The Imagination Machine

Chapter 19

"So how are we gonna do this? Someone's gonna have to carry Sable." Rudy clutched the straps of the backpack tightly to his chest as he stared at the boulders that made up the base of the mountain.

"I'll do it," Lucretia said. 

"We'll have to make sure she's really secure," Courtney told him. "I don't want to risk her falling off the mountain. Here, take this." Courtney unwound her belt from her waist and handed it to Lucretia. "Use it to tie her to your chest."

As Lucretia secured the little girl to his chest, Courtney and Rudy looked at the rock wall ahead of them.

"It's kind of like rock climbing," Rudy said.

He wasn't entirely wrong. Beyond the boulders were a series of ledges. It looked to be at least a hundred foot climb. Some of the ledges looked like they were wide enough to sit on, while others looked like you could barely fit a finger onto them. Either way, a fall would definitely mean death. Courtney worried about Rudy and Sable falling. She still didn't know what would happen if one of them actually died in Labania.

Courtney took her brother's arm. "Rudy, I need you to listen to me. When we're up there, you gotta listen to everything I tell you. If I tell you to stop, you gotta stop. Alright?"

"Courtney, have a little faith. I was always really good at rock climbing."

He wasn't entirely wrong about that either. Rudy had been the only kid in his class not to fall and hit his butt on the ground. Courtney, on the other hand, was a different story. 

"You really think we can climb this, though?" Rudy was looked at her now.

Courtney shrugged. "I guess we don't have much choice. We can't go back to the village now."

She suddenly looked ahead and saw Lucretia grunting as he pulled himself up onto the boulders. He had one hand clutched to his chest.

"Lucretia!" Courtney called. When he turned around, Courtney saw that he'd secured Sable to his chest with the belt. Courtney saw a smile on the girl's face. 

"Is this a game?" Sable asked.

"You could say that," Courtney muttered and she and Rudy clambered up onto the rocks next to Lucretia. Before she had a chance to catch her breath, Lucretia was climbing up the rock wall. He moved from ledge to ledge with ease, occasionally placed a hand on his chest to hold Sable in place. He went back and forth across the wall, finding ledges that were wide enough for him to place his hands.

Courtney and Rudy were having a considerably harder time. Although Rudy was good at rock climbing back home, he struggled to find ledges to hold onto and would occasionally be left dangling without a place to put his feet.

"Rudy, please be careful!" Courtney called over to him. She was sitting on a wide ledge, where she was taking a long break. 

"That's about as useful as saying 'don't fall,'" Rudy said as he pulled himself up onto his own ledge and sat down. "Hey Lucretia, you mind slowing down a bit?"

Lucretia stopped where he was climbing several ledges above them and looked down. "I am sorry," he said. From the distance, Courtney could see that Sable had fallen asleep.

As Courtney and Rudy got back up and continued climbing, Courtney saw that the ledges eventually stopped at a large outcropping of rock. From there, the ground became grassy and sloped upward much more gently to the top of the mountain. All they had to do was make it there.

Lucretia, who hadn't actually slowed down at all, made it long before both Courtney and Rudy, relaxing as he sat at the bottom of the grassy slope. But Courtney could see a problem. Up by where Lucretia was, the ledges became considerably smaller. Most of them looked like she wouldn't be able to fit a whole foot onto them. Lucretia had made it up anyway, but Rudy was going to have a hard time.