Light in the Lions' Den Read online

  To Liz Duckworth

  Light in the Lions’ Den

  © 2017 Focus on the Family. All rights reserved.

  A Focus on the Family book published by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188

  The Imagination Station, Adventures in Odyssey, and Focus on the Family and its accompanying logo and design are federally registered trademarks of Focus on the Family, 8605 Explorer Drive, Colorado Springs, CO 80920.

  TYNDALE and Tyndale’s quill logo are registered trademarks of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

  Scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of Focus on the Family.

  With the exception of known historical figures, all characters are the product of the author’s imagination.

  Cover design by Michael Heath | Magnus Creative

  ISBN: 978-1-58997-878-2

  For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Tyndale House Publishers at [email protected] or call 800-323-9400.

  For Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data for this title, visit http://www.loc.gov/help/contact-general.html.

  For manufacturing information regarding this product, please call 1-800-323-9400.

  ISBN 978-1-62405-737-3 (ePub); ISBN 978-1-62405-738-0 (Kindle); ISBN 978-1-62405-736-6 (Apple)

  Build: 2017-01-18 20:55:06

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1: The Imagination Station

  Chapter 2: The Statue

  Chapter 3: In the Desert

  Chapter 4: The Hanging Gardens

  Chapter 5: The Gates of Babylon

  Chapter 6: The Temple of Adad

  Chapter 7: Inside the Palace

  Chapter 8: The Advisers’ Plan

  Chapter 9: Two Kings

  Chapter 10: Daniel

  Chapter 11: The New Law

  Chapter 12: King Darius’s Regret

  Chapter 13: The Open Window

  Chapter 14: The Arrest

  Chapter 15: The Angel

  Chapter 16: The Imagination Station Returns

  Secret Word Puzzle

  Prologue

  At Whit’s End, a lightning storm zapped the Imagination Station’s computer. Then the Imagination Station began to do strange things. It took the cousins to the wrong adventures. The machine also gave the wrong gifts.

  Mr. Whittaker was gone. Eugene was in charge of the workshop. He and Beth found an older version of the Imagination Station. It looked like a car. It had a special feature called lockdown mode. The cousins began using this machine for their adventures.

  Eugene wanted to keep the cousins safe. He went with Patrick on an adventure to protect him. But the Imagination Station separated him from Patrick. Eugene was lost in history.

  In book 18, Trouble on the Orphan Train, the cousins searched for Eugene. And Eugene had indeed entered their adventure in 1874. But a detective named Mr. Pinkerton thought Eugene was a criminal.

  Mr. Pinkerton locked Eugene in jail. He took away the computer Eugene needed to help them get home.

  Later the detective arrested the cousins, too. He brought Patrick and Beth to Eugene’s jail cell.

  Suddenly the car-like Imagination Station appeared.

  Here’s what happened next . . .

  Patrick and Beth rushed into the cell.

  “Hurry,” Patrick said. “Get in the machine. What are you waiting for, Eugene?”

  Patrick stared at his friend. Eugene looked glum.

  “Your plan has a flaw,” Eugene said. “There are only two seats in this machine.”

  “So one of us has to stay behind,” Beth said. It was a fact. Not a question.

  Patrick heard a click. He turned.

  Mr. Pinkerton had locked the cell.

  The Imagination Station

  Mr. Pinkerton said, “You will all stay behind bars. At least till I talk to the Little Rock judge. I need to ask him what to do with children. I’ve never arrested kids before.”

  Mr. Pinkerton put the key in his pocket. He tipped his hat with a nod. Then the detective walked away from the jail cell. He headed up the stairs.

  Beth gasped. She turned toward Eugene. “What should we do?” she asked.

  Eugene stood up straight. He took a deep breath.

  “I’ll take the risk and go,” Eugene said. “I’m fairly certain I can get back to Whit’s End.”

  “What if you can’t?” Patrick asked. “Beth and I will rot in jail if it doesn’t work.”

  Just then Patrick heard loud footsteps coming from the stairwell.

  Eugene moved toward the cell’s bars. “Mr. Pinkerton is coming back!” he said.

  A popping sound came from the corner of the cell. Patrick and Beth turned to look.

  The Imagination Station was fading in and out.

  Just then Mr. Pinkerton appeared. “I forgot to ask about that ‘computer’ you have,” he said. “It looks like a typewriter. But I opened it, and it doesn’t have any ink inside.”

  Eugene groaned. “You opened it,” he said. “With what?”

  “A crowbar,” the detective said.

  Patrick quickly moved to Beth. He grabbed her wrist and pulled her toward the Imagination Station. “We have to get out of here now. Or the machine might disappear.”

  “Wait!” Beth said. “What about Eugene?”

  “We’ll come back for him,” Patrick whispered. “He’ll be okay. It’s not as if Mr. Pinkerton will throw him to the lions.”

  The cousins got into the car-like Imagination Station. They shut the doors and fastened their seat belts.

  Patrick grabbed the black knob on the dashboard. A sharp pain shot up his hand to his elbow. He let the knob go. “Ouch!” he said. “It shocked me!”

  He looked at Beth. Wisps of her dark-brown hair were sticking straight up.

  “There’s a lot of static electricity inside the car,” Beth said. She reached over and took Patrick’s hand. “I don’t want to get separated again.”

  Patrick nodded. Then he glanced out the windshield. Eugene and Mr. Pinkerton were still talking. Patrick heard Mr. Pinkerton say, “I have the evidence that you were part of the robbery right here in this satchel!”

  Patrick yanked the black knob again. He ignored the tingles that shocked him.

  He heard an electric buzz as the car began to spin. Sparks flew off the outside of the car.

  Beth gripped Patrick’s free hand tightly.

  The windshield filled with bright, swirling colors. Patrick felt as if they were being sucked into a whirlpool. The temperature dropped, and a chill seeped into his bones.

  Suddenly everything went black.

  The Statue

  The Imagination Station stopped moving.

  Beth tried looking out the windshield. She saw only swirling rainbow colors.

  Beth squeezed Patrick’s hand. He squeezed hers back. At least Patrick and I are still together, she thought.

  A pang of guilt stabbed her heart. Her friend Eugene was alone in jail. She hadn’t even said good-bye.

  Then Beth noticed a weird feeling on her skin. She felt tingling on her back and legs. She wanted out of the machine.

  Beth let go of Patrick’s hand and pulled on the door handle. It wouldn’t budge.

  “We’re in lockdown mode,” Patrick whispered. “We can’t get out. It’s not safe.”

  Suddenly the windshield cleared. The car was on the ground in a sandy plain. A few palm trees were clumped together here and there. Small rock piles were nearby.

  In the far distance was a city. A tall blue-and-tan wall surrounded it.

  A crowd of people stood a few hundred feet away. They were dressed in brightly colored clothes. The car rolled toward them. They couldn’t see the Imagination Station.

  The men in the crowd wore hats covered in cloth. The hats were shaped like upside-down sand buckets.

  The women’s clothes had many layers of tunics and scarves. Their headdresses were decorated with jewels and fringe.

  The car stopped in front of a giant statue. The statue stood on a tall platform.

  Patrick craned his neck to look up at the statue. “Wow,” he said, “it’s like a gold Statue of Liberty.”

  “No, it’s not,” Beth said. “The Statue of Liberty is a woman. This statue is a man. Don’t you see his funny-looking beard?”

  “I didn’t say it’s exactly like the Statue of Liberty,” Patrick said. “I meant it’s gigantic.”

  Just then, a loud horn sounded. The noise came from the speakers in the Imagination Station’s ceiling.

  Beth watched as the people in the crowd approached the statue. They knelt in front of it and bowed low. Their foreheads touched the sand.

  Next a voice came from the speakers. It said, “King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon made a statue of himself. The king wanted everyone to worship him. The people had to bow to the statue whenever a horn blasted. If they did not, guards would throw them into a molten-hot furnace.”

  Suddenly, bright flashes of orange, red, and white light filled the windshield. The car began to feel hot. The light hurt Beth’s eyes.

  “It’s fire!” Beth shouted. She lifted he
r forearms across her face. It helped block out the bright light.

  The voice said, “Three Jewish men would not bow and worship the statue. Their names were Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They believed in the one true God. King Nebuchadnezzar got angry with them. He wanted them to die. So the king’s guards threw the three men into the molten-hot furnace.”

  The voice fell silent.

  Beth leaned toward Patrick. “I remember this from church,” she whispered. “It’s a Bible story.”

  Beth dropped her arms and squinted. She could see three men in the fiery furnace. They were wearing brightly colored robes. They also wore upside-down bucket hats.

  “Look,” Patrick said, “there are four men in the furnace now.”

  Beth squinted harder till she saw the new man. He had on a white robe, and his head was uncovered.

  Beth thought the new man was handsome and strong. He looked perfectly formed. He was like a Roman statue come to life.

  “The new guy is glowing even brighter than the fire,” Patrick said. “Why isn’t everyone burning up?”

  Then the speaker said, “Men into the molten-hot furnace, molten-hot furnace, molten-hot . . .”

  The windshield turned dark. The car grew cold. The tingling in Beth’s legs hurt.

  A bolt of lightning flashed across the windshield. Beth heard a bang of thunder. The sound rattled her ears.

  Another bolt flashed.

  Beth closed her eyes. She clapped her hands over her ears and waited. Minutes passed. Then the lightning storm stopped.

  Beth yanked on the door again. This time it flew open. She fell out of the Imagination Station and landed facedown in the sand.

  In the Desert

  Patrick was lying on top of a large sand dune. He pushed himself up to his elbows. He noticed several small formations in the desert sand. They looked like dead tree roots.

  He stood and then glanced at Beth.

  His cousin had a funny look on her face. Then she stuck out her tongue. Patrick saw it was speckled with grains of sand.

  Beth spit out the grit. “Yuck! I’d give anything for a drink of water right now.”

  Patrick looked around. The Imagination Station was gone. They were in the same area as the crowds of bowing people. Sand, rocks, and palm trees spread out before him. The morning sun was low in the sky.

  The walled city of Babylon stood in the distance. But not everything was the same.

  “What happened to the statue of that man?” Patrick asked. “It’s gone.”

  Beth stood up and glanced around. Then she looked at Patrick and giggled.

  “What’s so funny?” Patrick asked.

  “You’re dressed in a bathrobe,” Beth said.

  Patrick looked down at his clothes. He was wearing a tan tunic with a long brown coat over it. His belt was orange.

  He wiggled his toes in the sandals.

  “What about you?” Patrick said. “Your outfit isn’t normal either.”

  Beth wore a purple dress and sandals.

  “So are we in Bible times?” Patrick asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Beth said. “These outfits look right. But we could be anywhere at any time.”

  Patrick said, “Maybe the Imagination Station shut down and just dropped us off. That’s not the only thing wrong with it. It’s been sending useless gifts.”

  Beth gasped. She looked up and then shouted, “Watch out!”

  Patrick felt Beth’s shoulder push into his ribs, hard. She moved him about two feet.

  Patrick fell backward. “Hey!” he shouted. Beth landed right next to him.

  Patrick heard a soft thud in the sand. He looked where they’d been standing.

  “I forgot to tell you something important,” Beth said. “The Imagination Station is dropping the gifts from the sky.”

  Several small objects fell on the sand. They landed next to the strange root-like formations. Two of the new gifts were old-fashioned cans. A strange yellow object was lying next to them.

  Beth crawled over to the cans. She picked up one of them. The label was white with red writing on it. She read the label out loud: “It says, ‘Corned Beef. Made in U.S.A.’”

  Beth stood and picked up the yellow object. It was made of plastic. The gadget was about the size of a small TV remote control. It had symbols and dials on it.

  “It’s electronic with a digital display,” she said. “It looks like something Mr. Whittaker or Eugene would use.”

  Patrick stood and brushed the sand off his clothes. Beth handed him the gadget.

  “It’s some kind of electric meter,” Patrick said. “I wonder why the light is flashing red. There was no electricity during this time period.”

  Patrick tossed the yellow meter in the sand. “We don’t need it. But we may need the corned beef.”

  “You can take the canned meat,” Beth said. She bent and picked up the yellow object. “I’ll keep this. We might need it.”

  Beth put the gizmo into her skirt pocket.

  Patrick picked up the two cans of corned beef. Each had a small metal key attached.

  The cans were too heavy to put in Patrick’s pockets. So he carried one can in each hand.

  “Should we go to the city?” Beth asked.

  “There’s nowhere else to go,” Patrick said. “And we need water.”

  Patrick trudged off. He put a hand up to shade his eyes. “Finding water isn’t our only problem,” he said. “Look.”

  Patrick pointed toward the city.

  Two chariots were rolling quickly across the sand. A cloud of dust followed them.

  “They’re coming toward us,” Beth said.

  Patrick sighed. He dropped the cans in the sand and plopped down next to them.

  “What are you doing?” Beth asked. “Shouldn’t we run away?”

  “There’s nowhere to go,” Patrick said. He motioned toward the open space. “Let the chariot drivers come get us. They’re probably going to make us their slaves anyway.”

  The Hanging Gardens

  Patrick heard a loud, deep sound. It broke the silence of the desert.

  One of the chariot drivers must have blown a horn.

  The chariots were close enough that Patrick could see them better. Each chariot had two wheels and one driver. A single horse pulled each chariot.

  The men in the chariots wore pointed helmets. Patrick guessed they were soldiers.

  The chariots stopped only ten feet away from the cousins. The horses were breathing heavily. One of the animals stomped a front hoof.

  The two soldiers stayed inside their chariots. One of the men raised a horn to his lips. He blew into it. Three loud blasts sounded.

  Patrick picked up the corned-beef cans. He stood and studied the newcomers.

  Patrick eyed the weapons the soldiers carried. The shorter man had a spear with a metal tip. The other man carried a bow. A quiver of arrows hung on his back.

  The soldiers’ armor was made of small metal plates sewn together. The armor covered their chests and stomachs. The men wore skirts that fell to their knees. Thick leather boots came up to the tops of their shins.

  “Check out their beards,” Beth whispered.

  The men’s oily black beards were cut into a square shape. The hairs were tightly curled.

  The shorter soldier with the spear stared at Patrick. The man didn’t raise his weapon.

  “I’m Anu,” the man said. “Captain of the king’s army.”

  “I’m Patrick,” Patrick said. He raised a can of corned beef and waved it in greeting. “My cousin’s name is Beth.”

  Captain Anu raised his spear. “Drop your weapon,” the man said.

  Patrick was confused. He looked at Beth. “Weapon?” he whispered.

  “The corned beef,” Beth said. “The soldier has never seen a can.”

  Patrick dropped the cans of corned beef. They landed in the sand next to the root-like formations.

  The second soldier got out of his chariot. He looked a lot younger than the captain.

  The soldier approached Patrick. He picked up the cans and studied them. “They are so smooth and exactly the same,” the soldier said. “What are they?”