Chapter 5
Bear’s head and ears hung low as he trudged along beside the Professor. Every twenty or thirty feet, he looked back woefully at his two young buddies. His eyes had never looked so hopeless. He was a large dog with massive jaws, but somehow the blue jellylike material changed the dog’s normal behavior.
The children did their own version of trudging silently behind. Their rescue plan was a total bust. Why had they thought that chasing down this enormous man, grabbing their dog, and running home would be an easy operation? They felt like prisoners half a soccer field from home. Besides that, they had the further anxiety that one of their friends might spot them dressed in these hideous clothes and ridiculous wigs. All Reece’s friends had seen her beautiful new purple sandals that were now a muddy brown. What would they say if they saw them now? Just how was she going to explain that a robot shaped grapefruit had covered her sandals with brown shoe polish?
Sean kept his eyes on Bear as he leaned closer to his sister. “I don’t think we’re going to be able to rescue Bear without help.”
It took Reece a few seconds to shift from her thought pattern. “I wonder if the Professor will turn around to see if we’re following him?” she said in a low voice.
“You mean like Mama and Daddy do.”
“Right.”
Sean’s hopeful face fell. “But what about Bear?”
“We’ll run home, get some help, and come right back.”
“But, they’ll be a long way off by the time we get back. We might not be able to find them.”
Reece thought for a few seconds. “We could take a car and circle around the woods to the other side.”
“And catch Bear when they come out of the woods.” When Reece nodded her head, Sean said. “Okay, you’re the planner.”
They gradually slowed their pace until the Professor, Bear, and ANNA were completely out of sight. Finally, they came to a dead stop and listened. The Professor and ANNA kept moving forward without so much as a backward glance. Bear saw them stop, but didn’t give them away. Maybe he knew.
“He’s definitely not like Mama and Daddy,” whispered Sean.
“He probably doesn’t’ have kids,” murmured Reece. They exchanged glances indicating how very extraordinarily lucky those nonexistent children were.
When they no longer heard the sound of crunching underbrush, they turned and ran in the opposite direction. They raced through the woods jumping over small limbs and skirting large trees, but then slowed down finally coming to a complete standstill. With a look of total indifference, both children looked over one shoulder then the other careful to avoid eye contact. They rested for a few seconds, then without comment, started to run again, but with a little less enthusiasm. But, when they came to a fork in the woods they’d never seen before, they came to an abrupt halt. They stood breathing heavily as they stared down one fork then the other. Now, they had to make a choice but weren’t sure which path to take. Both looked equally mysterious and unfamiliar. At last, they made eye contact, then turned quickly away least the other suspect what they both knew.
“I don’t remember this. . .exactly,” Sean suggested, testing the waters.
“Uh, no, I don’t remember it either.” Reece turned in a complete circle hoping to spot something that looked familiar, then stopped and faced her brother. “Well. . .”
Sean twisted his mouth to the left then shifted the twist to the right. “Well, I think we should sit for a few minutes and rest.”
“And think.”
They sat down facing the fork. Their ears focused in the direction they’d just come ready to jump up and bolt if they heard crashing sounds coming towards them.
“So, we’re lost.”
Reece dropped her head slightly. “Well, I wouldn’t say that, but we don’t know exactly where we are just at this moment, because we’ve never been in this part of the woods before.”
“Does that mean we’re lost?”
Reece popped up off the stump. “How could we be lost? We followed them for a while, then turned and came back right past that little hut running in the direction of the path.”
“But it’s not that far from the path to the hut.”
Reece pulled her brother to his feet. “No, it’s not that far which means we must have run at an angle. Let’s keep going. The woods aren’t that big, so we’ll either get close enough to home so we know where we are, or we’ll walk out of the woods into another neighborhood.”
Sean pressed his lips together. “Yes, but if we don’t hurry, they might get to the other side of the woods and we’ll never find Bear then.”
Reece had already thought of that. “Well, look, we’re just turned around, that’s all. It’ll work out one way or the other. You’ll see.” She didn’t think for a second that Sean bought it, but it was hope they could cling to for now. She stepped firmly forward using the ever reliable eenie-meenie-miney-mo method. On the final “mo”, they started down the left path.
They’d only walked for a couple of minutes when they heard the sound of someone stumbling through the underbrush. They stopped dead and listened. How many people were there? But, as they continued to stand there, they realized that the noise had to be just one person, and the crashings were those of a smaller person. The Professor thrashed his way through the trees like a dump truck, so it definitely was not he. They looked around for brush dense enough to hide behind. The sound echoed for several seconds, but as it came closer, they realized it was directly ahead. Quietly, they slipped behind the brush, knelt down, and waited.