Willa

I woke up in a sweat. Was it all a bad dream? I sure hope it was, but it wasn't. Images of the night flashed through my mind. Wayne. Philby. All the Keepers. Br'er Fox. Br'er Bear. Running. Flashes of forest. Returning. I blinked back tears. I don't know why it was still a reaction, what with all the terror I had seen as a Keeper, but it was. 

As much as I hated the fear of being back to 1.0, I loved seeing everyone again. It made me realized how much I missed the whole ordeal. I mean, running from OT's was just a 'bonus', but seeing those six? I'd face Maleficent alone for the chance. I knew it wasn't going to be long before my phone blew up with texts from everyone, so I hopped quickly out of bed and washed my face. Sure enough, when I came back, I had 172 text messages. I scrolled through them quickly, glancing at the important things.

Philby

What now?

Finn

Don't look at me

Maybeck

Don't worry Finn, only Mandy does that ;)

Mandy

Back off, Maydork (Magis213)

Maybeck

Awww, girlfriend to the rescue. 

I scrolled past that argument, not wanting to see what happened next, probably because it wasn't going to be pretty. Finally I got to the good stuff.

Charlene

But seriously, what now???

Finn

Jelly's in 20?

Maybeck

Okay sure, invite yourselves over.

Philby

It's a date!

Maybeck

But Phil, I don't see Willa anywhere...

I growled at my screen.

Charlene

Back off, Terrance. 

There weren't any texts from Maybeck after that. I looked at the time stamp of the text from Finn inviting us to Jelly's. It was fourteen minutes ago. Sixteen, sixteen. I sang the song from High School Musical 3 in my head. Not to be cliché or anything, but Troy Bolton was my first love back in the day. I threw on some dark wash jeans with my dark purple sweater. With a quick look in the mirror and the shaking out of my hair, I was off to Aunt Jelly's. 

Even though I was technically old enough to drive and had my license, my parents still didn't let me drive without one of them in the car, and I wasn't particularly in the mood to explain to them why I was going to see people, whom I hadn't spoken to for over a year, out of the blue. So, I just jumped on my mint green bike and pedaled my little heart out over to Aunt Jelly's. I was starting to regret the sweater. It was Florida for goodness sake! Why did I even own one???

I rounded the corner and wound up at the little pottery shop that Maybeck and his Aunt Jelly ran. They were something else, I tell you. All of the keepers loved Jelly though. She was so accommodating and hospitable, except when Maybeck didn't do his work. I snorted at the thought of her towel whipping Maybeck for not cleaning out the kiln. 

When I checked the time on my phone, I realized it was five minutes before I was supposed to be there. I didn't particularly enjoy being alone, even in a pottery shop with the Aunt Jelly, so I hung out outside. Without warning, a pair of arms wrapped themselves around me from behind me. I tensed up and was about to jab the person right where the sun never shines, but when I looked down I saw distinct red hair on their arm. 

"Dell Philby!" I scolded, my face turning scarlet as I turned to face him.

"Oh... Was I not supposed to do that?" Philby looked down, shame filling his eyes. It was like I had slapped a puppy or something. The unintentional puppy-dog face, that's the worst.

"Not, well, that... But like scaring me and... yeah." I trailed off, stumbling over my words. Truth be told I didn't exactly mind Philby getting a little, well, "personal" but I did mind being scared to death. My thoughts and probably his too- who am I kidding, nothing can interrupt Professor Philby -were interrupted by a cough behind us. Philby and I whipped around to see Maybeck smirking in the doorway of the shop.

"Dell and Isabella, sittin' in a tree-" Philby cut him off.

"Cut it out, Terrance." 

"Oohh, playing the first name card, eh?" Maybeck joked, knowing he had done the exact same thing. 

"Yeah, learned from the worst." Philby retorted.

"Guys, guys, no need to argue over who gets to sit next to me." Finn did a 'calm down' hand motion as he strolled over with Amanda, who was trailed by Jess, who was scribbling something down in her notebook.

"As if." Philby scoffed. I pinched him, which left a really funny red mark on his arm. 

"Okay, who are we missing?" I asked. 

"Uhhh..." Amanda looked around. "Just Charlie." Maybeck turned a beet red, knowing what was about to happen. 

"Charlene and Terrance-" Maybeck cut Philby off before he could even get past names. 

"We never speak of these past three minutes. Agreed?" Maybeck muttered. Philby gave him possibly the cheesiest thumbs up I've ever seen. 

"No but seriously, where is Charlene?" We all looked at Jess who had piped up out of no where. "What? I have vocal chords." 

"Actually, they are called vocal folds, but-" Philby started to say.

"Not today, Professor Phil." Maybeck cut him off. Philby glared at him. 

"Present," We heard a raspy voice call from the right. Everyone turned to see Charlene in the basic white girl 'I need sleep' outfit with gray joggers, a white t-shirt that said 'Messy hair, don't care' and her gold locks were tied up in a bun on top of her head. And oh, don't forget the Starbucks. 

"Did you get run over by a truck?" Amanda asked, wrapping a sleepy Charlene into a hug.

"No, but I had a cheer competition yesterday evening and no sleep certainly didn't help the whole 'about to pass out' thing I had going on." Charlene pulled away from Amanda to take a sip of her frauppiccino.  

"Um, can we like, go inside?" Maybeck gestured towards the door, and everyone followed inside. We found a table in the back and sat down. 

"Do you guys have anything to eat?" Finn asked in the most polite, 'I've been taught good manners', boy voice ever. He should be in a commercial for that.

"Sure." Maybeck raced upstairs and came tromping down the stairs practically seconds later with bags of various chips. Charlene eyed them hungrily, and dove into a bag of Skinny Pop as soon as Maybeck sat them down on the table. We all looked at her in confusion.

"What? Girl's gotta eat." Charlene said before stuffing another mouthful of popcorn into her mouth. Rolling our eyes, we moved onto more important matters.

"Okay, seriously. What now?" Finn asked us. Everyone looked at him like he had two heads. He was supposed to be making the decisions here, after all. "Don't look at me." Finn held his hands up in surrender.

"Well, we defiantly have to get to the Base soon. And very soon, at that." Philby suggested. Well, not suggested, more like informed.

"How fast do you think you could get the Imagineers programming 2.0?" I asked.

"They probably already are." Amanda pointed out.

"I second that." Jess backed Amanda up.

"But like, how fast will it be done?" I tried to reword my question.

"It's gonna be at least a week." Philby sighed, running his hands through his hair.

"A week of that train light thing? You've got to be kidding me." Maybeck closed his eyes and leaned his head back so he was looking at the ceiling. 

"We had to go back to the reality sooner or later." Finn pointed out, making a slight Back to the Future reference. I don't think anyone except for my nerdy self and Philby caught on. The only reason I could tell he got it was he gave a little snort in his position of distress. Looking around the table, all I saw was distraught faces. We loved seeing each other, but boy, this was going to be an adventure I couldn't tell if I wanted to miss.

Hi friends! I hope this chapter was to your liking, along with the HSM video. I did it partially in honor of the Troy Bolton reference, and partially because of the official announcement of HSM4! But it won't be very good in my opinion because Kenny Ortega isn't directing it and the original cast won't be in it. :( 

Anyhoo, I have dedicated this chapter to @magis213 because she's been commenting and voting so much I actually memorized her username! Thank you girly, I appreciate it! 

Well, until next time! Keep commenting, fanning and voting!

xoxo 

~bcruzy_02