Hidden Foe

 By Marjory

As soon as school let out, Jem took off for home, not so much as to get there in time for chores as much as to get away from Will Sterling. Will had been pestering him the last couple of days to try and get him to go swimming. 

“Hey Jem!” Came a call behind him. Jem groaned and slowed down. 

“Yeah,” he called over his shoulder. 

“Bet I can stay under water longer than anyone alive!” came the taunt. 

“Bet you can’t,” Jem responded abruptly as he turned and accosted Will. He was getting tired of Will’s dares and taunts.  

“If you stay under too long you’ll suffocate,” Ellie joined in as she jogged up. 

“I’ll show you.” Will spun around and marched towards the swimming hole. Jem and Ellie exchanged glances before following Will. 

The swimming hole was a little pond formed by a small creek falling over a short rock cliff on one side. The other three sides were open to the country around, with a large valley oak shading the water. Will was already in the water when Jem and Ellie got there. When Will saw them, he grinned and disappeared in the water. Ellie gasped. Thirty seconds later, Will still hadn’t surfaced. At one minute, Will popped up and gasped for air. 

“Wish I was a fish,” he chuckled and coughed. “Bet you can’t stay under for as long as I did.” At that taunt, Jem’s hackles rose. He started unbuttoning his shirt. Ellie gasped beside him. 

“Jem! You’re not--,” 

“Shh.” Jem dove into the water and swam to Will. “Ellie, time us,” he commanded before swimming toward the deepest part of the swimming hole. 

         Will caught his arm. “Jem, you don’t want to go over there.”

“Why not?” Jem defied and shook Will’s hand off his arm. Jem kept swimming toward the deep part. 

“I’ll show you,” Will said and dove. 

        Jem shook his head, took a deep breath and followed Will. Down, down the two boys dove, dodging weeds and fish. Jem was confused. Why was Will bringing him over here? Just as the thought crossed his mind, a black hole flashed before him. Jem blinked his eyes. 

       Will swam to the hole and pointed into it. 

       Jem, curious as always, swam past Will and straight into the hole. He felt Will’s hand slide off his ankle just before his eyes saw something big, black and moving, coming his way. Desperately, Jem tried to ascend, but was knocked aside by the long, slimy and scaly creature swimming past him. A long tail whipped by him and frothed the water. Jem was sucked up in the whirlpool the creature had left. He came up next to the cliff. Coughing and spluttering, Jem hauled himself up on dry land just as a loud shriek erupted from Ellie. Jem looked up and saw the long scaly black creature heading right for Ellie. 

“Jem! Help!” She screamed. Will was nowhere in sight. Jem assumed he had run for home.

        Staggering to his feet, Jem tried to hurry to his sister’s aid. But he knew the creature was faster than he was. Jem paid no attention to the rocks tearing his feet as he raced to his sister. The creature was long and had sharp spikes on its backbone all the way to its tail, which was lashing back and forth.

        Suddenly Pa raced out from behind some trees and pushed Ellie toward the safety of the trees. He pulled out his colt pistol and pointed it at the beast. With a roar, the creature continued charging. The threat of a pistol was nothing to the creature. To Jem’s surprise and wonderment, the creature without warning let out a stream of fire. Pa leapt back as the fire reached his boots. Pa pulled the trigger on the colt and blasted the beast’s eye out. 

       With a thunderous snarl, the beast swam harder, its one eye hanging out of the socket with blood streaming down the side of its face. Pa shot the creature in the other eye, then aimed for the throat. With a snarl, the creature gave one last heave and sank to the shore at Pa’s feet. Jem and Ellie raced for Pa, who gathered them into his arms. 

“What was that Pa?” Ellie asked tearfully after a minute. 

“I’m pretty sure that was a dragon. Thank you Lord for keeping Jem and Ellie safe and for giving Will Sterling the speed of the wind to come and get me. Amen,” Pa prayed aloud. Jem and Ellie breathed an amen at the end. 

“You know, I thought dragons were extinct, but I guess they aren’t, at least this one wasn’t,” Jem commented. 

“The Bible talks about them. And the new term they coined in 1842, “dinosaur”, I believe actually is the same as dragon,” Pa explained. Jem and Ellie thought about this for a minute, then nodded. Pa laughed and ruffled their heads before the three turned for home. 

Even through this attack from a now extinct beast, Jem could see God’s hand working in his and others lives. He pondered this thought for weeks afterward. 

“And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, 

To them who are the called according to his purpose.”

Romans 8:28

The End