Chapter Twelve
Pete in Trouble
Uncle Pauli had woken up a little late. He cleaned up and then had his breakfast. Throughout, he kept wondering why he had not seen Pete and Jenny.
It was unusual for them not to have checked up on him every morning; in fact, most times it was when they knocked on his door that he would wake up. He decided to check on Pete and Jenny in their room within his golden chamber. When he entered, he was faced with complete silence and emptiness; he suddenly felt the thought that Pete and Jenny must have attempted their long-planned escape. He knew very well that Pete would one day attempt to leave the land of gold to return home, and he also had a certain conviction that if Pete attempted escaping with his sister, they would both be killed. This was not some fictitious idea or expectation that needed contemplating.
He knew well that all his years before he was killed in the land of gold, there had been no one who entered and ever made it out of those huge golden gates alive. He worried so much because he had shown Pete the teleporting machines and their functions, thus in an attempt to escape outside those gates, Pete would traverse every nook and cranny of the land. Just for Pete to find a way outside, he would not hesitate to use the teleporting machines to travel the length and breadth of the land. This thought alone made Uncle Pauli very troubled. He knew that there was no way he could predict exactly where Pete and Jenny would be at that moment in time, and to worsen his fears, they could have even been dead already.
Jenny had cried all through when Pete got bitten by a venomous serpent. He had succeeded in killing the snake using a golden knife he had taken from Uncle Pauli's kitchen. He had planned to return to the entrance that led into the golden chamber he and Jenny had earlier entered and discovered weapons of different kinds. But before they could reach their destination, barely after both of them had crossed the bridge where the whirlwind had thrown Jenny into the hole, Pete was bitten by a snake. Pete had cried out for help all through, resulting from the excruciating pain he was enduring. Jenny was very confused, not knowing what she could do to help Pete.
One thing for certain was that Pete was very lucky that it was a single snake that had bitten him and not many, as in the case of Charley. So he had survived the bite. Jenny decided to run quickly back into Uncle Pauli's golden chamber using the teleporting machine, by following the blue arrow indicator through its entrance into the passages or corridors that took her into chambers with an amazing collection of teleporting machines. Jenny had run very fast and she had fallen, stumbled, and tumbled several times on obstacles made of gold that littered her pathways. However, having been taught by Pete on how to use the teleporting machine, it was no problem for her to reach Uncle Pauli in record-breaking time. But before Jenny would eventually reach Uncle Pauli's golden chamber to inform him of their predicaments coupled with what had happened to Pete as they had attempted escaping out of the land of gold.
Uncle Pauli, now broken-hearted and disappointed, knowing that Pete and Jenny had attempted escaping out of the land, and the fear he entertained of remaining alone again forever in a God-forsaken place like the land of gold, resorted to committing suicide. He killed himself by using one of his golden knives to stab himself to death in the chest. Gradually, he bled to death. However, when Jenny reached Uncle Pauli's chamber of gold, she met him lying flat on the floor dead, with blood splattered all over the walls of his room. This could have been the result, as he fought for his life before he finally gave up to the hands of death. He had dreaded to do this terrible thing to himself all his years within the land, if not for the fear of him remaining lonely again in the land and also the sadness of losing the only friends he had ever made in the land.
Jenny was shocked to have met Uncle Pauli's dead body on the floor, and more shocking was that Uncle Pauli's body had not changed into a statue like the first time he was killed by those deadly creatures of the land. But he was still the same person, only this time he was truly dead. She drew closer to Uncle Pauli's dead body, avoiding the places his blood had littered, still gushing out from the wound on his chest. Then she leaned over his head to know if he was still breathing, but she noticed he was already dead! Even if she touched him, he wouldn't come back alive again. Uncle Pauli had not changed into a statue this time. It was also important that she accepted the fact that he would not return to life again. For it seems, one could only live again if they were killed by the creatures in the land, and eventually their bodies would transform into a solid statue.
This was indeed the requisite for returning back to life in the land of gold, but in the situation where anyone trapped in the land should decide to kill him or herself, then there was no possibility of returning to life again, since their bodies would not change into statues. Jenny decided to return back into the chamber with the telepod or teleporting machine she had used to reach Uncle Pauli's golden chamber and went into the teleporting machine then programmed the actuation of surface control, while watching the monitor above her head. When she had finished configuring her direction finder on the teleporter. She fastened her seat belt and her body to her seat at the center and in a twinkle of an eye she had appeared back at the portal that led to the bridge where she had left Pete lying down after he had been bitten by a snake had deposited poisonous venom into his blood. Jenny tried to support Pete up so he could sit upward, while she was telling him the sad story about Uncle Pauli's unfortunate and sudden death.
Pete burst into tears and while crying he said to Jenny to help him stand up and support him up so he could get to the garden of herbs. He hoped to get the right medicine for the specific venom that was in his blood as a result of that snake bite. Jenny helped Pete until they had fully entered the teleporter, then he described how she would use the actuation of surface control so that they would be teleported back to the garden of herbs. When Jenny finished the program, she returned and helped Pete fasten his seat belt then she hurried to her own seat among the twelve seats at the center of each telepod.
Then she closed her eyes and fastened her seat belt, the machine vibrated violently and with a corresponding lightning effect, and then came the spirals over and over again. When she opened her eyes, the spirals the seats had made came gradually to a stop.
They had both walked out of the destination or the port of arrival telepod after Jenny helped Pete unfasten his seat belt from his seat then she supported him as they both gradually approached the garden of herbs. The journey to the garden of herbs which ordinarily would have taken several days by foot, but with the aid of the teleporting machine, it took them within the twinkling of an eye to arrive at the garden of herbs. Through the help Jenny offered the snake venom antidote herbs were gathered together and used on the point where the snake had bitten Pete. He also drank the one which Jenny had squeezed into a liquid form. A few minutes after Pete drank the medicine, he dozed off into a deep sleep. About a week later, Pete called for Jenny while still lying down on his bed and said; "Thank you so much Jenny, if not for your help in saving my life, I would have been dead like Charley and Uncle Pauli." "I hope you are recovering very fast Pete? So you start keeping me company,
I don't like to be lonely anymore," Jenny said.