"I don't get it," David said. "Is it some kind of an illusion? Did they put a TV in there somehow?"

"In the wall?" Cary asked. "I don't think so." Cary took a step forward, placing her head against the wall next to the picture. She could see the wall stretch outwards as the waves flowed across its surface. Whatever was happening, it was really happening.

"It looks like water," David said.

As Cary watched the flowing surface, David reached forward again, his finger tapping the edge of the picture. She could see it when his finger touched the wall, and when the waves flowed up around it. His finger sank beneath that wave, heading deeper into the wall itself. David let out a little squeak, jumping away from the wall in fright.

"What was that?" he asked.

"What did it feel like?" Cary asked, looking between the wall and her friend. "Did it feel like water?"

"It... It didn't feel like anything," he said. "It just... It was like air." David reached his hand forward again, letting it sink deeper into the wall.

"What are you doing?" Carry yelled. "Get your hand out of there. The wall could close at any moment."

"It's fine," David said, but he pulled his hand out anyway. "How long did it go this morning?"

"I... I don't know. It was still running when I left."

"Okay, well, then, I'm going to do something," David said, smiling over at Cary. Without another word of explanation, of warning, David jumped forward, dipping his head through the waves. His shoulders touched the surface of the wall, the waves flowing over them, but the rest of him stayed outside. After a moment, he pulled his head back out, his smile still in place. "You gotta try this," he said, pointing towards the wall. "There's something over there."

"No, I won't try this," Cary said. "It's... dangerous."

"Oh, come on," David said. "Scaredy cat. And here I thought you were the brave one, heading inside the haunted house."

"Yeah, well, the haunted house is... well... real. This is obviously our imagination running wild and it's only going to get us hurt."

"Nonsense. Watch."

Again, David moved forward, this time jumping the rest of the way through the wall. The picture only came down to a couple of feet above the ground, so David had to hop up onto it. The wall seemed to hold him there as he slid forward, heading through to the other side. It seemed far too normal to Cary as she watched him head inside, like the wall itself was just an illusion, and there really was a doorway or a window there.

Cary just stood there, watching the wall continue to flow outwards, even after David had gone through. But there was no sign of David. No sign of him heading back out. Nothing to indicate that he was there in the first place. It was like the wall swallowed him whole, and he wasn't going to come back out.

"Dang it, David," Cary muttered to herself. "Now why did you have to do a thing like that?"

Cary looked around her, trying to find something, anything, to help David. Trying to see if there was an adult around that could help. But there was no one and nothing back there, hidden behind the post office. No sign of anyone but her. So, she took a deep breath in, holding it like she was about to jump into a pool, and leaned forward, sticking her head through like she had seen David do.

Like David had said, it didn't feel like anything as she submerged her head into the wall. There was no point when her world turned around on her. No great change between standing next to the wall and sticking her head through it. Just a few inches through the wall, she could see out onto the other side. She could see David standing there, just a few feet away from her. Moreover, she could hear him.

"Cary," he shouted, his hands wrapped around his mouth. "Come through. Why-why won't you let me back through?" He looked away from where Cary was, towards something next to her. Cary turned in the direction that he was looking, but she couldn't see anything there.

"You're not allowed back out," came a deep, gruff voice. "You're too young."

"Too young to leave here?" he asked. "Shouldn't I be too young to be here?"

"That, too," the voice said.

"Cary," David yelled again. "Come through. Help me."

"I'm right here," Cary said. But David didn't seem to hear her. He kept looking back and forth across where Cary was standing, continuing to search for her.

Cary just stayed there for a moment, torn between going to help her friend and not wanting to get trapped there herself. Whatever was happening there, it felt like something that the grownups should be handling. She thought that she should head back out, head over to David's house and wait for his parents to come home. With both of them being lawyers, they would know what to do. They would know how to help him, how to get him free. Negotiate for his release, or whatever.

But before she could make a decision, she felt a hand reaching past her. It grabbed onto the strap of her backpack. And suddenly, she was being pulled forward by someone much stronger than her. She could feel her feet leave the ground behind her, and then suddenly she was flying through the wall, and out onto the other side.

"Ow," Cary cried, when she slammed into the ground.

The ground was softer than she was expecting, with grass all around her instead of the asphalt or cement that was around the post office. There were suddenly trees all around them, blocking the light of the sun. As Cary rolled over on the ground, lying on her back and looking up, she suddenly saw not one, but two large figures standing on either side of two tall stone pillars. But the pillars were in the middle of nowhere, with nothing over them, next to them, or behind them. All she could see, other than David, the two men, and the two pillars, was a forest clearing covered with low grass.

There was no sign of the post office. No sign of Howard Street. No sign of Cary's house or anything remotely familiar to her.

"Are you alright?" David asked, as he stood over her looking down.

"Where are we?" Cary asked, rather than answering his question.

"I'm thinking we're in Narnia."

"Pfft, Narnia wishes it was this cool," one of the men said. The man on Cary's right stepped forward, his hand reaching down towards her, helping her to her feet. "Are there more boys through there?" he asked. "Or girls, maybe. Other people that saw you come through the portal?"

"Portal?" Cary asked.

"Yes," David said. "There were dozens of us. Hundreds, even. It was a class trip to the post office. Our teacher is probably calling the police right now."

"So... That's a no, then," the other man said.

"How old are you, kid?" the first man asked, looking down at Cary.

"I'm... uh... Nine... sir," Cary said.

"Nine and..." he prompted.

"Don't tell him, Cary," David said. "He wouldn't let me back through when I told him my birthday is next week."

"No need to ask him," the second man said. "Can't you just feel it pouring off of this one? They're both bound for the schools at this point."

"Schools?" Cary asked.

Cary looked all around the clearing, searching for some hint at where they were. A big sign that explained everything. An adult that wasn't being secretive. But it was just the four of them there, with no sign of help from anyone.

"Now, this is very important," the second man said. "Did either of you see who opened the portal here?"

"Portal?" Cary asked.

"I'm thinking this is the idiot of the pair," the second man said, pointing towards Cary.

"Give him time," the first one said. "If I was just pulled into another world, I'd be confused, too. Yes. Portal. That thing you saw on the wall over there." He pointed behind him, towards the pillars.

"The... The mushrooms?" Cary asked. "I... I didn't see them, exactly, but..."

"Don't tell them anything, Cary," David said. "Don't say anything until we get a lawyer."

"You're not under arrest, kid," the first man said. "If anything, it's the opposite. You're being set free."

"I saw someone last night," Cary said, before describing the hooded figure that she had seen disappearing behind the post office. Given what had just happened, where she was, she figured that they must have come through the portal, to wherever they were.

"Fine, fine," the first man said, waving her off. "It at least gives us a timeline. No telling how many kids might have come in and out of here before that first one did."

"I-I-I just wanna go home," Cary said. As she gradually got over the shock of being pulled through the portal, ending up in that forest, she started to cry. Cary hated crying, especially in front of other people. That wasn't something that boys were supposed to do. But crying in front of David was almost worse somehow.

"Hey," David said. He came over to Cary, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her into a hug. "It's alright. We'll get home. Somehow."

"By the realms, you'll go home soon enough," the first man said. "You just need to be registered. Trained up a little. Get your rings. You'll be home for summer break. It's boarding school, not the army."

"But my grandparents," Cary said.

"Your parents will be notified. Everything will be arranged. It's not like this is the first time we've had people stumbling into the magical realm without knowing about it first. Trust me. You'll feel a whole lot better about the whole thing by morning. In the meantime, your ride should be here any moment."

"Our ride?" David asked.

Cary pulled herself away from David's chest, her hands going to her eyes to wipe them dry. The two of them stood there for a moment, looking around the clearing, and around the forest's edge, searching for a car or a bus to take them to this school. But as the two men settled back into their positions around the pillars, and the clearing dropped into quiet, nothing was coming from anywhere. The sounds of the wilderness seemed to come up around them, the birds and bugs making their usual sounds. None of it sounded familiar to Cary, making her feel even more lost than she had before.

Cary didn't want to go to a new school. She didn't want to deal with new people, who would undoubtedly see that she was weird from the beginning. Something told her that most of them would be worse than Greg. Worse than the bullies that she was leaving behind. And that she was ill prepared to deal with whatever was going to come her way.

The only bright spot in the whole mess was that David was coming with her. That she would at least have one friend with her through the whole thing. One person that knew who she was and still wanted to hang out with her. Still wanted to play with her.

"Ah, here they are now," the first man said, pointing towards the forest, seemingly at random.

The moment that he pointed, Cary could see a bright light start to expand. It looked like a train coming up a tunnel on the cartoons she used to watch with David at his house. Only there was no tunnel there. And since it was coming straight at them, she was hoping it wouldn't be a train either. She didn't think she would fare any better than the coyote did.

Once the light fully expanded, stretching around in a circle from the ground to the tops of the trees, it started to waver like the picture of the dancing mushrooms had. Like the portal on the wall had. And suddenly, a horse came trotting out of the light, pulling a carriage behind it. The carriage was green, matching the forest around it, and ornately carved with several pictures of kids playing. Cary figured that it was meant to lend them comfort, but it only reminded her of the stories of Hansel and Gretel, and the witch fattening them up to eat them.

The carriage took a hard left coming out of the light, out of the portal, circling around the edge of the clearing. It came to a stop right behind where Cary and David were standing. And when Cary looked up at the driver of the carriage, looming over them, the only word that she had to describe the man was dwarf.