'Light up ahead,' Stobey announces.
The light is far off, but as they get close it brightens. The passageway by now is well lit. Up ahead the passageway bends.
They turn the bend. They're in a large cavern. The floor is covered with dust and stones, and in the center is what appears to be an enormous black boulder.
Suddenly, from above, erupts the same screech they heard before, wild and shrill. Our friends leap back away as their eyes dart up.
There, standing on top of the rock, looking down at them is an eye, round and staring. Around the eye are spikes, long and sharp, and directly above the eye is a mouth, wide and open, and from out of the mouth, bursts another screech. And another screech. The screeches become words that hiss and whistle and puff and roar.
'Who are you? What are you doing here? What do you want?' The screeching fills the room with echoes that bounce from one wall to another and back again.
Stobey, leaning her head back to look at the enormous eye. She places her hands on her hips and says, 'Now, look here, whatever and whoever you are, you just quit that screeching, hissing, whistling, puffing and roaring and talk to us properly and politely, and we'll do the same. We're visitors here, and I'll introduce myself and my friends. Then you tell us who you are and we'll have a nice chat. OK?'
'Well, OK.' The eye blinks a couple of times and speaks in a gentle hiss; the whistle, puff and roar are gone.
Stobey introduces herself and her friends. 'Now it's your turn,' she says.
'My name is Bingbang Babbaloo,' the eye says, 'and I am the guardian of this Great Rock.'