Chapter 7- The Journey

The way to the castle was through the woods. Green, feathery ferns fluttered in the warm breeze. The trees were welcoming, and the underbrush was mostly cooperative, but wherever it wasn’t, Finn was there with sword in hand to clear a path. Golden splashes of sunlight shone through the trees where the leaves were few. The air smelled like adventure.

Sara rode the pony most of the way. Woggy walked. Rob flew. And Finn alternated between walking and swimming whenever they found water.

They soon came to a rushing river that, thankfully, had big boulders that made a jumping bridge. The pony had no trouble at all hopping from stone to stone. Woggy had a little bit of trouble because some of the stones were spaced far away from each other. In the end he made each jump, although his feet did get wet a couple of times. Finn dove straight into the river and then he disappeared.

“Where did Finn go?” asked Woggy in a panic.

“I saw him jump into the water,” said Sara.

Rob started to dive into the water to look for him.

“The water is moving too fast!” yelled Sara. “It's dangerous.”

Rob looked at the frothy rapids and knew that Sara was right. But if it truly was dangerous, then it would be dangerous for Finn, too. Was he okay?

The three of them sat on the far edge of the river looking back. They were worried, but what could they do? Finn was one of the Seaple now and if there was anywhere he could take care of himself, it was in the water. All they could do was hope, hope that Finn was alright, and hope that he would find them again.

Woggy was the first to realize that the rushing river would have taken Finn far downstream by now. He looked further down the river and saw that not too far away the river flowed right into a cave and disappeared. 

They knew they could not find Finn by swimming, and they had no idea where the river went after the cave so they decided that the only thing they could do was keep walking. Finn knew where they were going, and the castle is where he would go. Rob decided to stay on the ground for a while. With Finn gone, it seemed better if they all stuck together, side by side.

They passed by trees as wide as houses and saw many different animals scampering about, some that Sara recognized because she had drawn them, and some that she did not recognize. They walked by a whole flock of peacocks with beautiful colors—a few were yellow, and more than one was bright red, thanks to Spark. Despite missing and worrying about Finn, it was still an exciting journey. Although Woggy did often think of how much Finn would enjoy seeing some things.

  Eventually, they reached a canyon: not grand, but still impressive, and definitely big, too big to easily cross. They looked over the edge, which was very steep, as canyons are. It was also very deep, and they watched a pebble bounce for a long time down the canyon wall.

They thought about climbing down and then back up the other side, but they all came to the same conclusion: horses are not very good rock climbers.

Fortunately, Sara had remembered to bring along her papers and pencils. Unfortunately, the canyon was too big to draw a bridge to get across, and she used up three pieces of paper trying. Each time the bridge fell into the canyon and disappeared down below.

They sat on the ledge to think. They thought, and thought, then thought some more. They thought of everything—or at least they thought they did—but really, they had not thought of everything. Thankfully they did not have to, because Woggy thought of an ingenious solution before they got to everything, which is good because everything is a hard thing to think of.

Woggy’s ingenious solution was a catapult.

I know what you are thinking: this is absolutely brilliant. But what you have failed to think about is how dangerous this is. What would happen when they got to the other side? But Woggy had thought about that, too. He had Sara draw a big trampoline, and before the drawing came to life they folded it in half, really quick. Rob flew over the canyon with the paper in her hand and then opened it on the other side. She unfolded the paper and a trampoline popped up out of the paper.

They aimed the catapult that Sara had drawn towards the trampoline on the other side of the canyon, and then Woggy, and Sara, and the pony all got into it to be launched to the other side.

“Wait a minute!” said Woggy. “This is still too dangerous.”

So, they all got out of the catapult, and Woggy, who was now thinking much more clearly, asked Sara to draw a big pile of leaves. They did the same trick with the paper folding and had Rob fly it over to the other side. Rob put the pile of leaves exactly thirty-seven paces behind the trampoline, just like Woggy said to do.

Once again Woggy and Sara and the pony got into the catapult. Spark flew up to Woggy with a dance of approval at his creativity. Rob released the catapult, and they went soaring through the air. Rob took off after them and they all smiled and loved the feeling of flying—all of them except, probably, the pony.

They landed with a bounce on the other side of the canyon and then right into a big pile of leaves, completely safe. Thirty-seven paces was the perfect distance.

They continued onward with their quest towards the castle. The path took them through a great big green field, full of wildflowers. Spark dashed between the wildflowers, changing their colors, just like he had done earlier. As they went on, they saw several puddles on the right side of the path. One of the puddles started bubbling. They took a step back. Not knowing what would happen next, Rob drew her sword, ready to protect.

The bubbles got bigger and bigger, until water exploded out of the puddle. Or to be more precise, something exploded out of the water. Or to be the most precise, someone exploded out of the water.

“Finn!” cried Sara excitedly.

He landed on the path with a roll and a smile.

“Where have you been? We have been so worried about you,” said Sara.

“Sorry,” said Finn. “I went swimming!” He stuck out one of his bare feet and wriggled his webbed toes.