Tourists nearby ran up, looked down with George.
A hundred feet below on the slope at a point where it dropped off to nothing, a horrified Timmy was crouched clutching a small tree.
"Hold on!" George called encouragingly.
A few minutes later someone had found a long rope in a gyrocar trunk and roped it about George's middle. They let him over the edge gently, dropped him down the slope slowly.
"Hang on, Timmy!" George yelled, running a tongue over dry lips and momentarily closing his eyes to the dizzying depths. "Don't let the little rocks coming down worry you."
A while later, a dust-streaked Timmy was back on the ledge in his mother's arms, sobbing.
George, his shirt wet with sweat, and struggling out of the rope, panted: "Whatever came over you, Timmy?"
"It was so real I thought it was the Elroom. I was just going out to the kitchen to get a drink of water."
"And I—I told him to go," Mrs. Briggs said, horrified. "It was that real to me, too."