CHAPTER 8: THE FIRST RESCUE, A CLOSE CALL

After Skittles was taken back home, Sam, George and John proceeded towards Tarantella's Castle in order to rescue Lucy and Nancy from Tarantella before the day of the evil night in which Tarantella would burn the Andersons on the stake and thus complete her revenge and gain the power to rule the world.

In Tarantella's Castle, Tarantella had prepared a special potion which could change the mind of the person who drank it from good to evil. She tried to force the girls to drink it so that they would help her destroy the boys but they refused. She was just about to force it down their throats when her cauldron began to bubble menacingly. She looked into the Cauldron and saw Sam, George and John very close to her Castle.

"No!" she screamed. "How did you get out of that cave?!"

She waved her hand and began to chant. Suddenly, an enchanted glass wall appeared around her Castle. The boys were near enough to see it. They stopped and watched as a red light seemed to reflect from the glass. As they watched, the glass began to shoot fire at them at intense speeds. Back in the Castle, Lucy was again angry with Tarantella for trying to kill the boys again. Her eyes began to glow again and once again Tarantella had to escape from the room but this time she chanted a few words which turned her invisible. She then flew off to the Castle of the Dark Lord.

Meanwhile, Sam had seen the glass disappear momentarily and he was told by John that it was Tarantella. John had seen Tarantella fly out of the Castle but the others hadn't. The Light from Lucy's eyes penetrated the glass wall and had begun to head towards the boys. George was the first to see it and stopped. Sam looked at him.

"George, what do you think you are doing?" he asked but George didn't answer.

He just kept staring at the light. Sam looked at the light and saw something amazing. The Golden Light had engulfed the red light and slowly made the red light disappear completely. The Golden Light then hit the red glass wall once again and made it crack. It then shattered and the little particles of glass turned to sand and slowly disappeared.

John also noticed it.

"You've done it George!" he said in excitement.

"Time to save the girls" Sam said.

"Oh yeah" they all agreed and headed towards the Castle.

When they finally arrived at the Castle, they began to search it. It took some time but they finally managed to find the room in which the girls were locked and tried to open the door. Sam stared at the lock and all of a sudden, the door burst open.

"Sam! George! John!" the girls exclaimed joyfully. "Thank goodness you are here. Tarantella just went to get the Lord Of Darkness" they said.

Sam stared at the chains that bound the girls and was just about to try and unchain the girls when John stopped him.

"Don't" John said.

"What's wrong? We've got to free them and escape before Tarantella comes back" Sam said in puzzlement.

"These chains contain some evil sort of power and a very high amount I see" John said.

"Yeah, so does that potion on the table over there" Nancy said. "Tarantella wanted us to drink it so as to help her destroy you".

When Sam heard this, he became angry and smashed the glass bottle in which the potion was in and out came the potion, a thick sludge of green slimy liquid. As they watched the potion began to spread. Sam stared at it as it was about to touch the chains in which the two girls were tied to and at that moment everything seemed to freeze as a jet of ice flew out of Sam's eyes and froze the liquid. The liquid began to bubble as it exuded a horrible scent. It then shrank and disappeared. Sam looked at the two boys and smiled mischievously. They smiled back for they had gotten the gist of the general idea. They began to pull down all of Tarantella's potions. They overturned Tarantella's cauldron and tore all her spell books but unfortunately Tarantella knew all the words of the spell books by heart and what a wicked heart she had. There was a particular spell book which had an eye on both sides and a large menacing mouth. The boys had a hard time ripping it. It shocked them anytime they touched it. They were not powerful enough to destroy it. Sam and the other boys then froze all the liquid potions that had been knocked down. The potions shrank till they disappeared. Then the evil power in the chains binding the girls disappeared. The chains fell off and the girls were set free.

As they were about to escape, Tarantella and the Lord Of Darkness came in.

"No!" Tarantella screamed in a rage. "What have you done?!" she shouted menacingly.

"We've cleaned up a bit of your mess" Sam said boldly.

"Then I don't think I will give you the chance to clean up the rest of it" she said maliciously.

All of a sudden, the floor beneath the Andersons opened and they fell in it. The floor then closed. As the Anderson team regained their senses, they tried to fly out of the cavity they had fallen into but it was too late. The floor had shut tightly. They tried to push it open but they couldn't. They even tried to blast it open with their special powers but nothing happened.

"Uh, what now" Sam asked John, a little frightened by their plight.

Then they all looked at the ground and saw a deep mass of lava.

"I don't know" Sam said with a disappointed sigh.

"At least we are safe" John said.

"I don't think so" Sam said mysteriously.

"I think you are right Sam" George said.

"What do you mean?" John asked.

"The lava is rising, haven't you noticed and as if that is not enough, the floor above us is sinking pushing us towards the lava" George said.

They all looked down and noticed the lava rising and they also felt the floor above pushing them down.

"Uh oh" they all said as the lava rose to the level of their feet and all of a sudden Sam had another vision which showed them holding hands and thus escaping and then he snapped back to reality.

"Let's all hold hands in unity" he said.

The others thought it was a rather silly idea but they didn't see any other choice. They held hands and suddenly there was a surge of power which froze the lava easily and then a terrible earthquake occurred as the floor above them cracked open and fell down.

"Yeah!" they cheered as they flew out of that horrible place.

They had defeated Tarantella yet again or so it may have seemed because immediately they came out, Tarantella was waiting for them in the form of a giant Tarantula.

They flew out of the castle but Tarantella just burst through the wall and came right after them. They flew as high as they could but Tarantella just increased in size. They flew a little lower but Tarantella shrank to just the right size. They tried to fool her by flying low so that when she shrank to a smaller size they could stomp on her and crush her but she guessed their scheme and grew too large and attempted to crush them instead. She managed to catch Nancy and was just about to take a fatal bite when George tried to stop her but she just caught him in her deadly claws and was about to take another fatal bite. Then Sam tried to stop her and he too ended up being caught.

"Jackpot!" screamed Tarantella in glee. "It's you I've always wanted to catch" she said. "This is for all the demons you have killed" she said and attempted to take a fatal bite out of Sam.

This didn't stop John who was free. He flew towards Tarantella dodging all her efforts to catch him. He flew around her head and she began to turn around in order to catch him. This had a great effect on Tarantella. Her compound eyes became dizzy. She dropped to the ground freeing her captives who flew away quickly.

"Great moves back there" Sam said in admiration.

Once again Tarantella had been defeated but on a much greater level this time. Somehow all the potions the boys had smashed made Tarantella much weaker.