"Annie?? what happened to you?" asked Mrs. Grey worriedly as she saw Annie who was covered in almost dry mud from chin to toe.
"Ahh Mom" said Annie as she turned to meet her mother.
"I got stuck in mud" said Annie as she was tired of explaining the whole situation, so she decided to give the short explanation.
"Mud??" asked Mrs. Grey
"Where did you go that you got stuck in mud?" asked Mrs. Grey as she was sure that since they arrived here, she had not seen a single pool of mud anywhere around here.
"Out of the camp" said Annie
"Why did you go out of the camp?" asked Mrs. Grey in shock
"Lisa calm down" said John as he tried to calm her down.
"Ahh Aunt, the thing is that we went out there so find Matt" said Maddie as she chipped in.
"Why would you go there to find Matt?? why was he even there in the first place??" asked Mrs. Grey
"Well we don't know it was as if he was being mind controlled" said Maddie
"That sounds dangerous" said Mrs. Grey
"Oh it was Aunt" said Maddie
"And where is Matt now?" asked Mr. Grey
"Well Curtis has him, and he has not woken up yet" said Annie
"If Matt hasn't woken up yet, do you know how dangerous it was for you two to go out there all alone" said Mrs. Grey.
"Lis, relax" said Mr. Grey
"Look they are here are they not?, so let them be" said Mr. Grey
"Okay fine" said Lisa
"You and I will talk later Annie" said Mrs. Grey as she was upset.
"And you too Maddie" said Mrs. Grey as her eyes went to Maddie who was sneakily trying to get herself out of this mother daughter scolding session that was about to take place.
"Okay Mom" said Annie
"Alright Aunt" said Maddie as she laughed Sheepishly, well this was one the of the downsides of being accepted into the family, you also got scolded.
"But for now, go take a shower" said Mrs. Grey
"Yes Mom" said Annie as she walked towards her room.
"Haha, well see you later Aunt and Uncle" said Maddie as she excused herself from the situation immediately and she ran to catch up with Annie.
"Umm do you think that your mom will relax?" asked Maddie
"Well she will.. soon, after she gives me a long talk about responsibility and thinking before you act" said Annie as she laughed.
"Well that makes you and me both, because she said that she also wants to talk to me" said Maddie as she looked scared, she had never been scolded by Mrs. Grey before, and she didn't want to start now.
"Oh relax, you will be fine" said Annie as she laughed, seeing Maddie on edge like this was just hilarious.
"Easy for you to say, she's your mom" said Maddie
"Exactly she's my mom, and I know her well, she will go easy on you, this is your first offence anyway" said Annie as she laughed.
"Wait offence??" asked Maddie
"Yes offence, as in you let me go out of the camp, without talking me out of it, or going to report to her" said Annie
"Okay wait hold up, last time I checked, I remember telling YOU not to go, but you insisted on going and I followed you because I could not let you go alone" said Maddie as she defended herself.
"Ahh right, well all that doesn't matter, you are older than me anyway, and my mom expects you to act older" said Annie as she just shrugged off the way Maddie was looking at her right now.
"Annie are you serious right now?? this is so not fair, well thank you for getting me in trouble with your usually sweet mom" said Maddie as she lamented.
"Like I said, you will be fineee" said Annie as she waved off Maddie.
"I cannot believe you right now" said Maddie as she sighed.
"Okay then, see you later" said Annie as she waved at Maddie.
...
"Ahh I feel so much better now" said Annie as she used a towel to dry her hair.
"I can see that" said Maddie as she looked at Annie, she was busy reading a book, while sitting on her bed.
"Maddie you do not know how it feels to be almost completely covered in mud" said Annie
"I can only imagine, but I do hate getting icky" said Maddie
"Maddie this was more than getting icky, it was swimming and almost drowning in mud" said Annie
"Haha okay, but I heard that mud is good for your skin" said Maddie
"I don't think that they mean that kind of mud" said Annie.
"Ooh speaking of the mud, I expected something else to happen" said Maddie
"What do you mean?" asked Annie
"Well you know with the magical mud and all, I thought that it would be difficult to remove" said Maddie
"Haha no, no way, that would be a nightmare" said Annie as she decided to leave her hair down.
"But just imagine, with all the trouble it put us through to get you out of it, what if the mud left on you was also difficult to remove" said Maddie
"Okay firstly, I don't want to even think of that being a possibility, and secondly I think that you are having way too much fun with these mud theories of yours" said Annie
"Hmm okay, I will stop now" said Maddie
"Thank you" said Annie
"Speaking of stopping, I think that we should go check on Matt, he should be awake by now" said Maddie
"Yes good idea, let's go then" said Annie
"Okay" said Maddie as she got ready to go.
"Girls are you in here?" asked Mrs. Grey
"Ooh Yes mom, we are here" replied Annie
"Can I come in?" asked Mrs. Grey
"Of course Aunt" said Maddie
"Sure mom" said Annie
"Thank you" said Lisa as she entered their room.
"I want to talk to you both" she said as she had calmed down now.
"Okay mom" said Annie as she sat down on her bed, she knew that this was going to take a while, speaking of which, now that she thought about it, it had been a while since she had this kind of talk with her mother.
"Look I know that you two are young and you want to have new experiences and make your own decisions" she stared,
"And that is only normal" she said
"But as much as you want to do that, you also have to think to be responsible" she said.
"You have to think of the outcome of the situation before you make any moves" said Lisa
"Just imagine what would have happened to you both if there was a trap laid out for you, or even worse" said Lisa
"I know mom, and believe me I will not make such a decision again, but this time I felt like I just had to do it, and don't blame Maddie, she tried to stop me, but i insisted" said Annie
"I understand, and as long as you promise that this was only a one time thing, then it's perfectly fine" said Lisa
"And you Maddie" said Lisa as she turned to look at Maddie, which made her hold her breath in anticipation for a scolding.
"I'm sorry if I made you feel bad, it was not your fault, you cannot control Annie, she id her own person and you are yours" said Lisa
"So once again I apologize if I made you feel upset" said Lisa
Maddie was in shock, more like completely surprised, she did not expect to get an apology, she never to apologized to, she was brought up to just take the blame, this was the first time that someone apologized to her, it almost made her cry.
"It's fine Aunt, I understand" said Maddie as she smiled genuinely.
"Thank you" said Lisa as she smiled back.
"Well now you girls can go back to what you were doing" said Lisa
"Ahh mom we were just about to go and check on Matt" said Annie
"Well okay then, see you girls later" said Lisa as she smiled and waved.
...
"Curtis, has he woken up yet??" asked Annie as she and Maddie entered Matt's room.
"Well sadly not" said Curtis as he had a serious look on his face, he was now worried, he had carried out a scan on Matt earlier, and everything seemed fine, so why has he not woken up yet?
"Well when should he wake up?" asked Maddie
"I do not know" said Curtis.
At that same moment, a cough could be heard from where Matt was sleeping.
"Matt??" asked Annie, and another cough came again.
"Guys I think he's waking up" said Annie
"Finally" said Maddie
"What happened? and where am I?" asked Matt as he opened his eyes and touched his head, he had a headache.
"Matt you are finally awake" said Maddie
"What happened?" asked Matt
"You tell us" said Curtis
"What do you mean?" asked Matt as he stood up.
"So you don't know?" asked Annie
"Know what?" asked Matt as he was utterly confused on why he was suddenly in his room, and Annie, Maddie and Curtis were expecting him to know something??
"Know that for some reason, you were missing all day, and then we found you outside the camp, and you were acting like a mindless zombie, and you kept on walking to who knows where" said Maddie as she gave him a brief explanation.
"What?? I don't remember all of that" said Matt
"Then what do you remember?" asked Annie
"Well after breakfast, I went to the lab to go find my grandfather, and after that everything is a blur" said Matt as he held his head.
"Weird because I think that you were enchanted" said Annie
"I was what??" asked Matt this made no sense to him at all, and to make things worse he had no recollection whatsoever of what happened.
"What is going on here?" came the voice of a woman.