Finn was not one to talk about his adventures, but I know you are curious about what he was doing all of that time, and so am I. So, I will tell you. When Finn first dove into the river with the big rocks he was planning on popping right back out of the water and continuing with everyone else, but then he saw a rainbow puffer fish. Now, we have said that Finn could talk to fish, and he could, but he quickly found that they did not have much to say.
Finn followed the rainbow pufferfish for a while, and he reached out to touch it, but just as he was about to, it puffed up into a rainbow ball as quick as a blink. Seeing the spikes on the puffed-out fish, Finn pulled his hand back. Then he remembered that he wanted to look for more Seaple. He was sure that they had an amazing underwater city somewhere.
Finn swam around for a while before he remembered that he was on a journey with his friends and that they were all going to the castle to find treasure. He swam back to the surface to look for them, but the surface that he swam back to was not the same surface that he dove into just moments ago, and his friends were not there. Now, Finn was not one to worry, but a flicker of fear passed through his mind. He swam some more until he found another surface that they might be at. He popped out of the water again, but no friends were there either. He did this eleven times! One time he popped up on the surface of a river that was in the middle of a canyon. It was not a grand canyon, but it was certainly a big one. He thought he saw a flying horse in the sky, but that would be ridiculous.
He dove down into the water again. He was starting to worry more— would he ever see his friends again? Then he saw a beautiful pink shell resting on the sandy bottom. It was one of those swirly shells that spirals around itself. He swam down towards it to pick it up, when he saw a fish with giant spiky teeth speeding towards the pink shell with jaws open. Finn did not want the beautiful shell to be eaten so he raced towards the shell and snatched it up just in time.
The toothy fish only got a mouthful of sand. It thrashed around and then locked eyes with Finn and dashed towards him. Finn swam this way and that way, zigzagging in the water. The fish was bigger than Finn had originally thought it was about twice the size of Finn!
Finn swam as fast as he could with the fish snapping at his heels. Then he saw a tunnel. It was a tunnel just big enough for Finn to swim through and, hopefully, just small enough that his pursuer could not follow.
Finn dashed into the opening of the tunnel and kept swimming until he heard a thump. He looked back and saw the mouth of the fish snapping angrily in the tunnel and then watched the fish back out and swim away, defeated.
Now, it is usually very dark underwater, but Finn had eyes that could see especially well underwater. But underwater tunnels are exceptionally dark. Even with his Seaple vision, the tunnel would have been too dark and scary to go into, but there were a bunch—and I mean a bunch!—of little bioluminescent plankton in this tunnel. They were covering the walls until the whole tunnel glowed a brilliant blue color.
Curiosity pulled Finn through the tunnel. As he swam through it, he was mesmerized by the glowing blue color, and it made him happy. He swam and swam until he saw a bright light at the end of the tunnel. He swam straight for it. It was the surface, and he jumped up out of the water and rolled on the ground with a big smile. He had finally found the surface where his friends were.
Instead of telling his friends everything that had happened, Finn simply pulled the beautiful pink shell out of his pocket. “All of this land is floating on water, and there are so many cool things in the water. I found this!”
The beautiful, pink shell sprouted legs, which startled Finn, and made him drop it. It was a little-legged creature with little eyes. It had pincers for arms: one was big and one was small, and both were pink. The shell scampered over to the puddle, jumped into the air, and then plopped into the water.
“Aww, I’m going to miss Pinky,” said Finn.
“What was that?” asked Sara.
“A shell I found when I was swimming.”
“You can’t call him Pinky, a pinky is a finger,” said Sara.
“Too late, I already named him,” said Finn as he rubbed his hand on his shirt. “Well, I guess we should keep going then.” And that was all the details that he gave about his adventure.
Everyone else turned to follow him, wondering about where he had been and craving the details of the story. But it appeared they would not get any, so they ventured on with their quest. They took the path through the field and at the end of the field rose a tall, steep mountain with a dark, cavernous cave mouth at the base of it.
Rob launched into the air to make sure they were going in the right direction, toward the castle. She came back a few minutes later to tell everyone that the castle was just on the other side of the mountain, and they only had to climb over it.
“I’ll bet that this cave goes straight through,” said Finn. “It would be way easier than climbing the steep mountain.”
“I don’t know; it seems risky,” said Sara.
“I could race you guys,” replied Finn. “I will go through the cave, and you guys can climb the mountain. Whoever gets there first gets all of the treasure!”
“No,” said Woggy. “We are not going to split up again. We have to stay together.”
“Yeah, we were worried sick about you Finn,” said Rob.
“Please don’t leave us again,” said Sara.
Woggy agreed and they all looked at Finn, who was just now realizing that not only had he been scared that he would never see his friends again; his friends had been scared that they would never see him again.
“I’m sorry,” said Finn. “I didn’t realize that I made you worry. You guys decide, I will stick with you. I don’t want to lose you again either.”
Finn had not realized until this moment how much his friends really cared about him. He felt bad for making them worry, but he also felt good, knowing that he had friends that cared about him so much, and he certainly did not want to lose them.
The steep mountain loomed over them, and the dark cave mouth echoed in front. They all looked at each other, trying to decide which path would be a better adventure.
So, it was decided which way they would go. And if you are thinking that climbing the mountain was the better choice compared to walking into the yawning unknown darkness of the cave, then you would be in disagreement with what the group decided to do. They decided to go into the blackness of the cavernous cave.
At first it was just Finn that wanted to go through the cave, but then Rob decided that the cave would be more of an adventure, too. Sara finally agreed because she felt like the steep hill would be challenging for her pony. Woggy was the last to agree— he was scared of the dark. But he decided that he would rather follow his friends than tell them he was scared.
They stood at the mouth of the cave and felt the cool, damp air that breathed from the opening.
“We are going to need a light,” said Woggy, trying not to sound scared.
Sara pulled out her pencil and the eight pieces of paper that she had left. She sketched out a torch, and a blink later she held the torch in her hand. Unfortunately, the torch was not lit, but Spark came to the rescue and gave a spark for the flame. She rode her painted pony with the torch in her hand, and went right into the mouth of the cave, where the flaming torch created a flickering battle between light and shadows.
Now here is the thing: Sara was very afraid of the dark. Woggy was afraid of the dark. Rob was also afraid of the dark. Even Finn, whose idea this had been to begin with, was afraid of the dark. They were all afraid of the dark, and they were all afraid to admit to anyone else that they were afraid of the dark. So, they all walked into the cave huddled close together, believing that they were each alone in their fear. Being alone in fear is the worst.
They all pretended to be very brave, and really they were quite brave. Because facing your fears is a brave thing to do.
As they walked, they got used to the darkness. The tunnel boomed with the echoes of their footsteps. Every time they spoke, their voices were multiplied and talked back to them. It was a little unsettling at first, but soon they were yelling, and whooping, and making all kinds of funny noises.
Finn yelled out, “Yo-de-lay-he-hoo!” and everyone laughed.
Rob gave a loud, “Cock-a-doodle-doo!” which was also hilarious.
Woggy belted out, “Woohoo!”
And finally, Sara gave a perfect reverberating whistle that bounced through the cave for a long time after she was done whistling. They were all starting to feel like the cave was not so scary after all. Maybe the dark was not a thing to be feared.
Until … they saw light shimmering in front of them and, for a moment, their fear came back to life. But they stopped and saw that it was just the reflection of their torch bouncing off of gems and jewels.
“Treasure!” whispered Rob with a smile.
Sara rode the pony up next to the wall for a closer look. It really was treasure, but it was the cave’s treasure. The walls were full of the most beautiful crystals. They shimmered and shined in the rippling light of the torch. Spark swirled around the room, and added to the spectacular light show.
Woggy reached out to the crystals, but he soon realized that the cave was not willing to give these up. They were all stuck in the walls very tightly. It was for the better, anyway, because the cave was too pretty to change by taking from it. They stood in awe of it all for a good while before deciding to move on with their quest.
They took their loud footsteps onward, and soon came to a split. There were now two tunnels in the cave that they could take. One went to the left and the other went straight ahead.
Which one should they take? What do you think?
Okay, we will send them down that one if you think it is a good idea. Let us see if it was the right path to take.
They went through the tunnel that you have suggested and soon they were in a massive cavern. The ceiling seemed to go all the way up to the top of the mountain. Stalagmites stabbed up from the ground, and when Spark flew way up to the top they could just barely see in the light of his glow that stalactites held on tightly to the ceiling, pointing down with their spikes.
The cavern also had columns: some were thin and looked like they went all the way up to the top of the cavern, and some were as wide as those trees that were as wide as houses. They walked up to one of them and saw that it shimmered just like the walls of the crystal room. Seeing the shimmering column and being surrounded by friends on a great adventure made Woggy smile. It was a genuine happy smile. And when he smiled the room lit up. Light beamed from wall to wall, from column to column, all of them full of shimmering gems that changed and shaped the color of the light in a mesmerizing way.
This was not the first time that Woggy’s friends had seen his glowing smile, but this was the first time they noticed it. All of the other times had been in the light of day. No one had noticed, because Woggy’s smile had only made a bright day a little brighter. This time was different though. This time Woggy’s smile transformed all of the darkness into light.
“Whoa!” said Finn.
They stood there for a while in awe of the beauty, and then Woggy sneezed. The light went away as quick as a breath. Even with the torch light the room seemed dark now.
“I didn’t know you could do that,” said Sara.
“That was amazing,” added Rob.
“Do it again!” said Finn.
But Woggy felt too embarrassed after sneezing and there was too much pressure for him to give another genuine, happy smile. Finn tried to make him smile again with funny noises, but try as he might, Woggy could not make it happen again.
They walked through the room, mostly looking up. Then the room started getting smaller and smaller as they went on and soon they were ducking their heads to keep from hitting them on the rocks. It looked like it was about to open up again, but it did not. It just kept shrinking. They were soon crawling on their hands and knees to keep going. I am honestly not sure how the pony did this, but it figured it out somehow and kept right alongside everyone.
What have you gotten this group into? I am starting to wonder if the other tunnel was not the right one. Oh, but wait! There is a light ahead. Let us keep going and see what it is.
The tunnel quickly opened up to where they could all stand, and they saw a passage in front of them. There was also the sound of water, specifically the sound of water falling. The opening was bright with daylight on the other side, and glistened with a waterfall covering it. A cool misty breeze blew in their faces. The tunnel they were in shimmered with rippling light and the anticipation of the next stage of their adventure.
The waterfall curtained the whole entrance of the cave. Finn ran and jumped through the waterfall.
“Guys, I can see the castle!” he yelled back into the cave, his voice muffled by the rushing water.
Rob and Spark flew through the waterfall after him, and then Sara and the pony jumped through, and then finally Woggy. He felt the refreshing push of the water as he went through, but only for a moment. He landed with a splash in a pool of cool water where all of his friends were swimming to shore. He rubbed the water out of his eyes and then opened them. In front of him, at the bottom of a hill on a grassy plain stood a magnificent stone castle.
By the way, good job getting them through that cave— that was close!