10-11

Chapter Ten: Over, Under, and Out Again

“Let’s see,” Butterlean said to himself as the others were eating more bread and jelly. “Let’s seeeee… oh! There we are! The mountain… Alright everyone, I figured it out. We will go over the Jewel’s mountain, under Nakking Cave and come out, it is a shortcut that will take us home again.” Butterlean announced to the party.

“But, we will get lost, won’t we? You don’t have a map.” Carol said to Butterlean.

“It’ll be fine, you’ll see.” Butterlean replied. Carol shrugged and Lulu walked off, but Lilli shifted uncomfortably. 

Lulu grabbed Lilli’s arm, knowing something was very wrong. “What’s wrong, Lilli?” she asked.

“Lulu, I have a bad feeling.”

“You don’t feel well?”

“No, I feel fine, but something is wrong, and I cannot tell you about it here.”

“Alright then, but tell me later.” Lulu finished their short conversation with a squeeze, then their attention was turned towards Butterlean.

“Come on,” they heard Butterlean say as he walked towards the mountain. “There a little village just before the mountain, we can take a break there before we go on the mountain. She has very nasty weather at night, tales of snowstorms, and then suddenly being unbearably hot out.  The mountain can play very nasty tricks, I’ll have you know.  Now that I’ve told you-“ but he was interrupted by Carol.

“Now you’ve told us of all the doom and despair ahead, we can go, right?” and with that she trooped up to Butterlou, picked him up and started walking towards the mountain. “Come on! I’m holding somebody and I’m doing better than you hut hut!”

Everyone sped up to keep with Carol, and eventually they made it to the little town. The houses were dark, and the streets were mud. Overall, it was a little ugly. “Eww.” Lilli said as she stepped in a mud puddle in the middle of the road that they could not go around.  Juney passed Kumarain to Lilli so she would not get dirty.

Chapter Eleven: The Town and its Inhabitant

“Hello! Anyone here?” Butterlean said..

“No.” came the voice of someone not of their company. “No one is here, now move along, before…”and here its voice cracked and it coughed. “Just get out.” It said with some difficulty.  Suddenly they saw the same cloud that had followed them eaerlier.

“You know what to do, run!” Butterlean said and they all ran but Lilli tripped, and no one noticed until Juney looked behind her and shouted in alarm.

“Everyone, stop! They’ve got her!”

Lulu spun around and shrieked in horror as the cloud stopped over Lilli and crows began to fly down. Carol grabbed her pocket knife, and before Butterlean could tell her to stop she ran towards the crows and sliced the necklace off the bigger one. All the crows sped away in fear and Carol shook her knife at them, to remind them who would defeat them in the end.