Heres my book! [the first part of the chapter is in the project] “Girls got’a go outside!” I heard the boys sing as they came up to get us. I quickly grabbed the books from Opal and stuffed them on to the shelf before Bartly could see, and hoped I didn’t bend any covers because they had bendy covers, and tell my parents. “You also have to go outside!” I said making a face. “Besides, we are almost done with our home work. You have to do it after dinner.” We went down the stairs after the boys. Once we were outside, the boys asked us if we would come explore in the woods. We agreed, but only because we had nothing to do. As we were going into the woods we heard a window open and saw mom stick her head out of one of their bedroom windows, and said, “If you go into the woods, make sure that you don’t go past the line your father made!” I saw my brother nod, he was leading the group, but I also saw a mischievous grin on his face that my mom clearly didn’t see. She smiled, closed the window and disappeared from view. “Bartly,” I sighed “We aren't coming with you if you are going to go past the line. We don’t disobey our parents for no reason.” He turned around and glared at me and said, “fine leave if you want and the rest of us will have the adventure. Though, I always say, the more the merrier. And besides we aren’t going for no reason, have you not noticed? They are always telling us ‘don’t go past that line I made,’ ‘make sure you stay on this side of the line your father made.’ I just need to know what happens when we cross the line.” “Oh Bartly.” was all I could say. “Come on guys, over this way.” Not remembering him having ever said anything about ‘the more the merrier’ I followed. I saw him leading us straight towards the line, I could just see it up ahead, but then he changed course. We were heading straight towards a tree now. “Psst. Is your brother blind?” I heard Ruby whisper. “No, he just likes to pretend sometimes.” I whispered back. “Bartly could you please just open your eyes and see wh-” I stopped because just at that moment I realized that he wasn’t the only one that had closed his eyes, James had and Theo was trying to but he kept opening his eyes to make sure that he was going the right way. They kept whispering things under their breath.
“Bartly what are we doing?” I heard Jamie say. I almost bumped into Ruby, who was in front of me. I started to ask Bartly what we were doing, since he didn’t answer Jamie, but then I saw him climbing into the tree, closely followed by James. We waited a bit and then stuff started flying out of the hole that they had gone into. I picked one of the bundles up, and then I heard a muffled voice from inside of the tree, saying, "That's not yours, that's Opal’s.” James tumbled out of the tree, and then Bartley followed, they both had something on their backs, which looked like the object that I had in my hand. I realized that they were backpacks. I gave the very heavy backpack to Opal, and then Bartley and James started picking them up and giving them to different people. Mine was a lot like Opal’s but for the exception that it had my name hanging off of it, and the water bottle in the side pocket was teal, instead of dark blue, the same collar as my backpack. Jamie had a light purple water bottle, flashlight, and back pack. I realized that I also had a flashlight, just like everyone else did. “Bartley, how long were you planning to be in the woods?” “Oh come on sis, we will just stay the night and then go back home, no one will mind will they?” “Bartley, it's really cool that you got all ready to go, but we aren’t going to stay the night, we might just go explore and then at least me, will come back and sleep in my own bed. Would anyone else like to accompany me?” I looked around at the other girls, because I knew, just knew that the boys would love to spend the rest of their lives in the woods, hidden away where no one would ever find them. Jamie raised her hand right away. “I don’t think that there would be any harm in doing so. Besides, it would be fun to sleep in the woods.” Opal voted. “Well if Opal is staying then I am staying.” Ruby said. Bartley and James smiled. “And I owe you both a dollar if you regret doing so.” Bartley said. “Okay, fine I will stay but only because mom would kill me if something happened to you.” “Well at least there is an advantage to being the ‘little brother’.” I rolled my eyes. “Alright, everyone put your backpacks on. You got it. Okay now see the buckle right here and here those go together and then these two together.” Bartley said, thinking that he was such a good instructor, well he was, for little kids. “Now if you would just follow me,” He lifted up the line, and stepped under it. We followed but a bit slowly. Our back packs were not the only reason, suspicion also played a part. We kept following them, twisting and turning through the trees. Jamie and I were looking at a cool mushroom that she had found, one which none of us had ever seen before, when we heard Ruby and Opal screaming, we looked up, Bartly James and Theo were nowhere to be seen. Clearly they had left us stranded in the middle of the woods with these odd backpacks on, and no explanation for our mom. Goggle images Story by me
