Mr Weighty’s Rescue Craft seemed perfectly content to run on the grass and leaves and twigs that Hugo had stuffed inside its ‘fuel’ tank. It went smoothly onwards through the large, lush forest that led from Alternative Teaching all the way to Hollow Spring, continuing to the tall, dark, disorientating forest of False Teaching.
Jack was allowed a turn at driving the Rescue Craft and he felt that there was nothing equal to it in his life so far. Being sat by his Grandad and steering a giant combine harvester was one thing, but being completely in control of this fantastic and inexplicably strange mode of transportation was quite another. He was determined, even if it took him the rest of his life, that he would one day invent something like Mr Weighty’s Rescue Craft. Hezekiah was allowed to drive too for a short while, but he struggled to reach all the pedals and reluctantly handed control back to Jack who was thrilled to be officially recognised as the second most important driver on their expedition. Henrietta protested loudly at not being given a chance to drive so Hugo gave her the job of navigation and exploring the on-board ‘Mission Detector’ system.
Henrietta removed the Mission Detector screen from beside the steering wheel and sat at the back on the settee with Hezekiah, quite content with her task. “Hey, this is really amazing, guys,” she said. “It tells you far more than you would ever imagine! In fact, we really should have followed its instructions when we were at Alternative Teaching!”
“Great,” said Hugo. “I can just hear the lectures we’re going to get about how we weren’t prepared for this rescue mission and didn’t follow the instructions!” He was well aware that they were currently supposed to be listening to the Sunday preaching that took place every week by the cross in Aletheia. He wondered if he would ever dare to go back and face his father and mother again.
“It’ll all be okay when we find Timmy and prove we’ve done the right thing,” said Henrietta. But she too secretly wondered how long the search would go on. And she had never contemplated going missing for another whole day with a borrowed Rescue Craft that they had never got proper permission to use.
Jack and Hezekiah just went with the flow. There wasn’t any point in worrying about what they were missing when Jack in particular had not the faintest idea how to get back to his real home again. And anyway, in the meantime there was the wonder of riding in and driving the Rescue Craft, with the roof off, in the bright sunshine, the breeze rushing past them and keeping them nice and cool.
“You see,” Henrietta explained her latest finding on the Detector, “it has buttons for weather, plants, ground conditions, animals and food and all sorts of other things too for every place in Err. So if we had looked up Alternative Teaching Food, like this...” she swivelled the screen around so that the boys in the front seat could read it. “You see?” she said. “It tells you all about the local drinks and warns…”
“As with many other things in this area of Err,” Hugo read from the screen, “the drinks in Alternative Teaching are likely to muddle your mind and cloud your judgement. The local speciality, Black Beetle Beverage…yuk! That’s what we drank, Jack!” Hugo exclaimed, and Henrietta giggled. Then Hugo continued reading, “Black Beetle Beverage is amongst the strongest mind muddler of them all. It is designed to open your mind to new possibilities, particularly those that are subtly against the teaching of the Bible. Rescuers should never imbibe Black Beetle Beverage and should immediately drink liberally of the Water of Sound Doctrine if they are ever tricked into doing so.”
“Well!” said Henrietta. “What do you think of that?”
“I suppose that when they wrote that they didn’t know about Zek’s trick with Mr Duffle’s prayer stick that changed the drink,” remarked Jack.
Hugo laughed. “You’re right!” he said. “We should let them know! You might become famous for inventing that, Zek! What does it say about the town of False Teaching, Henry?”
Henrietta pressed buttons on the screen. “False Teaching…here we are…oh, boy!”
“What?” asked Hugo.
“Accessed through a dark, disorientating forest, False Teaching is notoriously difficult for Rescuers and other Christians to find if they do not have a mind open to exploring its possibilities.” Henrietta paused in her reading and they all looked ahead to the outline of a dense forest that was some distance before them.
“False Teaching is thickly inhabited by Snares, and highly misleading. Nothing is reliable here, and even the sign posts have been known to trick those who do not enter False Teaching as a friend with an open mind.” Henrietta paused again.
“Does that mean we actually have to go there with an open mind and not stick by what the Bible says?” asked Hezekiah, aghast.
“No, Zek!” said Henrietta. “At least, I don’t think so! I think it means that if we go in our armour of God to rescue Timmy and take him away from False Teaching, then the place itself makes it as hard as possible for us to rescue Timmy! It doesn’t want us there, you see?”
“Not exactly,” said Hugo. “But we’ll have to wait and see, won’t we?”
The road they travelled, which was smoother than the bumpy track of the night before, appeared to be the long way round to False Teaching which was Timmy’s last known likely destination. They could still see the trees of a thick forest ahead which they thought might be the massive fir trees that surrounded False Teaching, but the road twisted and turned and they seemed to make little progress for all the miles that they travelled. Of course, it helped to have the amazing Mission Detector which showed them the way, but it was sometime before Henrietta, the Detector expert, realised why the road they travelled was such a long way.
“I can see it now!” she said. “We had the Route-Finder showing all routes via Hollow Spring! We’re going the long way round!
Jack didn’t mind that much. He was still the driver and enjoyed driving down the smooth road, watching people pass, enjoying the strange sights and sounds of rural Err that weren’t anything like those he would see at home. It felt safe in the Rescue Craft too. Not like it did when they were walking through the night.
“Is there any safe food at Hollow Spring?” asked Hugo. He was thinking of the severely depleted supplies of Mrs Weighty’s food. Last night they had munched through sandwiches whenever they were hungry, had definitely finished all the chocolate muffins, and had eaten most of the biscuits. Now there was only the fruit left and there was hardly enough of that to even have a snack. They had not thought to save any food for another day. They had expected to be home by now.
Henrietta looked up Hollow Spring on the Mission Detector. “There’s not likely to be any safe food exactly,” she said slowly, reading what the screen had to say. “The main danger of Hollow Spring is the trick it plays of making you feel fleetingly satisfied, but never really content,” she read. “You must trust nothing here.”
“What exactly does that mean?” demanded Hugo.
“The closer you get to False Teaching, the less you can trust the food and drink,” continued Henrietta, “including the area around Hollow Spring. Food here will generally be hollow or contain only tepid water and nothing of substance. For example, carrots may appear big and healthy, but they will only be a shell that quickly breaks apart and contains nothing…Well, I don’t like carrots so I wouldn’t mind that!” Henrietta interjected into her reading, and then went on, “You must beware of anything that appears substantial: nothing is quite what it seems.”
“Great!” muttered Hugo. “I don’t have a clue what that means but whatever it does mean it sounds as if we’ll go hungry on top of everything else!”
“Well, don’t blame me!” Henrietta flared up. “I didn’t eat the last two chocolate muffins! Now we have none at all!”
“Whose idea was this whole trip anyway?” returned Hugo. “Who insisted we shouldn’t wait for Mr Weighty?”
“Wait for Weighty!” Hezekiah said with a sudden giggle, but he lapsed into silence when he glanced at the twins; they did not see the joke.
“I suppose we should have let Mr Weighty take care of everything in the morning, should we?” demanded Henrietta.
“I always said that!” yelled Hugo. “I was the one that always said…”
“I wasn’t asking a question!” retorted Henrietta. “I was being sarcastic!”
“Well, your sarcasm…!”
“Umm…” Jack cleared his throat and suddenly slowed the Rescue Craft, pulling it to a stop at the side of the road. Jack pointed at the Detector screen on Henrietta’s lap that was suddenly flashing red in the most alarming manner. They all peered at the screen and a sickening silence fell amongst them. In big bold, white letters was written:
“DANGER! SNARES!”
“Drive!” yelled Henrietta.
Jack pushed his foot down on the accelerator but nothing happened. Worse still, the reassuring putt-putt sound of the Rescue Craft engine faded and died away entirely.
Now Jack could see the Snares just ahead. In the daylight they were thick grey and black shadows, like the dark thunder clouds of a summer storm. And that’s where they seemed to come from, falling out of a sky that was no longer full of sunshine, but was threatening to unleash the most ferocious thunder and rain.
“Henry!” said Hezekiah, clutching his sister, “what shall we do?”
Henrietta was white faced and almost speechless. “I don’t know, Zek,” she said.
“Everyone put on your armour,” said Hugo. His voice was trembling but he was thinking hard. “And make sure you have your Bible in your hand.”
“That’s what they didn’t like yesterday,” said Jack, trying to keep his own voice steady. “They didn’t like the Bible!”
It was hard with the fear of Snares upon them to calmly fasten on their armour and await their enemies. Cold seemed to penetrate them as the clouds grew thicker around them, and there were strange stirrings in the trees.
“We must collect fuel for the Craft,” said Jack. “I think it stopped because it’s run out.”
Hugo nodded. “We should have been better prepared,” he said. “I knew that it would run out soon. I was more worried about what we were going to eat than thinking about the mission and rescuing Timmy.”
“So was I,” Henrietta said in a small voice. She was trembling.
“Chin up,” said Hugo. “Now we must all put into practice everything we’ve learned as Christians. This is some storm!”
And he was right: it was some storm. With the first crash of thunder the rain began to fall. There was no way that they could put the cover back over the Rescue Craft in the storm and they had to endure the lashing rain, the flashing lightening and the crashing thunder as the shadows closed about them.
“What have we here?” a weird, thin voice spoke from the storm. They could not see it properly; there was only the glitter of eyes and the cold tones of the Snare.
“We’re Christians,” said Hugo.
“Christians heading for False Teaching?” taunted a different Snare.
“We’re going to rescue a friend!” said Henrietta
There was the snigger of more Snares around them.
“The people in False Teaching belong to us!”
“Not if they want to be rescued,” said Hugo.
There was a definite hesitation amongst the Snares.
“Has someone been praying for help?” they heard a Snare ask in horror.
“Silence!” demanded another, and Jack realised that the Snares had a leader with them, as they had the previous night. “These children know nothing! They’re guessing!” said the nasty voice.
The problem was that they knew the Snare leader was right. They might be Christians; they had hastily put their armour on; they might have their Bibles in their hands; but they had not prepared for what might await them in the wilds of Err. They didn’t have the right answers. They had not properly prepared to rescue Timmy. They really had no clue how to set about it.
Henrietta was rummaging in the Rescuer’s Kit box. “We have prayers!” she said in sudden inspiration, remembering what Jack had told them about the effect that Mr Duffle’s stick had on the Snares when they had captured Timmy, and remembering too Hezekiah’s startling experiment with the prayer-stick in the dangerous drink.
“Prayers!” The concern of the Snares was evident as they muttered and debated amongst themselves.
“Silence!” the Snare leader hissed again. “These children know nothing about prayer or we could not have stopped them!”
Henrietta withdrew a stick from the Rescuer’s Kit. “Look!” she said holding it high.
There was silence amongst the watching Snares.
And then Henrietta threw the stick at them with all her might.
They all held their breath as they watched the small stick of prayer fly through the air towards the Snares. There was a flare of light, as if someone had struck a match, a sudden sparkle…and then nothing at all. It was like a firework that had not really got started properly and had fizzled out. They looked at each other in dismay.
The Snares sniggered in amusement.
“What did I tell you?” said the big Snare leader, “they know nothing about prayer! They’re no danger to us!”
“What do you want with us?” asked Hugo, raising his Bible above his head and dispelling the Snares that had crowded the closest to them with its light.
“What do we want with you?” taunted a Snare.
“With little Christians?” mocked another.
“You can’t take us!” said Henrietta more boldly than she felt.
“Who said we wanted to?” the big leader Snare hissed at them.
“Then what do you want with us?” Hugo demanded again.
“Leave this place. It belongs to us!”
“But our friend…”
“Go!” hissed the big Snare. “And never come back!”
Hugo knew that they were defeated. They had no strategy to fight the storm of Snares around them. They did not know how to dispel them and get through the storm to rescue Timmy, wherever he was. They knew nothing about the work of a Rescuer. They were Christians and they had the basic tools, but they had no experience against these foes.
“We’ll go,” said Hugo.
“Hugo!” protested Henrietta. “There must be a way!” But even she was feeling defeated. If the prayer stick she had thrown didn’t work, then what did? She had a hunch that if she just knew the right words from the Bible, it might drive them all away. She had learnt as much at school. But she had not paid enough attention and now the words would not come.
The rain began to cease and the sky lightened above them. They did not know the actual moment that the Snares melted away; they only felt the absence of their cold, oppressive presence.
“Do you want the last biscuit, Hugo?” Henrietta offered in a small voice. “I’m sorry I accused you about the muffins.”
“That’s okay, old thing,” said Hugo. “You have it. Here, wrap yourself in this rug. I expect it’ll warm up when the sun comes back out.”
“We should have kept our helmets on all the time,” said Hezekiah, “I expect we wouldn’t have quarrelled then.”
“Look!” Jack had picked up the Mission Detector and was gazing at the screen. Not only had the ‘DANGER! SNARES!’ writing now disappeared, but under the name Timothy Trial at the top of the screen there was one word written in big, bold, white letters:
‘RESCUED!’