yard. A secret to be uncovered, an adventure standing before us. We pushed the rock over a bit more. She sat down on the grass, her legs hanging down into the enormous hole. She looked at me, then the hole, and dropped down into the darkness. I swallowed hard, and dropped into it.



Chapter 2

I must have fainted, because when I opened my eyes, I was in a
small room with bright colored walls and smooth wooden floor, barely remembering anything. Katrina was talking to me. All I could here was mumbling. We what? A hole? Where? I continuously questioned her.
“I said, we found a hole, and dropped into it. We landed in a big room covered in mirrors, and there was no way out. Finally, a stream of light leaked into the enormous room, and so I walked toward it. It led into this room. And now, here we are!”
I looked around and saw some kind of machine. I stood up and walked over to it. It was all dusty. I wiped some of the dust away, and saw the word PEST, in bold, black lettering. I showed Katrina. We wiped more dust away. We saw the word, FUTURE. We looked at each other. One last time, we wiped away the thick dust only to find the word, PRESENT, again in bold, black lettering. She leaned towards the mysterious machine.
“Dillon, that doesn’t say PEST, it says, PAST! It’s a time machine!”
I looked closer. She was right. This was indeed a time machine.
“Let’s go to the past!” Katrina called out.
“No, the future would be much cooler!” I yelled back.
“Past!”
“Future!”
“Past!”
“Future!”
“Past!”
“Ok, past!” I finally yelled.
We wrapped our hands around the handle and pulled it towards where it said PAST. At first, it didn’t budge, but after a couple times, it moved one notch past the word PAST. We held hands, and closed our eyes – not even stopping to think what kind of trouble we can get ourselves into – and waited. The room started shaking just a little, and then started spinning. By now it was shaking rapidly, and spinning so fast we could hardly keep our balance. Finally, we came to a sudden stop.

Chapter 3

We opened our eyes, and walked over to a small door in the left corner of the room. I gently put my trembling hand on the handle of the door. We both nodded. I turned the handle, and slowly opened the door. It creaked loudly. We said nothing. We just stared. Then walked forward, over the leaves and pines that rested on the dark, wet mud. We looked around, at the tall, narrow trees, and the exotic plants all around us.
“What do we do now?” Katrina asked, hardly moving her mouth while talking.
I didn’t answer. I just slowly walked forward.
We were silent for about ten minutes, just looking around at everything. So this is what the past was like? I wonder what year it is. I had so many questions. I bet Katrina did too. “Hey, is it just me or…”
“Or… is it getting warmer?”
“No actually. I was going to say, is it just me or…” I stopped and stood frozen. Katrina looked at me and made a gesture that meant ‘what?!’
“Shhhh,” I whispered, “just listen.”
So we did just that. I looked over at Katrina. She looked at me.
“Did you hear it?” I questioned.
She nodded worriedly, as if she wished she hadn’t heard it. We walked forward a little bit, and then stopped. There it was again. It was like a faint rumbling sound, a deep roar, and the crunching of leaves all put together. We looked around, trying to find a place to hide. Katrina pointed to a huge boulder to the right of us. We scurried over to it, and crouched down. As I crouched down, I felt something wet and cold under my knee. I stood up, and searched through the leaves. I spotted an old, white paper triangle crumbled up under the leaves. I picked it up. My eyes widened. This wasn’t a paper triangle; it was a corner of a piece of paper! I read it aloud,

Inside the nest is a clue you will find,
This nest is unique; it’s one of a kind

“A nest?” I wondered aloud.
We stood up and started walking forward. I thought hard about the riddle. A nest, I said repeatedly to myself. Just then I heard that rumbling sound again. That’s when it came to me!
“Katrina, I bet the nest belongs to that animal, or whatever it was, that was making those rumbling sounds!”
She raised her one eyebrow.
“So we are going to find the nest of that thing?! It’ll be bigger than us!”
“You don’t even know what it looks like. You don’t know if it’s that big! It could be a puny little…”
We looked up, stone-faced, at the monstrous, bird-like whatever, standing before us. It looked about six feet, without the immense wings. With the wings, it would be about ten or eleven feet tall. It had a huge, fat face and thousands of long, sharp teeth. As well as that, it had massive arms and at the end of each were huge, threatening claws. I also noticed four slimy, webbed feet. It had a long, slender body and was very hairy. It had I swallowed hard, and held my breath. It took a step closer, and stuck its long, curving nose towards us and sniffed. The creature had a smirk on his face and a twinkle in his eye. I tried not to make eye contact with it. We took a couple steps back, and it started looking around. This was the perfect time to run!
“On the count of three, we run,” I mumbled quietly to Katrina. “One, two, three!” I whispered, and we darted the opposite way of the monster.
When it finally saw us running, it began chasing us. We were both breathing heavily, and were terrified as heck! I was beginning to get tired.
“What are we supposed to do?! He’s right on my tail!” Katrina shouted worriedly.
I looked back at Katrina. It was right behind her! If she slowed down just a tiny bit, he could catch right up to her! I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what to say. Well, think about it. What would you do? Although I’m sure you’ve never experienced this before. Or did you? So many questions! So little time!
“I don’t know! You tell me!” I shouted back.
Just then, I saw a couple of long vines just ahead of us. That was when a great idea came to me.

Chapter 4

“There are vines all around us,” I finally yelled. “Grab one on to one and swing up to that tree there!”
I don’t know how we managed, but somehow, we jumped up onto a vine and swung our legs to the top of a nearby tree. We were out of breath. The furious monster hesitated to continue, as he stood wondering where we could have gone to.
“He looks pretty confused,” I whispered, still out of breath.
We both giggled as we watched him remain bewildered. After a couple minutes, two golden wings shot out from behind him. He then lifted off the ground and vanished in the blink of an eye. Our mouths dropped opened as we stared in astonishment. Katrina took out her tablet and began scribbling something.
“Whatcha writing?” I asked curiously.
“You know, whatever was just chasing us,” she said calmly, as she continued to scribble.
“What do you think that was, a dinosaur?”
“Perhaps,” she said between breaths, “but we’ll never know.”
“Let’s get down from here.” I told her.
We climbed down from the tree and walked over a pile of leaves.
“Look!” Katrina yelled, pointing forward.
I looked ahead, only to find the nest! It was green! We ran up to it. Instead of looking for the clue, we looked inside. Was it the color of the nest, or was it the exquisite royal purple color of the eggs inside, that kept us speechless? We had our heads inside the larger-than-life home of a beast.
“Wow!” she cried.
I didn’t say a word. I was still in my daze.
“I said, wow!” she shouted.
I jumped.
“What, what?” I asked, and I walked over to where she was standing. She stood standing, with her mouth dropped open to the floor. Just kidding it’s just an expression. Her mouth was actually only open a couple of inches. Lying on the ground, just a couple of inches from where we were standing, was a tiny, laser lemon colored egg!
“Hey, I wonder if this belongs to that creature we just saw!”
I shrugged.
“Let’s cover it,” she suggested.
I bent down to feel it.
It was cold and damp. I took off my sweatshirt and set it on the ground. I then wrapped up the fragile egg.
“We have to stay with it, and make sure it stays warm. But we can’t stay here, whoever or whatever will make lunch out of us!”
I picked it up, and it was as light as a feather! After about five minutes of walking, Katrina pointed to a perfect place to keep the egg. We walked over to a humongous ledge hanging over a cliff.
As I set it down on the ledge I asked, “Are we sleeping here tonight?”
“Yeah, I guess we’ll have to,” she began, “What if it hatches while we’re gone?! It could fall of the cliff! Let alone how will it fend for itself? We’ve got to find its mother,” she decided.
“Hmmm… what about the riddle?”
“We can hold it off ‘til the egg hatches. Hey, where do you think the riddle will lead us?”
“I don’t know,” I answered hesitantly, “Maybe home!”
“Maybe,” she began, “hopefully.”


Chapter 5


“Come on, Dillon! Help me gather some sticks for a fire. I’ll go this way, and you go that way.”
As I opened my mouth to speak, she took off into the trees.
I slowly walked in the direction Katrina pointed to. After about five or six minutes, I heard a scream. I ran towards that direction and stopped. That was the direction Katrina went in! I then heard, “Help me, please!”
I tried to run, but something was holding me back. Some kind of force. My feet began to sink into the ground.
“Ahhh!” I heard again.
Right then, I started to get really dizzy, and everything started to get blurry. I felt like I was spinning. I couldn’t keep my balance.
I opened my eyes, only to find Katrina kneeling down beside me.
“It was just a nightmare,” I said, not realizing that I had said it out loud.
“What was,” she asked.
“Ahhh…nothing,” I replied, and took a deep breath.
“Ok then. Help me gather some sticks for a fire. We’ll split up; you go that way, and I’ll go this way.”
I had to stop her from splitting us up! I thought quickly.
I grabbed her arm. “It’s not even dark out yet!”
“Exactly,” she began, “would you rather collect stick while it’s dark out?” I looked down.
“Ah, let’s go this way,” I said, and pointed to the opposite direction that the scream came from.
“Well, maybe we should split up; we’ll get more sticks. You go that way, and I’ll go this way.”
I couldn’t let her go that way!
“Wait! I’ll go this way. You can go that way,” I said quickly.
I walked cautiously, making sure not to make too much noise. I soon heard the crunching of leaves behind me. I looked back; no one was there. I picked up some more sticks, and heard it again. I had a weird feeling that someone was behind me. Again, I looked back and nobody was there. Once again, I heard it. But this time I didn’t bother to look. I soon felt warm air on the back of my neck. I took a deep breath, and turned around.


Chapter 6

I screamed as loud, and long, as I could for Katrina. The creature looked agitated from all he noise I was making. That was when Katrina showed up by my side.
I looked over at her. She hadn’t an expression on her face. It took a couple steps towards us, and lifted its claw. A big, bulky hand lay before my face. It took me a couple seconds to notice, but wedged in his claw, was a small, gray pebble. Spontaneously, I reached for his claw. What was I thinking? Did I feel sorry for him, and didn’t see the consequences of this action? Whatever the case, still did I reach for the poor creature’s injured claw. I wrapped my hand around his paw, and with the other hand, and tried pulling out the microscopic pebble. I managed to remove the tiny pebble. I thought as if, as quietly as a mouse, the thing replied, “Thank you, I will remember you, Dillon.” Although, of course, I knew that couldn’t have been possible.
Finally, he outstretched his wings, and shot up into the air. Again, I looked over at Katrina. She was simply staring into the sky; amazed, and yet bewildered. In time, she looked over at me and smiled. I smiled back.
I looked in the palm of my hand at what I thought to be a gray pebble. It was actually a piece of paper! Another clue! I stuck it in my pocket. We continued on our way to collect our firewood.


Chapter 7

After collecting enough firewood to last the night, we headed back to where the egg was left. We sat down to rest for a couple of minutes. I closed my eyes.
“What in the world is that noise?!” she yelled.
“It’s coming from over there,” I told her and pointed towards the egg, which was right beside her.
We leaned towards the humongous egg, and waited. After what seemed like twenty minutes, something pointy and orangish- yellow popped out of it. The egg was hatching! We looked at each other in shock. Each of us got comfortable to watch it hatch. Slowly, but steadily, the creature that lay inside the egg, began making its way out. It was amazing watching such a creature being brought into the world.
I was surprised how small the little guy was, considering the egg was bigger than my head!
At last, the little guy made it out of the egg. Boy, that did not look easy! He began prancing around. Tripping over himself often, but he sure looked like he was having fun!
He was neon yellow, just like the egg. It almost hurt my eyes to look at him, but he was so cute! He had short, soft looking fur. He had huge eyes darting in every direction.
“What should we name ‘em?” Katrina asked.
“How about... Herby?” Katrina called out excitedly.
For some odd reason, Katrina loves that name. Every pet we ever had was named Herby.
“Herby it is,” I said and smiled.
“I’m pretty tired,” I began. “It’s getting pretty dark out, too. What do you say we get some sleep?”
“Sounds good to me,” Katrina agreed.
I got up and made a big pile of sticks for the fire. Then I grabbed to thick ones from the pile.
“Okay. It takes a long time to make a fire, so we’ll do it in shifts. I’ll rub these here sticks together, and you look for food.”
Katrina nodded and started walking into the trees.
“Hey,” I stopped her. She stopped and turned around. “Stay close alright?” She said nothing and kept walking.
It wasn’t long before Katrina came marching in with a bundle of different colored berries in her shirt.
“Great!” Katrina said, referring to my blazing fire.
“Why don’t we go for a walk to look for a stream? We’ll wash our berries off there,” I suggested.
“Okey dokey.”
We started walking. It wasn’t long at all before I spotted smooth, running water just a couple of yards away from us. We both walked over to eat and took a drink. The water felt so refreshing running down my throat. I hadn’t realized how thirsty, and of course hungry I was. (Considering I hadn’t gotten to finish my lunch.)
“Here, we’ll take the berries from your shirt, wash them thoroughly, than transfer them to my shirt.” I was proud of how I worded that.
Soon enough, we were on our way back. We had eaten almost half of the delicious berries on the way back. I was glad to see Herby sitting on the ground staring at the fire. He wondered what it was.
We sat down next to him and finished up the berries together. We soon fell asleep with little Herby by our side.