“Wait. Those three men we met — they were part of the gang? They were also looking for you? And you were there? Up in a tree? And we didn’t know??”

“It’s Matt — Motty,” Avi said, urgently. “We need to save him. It wasn’t his fault…”

Elchanan gave a start, then nodded vigorously. “I can’t believe I forgot about him. He saved our lives.”

Avi noticed the bewildered expressions on their fathers’ faces .

“One of the criminals, he isn’t really a criminal. He’s Jewish, he used to be frum, and then he got stuck with the gang, but he isn’t like them, he really isn’t. He helped us escape when they were trying to — whatever,” he ended lamely, suddenly realizing his father didn’t know that part of the story at all and unsure how to put it most gently.

“That was when we were up in the tree and the search party came,” Elchanan added. “We saw you, Mr. Shine, but we couldn’t call out or anything, because we heard the three gang members talking to you… and we knew they were armed. They were after us because we’d just escaped — at least, Ivan and Stefan were after us. Matt was helping us, but he had to pretend to be on their side… Anyway, we figured that since they didn’t know we were there they would pretend to be regular hikers…”

Mr. Shine’s eyes nearly fell out of his head at this long-winded explanation, which he’d been straining to follow. “Wait. Those three men we met — they were part of the gang? They were also looking for you? And you were there? Up in a tree? And we didn’t know??”