The Imagination Machine

Chapter 5

"What?! How?" Rudy wanted to know.

 Courtney offered a helpless shrug. "It's my fault. I should have known using the machine too much would result in it breaking. It wasn't that stable as it is."

 "So how do we get back home?" Rudy asked.

 "We don't. At least not for a while," said Courtney meekly.

 "Are you kidding me? What the heck, Courtney? Why did you have to bring us here anyway? What kinda sick fantasies do you live in?" Rudy angrily kicked at a clump of seaweed.

 "I didn't." Courtney winced. "That's what I was trying to tell you before you walked into the jungle. I was thinking of a completely different place. I dunno how we ended up here."

 "What place?" Rudy demanded.

 "It was some stupid video game, okay? I don't remember!" Courtney was trying not to get worked up, but it wasn't an easy accomplishment.

 Rudy's lower lip began to tremble. It wasn't often that Courtney saw her brother cry. The last time he had, he was four years old and he had fallen from the porch roof. "What do we do?" he said.

 Courtney's first move was to open Rudy's backpack. Finding it empty and useless, she tossed it aside. She carefully stopped herself from letting out a cry of frustration, reminding herself that she needed to remain calm in the situation. This wasn't easy with Rudy looking like he was about to lose it.

 "Okay. We're going to have to stay here for a while. I can try figuring something out to get us back home. It shouldn't take too long. And while we are here, stay away from the jungle. There could be more of those plant things inside it. If you get hungry, eat one of those."  

 Courtney pointed to a line of fruit trees that led to the entrance of the jungle. The fruits were a bright pink, varied in size, and looked like a cross between an apple and a kiwi.

 "Well, what if I get thirsty?" Rudy questioned, kneeling and dipping a finger in the ocean. The little boy started to bring his finger to his lips but Courtney stopped him, pulling his hand away.

 "You can't drink salt water," she told him.

 "Why not?"

 "Sea water is full of electrolytes. If you drink it your body tries to get rid of them by absorbing all the water it can. This sends a signal to the rest of the body that you're thirsty. Ironically, if you keep drinking salt water, you'll just die of dehydration."

 Rudy only understood about half of this explanation, but he knew it was more than most boys his age would. "How do we even know it's salt water? It could be fresh."

 Courtney impatiently dipped her hand in the water and ran it over Rudy's face. "That good enough for you? Is it fresh or not?" she grunted. Courtney was never in her best of moods when an experiment went wrong.

 Rudy coughed and spluttered. "It's salt," he said weakly.

 Courtney walked over to the jungle line and picked a fruit from a tree. Ripping it open with her teeth, Courtney discovered that the fruit tasted horrible. It was like a mix between a dirty gym sock and her mom's horrible concoction of blended vegetable juice.

Courtney almost spat it out but forced herself to eat it slowly, savoring the juices and grimacing as if she'd tasted something sour. Courtney grabbed another fruit, walking back toward her brother and tossing it to him. "Suck on that if you get thirsty."

 Rudy caught the fruit and bit into it, promptly spitting it into the sand. "That's gross!"

 "Be that as it may, you'd be smart to eat it," Courtney replied, licking juice from a slice of the strange fruit.  Sulking, Rudy began to suck some of the liquid from the plant, grimacing as he did.