Better on our own - English

Search and Rescue

"What are you doing here, Davies? I already told you that..." Sam groaned as he stormed past me and I looked after him in confusion, only to see Davies just jumping out of his SUV, which he directly had parked behind Venus.

"I'll help find Penny, with or without your permission!" Davies snapped firmly at Sam, not even letting him finish. The two stood facing each other, staring at each other like two aggressive dogs about to pounce on each other at any moment, just trying to gauge how strong their opponent really was first. Did they realize that we didn't have time for games like that?

Sam obviously did, because he turned away abruptly and reached into Venus's storage compartment as he passed by, before throwing something to the mayor, which he caught in surprise.

"Put these on. Sulfur fumes irritate the respiratory tract. We don't want to have to save you too!" Sam complained and put on his own mask, which was equipped with a filter.

By now we had all put on harnesses and masks and were ready to go into the cave, outside of which we had found tire tracks that were definitely from the SUV that Moose had noticed earlier. Sam had called him on the phone on the way up here to the mountains to tell him to keep an eye open and that's exactly what he had done. Basically, we had missed the black SUV, the description of which, according to Ellie, pretty much matched Mayor Brown's, by a scant 15 minutes, it seemed. We'd been in radio communication the entire trip, so we heard that Sam had asked Moose to let Malcolm know immediately while we continued to focus on finding Penny.

I was a little confused as to why Brown would have taken Penny to the caves rather than the mines, but that didn't mean she was any safer. The smell of rotten eggs felt as coming from every crack in this mountain.

"Is that all sulfur does?" Davies turned to Sam as he draped a rope over his shoulder. He just gave Davies a disapproving look before leading the way, rather than answering.

"When you're exposed to too much of it or are exposed to it for too long, it can cause unconsciousness or worse," I told him instead. He was genuinely worried about Penny, to his credit. Above all, it would probably only encourage him to do stupid things if he got bored or didn't feel taken seriously because we ignore him. We really didn't need a would-be hero here who, as Sam had surely confirmed with his previous statement, might get lost in the caves and needed rescuing himself if he considered going some way in alone.

"What does worse mean?" he asked me, almost seeming scared.

"Pulmonary edema, coma, cardiac arrest," I replied with a shrug, when Sam suddenly turned to us and looked at me seriously. Had I said something wrong?

"Why do you know something like that and I don't?" he said seriously and I shrugged my shoulders again. I could tell from his voice that he wasn't really happy about it. He didn't think they taught us something like that at the academy now, did he?

"It's a hobby of mine. I'm interested in volcanoes," I explained to him and his eyes only rested on me for a moment before he went on and led us into the cave. But I saw Susen's look, which seemed more than interested, and so I decided that a little more background information wouldn't hurt anyone here."Sulfur is mostly found at volcanoes. The fact that it was included here can only mean that Pontypandy Mountain used to be an active volcano a long time ago," I then said what I knew about it. Volcanoes were a secret passion of mine that I don't think even Sarah knew about. Would she come with me if I had the chance to see a real volcanic eruption?

"Penny will be very interested in this when we find her," Sam said and I was taken aback, just like the mayor.

"Really?!" we both couldn't help asking and Sam glanced over his shoulder at us.