Chapter 2 - Who's That Girl?

They didn’t know her though and her appearance was mysterious. She had headphones on and she was dancing to a song that played on her pink mp3 player.

“He was a skater boy
She said see you later boy
He wasn’t good enough for her

She had a pretty face
But her head was up in space
She needed to come back down to earth”

“Who…is that?” Ben asked quietly.

“Not sure” Hazel replied.

The girl continued to dance around. She seemed not to even notice her sudden audience. Her hair was long with a golden-blonde color to it. On the ends of the hair, were black dyed tips. Her shirt was hot pink with black around the collar and the sleeves. Her pants were regular light-blue jeans. Her shoes matched her shirt; they were solid black with pink towards the bottoms of the shoes. Her accessories included a black bracelet on her left wrist and a plain black choker around her neck. The girl started to sing as the next song came on her player.

“Why don’t you go ask her just who in the heck she is?” Hazel asked. She shoved Ben forward and he lost balance. The girl was closer to them, although she still hadn’t realized it. Ben ran into her and knocked her to the ground. Her headphones flew off and they both screamed as they fell.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” Ben apologized quickly. He got up and held out a hand to the fallen girl. She rubbed her head and opened her light blue eyes for the first time since Ben and Hazel had come back.

“Ah! Who are you people?!” she screamed with wide eyes. She backed away and tried to escape. But it was no use. A few seconds later, she was against the edge of the nearby picnic table. There was nowhere else to go. “What…what do you want from me? I’ll give you all of my money! No wait…even better…my mp3 player! It holds like a thousand songs! You can have it…just please don’t hurt me!” she yelled. She crossed her hands over her face and looked away.

Hazel stared down at her like she was some kind of maniac. “Um…ok…this is weird,” she raised an eyebrow. Ben nodded in reply, as he was still shook up from the fall. The two of them continued to stare at the girl until she couldn’t take it any longer.

“What?! Haven’t you ever seen a girl before? Which obviously you have since one of you is a girl,” she snapped.

“This girl’s got attitude,” Hazel remarked. But she thought that she might like this girl. Their personalities seemed very similar so far. “Yeah, so what?” Hazel retorted, “And why are you acting like it’s weird that we’re here? You’re the one that showed up out of no where.”

Ben nodded in agreement. The girl looked down towards her shoes, “Whatever. All I want to do is get home.” She got up and started to walk off.

“Um…” Hazel started. She noticed that the girl was walking straight into the heart of the woods. She knew that there were all sorts of wild animals in there and that it would be easy for someone to get lost. Within a few minutes however, the girl was gone. “Well, I guess that’s it,” Hazel stated.

But almost as soon as she said it, the girl was back out of the forest. She was being chased by a large moose and was running for her life. “Ah! Somebody help me!” she screamed. But a large root stuck out from the ground and her shoe got caught in it. She fell to the ground and the moose came near her.

Oh no, Hazel thought. She rubbed her collar and quickly turned into a moose herself. She ran up to the other moose and grunted. The other moose snorted and tried to make itself look inferior. Hazel understood what it was saying though since she now understood moose language. “Alright wise-guy, that’s it. You’re going down!” she shouted. She ran towards the large creature and slammed into its side. It flung a few feet away, but caught its balance. It heaved itself forward and was heading back towards the girl. She screamed yet again and closed her eyes, expecting pain. But when nothing happened, she opened her eyes. The moose was now lying on the ground next to her, unconscious. She screamed at the sight, and she feared that it was dead. “What happened to it?!” she screamed. She had no idea that Hazel had even fought it. Hazel simply shrugged and replied, “Oh, it’s just asleep, that’s all. It’ll be fine.”

“But how did you- oh, never mind,” the girl said. She sighed with relief and lied down on her back. Phew, that was a close one, she thought. But then she noticed Hazel and Ben staring at her. She wondered for a few moments, but then a wave of realization crashed over her. “Okay…,” she started, “Maybe I need some help.” Admitting it made her feel a whole lot better, but at the same time, she was upset. When would she ever get home? She looked at the two strangers before her. Maybe they could help her; maybe even become her friends. She stared at them momentarily and for the first time, noticed what they looked like.

The girl had brown hair with black tips. It was pulled up into a high ponytail and was a sleek as the top of a metal table. Her hazel eyes seemed to be gold and pierced with intensity. The rest of her outfit though seemed like a normal teenaged girl’s outfit. She had on a black tank top, blue jeans, and black sneakers with blue on the front of them. A black armband was placed on her left forearm.


The boy also had brown hair, but with no black tips. It was short and slightly messy. The boy’s eyes were green with a yellowish tint to them. His white shirt had a thick black line down the center and it matched his white and black sneakers. His pants were baggy and had a forest green color to them. It seemed like a pretty normal outfit too. But the boy looked younger than the girl. They looked almost related, but not quite.

The girl then noticed something very odd about them. Hazel had on a collar, a blue one. It looked like one that was always placed on animals in the pictures that the girl has read as a little kid. The sun hit the golden metal and it shined. But something seemed very odd about it. Ben also had a weird accessory; his watch. It was large and bulky with black, white, and green colors placed on it. The girl figured that it was just a toy of some sort. It looked like it didn’t even tell time, so she had no other reasonable theories for it.

The boy then held a hand out to her. “Come on, we’ll help you get home,” he suggested as a smile formed on his face. The girl smiled back and started to feel a little better. “By the way.” the boy started. The girl wondered what he was about to say and she held her breath. “You have a leaf in your hair.”

The girl rolled her eyes and laughed. She figured that she might like the new strangers. The boy suddenly grabbed her arm and dragged her to the RV. “Hey! Wha…what are you doing?” she asked frantically. But the boy didn’t answer. “Grandpa!” the boy yelled.

“Oh great, what now?” Gwen greeted them. But she stopped what she was doing when she saw the girl. “Who…is…that?”

But nobody spoke as an older man walked towards Ben. He was heavy-set and had gray hair due to age. His red shirt had orange Hawaiian flowers printed all across it. The rest of his outfit consisted of blue jeans, brown boots, and friendliness. It was Ben and Gwen’s Grandpa Max. “Well, hello there,” he said in a gentle voice.

“Hi,” the girl squeaked. She was nervous around adults, especially ones that she had never seen before in her life. The man studied her and she could feel his eyes bore down on her. She felt as if she could die right then and there. She moved her foot around a little and looked downward. The man smiled and started to speak again.

“Well, you seem like a very nice young lady,” he commented. The girl nodded in reply and continued to stare down at the floor tiles. “What’s your name?” he asked with that same kind voice. It sounded like when a policeman was talking to a young child that needed help finding his/her parents.

“Denny,” the girl replied.

“What a pr-,” the man started, but was interrupted by Ben. “Pretty name, yeah yeah, we get the point,” Ben muttered. The man gave him a death glare and put his hands in his pockets. He sighed and looked annoyed.

“You’re so inconsiderate,” Hazel whisper-yelled at Ben. She jabbed an elbow into his side and he jumped. “Ow!” he yelled in response.

Grandpa Max simply sighed. He turned back to Denny. “So Denny, where are you from?”

“Well,” Denny started, “I’m from Daytona Beach, Florida. And to tell you the truth, I really have no idea of how I even got here.”

Grandpa Max thought for a moment. He wondered how she could not even know how she had gotten there, but he had seen enough strange things happen in his life to know better. He didn’t know how they could get the girl home anytime soon though. They were in Nevada and that was a long ways away from Florida. “Where were you before you arrived here?” he asked.

“I was by my home, at a concert hall. You see, I’m a part of my very own band. We were supposed to be performing on stage for the first time since our band had been started up. But about half an hour before it was time to go on, there was a purple streak the zoomed right past me while I was waiting backstage. Then suddenly, there were flashes of light and crashing sounds. I didn’t know what to do and couldn’t really move because I was so scared. My friends and family were looking for me; I could hear their calls. I felt lost and even a little bit insecure. I just put my headphones on and hoped that it was all just a dream and that it would all be over soon. Then a song came on that I really liked. I sang to it and hoped to calm myself down, and it started to work. I even danced a little just to help out further. But then I felt something run into me and I fell to the ground. I looked up and right before me were these two,” she pointed towards Ben and Hazel.

They looked up at Grandpa Max and shrugged. “We came back and she just happened to be here,” Ben said. Hazel glared at him for a moment and said, “Well nothing would’ve ran into her if it weren’t for your doofusness.” She hit him in the back of the head and huffed.

“Are you still mad at me?” Ben asked worriedly.

“Uh, what do you think?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.

“But why? I helped you save Kevin and everything!” he yelled.

“That still doesn’t make what you did right,” she sighed.

Ben looked down and sulked a little. He realized that people had been looking down a lot that day. But he went on to think about how he would make Hazel realize that he was truly sorry. He knew that just apologizing for it wouldn’t be enough. He wanted to know what he could do. He looked up and noticed Denny staring at him. “What,” he said more than asked. He was too upset at that point to be considerate.

“Oh, nothing,” she shrugged, “You just looked pretty upset there and I didn’t know if you were okay or not.”

“Yeah, sure” he replied sarcastically.

A pouty look formed on Denny’s face. Hazel glared up at Ben again. Ben couldn’t take it any longer. “What’s your problem? Won’t you ever forgive me? And why have you been acting so weird lately?” he blurted in Hazel’s direction. He had kept his emotions and questions in for too long. He wanted to know why she was acting like she didn’t even care about him or anybody else lately.

“I do forgive you, Ben. It’s just that what you did was pretty wrong. At least I think so. And I haven’t been acting weird lately. I just feel…left out, that’s all.” her voice had been loud but had decreased so much within the sentence that by the end it was barely audible.

Everybody in the RV got quiet at the moment. Nobody talked and the tension was so thick that it was almost like a fog that hung around each and every one of them. “Look, it seems like I’m just causing a lot of unnecessary trouble and I think I should just leave and try to make my own way back home,” Denny said while showing no obvious emotion. But as she turned, she felt a hand on her shoulder.

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