A Week to Remember: Chapter Six – The Transdimensional Archives

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See my original story, "'Welcome to the Saga', for the disclaimer. Here's a nice short chapter for you to enjoy :-).

<h5><center> A Week to Remember Chapter Six By Peter J. Smith </center></h5>

The six of us teleported back into the camp, landing out of sight behind the main building. Demorphing, we all quickly ducked through the rear entrance of the building, the teacher's quarters, and subtly slipped into the main hall to join everybody. Luckily, the six of us had not been missed during the chaos that had followed the ambush on the beach. About five minutes after we'd returned, the all-clear was called, and not surprisingly, the camp staff decided to have breakfast thirty minutes early, rather than complete the morning run. However, the fight pretty much killed the camp program for the rest of the morning. A team of several dozen physicians and nurses were called onto the campsite, and every kid was given a thorough check-up, before the camp staff phoned both Goondiwindi and Currimundi State Primary Schools to ease the concern of hundreds of worried parents. By the time the press had been dealt with, it was one o'clock in the afternoon, so we were all given lunch and told that the camp program had skipped forward to deal with the "'extraordinary' circumstances. For our group, this meant a walk across Tallebudgera Creek and hike around Mt Burleigh, before a study of the rockpools on the beach around the northern side of the peak. Sarah, Scott, Teresa, Brendan and I all walked along the trails together, enjoying the picturesque scenery and wildlife. Ian spent the afternoon hanging out with Lochlan and the Goondiwindi kids. Once around the mountain, Mrs Manderson and our teachers tried their best to organise everyone into some kind of intellectual rockpool study, but it was not to be, and we all spent the afternoon wading and exploring the various pools on the beach. I think that it's heritage from when I was young, but I have to admit that I find rockpools endlessly fascinating, like naturally-formed fish aquariums, with their hermit crabs, seaweed and tiny darting fish. Needless to say, both Brendan and Scott teased me all afternoon about it, until with an evil grin, I subtly used my powers to drench them both – the resulting water fight ended up involving everyone. Soaking wet but laughing happily, we all marched back to the camp late that afternoon. Dinner was a subdued affair, and after returning the books I'd previously borrowed from the camp library, I went to bed early and slept soundly. The next morning saw a much more relaxing start to the day, with no one hundred foot monsters in sight. It was "'sleep in' morning – put simply, no loud whistles forcing us out of bed far too early, and most certainly no forced runs on the beach, much to the delight of over a hundred and fifty tired kids. After the battle yesterday morning, Scott and I slept as long as possible, not even stirring when the other kids in the cabin began to get up and move around. By breakfast, we were all awake, and after we finished, everyone gathered in the main hall to be divided up for the day's activities. For the group the six of us were in, the aforementioned Muddies, it was a stroll down to the beach in the morning for some fishing (as well as burying Brendan so far in the sand that only his head protruded, and threats of dismemberment and torture if we didn't dig him out again), followed by a trip to Tallebudgera Creek after lunch for an afternoon of sailing. The day was pleasantly uneventful, particularly considering the daily attacks we'd had to endure at the start of the week. Not that we minded one solitary bit. <center>~*~</center> However, as we all later found out, back home in Caloundra things were anything but peaceful and quiet. The Power Rangers' battle with Pisces and his sand demons on Tallebudgera Beach had pretty much confirmed what the international press who permanently resided in Caloundra had first began to suspect during the attack at SeaWorld earlier in the week – the Junior Team of Power Rangers were, in fact, a group of eleven year old sixth grade students from Currimundi State School. The link with the school itself was old news, admittedly, but the specific age that identified the superheroes was most certainly not. The fact that there was suddenly also a Grey Ranger, complete with his own zord, did nothing to hamper the media circus. The Bureau of Supernatural Events, the department of Caloundra City Council specifically designed to report to the rest of the world all public activities of the Power Rangers, had been swamped with telephone calls from various journalists all day. Around lunchtime, the Mayor of Goondiwindi had called on behalf of the parents and teachers of the city, and was put on hold for an hour as the office workers desperately tried to think of something to say to the man that wouldn't give him a heart attack. But again – one of the coolest things about being on camp, as Scott had rightly pointed out earlier in the week, was the fact that the six of us didn't have to worry about any of it at all. And we were happier for it. <center>~*~</center> After the day's activities, everyone was pretty tired by the time that dinner was served, and the macaroni and cheese on offer was eaten with less than the usual noise and enthusiasm you'd expect from about a hundred kids. Still, the pasta tasted delicious (despite the fact that Brendan claims I'm personally biased towards anything Italian. Actually, come to think of it, I am, but that's neither here nor there), and the ice cream and apple pie we had for dessert were both pretty good too. After dinner, everyone wandered around, hanging out with their friends. At Mr Burgess's request, someone rigged up a large wide-screen television in the main building, as there was apparently an important sporting match being played somewhere in the country that night. Very soon, heaps of kids had grabbed pillows and blankets from their bunks and sat down in front of the screen to watch. Sarah and Teresa decided to join everyone watching television, while Ian and Brendan accepted a challenge from Petey and Luke to play several rounds of Scrabble in the library. Realising that those "'games' of Scrabble would probably end up with all four of them being forcibly evicted from the library and banned from ever going anywhere near the place again, Scott and I decided to find a quiet spot behind our cabin, relax with some hot chocolate, and stare at the stars. "Hey," Scott said with a smile, as I rounded the corner of the cabin and went over to where he was sitting, happily accepting the mug of hot chocolate he offered me as I sat down. "What kept you? I've been waiting here for ages." "I went to take a bath," I replied, slowly sipping some of the chocolate milk and savoring the taste. Okay, so I'm sounding a little melodramatic, and I know, it's not exactly caviar, but seriously, this stuff is like liquid gold, it's so beautiful. "Oh good, I'm glad to hear your attitude towards bathing on camp has changed," he grinned, reminding me of last year's camp where I went for a whole three days without taking a bath once. "In the shower block?" "No, the locker room in the Command Centre." He stared at me for a second, before bursting out laughing. "You prude!" I blushed. "I am not," I replied indignantly. "It's just that camp showers are always so dirty and smelly…" "Yeah, whatever," he smiled, realising he'd hit a nerve. "Prude." I pouted, but couldn't help myself and soon began laughing with him. "Yeah, well, it is the one place on Earth where I'm guaranteed total privacy." Scott smiled, taking a slow drink of chocolate, before looking up. "Are we safe talking about it so openly?" he asked, gesturing to the pathway leading back around the cabin. I nodded. "Yeah, I threw up a sound-proof forcefield around us. It lets sound waves in, but doesn't let them out." Scott was genuinely shocked. "You can do that?" he asked. "Yep. It's really not as hard as it sounds." "Cool. Just one of the advantages of having a telekinetic for a best friend." I smiled, took another drink, and leaned back against the wall, staring up at the night sky, subconsciously naming constellations and planets. Seeing the million points of light, I turned to my best friend and broke the silence. "Scott, can I ask you something?" "You just did," he replied smugly. I opened my mouth to reply, but stopped, confused. He laughed, his blue eyes twinkling in the low light. "Go ahead." "Um, okay," I began. "Anyway, does it ever, you know, bother you the kind of stuff we've done? I mean, does the thought of all the stuff we've seen, and the kind of things we're undoubtedly going to see in the future, ever really get to you?" He paused for a second, thinking about my question, and glanced up to the heavens. "You know," he began, "these last six months have been unreal. And to be honest, and I know this really sounds strange, I haven't been paying that much attention to my life. I've just kinda taken a step back, and I'm watching all these incredible things happen from a distance. I have the feeling that I if suddenly begin going over all this stuff in my mind, trying to rationalize it all, I'll very quickly suffer a full-blown nervous breakdown." Scott paused then, glancing over to me to see if I was still with him. I nodded, understanding what my best friend was saying, and he continued, turning back to the sky and scanning the heavens with his eyes. He couldn't remember which star it was Billy had pointed out to him, but he knew it was there somewhere. "I mean, up there somewhere in the millions and millions of miles of empty space, the deserted planet Nerimos is orbiting an average yellow star. No scientist, astronomer or physicist on Earth has ever heard of such a planet, much less walked on its surface, and yet we have. But we're just kids, you know?" "Yeah," I agreed. Although our trip to Nerimos hadn't meant much to us while we actually there, it had obviously had a profound effect on everyone. "It's crazy. It's all so crazy." Scott nodded, and turned to me. "What about you? Does it bother you being the leader? That you just got handed a little golden coin and told, "'here, lead these kids into life-or-death battles once a week, and make sure nobody ever dies'?" I smiled and laughed, despite the serious subject. "Never let anyone tell you that you don't have a morbid sense of humour," I said, and Scott grinned. "Seriously though, I guess I don't really think about it that much. I mean, we all have our roles and everything, but we're basically a team. We work together, and not as five or six different people. I guess that's heritage from our friendship, not just being superheroes. And I couldn't order you guys to jump through hoops on command even if I wanted to. Seriously, if I ever turn into one of those military types, feel free to launch me into outer space." He laughed. "You got it," he replied with a grin. "Knew I could count on you," I smiled. "As for the second part, well, I just follow Jason I guess, and do what he would do. There's a good reason why Zordon picked him to be the leader of the original team, he's the best at what he does." "Yeah, I guess we all have a little something to learn from the others," he started, and went to take another drink of chocolate but found his cup empty. "Darn, I'm empty," he frowned, holding his cup upside down for emphasis. I glanced down into my own mug. "Me too," I said, then smiled as an idea came to mind. "Hang on a sec…" Bowing my head and shutting my eyes, I raised my right hand and began moving my fingers, concentrating on my target, while Scott curiously watched, wondering what the heck I was doing. Suddenly, two steaming mugs came into view, magically floating through the air side-by-side, flying around the corner of the cabin and towards us. Scott laughed and raised his hand, and I looked up, using my telekinesis to gently guide the mugs into our hands. Scott looked down to the cup of chocolate milk and then up at me, his eyes wide with wonder. "Wow," he exclaimed, "that was unreal! How did you do that?" I smiled, taking a sip of my drink before answering. "I put an invisibility field around the two mugs, telekinetically "'lifted' the milk molecules into the mugs, and carried the two mugs around here, where I killed the invisibility field. Elementary, my dear Watson." He laughed. "Thanks for that. Saved us the trip. I'd compliment you some more, of course, but I wouldn't want to feed your ego," he grinned. I shook my head. "You watch it boy," I said good-naturedly. "You know, I think I'm gonna find out the brand of chocolate milk they use, see if I can get any back home." "Yeah, that'd be a great idea," came a sudden voice. Turning, we both saw Ian come into view, holding a cup in his hands. "I think I might do the same," he continued, walking over to the wall and sitting down cross-legged beside us. "This stuff is awesome." "What happened to Scrabble?" asked Scott innocently, already knowing the answer. "We were kicked out of the library," he admitted, confirming our suspicions, then burst out laughing. "It wasn't us! It was Luke and Petey! I swear!" Scott and I leaned back against the wall, our sides aching from laughing so hard, and Ian gave us a few seconds to collect ourselves. "So," he finally began, "I know all about you guys, I know about the Centre, and I know about your powers," he said, looking at me. "I don't wanna feel left out of the loop, so is there anything else I need to know?" I quickly turned to Scott and we grinned at each other, the same mental image of a dark costume flitting through both our minds, before turning back to Ian. "Well, come to think of it…"

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