"STOP!" Julie cried, as Molly pushed Emily toward their destination.
Emily stopped, just short of running her knees into the sharp ends of something...
As Isabelle caught up, she questioned her friends: "Shouldn't she be taking that blindfold off by now?"
"Sure. You take care of it, okay Izzy?" replied Molly.
So, Isabelle hurried to untie the blindfold worn by her new friend.
As the ribbon slipped away from Emily's eyes, she threw her hands up in the air and gasped, "Oh, my! That is AMAZI-!"
"I know! I think your new pirate friends would be proud!" Molly cheered, interrupting Emily.
"...amazing. Where did this come from?" Emily continued.
Molly explained to Emily that the ghost pirate ship belonged to one of the big people, and that though the girls had helped to put it together during one of the past month's many snow days, the ship was soon going to be off limits in the big people's offices. "Even though it's perfectly our size!" she grumbled.
"YARRRRR, ME HEARTIES!!!!" Emily roared, rushing over to the ship and cheering in an uncharacteristic burst of exuberance.
Suddenly, she spotted something near the ship, and dove toward it.
"Yep!" said Molly, proudly, "there's a catapult, too!"
Emily played with the catapult for a bit...
...then hurried to climb aboard the ship.
"Climb aboard, Mateys!"
Most of the girls gladly followed suit.
Emily noticed the new girl, and waved, saying, "you must be that voice I met earlier. Hello, Isabelle!"
Their conversation was interrupted as the girls found themselves pelted by small plastic objects.
Well, that explained where Molly had gotten off to.
"Hey!" they called, "stop it!"
Molly groaned, "oh, okay."
Julie asked, critically, "was that really necessary, Molly?"
"Of course!" replied Molly, shocked that anyone would have expected otherwise.
"Now, Em, how about telling us more about you trip?"
Emily gladly settled down on the side of the borrowed ship, to tell tales of pirates, penguins, ships, trains, gardens, and airplane travel.
"Oh, I wish you could meet my new friends. They were wonderful girls!" said Emily, a bit wistfully.
"I brought home this huge poster to share with you guys, too!"
Everyone oohed and aahed, and then Isabelle commented that the dessert in the picture looked delicious.
Realizing they were all hungry again, the girls headed back to their room for another snack.
Emily and Isabelle had just sat down to chat and get to know each other...
...and Julie was setting out another plate of cookies and some clean plates...
... when they all heard a scr-r-r-atching and scraping noise.
...could it be?
"MOLLY! GET THAT THING OUT OF HERE!" they all yelled, as they saw her struggling to drag that blasted catapult into their room.
"Who? Me?"
"YES, YOU!!!"
And, with that matter settled, everyone was finally able to sit down and relax with their snacks.
The end.