(Chapter 3) ZAFF

     "Hello?" she whispered.
     As Kennedy moved down the stairs, the green fog began to lift. She
stood at the bottom of the stairs, amazed by what she saw. What strange
place is this? she asked herself. She saw a field with small rolling hills of long
blueish green grass and beyond the field was a forest of gold coloured trees
with long vine like branches hanging to the ground. And, large bright
coloured flowers scattered across the field.  "The flowers are beautiful, but
they're gigantic. Bigger then me!" she said aloud as if Mr. Tuddles were
listening. She looked up to the sky, to see its pale green colour with streaky
red lines, as though someone had taken red painted fingers and run them
across. To the right, was a very bright light, like the sun, but not round. 
There was a long crack in the sky and the sun was peeking through. Off to
the left was another large crack in the sky and blue water was running out of
it like a waterfall. It ran down to a lake a large lake, but the water turned
green as it hit the lake. To the left of the forest was a black mountain, very
creepy looking with its sharp pointy edges sticking out everywhere, Kennedy
thought. Not blinking, she tried to take in all she could. She flinched when
she heard a voice.
     "Kennedy, hurry up and get down here!" shouted Eddie as she looked
down to see the gang waiting for her.
     "Where are we? Where's the house? Does your mom know about this
Eddie...?" questioned Kennedy in awe. She had many questions, but no one
was answering.
     "What happened to Mr. Tuddles?" yelled Patsy as she pushed everyone
out of the way to get to the stuffed bear.
     "Oh, ah, I guess something attacked him on the way down. He was
very brave though," said Kennedy, then realized she was still holding
Mr.Tuddles out in front of her. As she stepped down off the stairwell. Patsy
grabbed Mr. Tuddles and cuddled him. 
     "It's ok Mr. Tuddles I will fix you when I get home," said Patsy.
     "By the way how do we get home? It must be lunch time now," said
Joey.
     "The same way we came I guess," said Griffin as they all looked up the
stairs into the green fog.
     "Where are we Eddie?" asked Sue.
     "I don't know, it's like some other world," said Eddie looking at the
field in front of him. "Some other world that seems so familiar," he
whispered to himself.
     "Let's go back now," said Kennedy still looking around in awe.
     "No, now that we are here, I have to find Toomie first," said Eddie.
     Not really too sure which way to go first, Eddie scanned the landscape
hoping to find Toomie.  He was just about to make a decision to go one way
when he heard Toomie barking off in the other direction, toward the forest.
     "Over there!" yelled Patsy as she turned and started to run toward the
barking.
     "Oh, no, here we go again," said Sue.
     So the gang ran after Patsy who was running toward the forest. They
soon realized that the trees were a lot further away than they had
anticipated and started to walk. As they walked through the field of long
grass, they surveyed the land as best as they could and turned around every
so often to make sure the stairs they came down, were still there.
     "Wow, look at the size of the flowers here," said Sue. They circled a
large flower, and stood up on their toes trying to get a better look at it. The
flower was a pale orange with darker orange stripes running across the
petals, it was the size of a pickup truck, with ten petals that drooped to the
ground. In its centre, hundreds of long stems stuck up with small, orange
cotton-ball like things on top. 
     "What's that noise?" asked Kennedy.
     "What noise? I don't hear anything," said Joey.
     "Listen," she said.
     So they all stopped what they were doing and listened. From a
distance it sounded like a bee, something they all recognized, so they
thought. They looked toward the green sky in all directions.
      "I hear it, it sounds like a bee," said Sue. "It's getting louder,"
     The sound was getting louder, too loud for one bee. Their hearts began
to race, believing it must be a swarm of bees. A large shadow crossed the
ground in front of them. When they saw what was making the shadow, they
quickly dove into the long grass.
     "Holy cow!" yelled Eddie.
     "You can say that again, that is a cow, I think," said Patsy.
     They crouched down on the ground and watched in amazement as a
strange red animal hovered over them. It had the shape and size of a cow,
or something similar, with a foot-long horn on the end of its nose, a short
tail and what looked like an udder. It had wings that flapped quick like a bee,
it sounded like a bee, but it was like no cow or bee they had ever seen. It
flew over to the large orange flower and landed on top of it, and ate some of
the cotton-ball things from the centre. As it continued to eat, it started to
change colour, turning orange like the flower. Then as quick as a bee, it flew
to the next flower which was yellow, it started to eat the flower and once
again the flying thing changed colour, now yellow.
     "If this thing moos, I think I will faint," said Kennedy.
     "My dad always says, if pigs could fly, but he never said anything
about cows," said Joey.
     "That's no cow!" said Eddie.
     They watched the funny looking cow 'til it disappeared behind a hill.
They looked at each other as if to say, "did you see that?" They noticed Joey
was missing. They turned to see Joey standing up on the orange flower
plucking one of the stems off the flower. Before they could open their
mouths to say something, Joey ate a piece of the stem.
     "Joey, no!" screamed Sue.
     But it was too late, Joey had already chewed three times and
swallowed. The gang stared with horrified looks on their faces, wondering
how Joey could eat part of a flower, let alone some strange flower from
some other world. They stood still, watching Joey, hoping nothing would
happen to him.
     "It tastes great!" announced Joey. "Come on, try some...tastes like
chicken."  Joey began to laugh and took another bite of the stem. He looked
down at the gang and noticed they all had funny looks on their faces.
"What's wrong with you guys?" Griffin pointed up at him.  He looked down at
his shoes, then his legs and saw nothing. "Whattt?" he held out his hands
and dropped the stem. "My hands, my arms, they're orange!" screamed
Joey.  Rubbing and scratching his arms, he started to panic.  "Help me, it
won't come off."
          "Look it, even his face has turned orange," said Sue pointing at Joey.
     Eddie helped Joey down, then touched his skin to see if the orange
would come off.
     "Nope, it won't come off," said Eddie shaking his head.  
     "What do I do?" whimpered Joey.  "I can't go home like this."
     They stood around him and started to rub his skin to see if any orange
would come off.
     "Ow, that hurts," said Joey.
     "Well, it's your own fault, always putting things in your mouth that
don't belong there," Sue remarked, starting to rub Joey's skin a little harder. 
     "He looks like a big fat carrot!" Patsy stood back and began to laugh,
then she started to run as Joey chased after her. The gang laughed as Joey
chased Patsy around the field until Toomie's barking grabbed their attention.
     "Come on, this way," yelled Eddie. They ran after Eddie toward the
forest.
     "Hey, what about me?" shouted Joey.
     "Maybe we can clean it off later, let's find Toomie first," Eddie shouted
back at Joey.
     They entered the forest and zig-zagged around the trees, pushing the
long branches that dangled down to the ground out of their way. The forest
was dark, the branches and the trees were growing very close together and
not much sun light was getting through. But there was a yellow glow coming
from the tree trunks that seemed to give off their own light.  Parting some
branches aside, they finally found Toomie under a tree, with his front paws
up on the trunk of the tree, barking at something.
          "Toomie stop that, what's up there, boy? Eddie as he grab the dog by
the collar and looked up into the tree. "I don't see anything, Toomie."  As
Eddie continued to gaze up into the tree, he heard what sounded like
branches breaking. Then, before he could move something came crashing
down on top of him. The gang stood bewildered while Eddie rolled over to
see what had hit him. As Eddie turned his head, the first thing he saw was a
furry face with two green eyes staring back at him.