After getting changed, Nat and I got prepared to get Brooke again. "Are you ready, Nat?" I asked.

“I’m ready.” Nat said as she walked over. “I’ll unfreeze her, and you can make her forget. The quicker the better, because she’ll probably be struggling, and I personally would rather not get hit by a flailing leg or arm.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

“Regelo.” Unfreeze, Nat said.

“Oblitus.” Forget, I said as quickly as I could after Nat.

“Hey Nat, where’s Maddie?” I asked.

“She’s still in the car. I’ll get Brooke out of the trunk while she’s still dazed and you can get Maddie.

I heard Nat cast another spell, and I assumed that was to warm Brooke up as I walked to the front; where sure enough there was a pink purse sitting there with eyes staring up at me. I opened the door and grabbed Maddie and set her down. She instantly turned into a pig, but I figured she would have to be a purse very shortly again. I figured she deserved to be free for a few minutes though while Brooke figured everything out.

“Natalie is that you?” Brooke asked.

“Yeah, me and Candace….picked you up from your house so you could help us with the mission. Chad…um…well he had to leave so we figured you wouldn’t mind helping even though you wanted to go home. You hit your head when you were trying to get in the car so we lay you down in the trunk, because you fit the best in there, and it would be more comfortable for you. Now we’re at the airport and we need to fly to Cairo.” Nat said, and I admired her story. I thought it was pretty good.

“I don’ remember any of that though. I can’t remember anything right now that happened today!”

“That’s alright. You just went home, because you told us you wanted to say goodbye to your parents and then you gave us some names of magicians that you knew so we could continue on with our mission. You did hit your head pretty hard, so I’m not really surprised that you can’t remember anything that happened today!”

“Well, where’s Brent? Is he okay?” I sighed. Apparently Brooke hadn’t ‘hit her head’ hard enough.

“So we’re going to him already are we? Do we really have to start like this?” I demanded. I thought that maybe just maybe Brooke wouldn’t think of Brent so highly, and maybe just maybe we could be friends. Obviously that wasn’t going to happen, because one of the first things she asked was about him.

“Why do you hate him so much Candace? What did he do to you?” Of course Brooke would try to stick up for him, but I wouldn’t let her nosy self get in the way. I didn’t like her trying to figure everything out. Yes, she was part of the mission, but talking about me disliking Brent would go nowhere.

“That is none of your business. He is my brother so I can, not like him you know. Now get your bags and money, because we need to go find my annoying brother who has our plane tickets.” I grabbed her bags out of the trunk which had been squished in there with her so Brent wouldn’t ask any questions and gave it to her. “I’m sorry Maddie, but you need to be a purse again.” Maddie’s head dropped and I felt bad because she had just been free, but there wasn’t anything that I could do for her. I didn’t think they allowed pigs on planes.

I put Maddie the purse over my head and started walking towards the airport again. I hoped Nat was following me and I didn’t really care about Brooke. If she didn’t come, it would just make the whole mission easier for the rest of us.

Nat quickly caught up to me with Brooke right behind and when we went into the airport, Brent wasn’t where he was supposed to be, which wasn’t exactly a surprise to me. We looked at the airline booths, because Brent was probably still at one of them trying to find a flight. I saw Brent waiting in the Southwest airlines line. I walked to the front of the line, because Brent was the first in line now, and got a few dirty looks, but most people figured out that we were together.

“Did you find anything yet or is this still your first line?”

“Yeah, but I looked online and I just figured I would go in line for this one. It’s a direct flight that leaves in five hours. It’s the earliest flight that I found for all the airlines. Is that okay?”

“Yeah that’s great. As long as there’s enough seats left for four of us.”

“I’m hoping there-”

“Next.” The lady at the booth cut him off. We walked up to the booth. “How can I help you two today?”

“We need a direct flight to Cairo. I found one online that leaves in five hours. Is there any way that we would be able to get on that flight?” Brent asked.

The lady at the desk typed on her keyboard and clicked a few times. “How many seats do you need?”

“Four.” I answered.

“Alright, we have three third flights and then one first class. Is that alright?”

“Could you put us on standby for one more third class flight? It would be nicer if we could all be together.” I said.

“Yes, can I have a name?”

“Candace Brown.”

“Alright thank you. I’ll put you on stand-by for that. Would you like your four tickets now though? You can switch the first class ticket later if you want and you’ll get a refund for whatever extra it is.”

“Yeah, we’ll take the three now. Do you think that we will be able to get on?”

“I will make an announcement and see if there is anyone willing to switch. A lot of people would not be here yet for their flight though, so I wouldn’t count on it right away. I would just get the first class ticket, because it’s easy to switch and then at least all of you could get on that flight.”

“Okay, sounds good to me.” We gave the lady all our information that we needed and we put Brent down for the first class flight, and the rest of us for third class.

“Security is right through there and you can get to your gate and the food court once you’re through security. You’ll need these boarding passes to get through security.” She handed us our tickets and we met up with Brooke and Nat again.

I was interested to know what they would see in Maddie as a purse and how they would see our bags, because it was easy to assume that you would only see guts if you took an x-ray of Maddie and our bags would have tiny little clothes.

Apparently they saw nothing that was alarming because we got through security with no problems. We were soon through everything and decided to get a bite to eat at the McDonald’s in the food court.

When we finished eating, we had about four hours left until our flight left. We sat at our gate and waited for a while, but it was kind of nice to just sit there; healthy and not having to worry about being attacked.

We heard my name over the speaker and I assumed they had gotten us our third class flight. I went to the desk for our section and switched up our tickets. After that we waited again until we could finally board the plane.

Nat and Brooke sat together and I sat with Brent. Nat and I had figured it would probably be better to keep Brooke and Brent separated so Brent wouldn’t trigger any memories Brooke may have had.

Over the course of the flight I saw Brent keep glancing at Brooke. He probably thought that Brooke was mad at him or something, and finally after seven hours of the flight, Brent finally started to talk to me. I had been so bored and I needed something to do. I had tried to talk to him several times, but he hadn’t really responded. So I had just sat there and dozed off for the most of twenty minutes at a time. Unfortunately when Brent did start to talk to me, it was about Brooke.

“Where was she, Candace? How come you sat by me and not Natalie? How come she hasn’t talked to me?” He sounded like a three year old asking their parent’s what they were going to get for their birthday.

“I already told you that she was at home. She had wanted to say good bye to her parents. I don’t know the rest.” I snapped. I didn’t’ want to sit by Brent if he would only talk about Brooke and not even try to make conversation with me on the long and boring flight. I had no idea why I had wanted Brent to talk to me, because he had managed to annoy me within the first minute of talking to me.

The rest of the flight we didn’t talk at all. I slept for about another hour at the most and I could only dream of something that would entertain me. A plane crash almost seemed promising at the time, because I had nothing else to hope for. I fantasized in my mind everything that could happen, but eventually bored myself with my thoughts.

Finally after fourteen hours of boredom we arrived in Cairo at twelve o’clock in the afternoon. We all tried to get off as fast as possible, and since we were seated in the middle, we got off fairly fast and arrived at the entrance about ten minutes after we landed.

“Okay, so where do we go?” Brooke asked. I rolled my eyes. Of course she thought that she was in charge again. That’s what she always thought. She thought she was the queen of the world. I probably wasn’t being fair to her either because I was so tired and bored. I couldn’t sleep on the plane, because I was too bored.

“We have to go to the Pyramids of Giza. Are those even in Cairo?” I asked.

“No dummy, they’re in Giza, hence the name the Pyramids of Giza!”  I assumed he was just trying to show off his ‘knowledge’ to Brooke.

“I’m sorry that I don’t know geography of Egypt and where things are and I’m sorry that I’m not such a nerd!”

“I’m not a nerd!” Brent protested, only because it probably made him look ‘bad’ in front of Brooke.

“Yeah you are. Who knows the geography of Egypt without studying it in their spare time? Our school didn’t offer Egyptian Geography!”

“I’m not saying that I know Egyptian Geography, I just know that the Pyramids of Giza are in Giza. I think that everyone knows that.”

“No, because I didn’t and I am a person believe it or not.” I snapped.

“Okay you two. I think that that’s enough for today!” Nat stepped in. I knew I had won and so did Brent. He had no more comments left.  “I think we should get started. Let’s get someone to call a cab for us, since there’s none here right now. I’m not really sure how far Giza is, but if we need to fly we could always use Maddie.”

“Why in the world would you use Maddie? You two are so stupid sometimes!” Brent rolled his eyes.

“Why are you such a know it all?” Nat shot back.

“I think that we should just go with Natalie’s idea and call a cab.” Brooke stepped in. Of course she would step in and act like the bigger person even though she clearly wasn’t!

I stomped into the airport again and went to one of the desks they had. “Can you call a taxi for me?” She nodded and soon a taxi was outside for us.

“You Americans?” The taxi driver asked me as I had one leg in the front seat and one out.

“No, Canadians.” The taxi driver didn’t seem to speak very good English. She had a very thick accent, and didn’t seem to be able to form proper sentences already.

“You have Egypt money?” She did the money gesture by putting her index and middle finger together and rubbing them with her thumb.

“No we only have Canadian money.”

“I no take Canada money. I take Egypt money.”

“You can just change it at a bank.”

“A…bank?” I wanted to roll my eyes, but I had to be patient with her. If she came to Canada and spoke Egyptian I’d have no idea what she was saying.

“Yes, somewhere you could exchange money, or could you drop me off at a bank to exchange my money?”

“What a bank?”

“It’s a place where you take money out and put money in.”

“Oh yes, I know what you say now.” I figured she didn’t, and I didn’t want to get lost.

“Okay well thanks, but since we have no Egyptian money, I’m going to go to a bank.” I assumed no taxis accepted Canadian money, so we were stuck. I sat down on a bench.

“It is so hot here.” I was sweating and I hadn’t done anything. I wasn’t used to the hot weather. Vancouver never got overly hot.

“Well we are in Egypt.”

I rolled my eyes. “I know that. I’m just saying. You have said things like that many times so don’t start me on that!”

“I have never said anything as dumb as that! I bet no one in the entire world has, because you are the dumbest person ever!” Brent sounded so frustrated.

I was about to say something, but Brooke cut me off. “Stop arguing you two! If we want to get this mission done, no get this mission started, we need to stop arguing.” I was surprised that she said we, but she still tried to make it sound like she was in charge and that she was the big person.

“Nat and I are in charge of this mission, so don’t you dare think you are. We took you along for this mission, and you didn’t take us.” I said through gritted teeth trying not to get too mad. “And just for the record, it is not my fault that we are arguing. Mr. Sunshine over there is trying to shoot down every single idea I have had! He is just being his grumpy self as always!”

“It takes two to tango.” Brooke shot back at me. I wasn’t surprised that she defended Brent; I had been expecting it, because she hated me and was in love with Brent.

“Candace, I don’t know why you are always so immature. You can’t take the blame for anything can you?” Brent added. I rolled my eyes. Of course Brent would add that. I felt my temper rising again.

“You really think I am immature? The person that is immature is the person that brought it up! ‘We’re in Egypt.’ You just have so much attitude!” I mimicked Brent’s voice. “So please just shut up right now before you make things so much worse than they already are.” A few people were staring at me, but I ignored them. I didn’t know them, and even if I did I wouldn’t have cared.

Brent was about to try to make a comeback, but Nat intervened once again.

“STOP, JUST STOP!” Nat yelled at both of us. Even more people turned and started at her, but Nat didn’t seem to notice. “You two are acting like babies. It is both of your faults, you need to deal with your problem and move on. Brooke is right; we will never get this mission done if you two don’t even try to get along!”

No one said anything, because I figured we were all a little afraid of Nat after hearing that outburst, but finally Brent spoke up. “I guess you’re right.”

“Yes I am. I’m glad you finally understood.” I snapped. I turned around and walked away. I went inside the airport and went to the front desk again. “Excuse me, but do you know if there’s a bank around here?”

“Yes, there’s one a little ways from here.” She gave me the instructions and I left the airport. I began to walk to the bank, which was only about a kilometer away from the airport. When I arrived I was in awe of the building, because it was totally different then what I saw back home in Vancouver, but then I remembered the mission, and continued on.

I had no idea if Nat, Brooke, or Brent had followed me, but I hadn’t looked back once. Nat and Brent probably knew better than to follow me anyways when I was in such a bad mood.

As I waited in line, I began to make plans of what I was going to do. I had all of my money, and Nat had given me most of hers too. She hadn’t liked the responsibility of carrying so much money around. She’d eventually come after me and I was okay with that, but I would not go any further with Brooke or Brent. I didn’t want to deal with Brooke thinking she was in charge of everyone, and I didn’t want Brent trying to make my life miserable.

Finally it was my turn to go to a teller. “Hi, I was wondering if I could exchange some Canadian money for some Egyptian money. You do that here right?”

“Yes, we do. How much money would you like to be switching?” I told her the amount, which was most of my money. “Alright, you will need to sign some forms to switch that much money over, but you will be able to shortly. Just so you know the Canadian dollar is six point two eight pounds. Is that alright?”

“Yeah that sounds good to me.” It was six times as much as the Canadian dollar so it sounded good to me.

“I don’t know if you’re doing this for tourism, but some places do accept Canadian money. I’m not sure if you knew that or not. Most taxi drivers don’t, because they do not like to convert the Egyptian pound to the Canadian dollar, but almost every other Egyptian place does accept it.”

“Oh, I was told that no one took it. I guess I’m here now, and I need to take a taxi around while I’m here.” The bank teller gave me some forms and I quickly filled them out.

“I just need an ID now and you are good to go.” I grabbed my passport and showed it to her. She then walked into the back of the bank and came back a few minutes later with my money. Soon I was out the door and on my way back to the airport, to catch a taxi, a few minutes later. I had figured the airport would have the most taxis.

When I was about a sixth of the way back to the airport, I saw Nat, Brooke, and Brent walking towards the bank on the other side of the road. I didn’t want to talk to them, so I looked straight ahead. They must’ve seen me though, because out of the corner of my eye, I saw them speed up. At least Brooke and Brent did, Nat quickly crossed the road and came running over. I figured she would since I had most of her money, as soon as she had it she would leave.

I decided it was alright to watch Nat, and when she was almost across the road, a car came flying and almost hit her. I tried not to laugh, but I couldn’t help it. Nat always managed to cheer me up even when she didn’t mean to, and I was mad at her. As she approached I put my angry face on and sped up, as my anger returned.

“Candace, did you exchange our money already?” Nat asked as she jogged after me.

“Yep.” I started to jog away from her.

“Candace, running away isn’t going to help. I can run faster than you for longer and you know it. I’m not going to let you go away mad.” She was beginning to sound like my mom sometimes. “So tell me now. Why are you so mad?”

“I don’t know, Natalie Genstine! Why don’t you use that little brain of yours and think about it.” I began to jog faster so Nat would have a harder time keeping up.

“Candace, I don’t know why you’re mad at me! I get why you’re mad at stupid Brent, but I didn’t do anything!” I chose not to respond or even look at her. “Candace, if you think I came for my money you’re wrong. I came back for you. I should’ve followed you earlier.”

I didn’t believe her. “You are on their side!” Natalie had been sticking up for Brent, and not me. She made sure that we both sounded bad even though it was Brent’s fault.

“Candace, why don’t you understand? There are no sides! We’re not in a war.” I stopped walking and spun around.

“Tell me, Natalie, when you argue are there two sides to an argument, or are there no sides there?” She didn’t say anything so I knew I had got her. “You were on Brent’s side in the argument and you know it.”

“You take it so seriously though! You would think it was a war!” Nat exclaimed.

“I take fights seriously and you of all people should know that. A war is just a gigantic fight between two or more sides, and an argument is just a smaller fight between two or more sides. There are sides and you are on Brent’s side with Brooke again. Against me, again.”

Natalie was about to say something, but we suddenly heard  a growl from a row of trees that was just about to end. I decided to turn around and walk back to the middle of the trees so I could make sure nothing was there. I figured whatever was in there would hide in the middle, and if it was a monster, I couldn’t just leave it there to attack innocent people. If it was some wild animal, then I’d have to run for my life. “Candace, what in the world is it there?” Natalie asked me.

My anger had begun to fade, but I couldn’t get rid of the angry feeling. “I have no clue.” I quickly glanced back at the road and for some reason no cars were passing by. I knew that it had to be a monster, and somehow Magic was keeping all the cars from coming close to us. I put Maddie down and she changed into a pig, dropped my backpack, and grabbed my wand out of the air.

I faced the line of trees and suddenly saw a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye. “Nat.” I warned.

“Yeah, I saw it too.” I quickly glanced at her and saw that she had her wand ready too. All of a sudden something green came flying out of the tree line and Nat suddenly went down. I saw her clothes smoking, but didn’t have time to figure out what happened. “Scutum,” Shield, I said just in the nick of time as a bolt of lightning came down and hit my shield.

I looked around and saw the bush running towards me at full speed and I got a good glimpse of it for the first time. The monster looked like a very strange bush. It looked exactly like a normal bush would, except it had red eyes with white circles in the middle as pupils and the eyes didn’t move or blink. I saw a very faint yellow strip that appeared to be in the shape of lightning. The monster didn’t have any visible eyes and appeared to be floating.

“Desperdere.” Destroy, I quickly said out of panic. Believe me, bushes charging towards you like bulls were pretty scary, and I never wanted to have that experience again.

It seemed to work, because the monster staggered as if it had hit an invisible wall. The monster didn’t seem to be able to with stand very powerful spells. “Peroutile Eum.” Strike, I cast the spell. The monster suddenly flew back and then disappeared. I hoped that there were no more bush monsters, or so I liked to call them, around.

I quickly ran to Nat, and saw her lying on the ground. Her clothes were smoking and she had never looked so pale. I saw Maddie standing over Nat, but she couldn’t do anything.

I dropped down beside Nat and felt for a pulse. I couldn’t find one, not even a faint one. I looked to see if her chest was moving up and down, but there was no movement. I felt her face, and it felt like she had just been in a freezer.

A tear began to fall down my face. Nat wasn’t breathing, and she was dead.