Children

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Chapter 3
The Unexpected

“Shhh!” he whispered at them, “there's a snake here! I don't want to scare him away!”  
Gabe stopped short with wonder and edged slowly forward towards Charlie whispering, “Where Charlie? Where is it?”
Annika said, too loudly, “Well, I don't care about some dumb snake.  There are snakes in the grass at our house all the time.”
“This one's different, Annika!” Gabe whispered too loudly, to his sister. “It is huge! It is bright green and has a blue diamond on its head and ruby spots on its side! It is much longer than a gardener snake! Come and see!”
“Incredible.  Absolutely, unbelievably huge,” Charlie whispered to no one in particular, sounding how you might imagine a gerbil to whisper.
Annika's curiosity was peaked, but she was stubborn so she pretended not to care and started looking for more flowers.  She did this slowly and quietly, however, for she too was anxious not to scare the snake away. All the while, she was edging closer to where the boys were now crouched on a big rock near the water's edge.  
“It's really very strange,” Charlie chirped excitedly in a loud whisper to Gabe. “I've never seen a snake like this before, not even in a book or on TV; and my Dad subscribes to “Reptiles Monthly”, so you'd think they'd have had pictures, at least once, of a beautiful sna....”
At the moment, the snake jerked its large head in the children's direction, causing Charlie to stop talking abruptly and Gabe to lunge backwards, nearly falling off the rock. Annika, who neither of the boys had realized was standing very near to them, screamed in shock-horror, which was, of course, even more startling, in the silence of the woods, than the snake's head jerk had been.  When she screamed, Charlie sat straight up letting out, “Oh, pickles!”
Gabe echoed his sister's scream with an“Ah!”
You must imagine all of this happening in just a few seconds time, very much like a lot of dominoes falling over, one after the other.  The final move was on the part of the snake who, (Gabe was sure he saw) glared at the children, before turning at lightening speed and swimming away up the stream.
Charlie recovered himself quickly and said in a less than chirpy and in fact, almost manly voice, “Darn it, Annika!”
For you see, snakes were another of Charlie's passions.  He quickly jumped up and began to run along the water after the snake.
Annika just stood there with her mouth open. She had been about to defend herself but ended up just hollering at his back, “Aw, who cares about a stupid snake?” but then she noticed the form of her little brother scrambling over the rocks after Charlie.  
“Come on, Annika!” he hollered over his shoulder, “don't be so boring!”   
With a sigh, Annika, took off running after the boys, shaking her head as if she was annoyed, when in fact, she was glad on the inside.  Who can honestly say they wouldn't be at least a little pleased to be chasing after a mysterious snake on a lovely summer day?
The snake was very fast, as I have said, and the ground around the stream was uneven and rocky.  The children had to work hard at keeping up.  Charlie was wearing a pair of, “Barefoot” running shoes, those funny rubber shoes that look like feet, so when you wear them the shape of your toes still shows. It is just like having a new, ultra-hurt-proof pair of feet.  He often wore these shoes to school, where they were received by the other children with a mixture of ridicule and awe.  They were pretty cool, they allowed him to do most things with agility, but they were very strange. Still, Gabe felt a sense of envy, wishing he had such an extra set of feet, too.  In reality, he would have been too embarrassed to wear them to school.  Annika noticed them with scorn.  She wondered why Charlie always had to be so different. She was sure he was only trying to get attention, a personality trait which annoyed her. Charlie was also wearing a pair of grungy, green old cargo pants and the pockets on them were bulging, full of secrets.  Charlie was always carrying around a lot of stuff.  
The three of them clambered along after the snake and eventually broke out of the dense forest into the sunshine.  
Gabe let out a loud, “Who-hoo-hoo!” and did a karate kick jump into the air, smiling at his sister.  
Charlie also laughed and did his own kick-spin which made both siblings laugh and from that moment on they were running companionably, as a threesome on a mission, no longer divided by age and family lines.
“So-- you've never-- seen--- a snake--- like that before?” Annika panted to Charlie.
“No! Never! I've seen a Coral-bellied ring-necked snake with red rings around its neck. Some kinds of King snakes have a blue-black hue, but the bright quality of the blue and red on this snake, and those perfect shapes; I've never seen anything like it!  The only snake natural to our area really is, as you say, Annika, a standard Gardener snake!”
“We HAVE to catch it!” thundered Gabe, passionately.
He grabbed Annika’s hand and jerked her forward to hurry her.  Just at that moment, she stopped suddenly, nearly pulling him over.
“Oww!”  he complained.  
“Look at that!” she interrupted, gazing straight ahead of her.
“Huh,” said Charlie, for once at a loss for words.
The stream ran on before them, directly into the mouth of a biggish, dark cave.  A cave, which none of the children had ever seen before.

Chapter 4
The Hiss and The Music


The snake, who was a good 20 feet ahead of the children in the race up the stream, also stopped.  The children were so taken aback by gazing up at their exciting new discovery, that they almost forgot about the snake.  Indeed, they may not have noticed him again, had he not suddenly let out a horrible hissss.  Actually, to describe the sound the snake made as a “hiss” does not quite capture  it.  In fact, the sound that came from the snake was more like a whispered growl.  It was a sound that would make you freeze and give you little tickles all over the back of your neck.  It made Gabe’s heart pound and Annika’s stomach turn tense and sick inside of her.  Dread washed over the children in an instant and each was afraid for his own life, even though the sun was shinning and it felt very dark all around them.  Charlie slowly moved his hand towards his pant pocket where he kept his most prized possession, a Swiss army knife, just in case the snake were to come racing towards them to attack. A voice inside of his head said, “Be brave, Charlie.  Be bold.”   
It turned out that his poise was unnecessary, for the snake did not attack.  It fixed the children with its dark, steely gaze and even though they knew it was impossible, each child had the feeling that the snake was looking into their eyes, slowly, one at a time, calculated, knowing.  Somehow this ten seconds of eye contact with the strange creature, was even more frightening than the awful “hiss” had been. Gabe instinctively grabbed for Annika’s hand.  Annika took it without looking at him, she wasn’t going to take her eyes off of that awful snake for a second.
After a moments hesitation, not being able to stand the suspense any longer, reasoning that most animals are actually afraid of humans and the snake was too far away to bite him, Charlie jumped forward trying to scare the snake away.  He wondered why they had ever thought they could “catch” a snake like that.  Chasing it suddenly seemed very silly.
Charlie’s unexpected jump startled Annika into an all out  scream that came all the way from her toes and went echoing off into the distance.  That was when the most horrible thing of all happened.  Right when Charlie jumped and Annika screamed, the creature opened its mouth and in a chilling, human sounding voice, it said to Charlie, “Enter this cave you will die, boy!”
Then it turned and swam full force ahead faster than ever and disappeared between two rocks. All of this happened while Annika was still letting our her scream.
Then, everything was quiet and normal again. The children felt as if a dark cloud had suddenly blown away and they could feel the sunshine again. Annika and Gabe looked at each other with big shocked eyes, but neither of them knew what to say.  Charlie slowly turned around to face them, his hand still resting on his pant pocket.  
“That was crazy,”  he said.
“Sorry I got loud like that,” Annika said, sheepishly with a shaky voice. “I thought that snake was going to attack us.”
“Well, we were too far away for it to lunge,” Charlie answered, trying to both sound and feel calm and knowledgeable. “If it had, attacked us, I was ready with my pocket knife.”
“That snake talked!”  Gabe blurted out, wanting to get straight to the point.  He couldn’t understand why his sister and Charlie were not as startled and thrilled as he was about this momentous moment in history.  
“Uh, I don’t think so,”  said Charlie, looking back over his shoulder towards where the snake had disappeared. “I know what you mean, though. It sounded like talking to me, too. We heard it make that weird hissing growling noise before and Annika was screaming.  I think it only sounded like talking.”  
“It talked. Yes it did,”  Gabe protested.
He was still holding his sister’s hand. He shook it a little as he said this and gazed up at her intently, willing her to agree. He felt that he might burst into tears if she did not.  Annika felt confused.  She was sure she had heard the snake “talk” as well, but she knew it was silly to believe in talking snakes.  She didn’t know what to say and now that the moment was over and the fear was draining out of her body, she was beginning to feel upset that they had been running through the woods chasing after a snake at all.  She looked up at the cave and said the first thing that came to mind.  The thing that she hoped would cause her brother to insist that they go back home.
“Well, I think that we should go into the cave and find out.”
“Yes! We have to! We have to go into the cave!”  Gabe agreed, breaking out into a huge smile, which he directed gratefully onto his sister, pleased that she for once, didn’t just disagree with him flat out.
Annika looked down at him in surprise that he wasn’t at all afraid.  She quickly searched her brain for ways to back out of the situation, but nothing came to mind. In a panic she turned on Charlie and demanded, “Have you ever seen this cave before? You play in the woods around here often, don’t you?  We never come up this far.  I’ll bet you’ve been in the cave a dozen times and it is just empty and boring.”
“No.  I have never seen this cave,” he answered gravely and then more chirpily, “I do play all over here, all the time. I guess I hang around the pond down there a lot, so I must have just missed it. ”
“We have to go inside.  We just have to,” Gabe insisted again.
Charlie was about to launch into one of his long dialogues about the dangers of caves collapsing, the dark, bats, and anything else he could think of to stop them from going forward into the cave, when they suddenly heard sounds like music, sweet and high, coming from deep inside the cave.  The sun dipped from behind the trees at that same moment and the children could see that the cave was deeper and wider than they had first imagined.  The musical sound was the opposite of scary.  It was soft and inviting.
 Although Charlie didn’t want to admit it and Annika hadn’t been willing to say it, all three children knew what the snake had told them, that they would DIE if they entered the cave. But somehow, the sweetness of the music made the snake’s bizarre threat seem unreal, or like a lie that you know is a lie the minute that you hear it. Furthermore, even if it were real, it seemed silly to be afraid of any place with music that made you feel like you had come home.
“You are right Gabe,” Charlie breathed out slowly, still gazing into the cave, “we have to go inside.”  
Even though the music was lovely, Annika’s stomach still turned when she realized that they were about to start walking towards that wide open mouth.
“...but the snake said we, or uh, you Charlie, would die if we
went into that cave!”  Annika blurted out forgetting to worry that Charlie would think she was stupid and maybe tell the other kids at school that she believed in talking snakes.
“Well, maybe he did talk and maybe that is what he said,”  Charlie chirped, “but nothing about that cave is scary. In fact, it gives me a good feeling. It is an unexplored cave that none of us has ever seen before!”
He wildly waved his hand towards the cave in excitement
and continued, “If that snake did talk, I am not even sure we can believe him.  He sounded like a liar. Maybe he has treasure hidden in there that he just doesn’t want us to find.  Besides, like I said, I’ve got my knife to protect us,”  Charlie patted his pant pocket again, his confidence in his knife unwavering.  
Annika realized that she need never have feared what Charlie might tell the other kids about her.  He would always be the silliest one. A snake with hidden treasure!  She mentally dismissed this proposition outright and continued to stand there, gazing up at the dark hole with the mysterious music.  Charlie and Gabe were already headed towards the cave.  
“Come on Annika! Don’t be a woosy pants and a baby!”  Gabe called over his shoulder, at a very well calculated moment.  
Annika was defenseless against this all-powerful taunt and moved forward with the boys to enter the cave. Just as they reached the threshold, Gabe suddenly stopped.  He remembered the toad in his pocket.  He pulled it out and lovingly stooped down to let the poor animal go.  The excitement of the cave was so much, that he only turned around once for a last look at the lovely creature.  

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