TIME TRAVEL

<prototype paragraph>
Raghu and Andrew were running across the street and a truck turned the corner and started racing towards them. Raghu pulled out his time machine controller and warped them into time travel.
They appeared in Australia. They knew they were in Australia because they saw a kangaroo hopping around.

<actual real start>
Andrew had been lost for a long time. He saw a town ahead of him. He walked into the town. He was home. Home at last.

"Wait!" he thought, "I still have to find my house."

He started to run. Then something scraped him on the arm and blood was dripping from it.

Was it a branch? No! A...

***

Andrew woke up laying in a bed. The blankets were green. The bed was not big yet not small. He sat up and pushed the blankets and sheets off of him.

He had a headache.

He heard a creaking sound. Then the door flew open. A person or thing walked in. It was too dark to see who or what it was at the moment.

The thing grabbed a spear that was lying on the floor outside of the room he was in. Then it came behind him and poked the spear in his back. Afraid, he went out of the room followed by the thing.

"Where am I? Where am I going?" he thought.

He was being led into a large room. The room was filled with things that looked like Christmas lights, but they were much, much, larger than normal Christmas lights. As he was looking around the room he started to worry.

"What if they are going to hurt me?"

He started struggling, but when the spear started to dig deeper into his back, he stopped.

Then someone walked in onto a raise platform in the room. He removed a hood that he wore over his head and Andrew saw his face. He was a tall, gray haired person. He had a deep, hollow, sonorous voice when he talked to Andrew.

He said, "You are going to go on a long, unusual journey, but first I must give you a companion to go with you."

He pulled out a buy from the door he entered from.

"His name is Raghu Murthy."

"What do you mean 'journey'? You can't sent me on any journey!"

"Yes, I will," he responsed. Andrew looked back at the thing that brought him here. He could only see it here in the light. He turned and looked and saw a giant gray rat! He yelled and tried to run away but it held him still. The rat was very strong and muscular.

"What kind of adventure?" he questioned.

"You'll see," said the old man. "Come and stand by Raghu."

"But you can't send me on a journey! I have to agree to it."

"If you refuse, death will come fast."

"OK, I guess I'll have to go," he muttered.

"Giant rats. Was I smaller or were the rats bigger?" he thought.

Andrew walked towards the old man and Raghu. He answered his previous question. "We shrunk you after we knocked you out on the road."

"So what scratched me?" he asked.

"The guard's claw," the old man answered. "Come, follow me." He started waking to a lower exit. Raghu and Andrew followed him out the exit and into a larger room. He told them to go into a large black chamber. They refused but the guard pushed them in. It shut the door and they were enveloped in darkness. After a while a panel opened in the side of the chamber and they saw the old man hold out his hand and in a moment a magic wand appeared there. He hit the chamber with the wand and the panel disappeared. Andrew tried to reach for Raghu but he wasn't there.

***

Raghu and Andrew were in a laboratory. It was in the middle of the night and we couldn't see anything. Finally their eyes adjusted to the dark.

Andrew looked around and saw a lot of open cages. Raghu saw an air vent open.

"Andrew, there is an air vent opened. Come look," Raghu yelled.

He looked in that direction and saw the opened vent. Was something trying to escape? They ran over to the air vent and climbed into the air duct. Both of them followed a piece of red string that went through the air ducts. At the end of the string there was moonlight outside.

Raghu and Andrew ran quickly outside of the air ducts. To their surprise they saw twenty rats and two mice.

"Are those two o fthe mice?" one of the rats said.

"Where are we?" Andrew yelled. "Who are you?"

One of the rats came closer to them. "I'm Justin, the leader of this escape plan from..."

"Just, shuit your mouth!" one of the rats yelled. "We are from Life, a...who gives. We have just been set free."

Was that other rat, not Justin, lying?

"He's lying, " said Justin. "He just doesn't want you to know that we escaped from NIMH. Will you show us the way to a..."

Everything went black. Raghu and Andrew heard the old man's voice. "Now I will send you to a rosebush. You must stop the Plan from being thought of. Kill Justin and keep Jenner alive. I will now send you four years ahead in time."

***

They appeared in front of a rosebush. Raghu figured out that you push a branch to get in. They walked a little bit and saw a giant gray rat, just like at the old man's house.

"Can I se..uh, see Justin?" Andrew said.

"Who are you? A shrunken human?" the rat said. "Get out of here!"

Andrew thought he was getting the picture now. Raghu and Andrew are definitely shrunk. Andrew thought. Also it appeared that the rat didn't ntoice Raghu. Andrew started to run back the other way. Raghu went behind the rat and looked on the wall. There were some buttons wih words beside them.

RED BUTTON/GUARD CALL
BLUE BUTTON/JUSTIN
GREEN BUTTON/JENNER

Raghu pushed the blue button. In about ten seconds a rat ran up out of a hole. The rat looked at Raghu. It seemed to know him.

"Brutus, why are you driving them out of here?" the rat yelled.

"You said no one allowed," the other rat said.

"They look familiar," Justin whispered to Brutus.

Brutus and the other rat argued for awhile. The main rat said they could come inside. "You're from the laboratory, right? I'm Justin."

"Andrew, it's OK," Raghu yelled.

He ran over to Raghu. Justin told us about what was happening, the Plan.

Just, Raghu, and Andrew craeled through a maze of tunnels.

""Wait till you hear what the Plan is about," said Justin.

"Do you know anything about a rat named Jenner?" Raghu asked.

"Yes, he's a rat against the Plan," Justin replied.

"We came here to kill you and make Jenner the leader of the rats!" Andrew told Justin.

TO BE CONTINUED...