Zoe turned to see who was shouting her name. Maybe it was someone who could tell her how she had gotten outside when the last thing she remembered was arguing with Jon in front of that strange woman in the sitting room about the TV.
A young woman with shoulder-length, curly, light brown hair was coming towards her.
“Zoe, there you are.”
She was wearing a light pink headband with what Zoe thought was a friendly, approachable expression, her mouth was curved in a gentle smile. She was wearing a short-sleeved, loose-fitting blouse with a multi-coloured floral print on a green background. The flowers are predominantly pink, white and blue. She's also wearing light-wash high-waisted jeans and a thin silver-toned belt.
“I have been looking for you for ages.” The curly-haired stranger informed her when she got near.
“You have ?” Zoe said, looking more carefully at the woman in front of her.
“Duh! Like, remember? When you told me you were going to the mall, I totally said I’d meet you here! Besties sticking together, right?.” The curly-haired young woman told Zoe.
“Ok,” Zoe replied, looking closer at the stranger, recognising her from somewhere, but she wasn’t sure where.
“Are you okay? You seem a bit… well, you seem a bit strange. More spacey than usual.” The young woman said, looking concerned.
“I’m fine, honestly,” Zoe said, holding in her normal instinct to start swearing at this stranger. This was the first person she had met since she had gotten wherever here was that was acting sort of normally, even if she needed help with her wardrobe.
Then Zoe looked down at the outfit she was wearing. Black opaque tights and black velvet flats adorned with jewelled embellishments on the toe. A short, form-fitting leopard-print mini dress in shades of brown and gold. Over this, she wears a black cropped jacket studded with small, light-coloured embellishments. A wide black leather belt with a large, prominent buckle cinches her waist. She also wears large, round, gold-toned earrings.
Not something she would ever wear, so someone must have knocked her out and put it on her. The curly-haired girl didn’t seem to think that there was anything wrong with what she was wearing; was she the one who had dressed her in it? Then again, no one else had noticed anything wrong with it either. They had all acted as if it were normal for her to be wearing it.
Athena had always told her that if she stopped and took a breath for a minute or two before swearing at everyone, she would get a lot more done. It had taken Zoe a few attempts to master this, but she had found that Athena had been right, not that she would ever tell her.
“Great! Because I told Tiff, and she is going to meet us at dELiA*s. The three best friends are shopping on a Saturday afternoon, and everything is right with the world!”
Wait a minute, dELiA*s hadn’t that shop shut down a few years ago, so how could they meet up with Tiff there? Tiff was a name that Zoe knew. Tiffany Sanders was she behind all of this? No, she couldn’t be; there was only one way to find out, and that was to go and meet Tiff at a shop that no longer exists.
Back in the Sitting Room.
“Typical of that sister of mine to make things more complicated,” Jon said, staring at the TV remote still lying where it had fallen a few minutes ago.
“I don’t think she did it on purpose,” Rebecca answered him.
“No, I don’t suppose she did. It just makes things even harder, that’s all.” Jon replied with a dejected look on his face.
“Our other problem is how do we pick up that thing up without the same thing happening to us?” Rebecca asked.
Jon sat down for a few minutes, trying to work things out in his head. Not only had his mother been sucked inside a TV show it now looked like the same thing had happened to his sister. Did he have time to sort all of this out before it happened again? Time, Time that was it.
“Time.” He said aloud this time.
“What about it?” Rebecca asked..
“Well, it's been an hour or so since mom had been pulled in and we were handling the remote without any problems, until what happened to Zoe. So whatever is causing this must need time between attempts at taking someone inside the TV, otherwise it would have pulled us in by now.” Jon sad trying to sound like he knew what he was talking about.
“That makes sense, I think, but how long? I think” Rebecca asked him
“I haven’t worked that bit out yet,” Jon said deflated.
