Chapter
9 ‘Ouch!’ Page 35
The group split up. Tommy and Jason teamed up as they had no
intention of losing sight of one another again. Jason was still not happy about
Tommy’s sudden confession because that meant there was a good chance they were
on a wild crystal hunting goose chase.
The boys made their way to the upper
south side of the pit, being careful to remain in the bushes and out of
sight. The moon was very bright and did
a good job of lighting their way.
They had been walking for a little
while without much luck, no big piles of black crystals lying around, when the
jungle opened up into a large clearing.
The boys crouched down and surveyed the situation. Tommy remembered this clearing all to
well. It was where the whole nightmare
pit experience had started.
The clearing was deserted. The moon’s glow gave it an eerie graveyard
feeling. Behind them, they could hear
the faint sounds of the jungle, but in front of them nothing stirred.
Tommy wondered why this area wasn’t
being guarded. The last time he was
here, he distinctly remembered it being quite crowded with Velociraptors. He had an uneasy feeling in the bottom of
his stomach. Something wasn’t right.
Jason nudged him. “You wanna start with those dirt piles?” he
said, pointing.
What dirt piles, wondered
Tommy. He hadn’t noticed any dirt piles
before. He followed his brother’s
finger and sure enough there were two large piles of dirt on the other side of
the clearing.
The uneasy feeling in Tommy’s
stomach grew worse.
The boys cautiously crawled over to
the piles. Tommy gave the area another
suspicious look. He still couldn’t
understand why such an easy way in and out wasn’t being guarded. While he was thinking, he hadn’t noticed
what Jason was up to until he heard his brother cry out.
“Jason?” said Tommy quietly.
“I’m down here!” called Jason.
“SHHH!” hissed Tommy. “Down where?”
“Behind you,” Jason growled.
Tommy turned around and found that
he was sitting inches away from a hole.
Jason was lying at the bottom, struggling to get up. Tommy put a hand over his mouth and tried to
stifle his laughter. Jason scowled up
at him.
“You know you could be a bit more
helpful instead of sitting there laughing!”
“Here,” giggled Tommy. “Let me give you a hand.” He began to clap.
“Har, har,” said Jason
sarcastically. “Very funny.”
Still laughing, Tommy bent
down and extended his hand.
“Grab hold,” he said to Jason.
Jason grabbed Tommy’s hand and gave
it a good yank. Causing Tommy to lose
his balance and over he went. Jason,
now standing in the hole, looked down at his little brother sprawled on the
ground before him.
“Now that was funny!” he said
laughing.
Tommy spat out some dirt. Life would be so much easier, he thought, if
big brothers were little brothers instead.
As he placed his hands on the ground to push himself up, something sharp
pricked him.
“Ouch!” he winced.
“What’s wrong?” asked Jason.
“I hit something sharp,” said Tommy.
Jason crouched down beside him and
they both began to dig.
“Hey,” said Tommy. “There’s something buried here.”
The boys pried the object out of the
ground and held it up. The bright
moonlight reflected of it’s surface.
Tommy gasped. It was a forbidden
black crystal! Placing it on the ground
beside them, they continued to dig revealing even more crystals. It looked as though they had gotten lucky
and fallen in to a hole filled with black crystals. Jason stopped digging and stood up.
“We’ve got to get back and tell the
others,” he said.
They helped each other out and
hurried off towards the rendezvous spot.