It took some time to calm Timmy Trial sufficiently so that an explanation could be heard above his panicked jabbering. Even then the explanation that Mr Wallop offered him did not calm his fears.
“A land called Err!” repeated Timmy. “I’ve never heard of a land called Err!”
“Maybe they don’t teach them much at their school, Dad,” said Herbert in what was intended to be a subtle undertone.
“Our school is at the top of the Schools’ League Table!” said Timmy. “It’s why my Dad chose it for me! Tell them Jack!”
Jack was becoming practiced at turning a deaf ear to Timmy’s pleas for support.
“Well, I’ve certainly never heard of a country called Grandad’s Sheds,” said Mr Wallop. “It’s quite possible that they might not have heard of Err or Aletheia there either.”
Timmy looked at Jack, unable to articulate how mad he thought they all were. Jack avoided his glance. Ever since he had glimpsed the strange place outside of the door through which they had entered Grandad’s shed, he was still coming to terms with the fact that he really did seem to be in the middle of a real, live, completely unexplainable adventure.
“There’s no such place as Err, or Aletheia, or anything else!” yelled Timmy.
“Now, now,” said Mr Wallop firmly. “There are all sorts of different places. Your Grandad’s Sheds country, for example, that we had never heard of before today, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t believe it exists…”
Mr Wallop looked puzzled and frustrated when his well intentioned remonstrations with Timmy produced completely the opposite effect.
“There is no such place!” shouted Timmy. “No Err! No Aletheia! No Grandad’s Sheds country! Are you all completely mad? No Err! No Aletheia...!”
“It was quite hot today, Dad,” interjected Herbert, looking with curiosity at the hysterical boy. “Perhaps he’s got sunstroke, or maybe he’s not quite right in the head…?”
“Could be,” said Mr Wallop.
Timmy laughed hysterically. “Me not right in the head!” he choked. “They think I’m the one that’s not right in the head! Tell them, Merry! Explain to them…!”
“I think we really have come to a different place,” said Jack, trying to be logical and wishing Timmy was a million miles away back at school, wherever that now was. “Otherwise, where exactly are we?”
“We’ve been kidnapped, that’s where!” exclaimed Timmy.
“Being kidnapped isn’t exactly a place,” said Jack. He wondered why he had never before noticed how stupid Timmy was.
“Well, I know that!” said Timmy. “This is all your fault, Merry!”
Following Timmy’s awful surprise that the outside of the office no longer contained the fields of their familiar village and that they were somewhere else entirely, Mr Wallop and Herbert helped the frantic boy back inside and they all returned to the comfortable interior of the Checks Room. Timmy was laid on a large sofa and Mr Wallop dispatched a nice girl called Tilly to make Timmy a cup of tea. Tilly wore the smart, silver-buttoned uniform of the office and was the receptionist who had been absent ‘dealing with Snares’ when they arrived. Jack wondered what that involved, and how Tilly, who was a petite girl, had managed to get rid of the Snares, whatever they were.
“I think you should come home with us tonight,” said Mr Wallop as Jack browsed amongst the books again and drank the soothing Water of Sound Doctrine. “We often have visitors to stay and I think that would be safest for you.”
Safest? Jack wondered what Mr Wallop wanted to keep them safe from, but Mr Wallop didn’t say.
Timmy sipped his tea and stared moodily at them all. “Kidnappers,” he muttered. But his tea, and the delicious chocolate cake that Tilly had passed around, seemed to revive Timmy’s spirits and he began to look around with more interest.
Jack realised how hungry he was and that he had never eaten the lunch from his school rucksack which was, strangely enough, still on his back. It didn’t seem right to eat his sandwiches in front of them all and not share them, so he stuck to the chocolate cake which was just about the nicest thing he had ever tasted. He saw Timmy take a second slice of the cake and was glad that Timmy’s mouth was too full for more protests. There was comparative quiet in the room. Mr Wallop finished checking the forms his staff had completed that day, Herbert Wallop tidied his counter, and the nice girl Tilly tidied the Checks Room and made kind remarks to Timmy and Jack.
“What’s that book?” asked Timmy.
Jack had once more been drawn to the book about Snares on the bookshelves. “It’s about creatures called Snares,” said Jack.
“There are no such things,” said Timmy, getting off the sofa to join Jack and peering at the picture on the book cover.
Tilly looked surprised and then serious. “You must beware of Snares,” she said. “There are many different types and they are everywhere you allow them to be. Of course, you need to be a Christian to really fight them successfully…”
“I am a Christian,” interrupted Timmy. “My parents give lots of money to the local church and I’m as good as anyone else.”
“That doesn’t make you a Christian,” said Tilly.
Timmy was not inclined to argue with Tilly who was really very nice. “Well, I’m not worried about Snares, anyway,” he said.
Jack put the book about Snares back on the shelf and felt the uncomfortable pricking feeling in his mind that he had never told many of his friends, and certainly not Timmy, how he was a real Christian because he had trusted in the Lord Jesus2 to save him from the punishment he deserved for the wrong things he had done, things that the Bible called sin3. Perhaps Timmy didn’t even know how to become a real Christian.
Mr Wallop at last finished his checks, Herbert picked up his briefcase, Tilly slipped a bag over her shoulder and the other staff departed, talking cheerfully and saying goodbye. Then Mr Wallop ushered them all out into the bright sunshine of Aletheia.
The Entry to Aletheia office, which had been Grandad’s shed, stood at the edge of a wide, well paved street called Pride Way that sloped steeply downwards, right to the edge of a city which they now knew was the city of Aletheia. There were golden fields of barley close by which was the only thing that vaguely reminded them of the world they had left behind. They were clearly on the edge of the city streets, just where the buildings stopped and the land turned to neat, well kept farmland.
Above them the bulk of the city of Aletheia rose stately and grand: with huge stone buildings and turrets and towers and crooked rooftops. Rising above it all, clear against the sky, there was a plain, unadorned cross. They loitered at the roadside as Mr Wallop locked up the Entry to Aletheia with many chains and padlocks. Herbert explained to them that the locks were necessary, not because there was much crime in Aletheia, but because the Entry to Aletheia moved to other locations that might be far less safe.
“Who moves it?” asked Jack.
“Nobody,” said Herbert.
“Someone must move it,” said Timmy, “it can’t move by itself!”
“Why not?” asked Herbert, sounding puzzled.
“Things don’t just move on their own!” said Timmy. “That’s impossible!”
Herbert looked warily at Timmy, as if he was afraid that further disagreement might precipitate another episode of hysterics. “Well, it does move,” he said, “and tomorrow it will be somewhere else.”
“Where?” asked Jack.
Herbert looked perplexed at his question. “Well, I don’t know yet,” he said, as if he feared they might be slow to understand the most elementary things. “It’s not tomorrow yet, is it? We won’t know where it’s moved until it’s moved.”
“Completely barmy,” Timmy muttered to Jack.
Herbert heard and he seemed to be amused. “Perhaps things are different at Grandad’s Sheds than they are here,” he said.
Timmy groaned and seemed to be on the point of protesting so Herbert quickly began to point out things that he thought might interest them from their vantage point on the hillside of the city of Aletheia.
They looked down Pride Way. It turned to wide marble steps towards the edge of the city, just before the boundary of sparkling water that appeared to encircle the entire town.
“There are four bridges over the water into Aletheia,” explained Herbert, “and four main roads in and out of the city which go North, South, East and West.”
“What is that water?” asked Jack, looking at the glinting water. “Is it like a moat?”
“It’s the Water of Sound Doctrine,” said Herbert.
“The same as the water in the Checks Room?” asked Jack.
“Yes,” said Herbert. “It’s the only safe drinking water in the land and certainly the only drinking water for a Christian!”
Jack glanced at Timmy who merely made a face. Timmy wasn’t interested in the water that he had found so disgusting; instead he was distracted. He was watching the vacant sky with avid attention and all at once he flung out his hand and snatched something from the air. He slowly opened his fingers and looked in astonishment at the small gold coin that lay there. It had the image of an eagle on it and clearly said ‘The Land of Err’ and ‘One Erona’. But most surprisingly of all were the fragile, transparent, gold tinted wings that were even now fluttering feebly as if it was anxious to fly again. For a moment Timmy was speechless at the evidence before his own eyes. Jack also stared at the small coin whose strange wings were trying to unfurl themselves.
Herbert peered over their shoulders and merely shrugged. “It’s unusual to catch one,” he said, clearly startled at Timmy. It seemed that Herbert was not at all surprised that money could fly; he was only surprised that Timmy had been able to catch some.
“But it’s money,” said Timmy in an awestruck tone.
“Umm…yes, it is,” said Herbert with a patient but perplexed expression on his good-natured face. Timmy’s astonishment that money could fly did not reassure Herbert regarding Timmy’s state of mind.
“It was flying!” said Timmy. “Money was flying!”
“Yes, of course” said Herbert. “That’s what it does when we love it too much. It flies away.”
“Wow,” murmured Jack wonderingly.
“Doesn’t it do that at…umm…in your country?” asked Herbert.
“No it doesn’t!” said Timmy. “Tell him, Jack!”
“It’s in the Bible,” said Herbert. “Riches make themselves wings and fly away4.”
Timmy clearly thought that Herbert was crazy: but he couldn’t doubt the evidence in his own hand. And as he watched, the small coin unfurled its delicate, transparent, gold tinted wings, and suddenly it was gone.
“Oh well,” said Herbert, “it was only one Erona. You couldn’t have bought much with that!”
They did not see it go, so fast was its flight, and Timmy’s expression was a curious mixture of incredulity and cunning as he searched the sky around them for the sight of glittering gold.
“You won’t find any more,” said Herbert. “Usually they fly too high to catch. Many people have wasted their lives trying to find ways of catching and keeping the riches now flying around in the sky. Not usually the people in Aletheia, of course, but out in Err. The people in Love-of-Riches have spent a fortune trying to find a way of keeping it. But of course that just makes it fly faster!”
“How does anyone have any money at all then?” asked Jack, trying to understand the laws of this strange land where money could grow wings and fly away.
“If you don’t love it too much then it doesn’t fly away!” explained Herbert. He looked anxiously at Timmy who, curiously enough, no longer seemed to question or begrudge their strange adventure.
Instead Timmy was looking with anticipation towards the land of Err.
