“That’s it,” said Walter. “We’re sure not to be seen there; nobody ever uses it.”
“But what about Lottie?” asked Gretel. “We can’t take her into the forest so late in the evening.”
“Konrad will take her home,” ordered Walter.
“I’m not a baby nurse!” objected Konrad.
“I don’t want to go home,” Lottie immediately began to wail. “If I come home alone, I’ll be spanked. Please, please, I want to see the space ship too!”
“Why does she cry?” asked Mo feelingly.
“She doesn’t want to go home,” said Gretel.
“Is she not allowed to come with us?” asked Mo.
“She’s too little,” said Walter.
“But she has fast legs,” Mo pointed out.
“It’s beginning to get dark, and our parents will worry,” explained Walter.
“But I’ve often been with you in the forest in the evening,” sobbed Lottie. “Daddy and Mummy know that you look after me!”
Gretel hugged her and dried her tears. “We might be out much too late tonight,” she said. “Be a good girl, Lottie, and go home.”
“Erna can take her home,” said Willy with a grin.
“Are you crazy!” shouted Erna. “Why don’t you take her home? The cop might catch me and lock me up and ask me where you are. What should I tell him?”
“Tell him we’re on Asra,” suggested Willy.
“That fellow Klotz might do anything,” said Otto.
“Supposing he locked up Lottie!” said Gretel with alarm.
“Perhaps we had better take her along, after all,” suggested Walter, softening.
“And don’t forget, I told you where to find Mo,” piped Lottie, eying Walter anxiously.
“You certainly did us a great service,” said Walter soothingly. Lottie beamed.
“But you mustn’t get tired,” Gretel warned her.
“Oh, great!” cried Lottie jubilantly. “I’m not a bit tired, not the least bit. I certainly won’t get tired either.”
Mo was happy too. “I like Lottie,” she said. “She is very pretty.”
“Do you like us too?” Gretel asked anxiously.
“I like all of you,” blushed Mo.
“Do you think I’m pretty too?” Erna asked tensely.
“You have many little spots on your face,” said Mo.
Erna was embarrassed. “Those are freckles,” she explained. “Mummy said they will disappear when I am grown up.”
“Your nose is very nice,” said Mo, “and you also have beautiful hair. It looks like the setting Sun.”
“Really?” gushed Erna. But then she sighed and added: “Oh, you just say that. I wish I were as beautiful as you are.”
“But what shall we do when we return home without Mo and the necklace?” asked Otto. The thought of the sergeant was still worrying him. “Nobody will believe us when we say that she flew back to Asra.”
“When she’s gone, she’s gone,” Walter said gruffly. “I don’t care what happens after that.”
“But I do!” Otto objected angrily.
“Coward!” taunted Walter.
That made Otto even more angry. “The sergeant might think that we killed Mo and stole her necklace,” he said.
“You’re nuts,” said Walter. “Let Klotz look for Mo until he’s blue in the face. If he can’t find her, it isn’t our fault.”
“Poppycock,” shouted Otto. “We’ll be arrested and spend the rest of our lives in jail, just because Mo hasn’t been found.”
“Boy,” declared Willy, “that would be terrific! I’ve always wanted to be in a jail!”
“You’re all off your rockers!” said Walter. “We’re innocent, aren’t we? Nobody is allowed to lock us up.” But he wasn’t so sure. “Can your father write our language?” he asked Mo thoughtfully.
“My father can do anything,” said Mo, nodding eagerly.
“Your father must give us an excuse in writing saying that you flew back to Asra with him,” said Walter.
“And that you took the necklace with you!” interjected Otto.
“What is an excuse?” inquired Mo.
“An excuse is when you didn’t go to school and your mother gives you a letter for the teacher to say that you’ve been sick,” explained Otto.
“We are never sick,” said Mo, “and we always go to school.”
“If we can’t prove that you flew back to Asra, the bad man with the uniform will lock all of us up,” Gretel tried to explain.
“Just like the chickens?” asked Mo, startled.
“Yes,” said Walter, trying to impress on her the urgency of the matter.
“I will tell my father,” Mo said hastily. “And I will tell him that you are good humans. Then he will surely give you an excuse.”
That eased their minds, and they thanked her.
On the horizon the sun was disappearing behind the range of the distant Holle Mountains sparkling in the bluish dusk. The sky was cloudless. A few saucy swallows swooped down close over the heads of the children. Somewhere from a barnyard sounded the barking of a dog, the plaintive mooing of cows waiting to be milked.
“The Sun is going down,” Mo observed in astonishment.
“Doesn’t the sun set on Asra?” Willy asked eagerly.
“Oh, yes,” said Mo, “but it takes much, much longer. Here it sets so quickly.”
“On earth everything happens in a jiffy,” said Otto.
“We must get going!” ordered Walter, climbing the slope to see whether all was clear. ‘They’re all gone,” he reported. “Let’s go.”
The children crossed the county road and jumped down the embankment. They beat their way through some underbrush and reached the Hollebrook.
“Must we always run?” complained Mo, out of breath.
“We mustn’t be seen,” said Walter, “or they’ll be after us.”
“The Earth is very exhausting,” sighed Mo.
Beyond, the children could see the slope of the Kummerhill, but first they had to walk to a small footbridge in order to cross the brook, still swollen by the rain of the morning. Then they crawled up the slope like monkeys. On the other side of the hill, the boys simply slid down on the seats of their pants while the girls clambered down backwards. Lottie was always in the lead. She tried her best not to drop behind for fear that Walter might send her home. At last, only a thick hedge of wild raspberries separated them from the footpath, but the sharp thorns slowed their progress, and they had to be very careful not to hurt themselves.
“Everything scratches, everything pricks,” complained Mo scornfully. Her right arm, which was bare, had, in fact, been sorely scratched, and she looked at it sadly. Walter helped her as much as he could, but finally the silk lining of her coat caught on the thorny twigs and she was stuck.
“Slip off your coat, but be careful,” Walter advised her. Mo did and got free. With a quick jerk, Walter pulled the coat loose, but not without tearing the silk lining to shreds. He wrapped the coat around his arms and cleared a path for Mo. The others were waiting impatiently on the footpath. Only Konrad no longer seemed to be in a hurry. He stuffed his mouth full of raspberries and kept picking more.
Mo put on her coat. “Why do those little trees prick so?” she asked.
“Why, don’t you have thorns?” asked Gretel. “Don’t you have climbing roses too?”
“Our flowers have nothing sharp,” said Mo.
“You people have nothing that bites, nothing that pricks. It sounds kind of dull,” observed Otto.
“You have bloody scratches on your arm, Mo!” said Gretel. “Does it hurt?”
“A bit,” said Mo.
“Perhaps your head is better now,” said Gretel. “I could tape that bandage to your arm.” She carefully peeked under the bandage and said, “The bruise is better already.” She gently pulled the bandage off and applied it to the worst scratch on Mo’s arm. “There, it doesn’t hurt any more, does it?” she asked.
>
“No,” said Mo stoutly.
Now the children did not have to run any longer. The footpath was well hidden, and there was no one to be seen anywhere. As it was, they could not have run. The ups and downs were steep, just as Konrad had said, and to make matters worse, they often had to climb over rocks and crawl under low branches. Even so, they reached the Hollewood in better time than they had expected because the footpath was so much shorter than the county road. One more slope and they could see the edge of the forest a short distance off.
“We’ve almost made it!” Walter called cheerfully.
Willy waved his hat in the air and shouted, “Yippee!” With that, he lost his balance and tumbled down the hill like an avalanche. When he reached the bottom, he remained motionless.
“Willy!” yelled Erna in horror, and heedlessly lunged down the steep slope after him. The others followed as quickly as they could. Erna grabbed Willy by the hair and lifted his head.
“Are you alive?” she cried, terrified.
Willy screwed up his face in a grimace, which made all his freckles melt into one big blotch. He murmured, “Boy, what fun to roll downhill!” But it could not have been too much fun, for his nose was bleeding and his face was scraped.
“Your nose is bleeding,” Erna said reproachfully.
Willy sat up without paying any attention to his nose. Instead, he sadly looked at his hat. During his forced descent he had held onto it for dear life, but it was badly crushed and the feather was gone.
“What a lousy break,” he complained. “My beautiful hat!” He was very fond of it.
“Lie flat on your back and your nose will stop bleeding,” said Walter.
Willy flattened out again, stretched his arms and legs, and kept still.
This worried Mo. She knelt down beside him and caressed him timidly.
“Are you sick?” she asked with concern.
“I’m no chick,” murmured Willy.
“What is a chick,” asked Mo.
“A chick is a baby chicken,” said Gretel.
That made Mo laugh. “No, you are not a baby chicken,” she said to Willy. “You are a baby man.”
Suddenly Willy jumped up and squirmed like a madman.
“Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!” he yelled, trying to tear the shirt off his back.
“What is it?” the children cried in alarm.
“I was lying on an anthill!” shouted Willy. “Quick, help me! Ouch, ouch!”
“Take off your pants,” shrieked Erna.
“Not the pants!” yelled Willy. “They’ve crawled down my back!”
Walter grabbed Willy’s shirt, wanting to pull it over his head, but it was not unbuttoned and Willy almost suffocated. Fortunately, all the buttons popped and off came the shirt. Willy shook it out and then inspected it inch by inch, flicking off the ants. “Boy, they sure can bite,” he groaned.
“We must push on,” warned Walter.
Willy put his shirt on, rubbed his nose, and grinned.
“Now we’re not in such a hurry any more, are we?” sighed Gretel. She was a bit tired. “Over there is the Holle-wood, and the stars haven’t even come out yet.”
“We still have to find the Easter path,” cautioned Walter.
“It can’t be far,” said Otto hopefully. But his optimism proved wrong.
Sixteen
The Swamp Is for Adults Only
First, they had to wake Konrad. He had curled up in a sand ditch and fallen fast asleep.
Walter shook him. “Konrad, we have to be on our way!” he called.
Konrad shot up and looked around in a daze. “Breakfast ready?” he mumbled.
The others laughed, and he felt embarrassed. “I’m dying of hunger,” he murmured.
“Give your belt another hitch. We haven’t eaten either,” said Walter. “You can make up for it after you get home.”
“They’ll all be through by that time,” groaned Konrad.
There was only one more hill they had to climb, but behind it the footpath came to an abrupt end. They faced a swamp with a thick growth of swamp grass. It extended as far as the eye could reach along both sides of the Hollewood.
“Jeepers, I think that’s the Cambeck Swamp,” said Walter, taken aback.
“Do we have to go through it?” Erna asked nervously.
“If I only knew how!” replied Walter.
“Perhaps we had better go back to the county road,” Otto suggested.
“Not me,” Konrad objected, and defiantly sat down on the ground.
“What fun to walk through the tall grass,” said Willy. His nose had stopped bleeding, and he was ready to tackle anything again.
“That’s frightfully dangerous!” warned Erna.
“Just a bit slippery,” said Willy.
Walter hesitated. He knew the swamp was dangerous, but to return to the county road and make a fresh start for the Hollewood would take too much time. It would soon be dark. “The footpath ends here; that must mean something,” he said musingly.
“It means that here the world is nailed up with boards,” observed Otto.
“Give him a chance to think!” Gretel snarled at him. She had complete confidence in her brother.
Suddenly it came to Walter. “Now I remember,” he said. “The old shepherd, Paul, once told me how to cross the Cambeck Swamp. From where the footpath ends, we walk straight toward a marker at the edge of the forest. That way nothing can happen. It’s only a bit damp, and one must watch out for the holes.”
“I don’t see any marker,” grumbled Otto. The swamp grass was so tall that the children couldn’t see above it. They could not even make out the tops of the trees beyond it.
Walter ran a little way up the slope and looked across to the forest.
“I see the marker,” he shouted.
“Where?” the others chorused, running up.
Only Konrad remained sitting. As long as there was nothing to eat, he didn’t care what happened.
“Do you see the tall birch tree among the spruce?” asked Walter. “It has a red spot painted on it. That’s the marker.”
“Are you sure?” asked Otto doubtingly.
“What else could it be?” insisted Walter.
“Well, O.K.,” Otto reluctantly agreed. “I just don’t feel like drowning.”
“But you know how to swim!” snapped Gretel.
“Ha ha ha! Swim in the swamp!” snickered Otto. “It would gobble you up like a cat does a mouse, and you’d never be seen again!”
Gretel and Erna were rather scared, but Walter and Willy were not so easily intimidated. They ran back to the swamp, and Gretel, Erna, and Otto followed with mixed feelings.
“If you’re afraid, Willy and I will go on alone with Mo,” said Walter. “I’m sure that is the marker.”
“All right, I’ll come,” said Otto, “but if you can’t see the marker, how do you expect to walk toward it?”
They had returned to the tall swamp grass and no longer could see the red spot on the birch tree.
“How stupid,” grumbled Walter. “The grass is too tall, or maybe we’re too short!”
“This swamp is for adults only,” jeered Otto.
“If only we knew how to fly now,” remarked Willy.
“We children on Asra all know how to fly,” Mo said quietly. She was tired and had to force herself to keep her eyes open. Lottie was tired too, but she would rather have bitten off her tongue than admit it.
“Let’s go back to the road,” said Otto.
Walter ignored him. Lost in thought, he was staring at Lottie. She immediately became suspicious and hid behind Gretel.
“I don’t want to go home,” she whimpered.
“Lottie is our solution!” he said cheerfully.
“How so?” the others asked, dumbfounded.
“Lottie doesn’t weigh much,” said Walter. “I think I can manage to carry her on my shoulders.” The others did not understand what he had in mind.
“Come here, Lottie,” Wa
lter beckoned smilingly.
But Lottie did not quite trust him. “You … you said I could come along,” she sobbed.
“And what luck that you did come with us,” said Walter. “If it weren’t for you, Mo would never get back to Asra.”
“Really?” called Lottie proudly and rushed up to him. Walter lifted her on his shoulders and walked into the tall grass. He was completely engulfed by it, but Lottie’s head stuck out above the top. They heard him ask her, “Can you see the red spot on the birch, Lottie?”
“Yes!” cried Lottie.
Now the children understood why Lottie could help them, and they clapped their hands in glee.
“Hurrah!” shouted Willy.
“Walter is sharp,” said Erna.
Walter was flattered, and he laughed as he returned with Lottie. But he soon became serious.
“Now listen,” he warned them. “You have to follow close behind me. Single file! And don’t fall back, even for a moment! First comes Mo. Then you, Gretel. Don’t take your eyes off Mo and see that she doesn’t get off the trail. The rest of you must be very careful to keep up with the one ahead of you. And you, Lottie, you keep your eyes glued to the red spot! Don’t look around! You will guide me by my ears as though we were playing horsie!”
“Oh, good!” cried Lottie.
“You must steer me in a straight line toward the red marker,” continued Walter. “If I veer to the left, you must pull my right ear, and if I veer to the right, you pull my left ear! Do you know right from left?”
“Right is this side,” called out Lottie.
“Ouch!” winced Walter. She had given his right ear a hefty tug. “You don’t have to pull quite so hard.”
“And left is this side,” said Lottie, pulling his left ear, this time a bit more gently.
Walter was satisfied, but once more he warned her: “Lottie, you’ve got to do a good job. Our lives depend on you. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” said Lottie, very flattered.
“Well, let’s go then,” Walter called out, and, with Lottie astride his shoulders, disappeared in the swamp grass. The others followed in single file, close together, as they had been ordered.
First came Mo, then Gretel, and then the rest. Otto, as usual, brought up the rear. The ground was wet and slippery, and they sank in mud up to their ankles.
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