"Chea!" Karen said as the light dimmed. A loud pop was heard.
Karen and Chea opened their eyes. They looked around. The room was completely dark, though there was some light coming in through the small windows. Chea looked at Karen.
"What happened?" Chea asked.
"I don't know." Karen stepped forward very carefully. She felt a crunch under her sneaker. "I stepped on something. Glassy, I think."
"Let me see." Chea felt for a flashlight on the table. She picked one up and turned it on. "Yeah, glass all right. I think the bulb died."
"Died? It were kerplooey!" Karen said. "That was enough to scare anyone!"
"I guess nothing happened. We're still here." Chea said. They walked to the cellar stairs. They walked up in silence. Karen looked at her friend.
"Are you all right?" Karen asked.
She smiled a weak smile. "I am, I just can't help being a little disappointed that it didn't happen for us like it did for Uncle Jessup in that western." She sighed. Maybe he really did lose it Chea thought to herself.
"Want to go get something to eat? We haven’t had breakfast yet." Karen said. Chea shrugged. "Come on, pick the place. My treat."
"Okay." The girls walked out the door. "We might have to go back to the loft." Chea said looking for her keys. "I don't think you brought your money with you." She looked up at her friend who had a long hard stare on her face. "Helloooo?" She said.
"Huh?" Karen asked.
"What’s wrong?" Chea asked.
"Look around." She said. Chea did so. "Is it just me, or was this area a lot more uh developed when we went down there?" Where there were once rows of smalls houses was a stretch of sand and palm trees.
Chea looked around. "Yeah." She observed. "That is weird."
"Why do you say that?"
"Cause back in the sixties, there were a lot less people living here." She explained. "We're not very far from the beach in fact."
"The sixties you say?" Karen asked. "And a lot like a certain show someone likes wouldn’t you say?" She continued as they walked up the road.
"What do you mean?"
"When you put the year in, you looked at me with some weird look on your face. You put in 1967 didn't you?"
"Right." Chea said.
"So if you put in 1967 and this is what it looks like in 1967 wouldn’t you say we're in 1967?"
"Yeah." She thought for a minute. "Do you think??"
"No, it can't be." Karen shook her head. "I've seen time travel or whatever on tv and it isnt anything like what we experienced."
"Could be." Chea said. "Or we are really here and we just broke a light bulb by accident on the way in."
"Chea." Karen said. "Be realistic."
"You are funny. Look at where we are you try to be realistic." Chea challenged Karen.
"Well." Karen said. "Ok. Let's say we are here in 1967 or whatever. Do you still have your keys to the loft?"
"No." Chea said. "Though I do have the money we left with."
"I thought you didn't have any money."
"You offered to treat lunch. What money I had didn't seem important."
"What do we do?" Karen said. "Let me see the gadget."
"Why?" Chea said.
"It ought to bring us back, right?"
"Yeah." Chea said. "But why so soon? We're here. We can go meet the Monkees!"
"I dunno." Karen said.
"Oh please, not many girls get to have a chance like this. I am the only girl I know who had a crazy uncle who invents stuff. Most girls I know have uncles who do the same dumb magic trick over and over and over, even though your fifteen and you know the trick front and back and upside down. What that had to do with anything I don't know, but my point is that why should we hurry back to a place where we will just work and not play?" Chea said looking into her friends eyes. "Let me play Karen, for gods sakes, let me have this one thing. Then you can set it back to whatever and we can pretend this never happened. For all I know Micky and them might turn out to be nothing I made them out to be." Chea said looking at Karen.
Karen thought for a while. "Okay." she sighed. "How long?" Then she thought. "Thats a dumb question. We could be gone for days and no one out there would be the wiser."
"So we're staying?" Chea looked at her friend with amazement.
"Ok." Karen said. "You can use a vacation. Me too." She laughed. "Let's go. It's almost sunset. Maybe we can go watch the sunset before we decide what to do next."
"Yippeee!" Chea jumped in the air. She hugged her friend. "Oh you are like best friend ever." Chea continued. A smile danced her on face. "What are we waiting for?"
Down the boardwalk
The two girls just barely left the boardwalk. The sun was starting to set. It was starting to feel cool out. Chea took her clogs off in order to feel the cool sand between her toes.
"Its so beautiful here." Karen mused. "It looks a lot different from our world. Right where we are is a seaside restaurant."
"I know." Chea said. "Darn it all to heck, we should have gotten to the pad by now!"
"Patience." Karen said "It's getting dark. We should find a place to camp out." Karen said.
Chea sighed. "Ok. After all, we can start our search anew tomorrow morning."
"Ok." Karen said starting towards the boardwalk. She looked back. Chea wasnt following her.
"Chea?"
"Do you hear that?" She said.
"What?" Karen listened hard. There was a faint sound of music in the air. Rock music.
"Its the songs of an angel!" She gasped. Chea started towards the sound. Her feet moved quickly. Karen had to practically run to keep up.
"Wait up!" She called to Chea, but she seemed to be under the spell of the music. A minute later they reached the backdoor of a beach house.
"The pad." Karen and Chea said together. "We were so close." Chea said. "Good thing we didn't give up."
She said quietly. The Monkees were rehearsing. From listening to Cheas cds she knew that the song was Saturdays child. It was one of the songs she liked, but admittedly Micky was not her fave, like Chea. They saw a door was open.
"Let's go in." Chea said.
"Oh I don't know. They seem so busy." Karen said.
"Oh come on!" Chea dared. "I bet they would love to hear from fans."
"All right." Karen said. "But if they freak totally, this was your idea. And i dont know you!" She joked about thee last part. "Let's be quiet." She said.
Chea and Karen walked in the door. They stood there in back of Micky Dolenz while he did a quick drumming florish at the end of the song. Karen looked at Chea who looked like she was bout to touch him. She had her hands reached out. Karens eyes grew wide with alarm.
Instead she clapped.
"Bravo!" Chea said. Her sudden applause caused the foursome to jump a mile. Mike Nesmith almost lost his green hat. Karen almost laughed at that.
"I'm so sorry!" Karen said while Chea finished clapping. "We just heard you on the beach and thought we would tell you what we thought."
"Well uh thanks." Mike said.
Davy Jones stepped forward to the girls. "I'm Davy." He said.
Karen squinted. He was getting that weird look he got when he was into a girl. And he was looking at her! Oh no.
"Is he all right?" Karen feigned ignorance.
"Oh he's always like that." Micky put his sticks on the kit. "Don't worry about it."
"We can get him some eye drops." Karen joked.
Davy looked a little sad after that. "I'm sorry." Karen said. "I can come off a little mean."
"That's ok." Peter Tork said. "There's always a new one."
"I'm Karen." Karen said.
"Mike." Mike said.
"Peter."
"I'm Micky." Micky said. He looked at Chea. "You are awfully quiet!"
"Oh I'm sorry."
"Thats a weird name." He said.
"Its really Chea." Chea said. "You say it Chay-a." She explained quickly.
"Nice to meet you." Mike said as he shook both their hands. Karen almost felt like her hand lingered in his. Its your imagination! She told herself.
"It was nice to meet you." Karen said.
"We got to find a place to stay." Chea said while still looking at Micky. "We're sorta new."
"You'd never believe how new." Karen said. Mike brought the others over next to the kitchen.
Davy spoke up. "Mike, we can let these nice girls stay here, can't we?"
"What about Babbit? He threw a fit the last time we let two girls stay over." He said.
"Don't forget the twins, Davy." Micky said.
"And the acrobat!" Peter said doing a bad cartwheel. He almost knocked a lamp over.
"Ok, Ok, i get the point." Davy said. "They can have me and Peters room."
"And where will you sleep?" Micky asked.
"Living room. The couch is pretty soft, and Peter seems to like sleeping in the new hammock." Mike responded.
"Plus they don't seem to have any clothes, other than whats on their backs." Micky paused. "Leave it to me to notice that."
"Well ok." Mike said. They got out of their huddle and walked over to where they left the girls. "We have some good news for you girls!"
