“Valentina, wake up,” Olivia whispered quietly in my ear “We are about to arrive.” I tried opening my eyes but the blazing sunlight pierced through them.
The bus stopped so suddenly that my head hit the chair in front of me.
“Welcome ladies to gentlemen, to Lincoln Memorial”, said a young woman with all her hair tied back into an incredibly neat ponytail, “My name is Janet and I will be your guide today” She gave an enthusiastic smile as she led us into the memorial. While the guide was talking about Abraham Lincoln’s childhood, Mrs. White announced that we would have a quiz on President Lincoln when we got back to school.
I was not the type of the girl who studied for quizzes or tests, so I did not pay much attention to Janet as she explained excitedly about the “legend” of Abraham Lincoln; it was something like “Even though Lincoln did not study in college, he still became the 31st president…” and “He successfully led the Unions into victory and finally ended slavery…” and whatnot. However, there was one thing that caught my eye: a peculiar monkey. With bright blue, green, and red fur and a strand of golden hair that was gelled in a spiky manner, the monkey jumped out from the bathroom right next to me. Was not that weird? Why on earth would a monkey appear in a historical site like this? I decided to follow him.
While I was walking toward that mysterious monkey, Olivia grabbed my arm and stopped me. “Girl, I guess you are bad at directions,” said Olivia pointing to where our class was, which was about 20 feet away.
Jolie ran toward Olivia and me. “And if we don’t follow, we’ll definitely get lost,” added Jolie breathlessly. I could hardly see the monkey now.
“Guys, if you don’t mind, I’m going to continue my search for that monkey,” I pulled my arm away from Olivia then pointed at that strange monkey.
“What monkey, I don’t see ANYTHING,” Olivia raised her voice. “I only care if we are late or not.”
“Olivia, you have to stop trying to be the teacher’s pet and act more like a teenager, ” I said impatiently. By this rate, I would never see that monkey again.
“What did you call me?” Olivia’s eyes widened.
“Valentina, come on,” said Jolie.
“If you guys really don’t want to come with me, then fine” I answered.
“Jolie, let’s go. That girl is just too selfish,” said Olivia, while she tried to pull Jolie away.
“Fine, I don’t want to see you too,” I replied with an aloof tone,” By the way, who can be more selfish than you, teacher’s pet?” Even though I realized what I’d said was mean and not true since Olivia was never selfish, I stormed off angrily.
It took me a while to hunt down that three-colored-furry monkey. When I found it, the monkey appeared in front of a room. The monkey looked prudently from left to right to make sure that no one followed. With a deep sign, it opened the door and walked into the room. Following his previous movements, I carefully pushed the door and followed it into the room.
The room was tiny and full of strange science books. As I moved closer to the monkey, I was able to see it much more clearly. It had computer screens for eyes, an earring on its left ear, and a gigantic nametag that said “No. 05, Dan” around its neck. I saw Dan, assuming that was the monkey’s name, with a book entitled, “Science Can Make You Crazy” in its left hand. When Dan opened the book, something strange happened. The room immediately turned black. I couldn’t see anything for the first few minutes, but then the book started to glow brightly; it grew brighter and brighter with each second. Stars flied out from the book into the room. Bright spherical objects floated around me, resembling planets. As I tried to comprehend what exactly was happening, Dan the monkey jumped into the book and disappeared. I couldn’t process what had just happened, so I carefully walked closer to the book. When I was just a few steps away, the book sucked me in too. My eyesight became blurry. I closed my eyes and drifted into unconsciousness.

When I woke up, I was on a bed in a little room where everything was filled with pink. The sofa, the bed I was sitting on, table…anything you could possibly think of was pink. While I observed the pink room, a young man, who seemed to be his late-twenties, came in. His dark brown hair was gelled back so neatly and tightly that he looked bald. His outfit was antiquated. His beautiful blue eyes seemed to suck out my soul from my body. “Welcome to my lab. My name is Carter Woods,” his voice brought me back to earth.
“Where am I?” I tried to ask like a lady. “Have you seen a robotic monkey with a nametag ‘No. 05, Dan’?” Carter smiled. At first, I thought his smile was attractive, but somehow, after staring for a few seconds his constant smiling gave me goose bumps and made me feel extremely uncomfortable.
“No worries, Dan is my pet,” answered Carter, “I made it for an experiment.” “Why does it look so unique then? What about ‘No. 5’ on the nametag, does it mean anything.” All questions and doubts flowed so suddenly to me. “Wow, you do ask a lot of questions, don’t you? Well, first of all, I believe that a flamboyant outlook will attract attention, which is why Dan sticks out. Secondly, the ‘No. 5’ on the nametag means that he is the fifth robotic monkey that I made. Now, anymore question, your highness?” I face must had turned red from embarrassment because Carter broke into laughter.
“Why don’t we talk while I give you a tour of my building?” suggested Carter. He showed me every lab room in the building, and I must admit that every room was cool. Unlike the pink room, each lab was decorated with white and was about the size of half football stadium. Each lab seemed to hold a different kind of experiment. I saw chemical explosions in one lab and saw sparkling electricity in another.
“So, what was the experiment you assigned Dan?” I asked.
“I was trying to create a portal that allows us to time travel,” said Carter.
“Did the plan work?” I asked.
“Yes, it worked pretty well,” answered Carter, “In fact, that’s the reason why you are here!” I stopped walking and forced my brain to function but I couldn’t. What did he mean by ‘That’s why you are here’? Where exactly was I?
“So where is here?” I asked in an unsteady voice.
“This is Washington D.C. Year 1863,” answered Carter.
Excuse me? Did he just say 1863? I remembered Janet saying that during 1860 something, the United States separated themselves into to armies and fought; this specific war was called something like Clever? No. Civil War? Anyway, it was 150 years in the past!
“How…hm…did you…transfer me here? ” I tried to pull myself together.
“Oh dear, I’m glad that you’re impressed,” happily answered Carter. “My team and I spent years figuring out the solution for this mighty experiment. We simply created a portal through that science book.” The idea about a portal through a science book amazed me. I’d never thought that portals really existed; I thought they were just an element of science fiction.
“How did your team create the portal?” I asked.
“We developed a machine that can take us to the future, and with that machine, we can go anywhere,” Carter gave me a huge, wide smile. I couldn’t believe that any human could create such an impressive invention.
“What about the monkey?” I asked, “What’s he doing there?” Carter looked very puzzled.
“Obviously, we didn’t know where the portal would lead to, so I sent my pet to look first,” said Carter.
“Cool! I am glad that your experiment was successful. By the way, how long have I been here?” I asked.
“Around 1 month I would say,” replied Carter easily.
“Hold on hold on! Why was I asleep for such a long time? My family and friends must be worried about me.” My heart stopped. My last conversation with Olivia and Jolie was mean and selfish.
“You went into a coma. I was unable to do anything about you, so I arranged you into one of our guest rooms. I asked a maid to look after you and change you outfit” replied Carter.
“Well, thank you, sir. But Carter, I think I should get going cause I have to tell my friends something important,” I said chilly.
“NO! You are not going to leave,” screamed Carter in a harsh tone. “You CAN’T!” He completely transferred from his previous demeanor. Veins popped from the sides of his face. His beautiful blue eyes suddenly turned bloody red, like Edward Cullen’s. And the creepiest of all was his voice --- it sounded so hoarse that I could barely understand what he said. His changes shocked me but angered me at the same time.
“Hey dude, that’s not a question; that’s a statement.” I yelled back. “I’m leaving now!” I stared at Carter but saw tears cascading down his cheek. I was more than confused.
“You know Valentina, you are the first person that I successfully transferred and I found you quite interesting; however, you left me with no choice,” said Carter. “Lock the girl in Room 101.” After his words came out, two tall, muscular men with Lincoln-like bear appeared. They grabbed my arms so tightly that made my arms bruised. They dragged me away as I tried to kick Carter in his face.

As soon as those men threw me into Room 101, the door was immediately locked. The room was so dark that I couldn’t even see my fingers. It was so cold that I squeezed into a corner and turned myself into a ball. In the complete darkness all by myself, I started thinking about my conversation with Jolie and Olivia. I began to regret chasing after Dan the monkey. I could be laughing with them about some stupid jokes at this moment. Instead, I was locked in a room in the past and had no clue what would happen to me. I had known the girls since I was in kindergarten. We have always been together since then. We never missed each other’s birthday party and always finished each other’s sentences: that was how close we were. Jolie was always the sweet lady that all parents loved and almost boys fell in love with her big, round puppy eyes. Like my mother, Olivia loved to blabber about life lessons like she was a scholar; Olivia was sporty and well respected by all the girls and teachers. Compared to them, I was a nobody. I don’t have big puppy eyes or sportiness or acuteness or anything. I only know how to have fun and enjoy my moment. All the teachers and parents saw me as troubles. But despite our differences in term of our personalities, I had always felt that we were sisters born from different mothers.

Just when I was about to cry, I heard the sound of a door opening. Right after that, two people took me out. When I was able to see again, I saw Jolie and Olivia in science lab coats standing right in front of me. Both girls looked slightly different; Jolie’s short hair grew longer and reached over her shoulder while Olivia’s neatly tied ponytail was released and her smooth brown hair almost touched waist. When I was about to scream from joy, I saw a guard shouting at us. We started running for our lives.
“How did you guys get here?” I asked while running breathlessly.
“Long story,” said Olivia.
“Where did you guys get the coats?” I asked.
“These coats were nearby us when we woke up. The room was quite big and deserted. The only thing that was in the room is a big machine with many bottoms and a gigantic screen,” replied Olivia with ease.
Big machine with bottoms. Could it be the portal? It seemed like our best shot. “We should go to Room 106,” I said.
“And how did you know that?” asked Olivia. “It’s on your lab coat,” I replied.
“I can see Room 106 now!” exclaimed Jolie. We sprinted to the room. Olivia locked the door after we got in. Thankfully, the time machine was not hard to find. We all ran towards it. The machine was designed intricately with many buttons that had scientific words that I had never seen before. Two big buttons caught my eye and I was able to read them. The red one was ‘start’ and the green one was ‘off’. Above the two big buttons was a big screen with grids in it. The date set on the screen was March 20th, 2013, my birthday and day our school field trip.
Jolie broke the silence. “How exactly do we control this thing?” asked Jolie.
“Well, there are only two buttons that I understand. It must be either ‘start’ or ‘off’” A beat of sweat slid down to my neck. Both of them came to where I was pointing. I could hear yelling from outside the door. It sounded like different people screaming and trying to speak at the same time. I pushed the button where it said ‘start’, and the machine started to glow; it must be needed a huge amount of energy because the room started to shake violently. Within two minutes, a portal formed.
“Let’s go!” exclaimed Jolie and Olivia.
“Wait,” I said, “I’m going to burn this place down.” Both of them looked at me like I was out of my mind.
“But why?” asked Olivia.
“If we don’t burn this place, those mad scientists will create more portals and capture more innocent people from the future.” They immediately understood as Olivia noticed bottles of gasoline across the room. Jolie and Olivia raced to get the gasoline. “What a fool they are to put flammable substances in science lab like this!” mocked Jolie. They started pouring gasoline around.
“Now, let’s go now,” said Jolie when she finished pouring the last bottle gasoline. With that, both girls jumped into the portal. When I was about to join them, the door flew open. Carter came in with his eyes flooded with anger.
“You are not leaving!” bellowed Carter.
“Sorry Carter, but I am” I smirked at him and his crews. Before I jumped in, I grabbed lighter I found nearby, threw it into the room, and jumped though the hole as well. I heard Carter and his team screaming as the room started to burn.

The next thing I knew, we were back at the memorial. I looked at Jolie and Olivia, and they looked perfectly fine except that the lab clothes they borrowed were totally ruined. “I’m sorry about what I said earlier,” I confessed to them.
“Duh, you should be sorry,” Olivia shot me a stare. “Don’t you ever call me a teachers’ pet.”
“Please listen to us next time before doing something that is obviously abnormal like following a monkey in a museum”, added Jolie.
“But we forgive you” they both said at once. “Plus, that was a heck of great adventure!” We all laughed for a while until we saw Mrs. White walking toward us in such heavy steps that we felt the floor was shaking like it did at the lab.
“Oh, there you are,” said Mrs. White. “We have been searching for you guys for an hour!” The three of us looked around in amazement. Didn’t Carter say that I had been in 1870 for a month?
Eventually I said, “We were lost Mrs. White, and we sincerely apologize about what happened.”
Our classmates blabbered behind Mrs. White, saying how they couldn’t believe the three of us got lost in the museum. Everyone listened tenderly about the punishments that Mrs. White was about to announce. “Don’t think I’ll let you three pass so easily. All three of you have turn in a 3000 words essay on the life of Abraham Lincoln,” Mrs. White fixed her eyes on me. “As for now, get catch up the group. We have to leave.” Then we followed her to the group.
“How did you guys get into the building?” I asked.
“We don’t know what exactly happened,” said Olivia looking at Jolie.
“Of course, if we hadn’t to followed you, who knows what kind of trouble you would be with your imaginary monkey “, said Olivia.
“We saw you entering a room. But when we snuck into the room, we couldn’t find you. There was only a book that gloomed brightly,” continued Jolie.
“When we moved in closer, we got sucked into it, and the next thing we knew, we were in that lab with the machine. We walked around the building and found two muscular men holding you while you yelled something about ‘Carter’. After the men were gone, we went inside that room and found you.” finished Olivia. Then the three of us started to laugh.
On our way back to school, I told them what I had learned from the experience in the lab. “Girls, I promise I’ll never be that stubborn again,” I said.
“Glad you made up your mind,” said Olivia. Then Jolie started her stupid jokes. I looked out at the sky. It was dark by now, and I told myself that it was the most unforgettable, amazing birthday I had ever had!