The Adventure of the Willamax

by Gregory Hankins

The three young people set off in the direction of the little clearing at the end of the road. They had to watch their steps carefully because there seemed to be a lot of fallen branches along the roadway. More than usual.

  "Doesn't Amah Sampan remind you of someone?" asked Erin as she looked down, carefully avoiding all the debris.

  "Ya," said Sean, nearly tripping over a tangle of branches that seemed to almost grab at his shoes.

  "She reminds me of a troll or something," said Bryn. "She's all wrinkly and old. Argh!" Bryn cried out as he tripped and nearly landed on his nose.

  They continued along the road like this for quite a while, picking their way through twisted sticks and branches, when suddenly the road began to clear.

  "That's better," said Sean. "There's way less junk in the way now."

  "Ya, but look…" said Bryn.

  The three of them stood with their mouths open. The road ahead of them was different now. The little clearing at the end of the road, was gone. As a matter of fact, the end of the road was now gone. Instead, a well-worn path stretched out before them. The three quickly turned in unison to look at the path they had just walked on. The tangle of branches was still there, but Amah Sampan's little camp was completely out of sight, and the road stretched just as far behind them as it did in front of them.

  "Where are we?" asked Erin, sounding a little confused.

  "I don't know," said Sean. "But I think we just found out why it's call the Forever Road."

  Bryn was looking a little worried. "Maybe we should go back," he said.

  "No way," said Sean. "This is way cool!"

  Erin looked at her little brother and put a hand on his shoulder. "If you want, Bryn, we can go back. This is a little weird."

  Bryn looked at his companions, then at the path before him. "I suppose we could go a little further."

  Erin looked at the two of them for a moment, then, taking charge, she said, "Okay, we have to make a deal. If anyone wants to go back, we all have to go back. No one can stay here by themselves. But as long as we all agree to continue… we continue."

  Erin stuck her hand out in front of her, and without thinking, the other two did the same, joining hands in the middle. "True friends are friends forever!" all three said, and suddenly a ray of sun burst through the trees.

  The three hands dropped, and their owners looked at each other with puzzlement.

  "Was that your idea?" asked Sean to Erin.

  "No," said Erin, looking a little stunned. "I just did it."

  "Same here," said Bryn. "It was like we were supposed to do it."

  "No one's going to believe any of this," said Sean, now smiling. "Come on, let's go."

  And the three of them set off down the Forever Road.

  It was wide and well-worn. Here and there the three of them spotted what looked like hoof prints and sometimes, though the path was dry from the summer heat, there was the occasional wagon wheel rut. The sun still shone brightly overhead and through the trees above them, but not as brightly as it did before. The day was still warm, and walking along the road was very pleasant. Soon the young people began to talk about day-to-day things like school, friends, movies they had seen, even the fort that they were working on near the house. Time seemed to pass easily, and no one even remembered that they were in a strange place, a place that really shouldn't be there at all.

  "Hey," said Bryn, suddenly remembering where they were. "How long have we been walking?"

  "I don't know," said Erin. "I didn't bring my watch, did you?"

  Bryn shook his head, then they both looked at Sean. He too shook his head. "About an hour, I guess," he said.

  "The road looks the same still," said Bryn, looking down the pathway ahead of them. "When will we get to the end?"

  "Maybe there is no end," said Sean. "Maybe that's why it's called the Forever Road."

  Suddenly, just ahead of them, something leapt into the middle of the roadway, stopped, looked at them, then just as quickly, leapt into the trees.

  "Is that what I think it is?" asked Erin, looking amazed.

  "A giant frog?" said Sean, just as amazed as Erin.

  "Cool," said Bryn, who loved frogs, and ran quickly after it.

  "Bryn!" yelled Erin. "Wait. It could be dangerous."

  "No way," Bryn yelled back as the three of them trotted toward the giant frog.

  Bryn stopped at the place where the frog had gone in. He looked carefully to see if he could spot the creature.

  “Do you see it?” asked Sean as the other two came up behind him.

  “No,” whispered Bryn, as if the frog might hear him. Then, carefully, he started to move into the forest and off the road. Just as he did this, a branch snapped under his foot and the frog shot out from behind a tree stump. The frog was fast, but Bryn was faster and he grabbed it by one of its long skinny legs.

  “Let go of me!” yelled the big green and yellow frog, doing his best to wriggle free of Bryn’s grip. “Let go or I’ll shoot my deadly poison on you, and you’ll turn into a lump of green, slimy… ah, stuff!”

  Erin and Sean were now standing just behind Bryn, and they both started to laugh.

  “What’s so funny?” asked the frog.

  “Green, slimy… ah, stuff,” imitated Sean. “That sounds really scary!”

  “Well, wouldn’t you be surprised if I did shoot deadly poison on all of you!” said the frog, stubbornly.

  “Ya,” said Erin, sarcastically. “We would be really surprised.”

  The big frog quit squirming around so much and stopped to look at the three young people. He wasn’t much bigger than a medium-sized dog. His eyes were big and bright red. He had a long stripe of green along his back. And slung around his shoulder was a small brown sack.

  “Where did you learn to talk?” asked Bryn.

  “Ya. Frogs don’t talk,” said Sean, as if it had just dawned on him as well.

  “What a stupid question!” said the Frog, trying one more time to free himself from Bryn’s grip. “All frogs talk. It’s how we… well, talk.”

  Just as the frog was saying this, a shadow passed in front of the sun, and then another, and then another, as if a flock of very big birds was passing overhead.

  The frog looked suddenly terrified and really began to try and wriggle free.

  “Vinchers! Vinchers!” he yelled. “Let me go! Let me go!”

  “Nice try,” said Erin. “It’s just some birds. Probably Eagles.”

  “We’re not going to fall for that, Froggy,” said Sean. “We’re not as dumb as you look!”

  “But I’m not kidding!” cried the frog. “Don’t you know what Vinchers are?”

  Suddenly another shadow seemed to tell of something large passing overhead, only this time the shadow seemed to last longer.

  “No,” said Erin, trying to look up through the dense canopy of trees. “What are Vinchers?”

  Just as Erin was asking, a very loud hissing noise roared overhead.

  “That’s a Vincher,” hollered the frog, as Bryn let go of his leg, and all four yelled and began to run. Instinctively, they followed their former captive, and though he could hop long distances at a time, the forest was thick, and the children were better at dodging through the branches and over the fallen trees. Just in front of a huge ancient log, the frog leapt as high as he could and disappeared on the other side of it. Erin, Bryn, and Sean quickly scrambled up on top of the log and jumped down to join him. The frog had wedged himself as far under the log as he could and was searching for something in his bag. He stopped what he was doing and looked at the three young people apprehensively, then, deciding that they were less of a threat than the Vinchers, he continued to look in his little gray bag.

  “What are you doing?” whispered Bryn as he and the other two huddled close to the frog.

  The frog reached his arm deep inside the little bag that should have only been big enough for his hand.

  “I know it’s in here, I know it’s in here,” he repeated with
fear in his voice. “Aha!” he said, pulling his long skinny yellow arm out of the bag. In his little webbed hand was a ball, just like the one Amah Sampan had given to Bryn. The frog looked at the three of them and said, as if they would know what he was talking about, “I only hope there’s enough left!”

  Just then, there was a whooshing of wings, and the loud hissing roared from just on the other side of the big log.

  “Oh!” whispered the frog with a strained voice.

  Erin put her finger to her lips to make sure no one talked, then, carefully crept up to peek over the other side of the log. As she did, the other two young people followed.

  “No!” the frog said, trying to stop them. “They’ll smell you for sure.”

  But the three children had already moved high enough to see the Vinchers for themselves. And what they saw wasn’t pretty. Standing in the woods were four huge black birds, bigger than any human, with both wings and long feathery arms with dirty big hands. The Vinchers didn’t seem to have heads and beaks like a bird, either. Instead, they had very small heads that had no eyes and long skinny snouts with big blue noses. They also had very small mouths with many, very sharp teeth.

  “Yuk!” said Bryn, before he could help himself.

  Erin shot him a look that definitely said, “Shut up!”

  But the Vinchers didn’t turn to look, instead, they seemed to be sniffing the air with their big blue noses.

  “I smell something,” said one of the Vinchers with a voice that sounded like a squeal, only loud and hissy.

  “I told you,” squealed another Vincher. “You never believe me!”

  The first Vincher turned to the other one that spoke and hissed angrily at it. “That’s because you’re almost always wrong!” it added. Then, it started to sniff again and following a scent, started to move quickly and menacingly right toward the three children who froze, too afraid to move. Just as the big bird was close enough that the children could smell its horrible breath, the little frog leapt up and started to shake the ball he had grabbed from his bag. The ball made a very faint tinkling noise as he shook it.

  The Vincher stopped, then started sniffing all around as if he had lost the scent of what he was following.

  “I could swear I had something… something juicy too,” it squealed. It started to sniff again, then, with a big nasty smile on its face, it seemed to find the scent again. “Yes, I do smell something tasty!”

  “Oh, no,” said the frog, “my scentless ball is all used up. We’re going to become dinner.”

  “Not if I can help it,” said Bryn, reaching into his pocket and pulling out the green ball Amah Sampan had given him. He shook it with great force, and the ball jingled loudly as he did it. And just as the first Vincher was about to put his dirty big hands around the scared frog, he stopped and began to sniff around madly as if he couldn’t smell a thing. The little frog dropped to the ground in a faint.

  All four Vinchers began to sniff the air all around them, trying desperately to find what they had lost. They all went off in different directions, then came together again.

  The first Vincher hissed at the other one who had spoken. “You’ve led us on another wild goose chase, Minik. You can eat tree bark again for your dinner!”

  Then, as the first Vincher spread its wings, the others followed and, remarkably smoothly, all four lifted into the air and flew out of the dense forest and into the sky.

  As the other two watched the Vinchers disappear from view, Bryn ran over to the frog began to shake him.

  ~~~~