| |
When they
finally saw da Muff in a pile whimpering and
licking her wounds, she was minus a few tail
feathers, or hairs. Tufts of white hair were all
over the ground. That bird meant business!
G & J sure didn’t want to mess with it.
They weren’t quite sure how to get around it.
They wanted to go as far around the nest as
possible but this was impossible, since the
path went right by it.
Granma started clucking of all things, “Here
birdy birdy .. Chu chu chu … here birdy birdy:
chu chu chu.” Julio remembered the banana peelings
that he had stuffed in his basket and nonchalantly
pulled them out, letting them fall to the ground.
The heron thingie eyed them cautiously and went
over to pick them up. This gave them a chance
to squeeze on by quickly, even though the horses
had their doubts. As they went on down the path
they heard a voice behind them say “Gracias.” (Thanks)
“Ohmygosh!” said G, “Did that heron just speak
Spanish? “Yep, that’s what I heard,” says J.
“De nada,” (it’s nothing) called out Julio.
“Maybe we are in a Spanish world now,” said J.
When they got to where da Muff was, she was still
licking her bald spots. Then she slowly got
up and waggled along down the path, a little
sore from the plucking, but she was ok. Now they
were coming out from the reeds and onto a long
stretch of white sand. Seemed like they could
see an ocean just a short way off. The iridescent
blue sun was still high in the sky, with pink
suns on each side of it. G figured the days must
be longer here. They had been up a long time.
The long stretch of white sand created an illusion
of going somewhere, but never reaching anywhere.
They were riding on and on and there was no grass
for the horses. J said “We better stop and have
some water and give the horses a drink too.”
“Good idea.” agreed G. So the horses bowed down
and they slid off …. Problem was, in what were
they gonna give the horses a drink? There was
nothing, so Hoo just decided he would pour some
in their mouths. He did and they licked their
lips and tried sucking. Well it was better than
nothing. The horses laid down on the warm sand
like they were tired too, so they all rested
for awhile.
Before they mounted up again, they heard a hissing
sound. “Ai yai yai,” whispered G. “Get up and
hurry!” They didn’t even wait for the horses
to bow down; they started climbing up their legs
and the horses started walking. Julio lost one
of his metal water jars. All of a sudden there
were hundreds of hissing lizards all around them,
and some were pretty good sized. The lizards
were wrinkly and orange with red dots running
down their backs between green, spikey horns.
They had light blue and turquoise hangie things
dangling from under their chins and yellow darting
eyes. Blue tongues flicked in and out of their
mouths about a thousand miles an hour as they
wagged their heads from side to side, hissing.
Granma was about to fall off, only half hanging
onto Mober’s mane and neck. She got Mober over
to a rise in the sand, putting her on the downside
of the hill. Granma got on the upside and hopped
on like a bolt of lightning. Julio had already
made it onto Pepper’s back. A long ways back
when he had nothing better to do, he had tied
some of the blanket fringe together and made
sort of a stirrup. How useful at a time like
this!
|
|
Children's Activities Home