“And we’d have to get through that Pine Forest down there first too,” he told her dutifully, pointing down at it, “and get over those rocks above the trees as well.”
Mary stood silently beside him and then sighed. “Maybe your right, Roger. But it just feels like we should be going on, you know. I know it don’t make much sense … but, well … it just feels like we should, that’s all,” she finished lamely, feeling disappointed and subdued.
Roger had no answer to that. Despite his arguments otherwise, he still felt it very hard to actually turn away, turn back, and so end their adventure together.
Mary didn’t move either and just carried on gazing across the wild woods to the distant Smoking Tree and twiddling away with the large Owl Feather as she did so.
After a moment Roger dug his elbow in her side and quietly told her what he’d just seen, despite his hardly being able to believe his own eyes.
“Ahem, Mary. Look at that Feather you’re holding. I do believe it’s growing!”
She took a step back in sudden shock, as she looked down at the Owl Feather in her hand and saw that it was already three times the size it had been. She quickly dropped it to the ground and stepped away in amazement.
“What on Erf’s going on ‘ere?” she squealed.
Roger watched in fascinated silence as the Owl Feather steadily grew. After only a couple of minutes, it had become the size of a small rowing boat. It lay there quivering, its curved, mottled plume sitting on its spine and now beginning to slow in its rate of growth.
“It really does look like a small boat, or canoe, doesn’t it, Mary?” Roger piped up. “I think those Prime Owls were one step ahead of us, at least. We can use this magic Feather to get ourselves down the hill!”
“I reckon yer right, Roj!” Mary beamed. “I told you there had to be a way, didn’t I?”
“Yes. Well, we’d better have some sort of steering device and a brake too. We don’t want to go plummeting to our deaths with no way of controlling our descent, do we?” he told her.
Mary nodded her agreement and immediately walked off over the brow of the hill to a nearby scrubby old tree she’d seen barely clinging on to life there. Before Roger could say Newton’s Nobbly Kneecaps, she was back and carrying a piece of gnarled branch.
“This should do the trick, Roj,” she told him with a big grin.
“Right,” Roger agreed. There was nothing left but to just get on with it now, he realized. “Give me that and let’s get going then,” he told her. “I’ll drive!”
They pointed the Feather-boat straight towards a shallow dip just above where the rocky outcrop began. Then they pushed it over the hill-brow, and both jumped in, one on each side. The Feather-boat sliding easily over the scrubby, barren surface on the hill’s top.
Mary went into the front and Roger sat at the back with his trusty tree branch at the ready, as they began their bumpy and exciting slide down the steep hillside.
Roger tightly gripped hold of the chunk of branch and then wedged it into the ground at the rear of the Feather-boat, creating a long, winding wake of turned-over dirt and stones trailing behind them. But it worked. He soon found he could control their descent; that was, just as long as he could keep his balance and his concentration.
That wasn’t easy, though. The Feather-boat was a light craft and very skittish.
“You’ll have to look ahead and guide us, Mary, I can’t do both!”
“Okay, get us more over to your left, Roj. We don’t want to crash into those rocks, or even worse, miss them altogether. I’ll try and get us into that hollow there in front of the rocks.”
They careered on down the hill, Roger soon feeling very hot and sweaty from keeping the Feather-boat moving in the right direction as well as from stopping it suddenly shooting off at an uncontrollable rate of speed by use of his makeshift rudder-cum-brake.
Soon they were zig-zagging their way closer to the rocks and to their target, the particular hollow in the ground that lay right in front of that part of the rocky ridge.
“We’re nearly there, Roger. Miss those scrubby trees, though. Just a bit more to the right and we’ll have done it!” she yelled above and despite the whipping wind whistling past her ears and her long hair lashing wildly at her face.
Roger was straining away with all his mustered might, beads of sweat spilling from him, and wearing a face that was screwed up with a fierce determination. Whatever happened now, he didn’t want to let Mary down; it was very important to him to show her that he could be like a heroic Knight Irritant. It was also important to him that he didn’t kill himself!
Roger put his full weight into thrusting the branch to the left so they would turn right.
“Well done, Roj, we’ve missed the trees and here comes the hollow. Brace yourself!”
The Feather-Boat skidded into the hollow and Roger soon realized that it was filled with soft grey sand, as they shuddered to a juddering halt just several feet from the line of rocks. The sand helped give them a soft landing and Roger breathed a sigh of relief as he pulled his sturdy branch into the boat and turned forward to congratulate Mary.
But the words choked in his throat. Mary was gone!
For a bare moment, he sat stunned and speechless in dumb-struck panic. Then he saw her. She had been flung from the Feather-boat and had been shot like a human cannonball into the crumbling sand of the hollow. He could see her legs sticking out and frantically wriggling back and forth. He smiled just momentarily, observing the undignified and embarrassing position she was in but then realized with a gasp that she was in deadly trouble.
“Oh, by Heavenly Hoyle! She can’t breathe!” he exclaimed in horror.
Mary was trapped, and unless Roger or somebody acted quickly, she’d suffocate and be a goner. Roger looked frantically around him, but there was no one else to call for help; the Giant Owls were long gone, and it looked like it was up to him alone to rescue her.
Roger hurled himself to the front of the broken Feather-boat and leaned out as far as he possibly could. But it was no good. She was just out of reach.
He still had his school satchel on his back and the length of tree branch with him too, but he soon realized that he didn’t have anything useful in the satchel, and even if he could reach Mary with the branch, there was no way she could grab hold of it.
Roger was on the verge of sheer, blind panic. He felt so helpless and useless. Just how was he going to save his one and only friend; a friend he’d only just met and was getting to know? He knew that he only had minutes to come up with something. But his mind was a blank.
As he stared out towards the rocky outcrop that lay just beyond Mary’s still thrashing legs, he thought he caught a sudden glimpse of some dark presence, flashing between the rocks. He peered up at the cracks and crevices along the rocky wall but couldn’t see anything else.
“Maybe I’m just seeing things!” he thought.
He lunged once again, trying to catch hold of Mary’s ankles, but again, it was just a matter of being mere inches too far from her.
“What if I use my satchel straps?” he thought. “What if I can hook them around her feet and pull her up that way? I’ve got to try something!”
But before he could even begin such a desperate attempt at an unlikely rescue, a muffled explosion shook the whole sand-filled hollow. Spurts of grey dust and pebbles skittered down from the rocks, and strange jets of inky, black smoke came shooting and billowing from out of several fissures in the rock face. Then, the sands in the hollow suddenly heaved upwards and shivered and shook and then another muffled explosion occurred. And then another.