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Lila's eyes fluttered open.  Red lights flashed in her face.  Not again, she thought, and managed to wade across the tile floor, unseen.  It didn't look like this portal dimension had any monsters, but one thing she'd learned early in life was that Jantalin was unpredictable.
When she came to a door, she groaned at the sight of the many padlocks.  It meant that there was someone else there that she had to meet first.  The Jantalin chancellor called it 'relationship building with people just like you!', but Lila called it 'forced friendships.'
Realizing she'd have to search for this person, she put her hair up in a ponytail so it wouldn't catch on the prickly steel bars hovering just above her.
Lila half expected every time she went in a portal that she would run into some woman that she seemed to remember from a long time ago.  She had been so nice to her and had taken her to the chancellor, Mr. Yan, who explained the whole concept of portals to her- or at least, all that anybody knew about them so far.
Lila continued to move quickly through the dimension.  "Is anybody in here?" she beckoned.  "I want to leave, and I'd bet that you do, too!"  There was no answer, but she heard a small thud, followed by a short grunt.  Hesitating, she looked in the direction of the thud and said, "Um, there could be…  dragons or something in here.  So maybe if you'd just show yourself we could go and-"
There was a hardy laugh coming from behind a tall black wall.  A boy about her age stepped out.  "Seriously?  Dragons?  What are you, eight?"  he asked.  He had a British accent, which Lila found surprising.  "Huh.  There are European travelers, too?  I thought it was only people from the US."  The boy nodded.  "I can see how you'd think that.  There aren't many of them, to be quite honest.  My own parents just think I'm dreaming when I get to a portal."
Lila didn't know how to respond.  She was a foster child, so the subject of parents didn't really make sense to her.  She'd seen it on TV, but it never seemed real to her, even though she went to her friend's from school's houses all the time and met their parents.  Her foster mom Belle was nice, but there were seven other kids in the huge house, so Lila didn't seem to talk to her much.  She didn't have a foster Dad to share her love of sports with, so she mostly was a social person outside of home.
So she decided to change the subject, rather than tell her life story to some random person she just met in a portal.
"I'm Lila.  So what's your name?"
"Alvar McVaughn.  Pleasure to meet you."
The padlocks hadn't budged.  She needed to talk to this guy more.
"So do you actually live in Europe?"
"Yeah, I live in London.  It's not very fun, though.  I'm actually moving to a place called Sacremento, California."
Lila raised her eyebrows.  "Really?  I live in Sacremento!"
Alvar smiled.  "That's cool.  Maybe I'll see you around there."
Lila nodded.  "Sure.  I'm almost never home, usually I don't even come home until seven.  I'm part of a video making crew, so we're out almost all day coming up with something."
A familiar look came into Alvar's eyes.  "Oh, yeah!  I've seen your website on the Internet!  You're in Atkla, right?"
Lila was shocked that she'd just been recognized from her and her friend's hobbies.  She knew that the website had fans, but she never thought she would meet one.  "Yeah, that's us!  You watch it?"
Alvar laughed.  "Sure do.  The people at my school love you guys!"
Lila laughed in surprise.  "Really?  That many?"
There was a rustling sound, and the padlocks dropped from the door.  "Well, it was nice meeting you," Lila said and smiled politely.  "All right, then.  Goodbye!"  Alvar jumped out the door on the north side Lila jumped out the door on the south, realizing that that must be why there's more than one door in each place: for the other countries. She found herself in the bedroom that became her and her foster sister Melanies' when she was seven.  She was glad she wasn't the only 13-year-old who was a traveler.  "What do you know," she said to herself.  "There are other normal people in Jantalin."
"Shut up!"  Melanie threw a shoe from her bed, and it hit Lila in the face.  "Love you too." She muttered.  She looked at the clock.  It was five o'clock.  Time for her to get up, anyway.
Now she was inspired.  There had to be other 13-year-olds out there.  Maybe someone from her school was a portal traveler, too!  What if it was even one of her friends in Atkla.
She ran over a list of everybody's names that she could think of:  Albia couldn't possibly be one: she denied believing anything other-worldly.  As much as Lila tried to make her listen to reason about how aliens might be real, she'd wave it away and get back to something else.  Tori might be: she had the imagination and logic for it.  She was a foster child, too  What if that had some kind of weird connection?  Toby, Michael, Julian, Katherine, Natalie and Beatrice were all possible candidates.
Lila let the thought leave her mind, and thought, They're not travelers.  Besides, the main way to find out is to just meet them in a portal, anyway.
She got out of bed and started to get ready for school.