Trixie gave a helpless shrug. “We’ll just have to wait, I think. But I really hope they’re all okay, but especially our Honey. She could have heard him coming and hid, at least.”
They huddled behind the bush, unable to move for fear of being seen and having to listen to Jim’s rather incoherent rants against his friends.
After what seemed like an eternity, they heard a noise behind themselves and turned to see Honey approaching.
“What’s going on?” she asked, taking a peek between the bushes and then hastily turning away again.
Trixie shrugged. “We’re not sure what he’s done, or who he’s done it to. He’s annoyed with someone for planning to keep him out of something. How did you go?”
“Our Jim wasn’t happy,” Honey admitted, “but he’s agreed to get as many of our Bob-Whites as he can. They should be here before morning and they’re going to try to bring all their supplies with them.”
Both of her listeners breathed a sigh of relief.
“But what should we do about this?” Honey continued, pointing to the alternate of her brother. “Should we go and check if the others are okay? And do we need to keep an eye on the fire, too?”
They each considered for a moment, then Trixie spoke. “I’ll stay here and keep watch. The two of you can go and check up on all the others – if you can find them.”
“Hopefully, they’re somewhere near the lake still,” Di commented. “And Honey will be able to listen for them, which should really help.”
“Go now, while he’s not looking this way,” Trixie urged.
Honey led the way, taking the same path by which she had arrived. Within a few minutes, they could walk normally.
“They are near the lake, I think,” Honey noted, only a short time later. “I think I’m hearing echoes across the water. But it’s weird because their voices are kind of muffled, too. They sound kind of angry.”
Before long, Di could hear the voices too and agreed that they sounded exceedingly angry. Honey located alternate Trixie, Honey and Diana’s hiding place by their barely-concealed laughter and the two joined them in their vantage point.
“What’s happening?” regular Di asked, gently touching her double on the arm.
“I’ve never seen anything so funny!” the other Diana replied. “Oh! You should have seen their faces!”
“Did Jim do something?” asked regular Honey. “Is that – Oh! I think that’s Brian. And his hands are tied behind his back! And he has a sack tied over his head!”
“There’s Mart and Dan, and they do too,” Di pointed out. “Aren’t you going to do something to help them?”
A short distance away, the three men staggered around on the edge of the lake, struggling against their bonds and calling threats against Jim. None of them seemed to pay the slightest attention to what the others did or said. And every so often, one of them would fall into the water and have to fight his way back out again, gasping for breath.
“Help them?” Trixie almost shrieked. “Why should we help them? This is hilarious.”
“It wouldn’t be funny any more if one of them drowned,” Di snapped.
She focussed on Mart and concentrated.
“Brian! Dan!” Mart turned in his brother’s direction. “Hey, Brian! Stop a minute, okay?”
“What?”
“Come over this way, both of you. I think I have an idea.”
In their hiding place, the three alternate Bob-White girls sighed in disappointment.
“Why did you have to do that?” alternate Honey asked. “We didn’t even suggest the whole wandering around blindly and making threats thing to them; they came up with it all by themselves.”
“Well, I may have given them a little nudge or two to keep going,” alternate Diana admitted. “And to make Mart forget to use his x-ray vision. And for them all to keep falling in the lake.”
The three dissolved into giggles once more.
“That’s it! You’re getting it!” Mart’s voice rose above everything. “Yes! Keep pulling!”
Alternate Trixie sighed. “It looks like the fun’s over.”
Beside her, alternate Diana grinned impishly and began to concentrate on Brian, whose hands were now free. He ripped the sack from his head and plunged into the lake.
Caught off-guard, regular Diana focussed on him just a few moments too late.
“Hey! Come back and set us free!” Mart yelled.
Dan, disregarding all thoughts of safety – not to mention that he had no means to actually do anything to Brian if he managed to catch up to him – plunged into the lake after him. Hastily, Diana switched her attention to him and he came to an abrupt stop mid-bellow.
“But I don’t understand what actually happened,” regular Honey asked alternate Diana, possibly to stop her interfering any further. “Did Jim do this to them? And how?”
“Well, I think it might have all started when we tried to get them all to stand in the rowboat in the middle of the lake, only I missed Jim and he didn’t get any of the suggestion,” alternate Diana explained. “He lost his temper with them and went off to the boathouse, but we didn’t really notice until Dan started yelling something about intruders – only, it turned out that Jim was invisible and he’d tied Dan’s arms behind his back.”
“Brian and Mart came over and tried to help him,” Trixie continued, “but they couldn’t find Jim and they didn’t untie Dan before they started looking for him, so Jim caught them, too. I wish you’d been here – it was so funny; we laughed and laughed.”
“I’m sure you did,” regular Honey answered with a weak smile.
“I wonder what Jim’s doing now?” alternate Trixie wondered, looking around as if he might appear. “Maybe, if we’re lucky, he’s still here somewhere and as soon as they get free he’ll tie them back up.”
“Ugh! What is going on?” alternate Di complained, catching sight of Brian, who had begun untying Dan. “Why can’t he just stay influenced?”
“Don’t,” regular Honey urged gently, touching alternate Di’s arm to catch her attention. “I’m sure, if they all get out of the lake, something even more funny will happen. Maybe we could think up another idea together, for what we can influence them to do next.”
“Like jumping off the clubhouse roof,” her double suggested, smiling. “That would be funny.”
“Or off Crabapple Farm’s roof,” Trixie corrected. “They might land in Moms’ rose garden. That would be so funny.”
“I don’t think we want them to jump off any roofs,” regular Diana put in, giving the statement just a hint of hypnotic influence.
Trixie suddenly laughed. “I know! Let’s get them to get matching tattoos on their butts.”
“Shh!” regular Honey urged. “We don’t want them to know we’re here, remember?”
“What does it matter?” Trixie asked, loudly. “Who cares if they know?”
Regular Honey cast regular Diana a helpless look.
“Is anyone else feeling sleepy?” Regular Diana put out the suggestion gently, so as not to arouse any suspicion. “I didn’t think it was that late, but all of a sudden I’m really tired.”
Opposite her, her double yawned. “You know, I think we’d better get to bed. We need to be up really early if we want to be up before the boys.”
“Oh, yes, you’re right,” alternate Honey agreed. “Because it’s not going to work if they’re awake.”
“Shh!” Alternate Trixie shook her head, then cast the two visitors a patently false innocent look. “You know, it really is time for bed. I didn’t notice how late it had gotten. Let’s get back to the Inn.”
She stood up and starting walking away, completely disregarding the male part of the club, who had succeeded in freeing themselves from their restraints and had begun plotting revenge against Jim. Alternate Di and both Honeys followed meekly behind. Regular Diana stayed behind them, giving them a mental nudge every time they tried to stray off after some other objective.
Just outside the Inn, she called a halt.
“We can’t all go in together,” she reminded them. “Honey and I will stay here until you’ve had time to get inside. Then I’ll come up and collect the room keys, okay? We’ll come back as soon as we’ve found Trixie and you don’t need to worry about staying awake for us.”
Trixie nodded, yawning. “Sounds like a plan.”
The three entered the building and Diana turned to Honey, giving her a dose of a different suggestion.
“Sorry about that,” she told her. “I didn’t mean to include you in that, but I couldn’t reverse it until we were alone.”
“It’s fine,” Honey answered, “but is this going to work? Are they really going to go to sleep?”
“I don’t know,” Di admitted. “But I’d better not leave them too long, in case they fall asleep before they hand over the room keys.”
“Go now,” Honey urged.
Nodding agreement, Di turned and ran across the clearing to the building. The outside door had not yet been locked for the night, but no one was at the desk at that moment. She darted across the lobby and up the stairs to tap on her own door. No answer.
She tried the other two, applying her ear to each of the three, but with no result. Either the three alternates had tricked them, or they had already gone to sleep. More slowly, she returned to where Honey waited.
“What happened?”
“I couldn’t get into any of the rooms. But I couldn’t hear them, either, so I don’t know if they’re in there or not.”
“I should go and check.” Honey took a step in that direction, then froze. “Except I can’t. Look – they’re locking up for the night. And we don’t have a key to get inside the building.”
Diana groaned. “Well, we’re going to have to trust that they’re safe, and not out here somewhere causing more mischief. Let’s go and see what Trixie’s doing.”
They crept off through the dark, with Honey keeping a constant ear on any approaching trouble. Every so often she caught snatches of Mart, Dan and Brian’s conversation in the distance, but other than that the night held no clues to what was happening.
“Where have you been?” Trixie demanded, when they finally reached her.
She had moved into a more comfortable hiding place a little further back from the campsite and with much better cover. No one had to look at what Jim was doing unless they wanted to.
Honey rolled her eyes. “Well, after Di had a battle of wills with the other Di to save the boys from drowning themselves, she convinced them – I mean, Honey, Di and Trixie; oh, and me, too, but that was an accident – that they were sleepy, so we went back to the Inn. And we tried to get them to hand over the room keys, but we think they went to sleep before they could, only we’re not sure because it was Di who went up, not me, and then the man locked the door.”
“Drowning themselves?” Trixie asked, in alarm.
“It’s a long story, and we’ll tell you all the details later, but the main point is that the girls are completely mad,” Di answered. “If the thing that’s doing that is here, then we can’t afford to let anyone stay here.”
Trixie nodded, understanding. “Especially us. Because we’re the only sane ones, right now.”
“So, what do we do?” Di asked.
Trixie looked towards the camp. “First, we get rid of Jim. Di, you influence him that he’d be better off sleeping in his own bed at Manor House. Oh, and, get him to put some clothes on before he leaves.”
Di nodded and set to work. In no time, Jim had put on the shirt that Brian left lying on the ground and some jeans from inside the tent and marched resolutely away.
“Next, we’d better find the other three boys and get them back into their own beds, too.” Trixie frowned. “They have at least some clothes, right?”
Honey nodded. “They’re wet clothes, but at least they’re not naked.”
“Okay. How about if I stay here and put out the fire,” Trixie offered, “while you two find the boys, keep them away from Jim, and get them to go home. We’ll meet – where?”
“Outside the stables,” Honey suggested. “That’s the portal our boys are arriving by.”
“Great. I’ll meet you outside the stables as soon as we’ve all finished what we need to do.”
They parted ways once more, as Trixie began pouring water on the fire. Honey and Diana walked in silence, in part to help Honey listen, but also because both were deep in thought. Honey guided them to the clubhouse.
“I can only hear two of them.” Her brow creased with worry. “It’s just Brian and Mart. And they’re planning to shave Jim’s head and pull out his eyebrows.”
Diana concentrated. A moment later, the clubhouse door opened and the pair came out.
“In the morning is soon enough.” Brian locked the door behind himself and let out a huge yawn. “It’s better to let him stew a little. He’ll know that we’re planning something.”
“And maybe we’ll think of some more things to do,” Mart added, sounding hopeful. “I always think a good night’s sleep does wonders for plans for revenge.”
They disappeared in the direction of Crabapple Farm, still discussing their plan as they went.
“What now?” Di asked, once they had left the area. “We need to find Dan, but how?”
“Let’s go and check the lake,” Honey answered. “I’m worried about him. Maybe we shouldn’t have left them there when they were behaving that way, only I don’t know how we could have done it any differently.”
They walked quickly, pausing for just a moment every so often for Honey to listen, but she heard nothing unusual. Once they arrived at the lake, she stood on the shore and concentrated with all her might.
“He’s not here.” She gulped. “Or, if he is, he’s not breathing.”
Diana covered her face with her hands. “What do we do? Do we search here, or should we see if he went somewhere else?”
Honey glanced over to the boathouse. “There’s a floodlight, isn’t there?”
In their own reality, there was no such thing. But here, one had been installed a year or two back. The switch was inside the boathouse and it would be locked, but they both knew where the key was hidden.
“I’ll go and turn it on,” Di offered, “while you keep listening.”
She raced over, found the hidden key and switched on the lights. The whole shore area, where they often had barbecues, sprang into view. Light glinted on the surface of the water and reflected into the trees.
Blinking in the sudden glare, they both started searching the area – the shoreline, among the bushes and wading out into the water. After ten fruitless minutes, Honey called a halt.
“If he is here, we can’t find him.” She twisted her hands together. “I think we’d better start looking somewhere else. Or go and meet Trixie and get her to help.”
“Let’s go and meet Trixie,” Di decided. “She’ll be wondering where we are, probably. And we really could use her help.”
They hurried back to the stables, where they found Trixie pacing impatiently.
“Have you seen Dan anywhere?” Honey demanded, cutting over the top of Trixie’s query of where they had been.
“No. Should I have?”
“We can’t find him.”
“He wasn’t with Brian and Mart.”
“We searched at the lake. But Honey can’t hear him.”
“We shouldn’t have left them there. This is all my fault.”
“Wait!” Trixie held up a hand to stop the flow. “Where else have you looked?”
Honey frowned. “Well, nowhere, really. Except for all the places we’ve been while getting from one place to the next – because we walked from Ten Acres to the clubhouse, then from there to the lake, then from the lake to here.”
“So, he might have gone home? Or up to Maypenny’s cabin?”
“Well, yes.”
“Or, he might have decided to just fly off somewhere.”
“Oh. Yes. I forgot about that.” Honey shook her head. “But I’m still worried about him. Just because we couldn’t find him at the lake doesn’t mean that he isn’t there.”
“I’ll never forgive myself if something has happened to him,” Di added.
Trixie groaned. “We really need our boys right now. Maybe I could go and get Dan – he’d be really useful right now, because none of us can just walk up to Maypenny’s and check and I don’t know where there’s a car we could borrow and we’re not riding a horse at this time of night. Regan would kill us!”
“He’d kill our doubles,” Honey pointed out. “And since this is their fault… but I do see your point, and I wouldn’t do that to the horses, or to our doubles, even if they would do that to us, the way they’re acting right now.”
“When are our boys going to be here?” Di wondered.
Trixie shrugged. “They only said before morning, didn’t they? I think there’s still about three hours before it gets light.”
Honey nodded towards the stables. “Someone’s coming now!”
They all turned in that direction and stared, but no one appeared.
Honey looked down at her clothes. “Oh! They think we’re the us from here and not the us from home.” In a slightly louder voice, she called, “It’s okay! We’re the ones from the other place.”
“Oh. It’s just Brian and Mart,” Trixie noted, in disappointment.
“That’s a nice way to greet those who rush to your assistance, to their own great inconvenience,” Mart commented.
“Can you fly?” Trixie asked testily. “Because that’s the ability we really need right now. We’ve lost Dan somewhere and, considering that all the local Bob-Whites are being a danger to themselves and others, we need to track him down right away.”
Mart’s irritation slipped away, as if it had never existed. “It’s that bad?”
“And we haven’t even told Trixie some of the worst bits, yet,” Honey put in. “I suggested that it would be funny to make the boys jump off the clubhouse roof. Then she said it would be funnier if they jumped off the roof of Crabapple Farm and landed in your mother’s roses! And while they were having this discussion, you two and Dan were stumbling around in the lake with their hands tied behind their backs and sacks tied over their heads! And the whole time, our Di was trying to make them stop, while their Di tried to make them keep falling in the lake.”
“And the boys are just as irrational as the girls,” Di added. “And something is doing this to them, but we don’t know what or where it is and we haven’t had time to find out.”
“Mart, you start looking for Dan in all of the buildings around here,” Brian directed. “Maybe, by the time our Dan gets here, you’ll have either found him or ruled them out.”
As Mart strode away, Brian turned back to the girls. “What about the others?”
“We think they’re all asleep,” Honey told him. “Di influenced them all that way, and we think it worked, but we can’t be completely certain. And we haven’t actually checked on you and Mart; only that they were heading in the right direction.”
“Maybe we should do that,” Brian replied.
“I’ll go and do that now,” she offered, running off before he had time to answer.
“That leaves the three of us to deal with the camping gear.” Brian frowned. “We were supposed to be setting up camp, but I think there are more important things to be done.”
The three headed for the stables.
“Is that all you’re bringing?” Di asked, looking at the meagre supplies.
Brian shook his head. “Dan and Jim are bringing the rest.”
They divided the gear between them. A thoughtful look crossed Brian’s face as he hefted the tent.
“You’ve got some extra strength, haven’t you?” Trixie asked.
He nodded. “Just a little. But enough to be noticeable.”
“Is it far to the place you were planning to camp?”
“Not too far.”
She shared a look with Di, who nodded.
“Let’s take everything there, then.”
Again, he nodded, then led the way down one of the trails and onto a narrow path. They walked in silence until they arrived at a tiny clearing, just big enough to pitch a tent in.
“Let’s set up the tent,” Trixie suggested. “It won’t take long and it might be useful later.”
Her brother nodded and they set to work. The pegs sank easily into the soft earth and soon the small dome was ready to be occupied.
“Is that everything to do here?” Trixie asked. “Let’s get back. Maybe our Dan is here and we can get him searching, too.”
As they approached the stables, they could see several figures lurking in various shadows.
Trixie let out a sigh. “We should have made a way to tell which of us is from which place. I bet at least one of those people is wondering where the others are from.”
“We’ll soon know which is which,” Di replied, “but maybe I can help.”
She concentrated for a moment, then all of the lurking people approached them – two from the doorway to the stables, one from outside the stables, and one from the path that led to the main house.
“What did you do?” Trixie asked.
Di shrugged. “Just put an influence on them to only come over here if they’re from our reality. Hopefully, I did it right.”
“Hopefully, all the other Bob-Whites are asleep in their beds,” Trixie countered. As the whole group came together, she added, “Is there anyone here who’s from this reality?”
All of them shook their heads.
“I think you’d better bring us all up to speed,” Jim requested, before anyone else could speak. “Exactly what has been happening that you needed to bring us all here?”
“There’s no time for the whole story right now,” Trixie answered. “But the short version is that the local Bob-Whites are acting crazy – dangerous crazy – and we think we have all of them sleeping somewhere safe, except Dan. He’s our priority right now – unless Honey or Mart found him while we were away?”
Honey shook her head. “I checked up on Brian and Mart and they’re safe. Our Mart’s been around all the places nearby and we still can’t find Dan.”
Trixie turned to Dan. “Can you fly around and see if you can find him? Try Maypenny’s, and Ten Acres, and his own place, and anywhere else you can think of, other than around here and Crabapple Farm. But be careful around Ten Acres; we think the cause of this is up there somewhere. And when you’re done, maybe, we’ll meet up at the tent we just set up – we can’t keep meeting here, because sooner or later Regan’s going to wake up.”
“Okay,” he answered, and took off.
“The rest of us can split up and search, too,” Jim decided. “How about if one person stays at the tent so there’s always someone to report back to?”
“That can be me,” Brian volunteered. “The rest of you have abilities to help you.”
“While you’re waiting, you can plan out how we’re going to search for what’s doing this in the morning,” Trixie told him. “We think we’re going to need Mart’s x-ray vision to find it. But we need to keep the local Bob-Whites out of trouble while he’s working. And then there’s what we do with whatever it is when we know where it is.”
“That’s usually the easy part,” he pointed out. “But you’d all better get searching. I’ll see you back at the tent a bit later.”
Continue to part three.
Notes are at the end.
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