"What? This mountain is actually a maze?"
Richie's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets, his big, dark eyes darting about as disbelief filled his little face.
Si Ang clearly found it a little hard to believe as well:
"Granny, climbing the mountain was easy last time! There weren't nearly so many twists and turns."
"You probably came from the mountain next to it. There are lots of mountains around this maze mountain, a whole mountain range.
If you're not careful on a neighboring mountain, you can easily wander onto this one. It's perfectly normal for two children like you to take a wrong turn and end up here."
Granny explained this to Si Ang and Richie.
Si Ang's gaze darkened, and there was no telling what he was thinking.
Richie felt that since they were already safe inside the cave, they could take things as they came. There was no need to overthink it.
Night crept in, but the downpour showed no sign of stopping. The storm outside still raged, hail rattling and clattering down.
Granny said, "This is simply the biggest storm I've ever seen in my life. It's truly terrifying."
As far as Richie knew, there had once been an outrageous weather forecasting blunder in European history.
Sometime around the sixteenth or seventeenth century, forecasters had predicted several days of clear skies, only for a storm unlike anything seen in three hundred years to begin that very afternoon.
Could this be that storm? Richie wondered.
The storm really had picked its moment, leaving people no chance to catch their breath.
It looked as though they would have to stay in this cave for the next few days.
"Grrrr, grrrr-"
Richie's little stomach let out an embarrassing growl. He hadn't eaten anything all afternoon and had even climbed