Lauren--Part Twenty-Seven

Splog # 87

Twenty-Seven

   Austin wasn't there! All she could see when she looked to her left was an endless plain of grass. To her right, the camel had just about reached the top of the rise but Austin was nowhere in sight. Her first thought, after getting over her surprise, was that he must have run ahead over the crest and so out of her sight. She so wanted this to be true that she started to run in order to get a view of what was on the other side of the rise.

   It wasn't very far, so she wasn't panting too heavily when she reached the top. Her first glance both disappointed and excited her. The land didn't really go down from the crest she was standing on as she had expected it would. There was merely a shallow dip before the terrain started rising again. To her left and right the dip was hardly noticeable, it was so slight. There, the ground seemed to level off for a short distance and then start climbing again. But directly in front of her the ground fell into a depression that looked as though it had once held a small body of water, a pond perhaps. And sitting in the dry bed of the pond, or whatever, was a large round object. Well, not exactly an object. It looked almost like a small house. But it was round, like a big ball that someone had dropped and left behind.

   Lauren started walking toward whatever it was and, from the corner of her eye, she observed the camel accompanying her. She hadn't even noticed the beast standing beside her because she was so concerned about finding Austin. That had been the cause of her disappointment when she first topped the rise. Austin was nowhere in sight. But now, as she walked forward, she remembered that Austin had disappeared before and he had come back to her. And Splog had said he would go to the inn with her and Splog probably knew Austin well enough to know that she could depend on him. So she let out a sigh and wended her way towards the big circular whatever it was.

   It didn't take her long to reach it and, close at hand, she found it to be about the size of a small cottage. It had looked dark from far away but, standing in front of it, the color seemed to have brightened to a golden brown. The texture was rough and, when she touched it, she was surprised to find it had a slight warmth to it. The camel was sniffing at it on her right and then put it head down and started pushing at it as if it wanted to roll it away. Lauren looked at the camel curiously wondering what it was doing. The camel raised its head, gave Lauren a look as if to say "This is harder than I thought it would be," and then stooped and started pushing again. After a few moments, it ceased its efforts and, this time without looking at Lauren, it started to amble around to the other side of the object. Lauren began to follow but, before she had taken many steps, she heard the swishing sound again coming from behind her.

 

   She turned quickly, hoping that it might be Austin, and saw, at the top of the rise, what looked like a tall stick standing by itself. She squinted her eyes to try to clarify what she was seeing but still couldn't make out what it was. As she watched, the stick appeared to fall over the rise in her direction, but it seemed as though it fell in slow motion. It touched the ground and then its straightness melted into a series of curves like the letter S and it started undulating down the slope towards her, making a swishing sound as it moved through the short grass. Lauren had often watched small snakes on her mountain and had never been afraid of them, but this snake was quite large and Lauren had no idea as to its relative harmlessness. She ran around the large globe in the direction the camel had taken and upon reaching the animal, she examined it to see if she would be able to get up onto its back and so out of the reach of the snake. But the camel was too large and there was nothing to hang onto so that she could climb up. She walked around the animal looking for a way to ascend, but she could find nothing to aid her. When she got to the camel's head, she paused and looked at it for a moment. The camel brought its head down to hers and looked her in the eye.