"You fool," shouted Bella. She explained to the rest of the crew that she did not
want any more heroes; the sea consisted of tiny creatures
that feasted on the bodies of mammals, the human variety.
Each crewmember got the point as they watched their friend
being swallowed up by the Azul Sea. Many tried to help the
man, but it was too late, he was gone for good; his
stubbornness and arrogance caused him to lose his life, and
Bella had no sympathy for him.
The looks on the crewmembers’ faces was one of sorrow
and defeat; until David came in and began to revive the
crowd, telling them that they had a reason to be sad, and
to take that sadness and turn it into joy, one of revenge
for their friends’ lives. The crew began to cheer and shout
until they could do no more.
"Father, you have a way with words," said Sam, as he
patted his father on the back.
But there was still no way off of the ship; until Jane
saw a vine on the land. She helped grow the vines and
tresses of the forest, Jane summoned the vines to come
forth and build a bridge. At first the crew thought that
Jane had lost her mind and was suffering from some type of
hysteria, but suddenly the ground shook and the vines began
to do a snake dance from the shore. They called out to
their creator Jane; this was there mother, the one who started their lives, the girl with the magical green thumb.
Bella ordered one of her monkeys to fetch her
binoculars. As the monkey came running back, Bella quickly
looked into the ends and saw that the vines were building a
bridge for them to cross.
"It is really happening," said Bella as she passed the
binoculars to Sam.
And so it was; the vines began to build a bridge for
their master, a mother they had not seen in years had come
back to them. The vines crawled on their belly like snakes,
did twists and turns in the air to step up and support
their weaving together. The vines kept building until there
was a bridge that led from shore to Bella's ship.
"Good job, honey," said Sam, as he kissed Jane on the
cheek.
For once, Jane was glad to see that Sam had
acknowledged her in front of Bella, and it was Jane’s time
to be in the spotlight instead of his good friend Bella.
Bella smiled and enjoyed the couple as they made up.
Everyone ran for the bridge made by the vines. Jane kissed
the vines and told them thanks, that one day she would come
and spend time with them. The vines let off a gentle cry to
let her know that they understood and would wait for her
return. Across the bridge they went as Bella left a few of her
crew to fix the ship. The members of the crew took every
weapon that they could find, and every supply that they
could use. They were now on unknown territory. But, before
Jane could get very far, a crewmember shouted.
"Jane, we found your box!"
Before Jane could answer, she saw the glitter and the
shine from the box. She ran back, pushing through the crowd
of fighters to get to her box. She was happy to again touch
the special box that she had thought was lost forever.
The crew settled on the shores of the Azul Sea,
speculating on where to go next. They got something to eat
and relaxed on the shores, until it was fully daylight. As
daybreak came, and the men who stood guard woke everyone up
from a long awaited nap, the crew stared at the forest.
It was the most beautiful thing that anyone could look
upon. There were streams made of silver mercury; trees and
plants that bore all kinds of fruits, big fruits, small
fruits, yellow, orange and red fruits, even blue fruits.
The area gave off a pleasant smell of blueberries. There
were giant earthworms that Bella killed for supper; she
threw her dagger, it landed in the creature's heart. Then
she gutted the creature and wrapped the pieces up in leaves
for dinner. Some of the crew were a little disgusted with Bella’s
wild adventurous side, but they admired her bravery and
courage. There were mountain tops that snowed, and big
snowballs and avalanches would fall down, but by the time
they hit the bottom, they would be melted by the hot sun.
The Ambassador Forest was under lock and key; there was a
huge statue with a golden dial around its neck. The statue
was about forty feet tall, made of stone, and dressed in
African tribal colors, with a huge stone book in its right
hand, and the outline of the sun on its head.
The forest was guarded by some type of force field,
and there was no way in. They could see through the force
field, but getting in was another story. Oscar walked up to
the force field, and suddenly it sucked him in!
"My cat," said Jane.
"Oh, he's okay," said Bella.
Oscar licked his paws and face, and waited for his
master, but Jane and her crew could not get in. That was
because Oscar was an animal of Baja and not human. The
forest was made for animals, so they were the only ones who
could come and go. To test their theory, Jane ordered Oscar
to come out, and without a problem, he came bursting out of
the force field bubble. As the crew got closer, the giant
statute began to move and talk. "Who dares enter into the forest of the holy center of
Baja?"
"It is I, Sam Carrot-Top, the protector and savior of
Baja," said Sam.
But the statute said nothing else, and then a code
appeared in the heavens; if Sam and his crew could figure
out the code, they would be able to enter. The codes were
place in the heavens with the clouds and birds, which made
it harder to determine the answer to the puzzle. But Bella
had no problem figuring out the secret codes. With a few
minutes of adding and deleting, she came up with the answer.
"Through one secret and two lies, lies the key that
will untie. Knock three times on the sun dial and the
heavenly gates will open wide," said Bella.
"Great job, Bella," said David as he took a stone and
hit the dial three times.
At first, nothing happened; then out of the blue the
dial began to turn slowly, then faster and faster until
sand covered the crew from head to toe. No one could move
an inch, and then the sand turned into a sand storm, taking
the crew and all its members into a spiral turn. Everything
seemed to be spinning out of control, and then the crew was
dropped in the middle of the forest.
One by one, they fell from the sky, leaving Oscar as the last to enter. Because he was a cat, he landed on his
feet, but the others fell flat on their backs, crying out
from the bumps and bruises. The crew looked around and was
astonished that they were in the middle of the Ambassador
Forest.
Everything was silent, too silent, unlike the
shoreline, in the center of the forest was dead, lifeless.
Dead birds and animals filled the ground; plants began to
die, as if they had not been watered in years. Jane ran
over to a big oak tree and began to grow it again with her
magical green thumb. She watched as the tree went from old
and dying to young and with green leaves. The tree began to
cry out and tell Jane of an unlikely visitor of the forest
who had come and destroyed everything, who had made
everything dark again.
Jane and Sam looked at each other and mumbled
together, "Marcus."
The tree began to crawl away with one look at Bella.
"Wait," said Jane as the tree slithered away like a
snake in the ground. "One look at you, and he ran.”
Jane began to question Bella and her ties to the
forest, but Sam stood up for Bella and noted to Jane that
she had saved her life. Jane then pulled David, Samantha,
Sam, and Red Fox aside. She voiced her feelings on Bella, and that something was wrong; how could she guess the
answer to the secret gates so quickly? And why was she here
anyway? One of the questions was: was Sam too close to
Bella to see that maybe she could be a spy? He defended her
to Jane, but Jane was not buying her phony act and told
Samantha to keep an eye on her.
David had also become suspicious of Bella, but his son
was too involved with Bella to see that she could possibly
be an enemy. Jane had nothing more to say to Bella as they
went through the forest. The crew could feel an eerie
feeling of someone or something watching them, and they
kept their guard up as they walked through the forest and
saw all the destruction.
Suddenly the ground began to shake and the leaves and
branches from the dead trees and vines gathered up and
formed a huge monster that attacked the crew! Oscar began
to pull at its braches, but it kicked Oscar off of it, and
made its way over to the hundreds of fighters in its path.
One by one the tree creature began to bellow its way
through the crowd of fighters, who were chopping at the
roots of the tree creature. But the branches and roots on
the creature were so strong that it bent most of the
fighters’ swords.
"Order your vines to stop," said Sam to Jane. Jane put her anger aside and commanded the vines to
stop. For a minute, it seemed to work, and then the trees
began to die off and turn evil once more.
"I order you to stop," said Jane.
But the tree creature continued pummeling through the
crowd of fighters, kicking and throwing them into the air
and out of the force field. David watched as Bella
pretended to help, but she wasn’t really fighting the
creature at all. She was instead controlling the creature
with a small golden disc. David kept Bella in his sights as
he went and helped the others.
Jane then tried to summon the other trees in the
forest that were alive and had not succumbed to the evil of
the forest. All the trees that remained came crawling
through the forest like and army of ants. One by one, the
trees Jane summoned came and formed one big tree to fight
the evil one. Her trees were filled with colors of bright
origins; the trees formed up to look like a giant with
stone armor, helmet and shield.
The two giant trees began to fight, good verses evil;
as they fought, this gave the army time to chop and cut at
the evil tree’s limbs. One by one the old, rotten limbs
fell off, but they kept growing back, and this made the
team have to work even harder on chopping down the limbs of the evil tree. The army had to duck and hide as huge tree
limbs were falling from the air. Jane’s tree was beating
and winning against the evil tree. She popped open her
magic box with the bean seed and threw it into the air. The
seed did a spin and a twirl and exploded with a blast.
Rainbow colors flew into the skies; everyone stopped and
looked for a minute, but nothing happen.
"Please tell me that that is not all that bean seed
does," said Sam.
But Jane had no idea what the seed really did; she had
never used it before, and this would be her first time ever
using it. Jane was very disappointed when nothing happened;
the seed just fell to the ground and sprouted a little
plant. Bella gave off a wicked smile, and the evil tree
monster began to laugh as it bent down and put its big face
against Jane's face.
"Oh, what a cute little seed," said the evil monster
as it got back into the fight with the vines Jane had
created.
But that little plant began to grow very quickly, and
it attached itself to Jane, crawling up her legs like a
green snake. The plant then turned black, crawled itself to
Jane's arm and attached itself from her elbow to her
fingers. It was now under her control; the plant began to form into anything, from a huge hammer that smashed the
toes of the evil rooted tree to a plant that spit fire and
set the roots of the evil tree ablaze.
The plant turned into a huge fist and began punching
and hitting the tree to the ground. Jane had become a super
hero; the fighters stared at her, they were amazed to see
what a little plant could do. This little plant was very
powerful and helpful in the fight. Once the evil rooted
tree was on fire and fell to the ground, the army of
fighters began to hover over it, cutting off its roots one
by one, until they hit the main core and chopped it off.
The tree died instantly, and once again the forest became
quiet.
Jane then summoned her good vines and trees to go
forth and nourish the other trees of the forest since a war
was coming, and they would be needed to defend Baja in the
fight of its life. Jane's healthy trees went forth like
race horses running through the forest, letting the weak
and dead trees suck on their barks and leaves, bringing
most of them back to life. Everyone could see that the
forest was getting brighter again; animals started to come
back to life. The forest was awakening from its sleep of
darkness.
While Jane was being congratulated by her army of friends, Bella slipped away into the cover of the trees and
shrubs. Sam searched high and low for Bella, but she was
nowhere to be found. Bella was gone; she had disappeared
into thin air. David and Samantha got the army together and
told them that they had a spy, and her name was Bella. When
she was caught, she had to immediately be killed, upon the
orders of the elders of Baja.
Sam looked on in surprise as his father had turned on
his friend. But David went to his son and explained that he
saw Bella controlling the tree creature with a golden disc.
Bella knew the secret of the gates because she had been
here before. David went on to tell his son that not
everyone was his friend.
"But Bella was like a true friend, I can't believe she
would do this to me," said Sam.
"Well, believe it," said Jane as she shouted at Sam
for not trusting her, but instead trusting Bella. "I tried
to tell you that something was fishy about her, and yet you
countered that I was being jealous!"
Jane walked away from Sam; he hung his head low and
stood by a shrub for a minute to think. He then put the
pieces of the puzzle together and came running back to tell
the crowd, but no one was ready to hear what he had to say.
He had to apologize not only to them, but to Jane. So he did; he apologized to the entire crew and to his wife. Jane
forgave him, but was reserved in what she said, to make
everyone think that she was all right inside. But Jane was
truly upset and disappointed with Sam, and he knew this,
but he wanted the both of them to play it off until
everything was settled and then they could deal with it.
Sam went on to say, "The guardian of the gates was
telling me that I needed to be careful, that my enemy was
right under my nose." Chapter 12
Off to War – Part 2
Though one secret means Baja, a secret and holy place,
a mystery to mankind and two lies, which meant the first
was when Sam and his family were being exiled from Baja
over a lie told by Marcus his brother. And the other lie
was that Bella was not his friend and that she was partners