A/N: I know this isn't a big fandom, but I'm having a lot of fun writing this. I so love those four adventurers :) and Kiki of course! And everyone else in this series!
And thank you, Em, for supporting this with your reviews! It's great to know that someone else is having some fun, too :)
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Chapter 4: At The Springstons' House
Lucy-Ann was right; there was a house, just a little bit further uphill. It was hidden between bushes and trees, one could scarcely see it from where they stood now – let alone from the other side of the lake. Realising that they had found the place they had been looking for after all gave them all them the strength and the spirit to hurry up.
After another few minutes they had nearly reached the house. It was a cosy looking cabin and an elderly woman was bustling about on a small veranda in front of it. She laughed at the three of them when she saw them approach and waved a bare chubby arm. 'Hallo there!' she called. 'Lovely day, isn't it? Do you like the view from up here?' Her arm stretched out to indicate the valley that lay behind them with its lake in the middle and the thick forest on the other side of it.
Jack glanced back over his shoulder and thought that, indeed, one had a spectacular view from up here. He turned to say to Philip, 'she must be thinking that we're just tourists. Hikers or something.'
'Well, we are hikers, although not voluntarily – and very hungry ones too,' siad Philip with a grin. 'I do hope she has some food to spare. Otherwise it'll be the end of me.'
'Pop goes the Weasel!' said Kiki solemnly.
Lucy-Ann sped up at little, leaving the boys a few steps behind her. She walked up to the woman on the veranda and smiled very kindly, knowing from experience that very few people could resist that sort of smile. 'Hallo,' she said. 'What a beautiful place this is. Do you live here?'
'Indeed, my dear,' said the woman with a friendly laugh. 'I live here with my husband, Rory, and my daughter, Isabel. I'm Tilda Springston, by the way.'
'Nice to meet you, Tilda,' said Lucy-Ann. 'I'm Lucy-Ann Trent, and there's my brother, Jack, over there – and Philip, our friend. We got lost in the woods, I'm afraid. And we didn't bring along enough food and drink. Would you kindly help us out? We shall pay for your expenses.'
'Oh, you poor dears!' exclaimed the Tilda, looking horrified. 'I say, to be lost here with no supplies, how dreadful! You must come in and have a bite to eat with me! I was wondering already what you were doing here, so far from the next village and with no equipment on you! Come on in, I'm well-stocked on food. We – that's me and my husband – don't get to go into town a lot, so when we go, I see to it that I bring enough food back to last us for weeks and weeks.' Again, she waved her pudgy arm at them and the three hurried to follow her into her house.
Moments later they sat around the table in a small, crowded kitchen. Through the open window they could enjoy the view on the lake and the forest on the other side – somewhere there must be the cabin they had slept in the night before. As mesmerizing as the landscape was, the food on the table was twice as interesting and Jack, Philip and Lucy-Ann pounced on it as if they hadn't been fed in a week. There was a loaf of fresh bread – which Tilda had baked herself, that very morning – and a wide variety of different dainties – ham, cheese, boiled eggs, tomatoes and much more. Kiki was gorging on tinned pineapple and Hopper had a carrot to nibble on.
It was a cosy atmosphere, and the food, despite being plain and simple, felt heavenly good in their empty stomachs. While he ate, Philip took in the inside of the cabin with unfazed curiosity. Its interior was simple and held no luxuries and it oddly reminded him of his old home, Craggy-Tops by the sea, where he and Dinah had spent their holidays so many times when they were younger.
So far they hadn't met either Rory or Isabel yet, but Tilda had already told them all about her family. 'Rory is park ranger, you see? It's a national park where we are, and we've been living here for twenty years. Our daughter, Isabel, grew up here. A little lonely, I'm afraid but she quite enjoyed it. Of course, now she doesn't live with us anymore. She is currently a university student. She wants to qualify as a veterinary and then come back to the park and work here as well.'
'Really?' Philip's eyes lit up. 'I want to become a vet as well. I'm going to start university in autumn.' He grinned at Tilda who gave him a very warm smile in return. Lucy-Ann thought – not for the first time – that he could be very charming when he wanted to. And with Tilda his charm worked very well indeed – she seemed to be quite fond of him already!
'I bet you and Isabel would get along very well,' she said approvingly.
'I suppose so,' Philip agreed with a happy nod. 'Shall we get to meet her, do you reckon?'
Tilda shrugged. 'She is joining Rory on his daily rounds through the park, to see if everything is alright. It's been a dry summer so far so there is always danger that a fire might break out. Some tourists are really careless about their cigarette ends or the bon fires they make – even although fires are actually forbidden at this time of year. Isabel loves going on rounds with Rory when she's here in the holidays. She doesn't have many friends her age. I shall be glad if you'll get to meet her.'
'Actually we can't stay so very long, Tilda,' said Jack, thinking of Dinah. He gave Philip a very indignant look. 'You see, we have lost one of our friends on our way and we really must find her.'
'Right,' said Philip. He felt very ashamed of himself for he had indeed forgotten about Dinah for a moment.
'You lost your friend?' asked Tilda. 'Oh, poor dears. I shall get Rory to take you out in his car to look for her! Where did you last see her?'
The three of them looked at each other. Should they tell Tilda the whole truth of what had happened? But then – why not? She seemed trustworthy enough, and maybe she or her husband could take them to the next village where they could talk to the police. Then they might be able to find out what had happened to Bill, as well. Jack decided it would be the best plan, but just as he had started to tell the story they heard the noise of a car outside.
'Hallo – there's Rory coming back, with Isabel,' said Tilda happily. 'Just wait a moment, Jack, will you? Then you'll only have to tell it once!'
Two men and a young woman around the age of twenty – or maybe slightly older than that – came into the room. The one who introduced himself as Rory was a short, wiry man with greying hair and an equally greying moustache. Isabel was taller than both her parents but as wiry as her father. She had long fair hair that was tucked into a thick bun at the back of her head, and she didn't very much look like either of her parents. Lucy-Ann silently wondered if she was adopted. The other man introduced himself as Sam, another park ranger. He was a tall and broad fellow – and rather slow, especially in terms of speaking.
Tilda introduced her three young guests to her family and then Jack began telling them all what had happened and how they had got here.
'My word, what a story!' exclaimed Rory after he had listened, and Tilda nodded excitedly.
'Poor dears,' she said again. 'And your sister Dinah is still in the hands of those kidnappers?' she asked Philip.
'Yes, unless they have freed her by now, I'm afraid she is,' said Philip.
'What an extraordinary tale,' said Isabel pensively. She hadn't uttered a word until now, and she was giving her parents' guests thoughtful looks from the corner of her eyes.
Philip thought that she was a little strange but he was sure she would be quite nice once one got to know her better. Secretly, he also had to admit to himself that he found her pretty, too. But he would have to be careful to not let his friends know that he thought that. They would enjoy taking the mickey out of him – especially Jack.
A sudden, rather uncharacteristically vivacious exclamation from Sam interrupted Philip's thoughts roughly. 'Bless my soul, how could I forget!'
'Sam! Whatever is the matter?' asked Tilda, shaking her head while refilling Jack's empty mug with more of her freshly made lemonade.
'The helicopter – I saw it. Yesterday, about an hour before nightfall. It looked as if it was about to land, just outside the parks boundaries.'
Philip, Jack and Lucy-Ann perked up at the unexpected information and Kiki gave a few screeches, equally excited. 'Bless my soul!' she said, bobbing her head up and down. 'Send for the doctor – bless my soul!'
'Whereabouts exactly did you see the helicopter?' asked Jack forgetting all about his freshly poured drink.
'A couple of miles west from here,' said Sam.
'Can you take us there?' asked Philip.
Sam nodded. 'I suppose so.'
'Gosh, what luck we came here!' exclaimed Jack, his eyes bright. 'So we can go and see if Dinah is wandering about somewhere in that area. Sam – you're a genius!'
But Tilda put an end to the excitement. 'Sam! Whatever are you thinking? You would take them to the place where they might encounter a pack of kidnappers with guns? Are you quite mad? They are children!'
'Children?' Philip repeated indignantly. He shook his head irritably. He wasn't a child – he was eighteen! So was Jack – going on nineteen actually. If anything, Lucy-Ann might pass for being a child, but maybe they could leave her here with this nice family, where she would be safe and sound. Tilda certainly wouldn't mind. She loved Lucy-Ann already.
He was about to suggest it when Isabel spoke up. 'Listen – I have a few errands to run in town. I can take the three of you with me and drop you off at the police station, so you can get help.' She winked at Philip and smiled.
It seemed like their best option. Although Jack would have preferred going after the men and finding Dinah as quickly as possible, he decided that having Isabel take them to the police station would be better than nothing. They would inform the officers on where Sam had seen the helicopter and then the search for Dinah and the villains who had taken her would begin.
They all agreed on Isabel's suggestion and after they had finished eating Isabel took her father's car keys and Jack, Philip and Lucy-Ann followed her outside. Lucy-Ann made herself comfortable in the back seat and so did Jack with Kiki perched on his knee. Meanwhile Philip chose to take the front seat next to Isabel.
The ride on the bumpy road was uncomfortable, as most of the way was potholed and curved, passing along a small stream that probably fed the lake next to Tilda's and Rory's home. Lucy-Ann watched the landscape in awe – it was such a beautiful but lonely place.
They came to a forking. Glancing out of the car window Philip saw a road sign pointing out the way to the next settlement to the right. They still had a few miles to go but would certainly make there before dinner time. He was about to tell Jack when Isabel hit the gas pedal and turned the car left.
'Isabel, we're headed in the wrong direction,' said Philip puzzled. He turned to looked at her and saw that she was grinning from ear to ear.
'We're not going to the police station,' she said. 'I wasn't going to tell my parents, but I know exactly where the helicopter landed. And that's where we're headed!'
'Golly!' exclaimed Jack from the backseat. 'Isabel, you're a genius!'
She gave him a cheeky smile through the rear-view mirror.
Lucy-Ann thought that Tilda's daughter was a little puzzling. She seemed very confident to her, more so than even Dinah was, and cheeky. She also seemed to be ignoring Lucy-Ann, while hugely enjoying the attention she was undeniably receiving from both of the boys. And they in turn didn't even seem to notice her coolness towards Lucy-Ann.
The ride took another ten minutes. Then Isabel stopped the car on a meadow which lay on the side of the small stream. It seemed like a perfect landing spot for a helicopter – but if it had landed there, it had already been removed again. They could see no sign of it.
Isabel turned the engine off and all four of them got out of the car and took a good look around.
'Look,' exclaimed Jack suddenly, pointing at the ground. He was standing in the middle of the meadow, where the grass grew so high it came up almost up to his knees. 'The grass is flattened here; I can make out two clearly visible lines. That must have been the helicopter's skids. It has landed here, after all!'
'But where is it now?' said Philip, pensively. 'It isn't something small you could just hide in the next bush.'
'We might find it, if we search around for a bit,' suggested Isabel. 'Let's walk for a bit, shall we?' She waved at them to make them follow her towards where the meadow ended and another thick forest began. The four of them strode into the woods, attentively turning their eyes this way and that. Jack had tapped Kiki's beak several times to make sure she knew she mustn't make any noises.
Philip was feeling thrilled. They might be very close to finding Dinah, but they also might be very close to being found by the kidnappers again, if they weren't careful! Thankfully they had experience with this kind situation, giving him the confidence to think that they would not be caught.
Lucy-Ann was the last in the line as they trotted through the forest. She went on although she felt an increasing reluctance. Something felt wrong, and she was almost sure it had something to do with Isabel. But she couldn't put her finger on it.
Then they came to a clearing and Jack, too, was beginning to feel uncomfortable. Where was Isabel taking them? They had followed her as if it was the most natural thing to do, but even if she had seen where the helicopter had come down, she had no way of knowing exactly which way to go from there, except –
He didn't get to end his thought because just when he realised that they had run right into a trap, they were surrounded by four tall men, and this time their faces were very visible.
