User:Ermine/Our Extremely Inconvenient Hike
 | This story is a work in progress. |
{{#ifeq:User|Help||}}
{{#ifeq: User |User| Our Extremely Inconvenient Hike | Our Extremely Inconvenient Hike}}[[Title::{{#ifeq: User |User| Our Extremely Inconvenient Hike | Our Extremely Inconvenient Hike}}| ]]
{{#ifeq: | |
{{#ifeq: {{#ifeq: User |User| Ermine | Ermine}} | |
{{#ifeq: {{#ifeq: User |User| Ermine | Ermine}} | ||
Author: [[User:{{#ifeq: User |User| Ermine | Ermine}}|{{#ifeq: User |User| Ermine | Ermine}}]] [[Author::{{#ifeq: User |User| Ermine | Ermine}}| ]]
}} |
{{#ifeq: {{#ifeq: User |User| Ermine | Ermine}} | |
Author: {{#ifeq: User |User| Ermine | Ermine}} |
Author: [[User:{{#ifeq: User |User| Ermine | Ermine}}|{{#ifeq: User |User| Ermine | Ermine}}]] [[Author::{{#ifeq: User |User| Ermine | Ermine}}| ]]
}}
}} |
{{#ifeq: {{#ifeq: User |User| Ermine | Ermine}} | |
{{#ifeq: {{#ifeq: User |User| Ermine | Ermine}} | | Authors: ' |
Authors: [[User:{{#ifeq: User |User| Ermine | Ermine}}|{{#ifeq: User |User| Ermine | Ermine}}]]
}} |
{{#ifeq: {{#ifeq: User |User| Ermine | Ermine}} | |
Authors: {{#ifeq: User |User| Ermine | Ermine}} |
Author: [[User:{{#ifeq: User |User| Ermine | Ermine}}|{{#ifeq: User |User| Ermine | Ermine}}]]
}}
}}
}} {{#if:| — see [[:Category:{{{category}}}|other works by this author]]}}
Part 1 - Taking a Hike
Let me tell you something. The worst thing that you can do to a couch potato is to inform him that his girlfriend is an avid nature fan. And that she's going on a hike through some state forest, on the same day that an important baseball game is on TV. And she is bringing a bunch of other guys along with her.
I admit, we were all close friends, and none of us were out to snatch away Ted's girlfriend, but boy, he took the news very seriously.
I half-expected him to be grouchy and sullen that day, but he seemed rather cheerful when we stopped to pick him up. He was dressed in some hiking shorts and a T-shirt and a long-rimmed cap, with hiking boots and cotton socks -- he never wore socks before in his life! -- and a water bottle clipped to a stuffed sling bag around his shoulder. He smiled and waved at us, though I could tell he was just trying to impress Heather.
"Wow, Ted," Ben called out from the back seat. "You really look decked out!"
He shrugged his shoulders casually with a smug look. "I like to be prepared!" he said as he took the front seat we had courteously left vacant for him.
I caught a glimpse of his water bottle as he sat down. The UPC label was crisp, clean, and white. He must have bought the water bottle just recently. Obviously, he had never gone on a hike in his life.
"What have you got in that pack of yours?" Heather asked as she steered us out of town.
"Oh, you know, mosquito repellent, first aid kits, energy bars, a pocketknife, a compass..." He seemed rather pleased with himself.
"How long was this trip going to last, again?" Ben hollered out.
"Just a few hours," Heather said, "a little nature hike. I thought -"
"'Cause from the way you were going on, I thought we were, like, camping out or something!"
"Well," Heather said, "I just thought we should do something together, as a group. Besides going to movies."
"What's wrong with movies?" Ben asked.
"Well, nothing, but wouldn't you rather see some of nature's beauty, some of its splendor?"
"Hey, have you seen that new movie, Jeff? The one that came out last week, with the spy fighting the robots?"
"No, I don't go to the movies that often," I said.
"Oh, you should see it. There's this one scene, see, where Marcus, he's the hero, he goes into his house, and he's looking around, looking for his family and such, but it's all dark and such, and then the walls, they suddenly start exploding..."
I had pretty much tuned him out by that point. I was staring outside the window, watching the trees and the telephone poles go by. It's really quite hypnotizing, watching those telephone wires dip and slowly rise upwards, and fall again when they come across a pole, over and over for miles and miles. I barely noticed the time pass by as we parked into the campgrounds.
On the trail, though, noticing the time pass was much more pronounced.
"I'm tired!" Ben said from behind. "When can we take a break?"
"We're not taking a break until we get to the cliffs!" Heather called back.
"Can't we get to the cliffs after we take a break?"
"Ben, we took a break just a few minutes ago. Don't you want to savor the exercise?"
"But my feet are killing me!"
I noticed that Ted was keeping a straight face as he walked. He didn't seem to enjoy it either, but he didn't look like he wanted to say so in front of Heather.
"Say, Heather," I broke in, trying to change the subject, "what kind of bird is that?"
"It's a sparrow," she said, barely glancing in my direction.
"Oh," I said, a little embarrassed. "Well, how about that bird?"
"That's an oriole. Don't ask me what kind, I don't know." Her initial enthusiasm for this trip had quickly worn off, I could tell.
We finally came to the cliffs. We stood underneath them, looking dumbly up at them.
"Don't tell me we forgot a camera," Ben groaned.
So we left the cliffs without a picture to prove that we had seen them, and continued on our way down the trail.
"I thought we were gonna take a break," Ben asked.
"Look, we'll stop when we get to some shade, all right?" she said, gritting her teeth as she spoke.
"But I -"
"Hey, just chill, Ben!" Ted called out. "Leave her alone, why don't ya?"
We were all beginning to get on each other's nerves. Whether it was from our sore feet or from the hot sun, I couldn't tell. I was getting fatigued too; I was the only person who had forgotten to bring a hat.
The trail abruptly ended at a shady bike trail. We all decided to take a break, without any of us saying a word. Perhaps it was destiny, perhaps it was luck, but there had to have been a reason that, of all the places to take a break, we decided to stop there.
"Great. I'm out of water," Ben moaned.
"Did you fill it up?" Ted asked.
"I thought it was full. I mean, it was full when I left the house..."
"You can have some of my water," Heather offered.
"No, he can drink some of my water. Oh, heck, just take it." Ted tossed it across the ground and flopped down to down across the ravine down below us.
I could tell that the trip was wearing him out. Ben and Heather seemed to know it, too. I made the first move, though.
"So, Ted, you feeling all right about the hike?"
"I'm fine," he grumbled, as he picked up a rock from the ground. He tossed it into the ravine, where it clanked against the trees and fell to the leafy ground.
"You're not ready to leave, are you?"
"I'm fine!" he shot back.
"I'm not," quietly said Ben from behind us.
"You're not what?" I called back as Ted and I turned around. But as looked behind us, Ben was not there. In his place was a small, brown rodent that was looking at us, rooted to the ground and shaking terribly.
"What just happened?" the rodent said.
It was very, very, unbelievably bizarre, hearing Ben's voice come out of the tiny little critter. Neither Ted nor I spoke or even moved; we just sat there gaping and gawking, the weird scene in front of us trying to grope its way to our brains. Heather was the first to recover.
"I believe," she said slowly, "that you're a field mouse."
"What do you mean, I'm a mouse? What just happened? What happened?" He was stuttering and shivering all over.
"I think they're called voles, but I'm not sure."
"What happened? Oh my God, what just happened?!"
"Dang, Ben, you're a mouse," Ted finally managed to say.
Yeah, we were all pretty stupid at that moment; none of us understood what had happened. The awkward silence was quickly remedied, though, when I suddenly turned into a raccoon.
"Holy &#%!" Ted yelped, leaping up behind Heather.
I just stood there, a little shocked by what had happened. It was very jarring to suddenly feel my ears sitting at the top of my head, and to feel this piece of flesh sticking out of my butt, and to feel the air on these whiskers hanging out like a thin mustache.
"Maybe we should get out of here," Heather said slowly.
"Damn right we should! I'm getting out of here!" Ted started into a run, but he stopped into a jog when he realized how out of shape he was. And perhaps, a little foolish running off by himself. He turned around, and Heather had become a rabbit.
"Oh man... oh man..." Ted was going ballistic, standing there, waving his hands at nothing, trying to figure out what to do.
The three of us, Heather, Ben and I, looked at each other tremulously.
"Do you know what's going on?" Ben asked.
"Do you think I know what's going on?" Heather said sarcastically.
"So I guess not."
Ted suddenly threw off his sling bag and his water bottle and his cap, and looked at his clothes for a little bit. Just as he reached down to pull his shoes off, he became a squirrel.
So we basically stared at each other, trying to find something to say; what can you say, when you and all your friends have just became little furry critters? It seemed like a long pause, though it was probably just a few seconds, until Ted's water bottle started rolling down the sloping path. Ted spun around and raced after it, and then Heather ran after Ted, and then Ben and I ran after all of them.
"Get it! Get it!" Ted yelled to no one in particular. "I got it!" he said as he leaped upon it. At least Ted was in better shape as a squirrel, anyway.
"Hey, Ted! Are we picking up your stuff?" I shouted down to him.
"Yeah, you're getting it, we're going!"
"Wait, going?" Heather asked.
"Are you thinking of staying?"
"Ted, maybe we should stay here and figure out what happened."
"I'm not sticking around any longer! I'm getting out of here!"
Ben was too small to pick up Ted's sling bag and hat, so I slipped the sling bag around my head and then slipped the cap over it. Ben and I hurried down to Heather and Ted, as I dragged the sling bag behind me.
"Wait, Ted! Let's stop and think things through for a bit. Watch out!"
The sling bag wasn't closed properly, as it happened. Ted's flashlight and mosquito repellent began rolling out and down the path. Heather flopped onto the flashlight, and Ted ran to the side to catch the repellent.
"I think we'd better stop for a bit," Ben said, running down towards Ted.
"I want to get out of here. And that's that."
"Then we'll just stay here with Heather," I shouted out.
Ted hesitated, and decidedly turned around. "Fine, we'll talk. Could we do it somewhere away from here, at least?"
Heather nodded. I'd never seen a rabbit nod before, actually. "Okay, then," she said. "Go back and help Jeff with your stuff."
So the four of us set off down the bike trail. We would have made an awkward sight, walking together, especially me. Wearing that cap and carrying that huge sack, I looked like I'd looted some campsite. We met up with only two people on the trail, both bikers, heading towards us. They took one look at us and then quickly looked back to the trail.
"They didn't seem too interested in us," Ben observed.
"Bikers know better than to take their eyes off the trail," Heather pointed out.
When we found a footpath leading off the bike path, we went down it for a few yards before settling down underneath some bushes.
"So, what do we talk about?" Heather asked.
"How about what's going on?!" Ben screamed.
"Do I look like I know what's going on?" Heather asked.
"Ben," I said, "I think it's fair to say that none of us has a clue what's going on."
"Well, why the hell did we just turn into... little, scurry things?"
"It could have been the air," Ted suggested.
"It was not the air! Other people would have become weird little things if it was the air!" Ben said, a bit quickly.
"Maybe it did happen to other people, and we just never knew about it," Ted offered.
"They would not have-- I don't think-- that doesn't happen!" Ben fired off.
"I think Ted has a point though," I said. "If it's happened to us, it's probably happened before."
"What's happened?! I want to know what freakin' happened!"
"Well, it looks like we've been turned into some small forest mammals, except that we can still speak with our normal voices."
"It's like some kind of weird movie. The kind I never watch," Ted added.
"So, we're not really animals, I guess you could say we're half-animals..."
"Now I really wish I did see those movies. Ben, do you know what I'm talking about, those movies?"
"Me? I only watch the new movies, and the cool movies, so I have no idea what you're talking about!"
"This can't be a dream, can it?" Heather asked.
"If this was a dream, I wouldn't be sticking around this long," Ben said.
"And neither would I," Ted added. "Maybe it's a hallucination."
"Definite no," said Ben. "I'd say right now, there's no reasonable way this would be happening."
"But there has to be; otherwise, how would we turn back?" Ted asked.
"Perhaps," Heather paused, "there is no way back."
"What... what do you mean, no way back?" Ben said. "This can't be permanent, can it? I can't stay this way forever! There's got to be a way back!"
"There isn't," said a voice around us.
We all looked around when we heard that, but we didn't see anyone. We couldn't even tell where it had come from.
"Hey, who's there? Were you talking to us?" Ben asked.
"I am," it said again.
"Where are you?" Heather asked.
"I am all around, beneath the land you walk upon, among the trees, the earth, and the air."
"Er, sorry, were we bothering you? Because, we can move if you want..." Ted said.
"Not just here. I am everywhere across this land, from shore to shore, amongst everything that lives and breathes."
"Were you the one who changed us?" I asked.
"I am."
"Um, well, awesome trick, but could you turn us back now? I think I'm getting fleas," Ben said.
"I have changed you deliberately, so that you may give my message to your people."
"Uh... message? People?" Ted asked, skeptically.
"For thousands of years, I have watched my people grow upon this earth, thriving amongst it, tending it with care and respect. For thousands of years have I carefully tended to them, watching over them, with kindness and wisdom. So happy were those days, to see my people live with such attentiveness and conscientiousness."
"Hey, just so we're on the same page, are you a guy or a girl?" Ted asked.
"Don't interrupt me! Yes, things used to be so peaceful, until you foreigners landed over here, and slowly began to infest the land with your native poisons and pests, with your unearthly machines and weapons, with your tyrannous roads and fences, and began to destroy my people, either driving them towards the shores, or laying your poisonous swords and firearms amongst them, slaying them and slaughtering them, and desecrating the land around them."
"Just to be fair," I said, "none of my relatives ever did that stuff. I'm from German and Irish immigrants."
"You should have stopped them then! And so should have I. But no, you continued to go on, so quickly that you completely overwhelmed me. It was such an unnatural progress that it buried me beneath the earth. But slowly, for years since then, I have spent that time replenishing myself, sustaining myself off of whatever precious land remained, to return this earth to my people."
"Okay, so you turned us into animals as punishment?" Heather asked.
"No, no, not for punishment. As a warning. You are to return to your people and deliver my message."
"Y-" Ted was about to say, but Ben interrupted, "What message?"
"You must tell them that this land belongs to my people, and that they must leave at once, and return it to me and my people."
"Wait," Ted said, "you want everyone to leave? The whole country, just get up and leave?"
"And if they do not, I shall take the land from them by force."
"But..." Heather said. "We can't just tell everyone to leave the country. They won't..."
"If they choose not to leave, they can stay and await my judgment. A very quick judgment, I'm sure."
"That's..." Ted stuttered.
"This is a joke, right?" Ben asked. "You are going to change us back now, right?"
"I'm afraid I can't do anything for you. If you do stay here, then you will face the same judgment I shall inflict on every other foreigner."
"Then... you mean..." Ben stammered.
"I'll be waiting."
Part 2 - Leaving the Park
"Yow!"
Heather and I turned around to look at Ted again.
"Oh, sorry, heh, heh. Just my tail, again," he chuckled.
It was taking a bit of time for us to digest the strange spirit's message. But now that we were no longer focused on our strange situation, we could now start thinking about ourselves. Which was what Ben was doing too much of.
"This is not happening to me... This is not happening to me... This cannot be happening to me..."
We'd given up trying to cheer him up; there was no getting him out of that spaced-out look of his. But we decided immediately that we should try getting out of the woods first, and get into a more familiar environment. Well, either that, or Heather had just decided to give up the hike. Nah, it was probably the first one.
"Yikes! ... Oh, sorry, just me again."
Actually, I thought to myself, Heather's been handling it rather well. She's certainly a lot cooler-headed than she was on the trail. Must be the big ears. Oh, I shouldn't make jokes like that; she'd kill me if I said that. Not right away, of course, but she'd probably torture me with some comeback. With my luck, I probably wouldn't be able to --
"What do you think of it, Jeff?"
Think of what? Oh, drat, was there a conversation going on? "Think of what?"
"I mean, do you feel your brain acting any differently?"
I thought about it for a bit. "It's possible, but I don't think I've had enough time to notice, just yet."
"Well, you must feel something different," she pressed.
"Yeah. My hands feel stiffer. I guess my legs feel stiffer, too. And my armpits feel a bit hairier."
"Oh, come on, that's nothing," Ted said. "I mean, to me, it feels like my brain's on epilepsy mode; it's just jumping at everything!"
"Well that's nothing," Heather said, "compared to suddenly having a hairy chest."
"So, what do we do when we get back to your van?" I asked Heather.
"The keys were in my pocket..."
"So we can forget about driving it."
"Strange how it managed to get rid of our clothes, somehow..."
"Yeah, except for me! I was the smart one! I got all my gear off before he could do anything! A good thing I brought all that stuff, then, so that we could survive out here if we had to!"
"I don't think we'll have to worry about surviving, since we are animals..."
"Stop," Ben suddenly said. So we stopped. "I don't want to hear anymore about being animals, or becoming animals, or anything. Let's talk about something else, please."
"Okay, sure. No problem, Ben," I said. So as we started up again, I asked Ben, "So, Ben, are you still thirsty?"
"Not really."
"Well, even if we were thirsty," Ted interrupted, "where would we get a drink? We don't have any water bottles..."
"I think there's a stream over the hill that we could drink out of," I said.
"It's not that safe to drink water from a stream, without purifying it first," Heather said.
"Oh, right. Roundworms?" I said.
"No, pollutants would be more likely," she said.
"How big are roundworms, anyway?" Ted asked.
"Very small, microscope-sized," she said.
"They're not dangerous, are they?" Ted asked.
"Well, they are parasitic, and you can get sick from them, but I think you'd only get killed if you didn't get medical attention in time."
"Don't they, like, stay inside you, though, and eat up your intestines?"
"Let's," Ben suddenly interrupted, "talk about something else."
So then we walked in silence. Sort of.
"Eee!" Ted cringed again.
As we turned around a bend, we suddenly saw a woman ahead of us, pushing a baby in a stroller and walking a dog behind her. Before we could hide, however, she instantly fixed her gaze on us.
"Great," I whispered to Heather, since she was closest to me. "Now what do we do?"
She had trouble answering that question, and it quickly didn't matter, because her dog had already started running right towards us.
"Oh, *%#! Scatter!" Ted yelled as he leapt to the side.
"Aw, &%#!" Ben yelled as he ducked into the bushes.
"Chelsea! Sit! Sit! Stop!" the woman yelled as she ran forward.
I bolted to the left, tearing off the sling bag. Heather ran to the right behind a mound of rocks. The dog decided I was the easier target, and ran up, barking after me.
"Chelsea! No! Sit! Stay!" the woman yelled from behind.
I kicked back dead leaves and sticks behind me, hoping to throw the dog off, but Chelsea was coming closer, her teeth and her breath getting closer.
"No! Shoo! Get away!" I shouted.
Now, if I was a real raccoon, and I had been paying more attention to getting away from the dog than to trying to get the dog away from me, I probably would have seen the holes in the ground that probably led to some underground burrow. But I ran past it, thinking, That's too dirty, and who knows what's down there right now? I probably could have climbed a tree, too, if I had reflected beforehand that, as a raccoon, my climbing skills had probably improved significantly since the rock-climbing incident last spring. Even running away blindly would have been better than what I did next.
I curled up into a ball and cowered in fear. The dog chomped me in the leg, and dragged me a few feet before dropping me again.
"No! Stop that! Chelsea, no! Let him go!" I heard the woman cry, as she batted the dog on the side.
The whimpering dog and the woman went down the path, while I lay there, dazed by the experience. A wash of pain, fear, panic, and epinephrine poured over me. I kept my eyes closed, to try and blot out the pain.
"Chelsea, behave! No, no! Come over here now!" I wondered who else was getting the Chelsea treatment.
"Hey, Jeff, you okay?" Ted said. He sounded like he was a few feet from me, and getting closer. "Oh, dang, that doesn't look good. Hold on," he said, his voice turning more distant now.
I strained to hear them over the pulsing in my head. I heard the woman say, "I... I'm sorry. Chelsea's not usually like this. I thought she grew out of it, but..."
Then Heather, "Uh, I know this looks a little odd, but, we need you to listen."
Ted, "Hey, Jeff's not doing too well, I think we should get him to a vet or something."
The woman, "What... Is Jeff that..."
Ted, "Ah, good, he dropped my cap. Good, didn't want my Sox cap to get ruined."
A bird sang overhead.
Heather: "Okay, look, we had a sort-of run-in with someone a while back, and we kind of need some help right now, so, I know it may be a terrible inconvenience, but..."
Woman: "I, I'm sorry, I need a moment."
Ted: "Where's Ben?"
Heather: "Oh, no. Ben! Ben! It's all clear! Come out, wherever you are!"
At this point, I was starting to get a bit light-headed. It might have been the wound, which was really starting to sting right now, or it could have been the soft leaves below me, and maybe that energy burst from running, but I was getting tired now. Still, I kept up my listening to the conversation.
Woman: "So, I take it Jeff was the raccoon."
Ted: "Yeah, and he's got a nasty bite on his leg."
Woman: "I'm sorry, this is, I really don't do well with animals."
Ted: "Neither do we, actually."
Everyone got a lot quieter, then, and I couldn't hear them. And it was becoming a real struggle to stay awake. I was getting dizzy at that point; I was starting to feel very peaceful, right then. It was getting much harder to hear the conversation, too.
Woman: "Hold on... have a number here..."
Heather: "There you are... okay?"
Ted: "...least you're looking better..."
Ben: "Shut up, Ted."
Woman: "Hello? ... forest ranger? Yes, there's a..."
Heather: "How is Jeff? Is he..."
And I was out.
---
Warmth. I could feel warmth.
Where was it? It seemed to come from all around me. It was soft, too.
Oh, God. A blankie.
"Hey, easy there! Calm down, little fella!"
Oh, God, what were they doing to me? I could feel hands around me; what, were they dressing me up as a baby? I've hated those sorts of dreams. But how could I wake up?
My eyes finally started opening. My mind did a double-take when it saw the huge muzzle right before my eyes, before I remembered, oh yeah, I'm a raccoon.
"Hold on for a minute. You're almost done," a woman's voice said from afar.
What was that smell? I wasn't familiar with it. It smelled faintly of wood; something like a forest. Oh, yeah, the state forest. Then this must be the lodge. Yes, I remember seeing the lodge. How did I remember the smell, though? Dang, did I sniff the building before going off on the hike? What kind of a weirdo am I?
"All right, there you go, little guy."
"His name is Jeff." That was Heather. As soon as I heard her, I wakened right up. Yes, it was definitely a building; the walls were made of smooth wood, and the floor was tiled, and the ceiling looked distinctively like a log cabin wall. There was a cabinet along the wall, a bench with some cushions right next to it, and three animals were sitting on the bench.
"Don't worry, you'll be fine. Just take it easy walking, and in a few days you'll be back to normal."
"Normal?" Ben asked.
"Oh, well, um... uh... anyway, uh..." the woman stammered. "Excuse me," she said as she left through an open door.
I sat up, tossing off the pink blanket. I hoped no one had taken a picture of me with that blanket; I mean, a green blanket would have been fine, but a PINK blanket? Aren't there any animal cruelty laws forbidding that sort of thing?
"So, how are you feeling, Jeff?" Heather asked.
I did another look-around. I was on a table with a soft sheet of paper covering it, like in a doctor's office. There was a file cabinet on one end of the table, where I was at, and a chair at the other end. Very simple surroundings, I noted.
"Oh, I'm feeling just splendid," I lied. "Where are we?"
"Back at the main lodge. We're in the first aid station."
"What happened to that woman and the dog?"
"I think the woman left, after dropping us off. She had this weird look on her face. I think this... situation really shocked her."
"Yeah, that seems to be happening a lot, wherever we go," Ted noted.
Right as he said that, in through the door came a frowning man in uniform. Brown pants with a wireless radio hanging from his belt, a navy blue shirt with a nametag reading "DON BRIDGE", and brown hair sketched with gray hairs. He looked at us bitterly, apparently trying to hide his disgust.
"So, how are you all doing? Is everything going okay?" he said tersely.
"Oh, yeah, everything's great," Ted said.
Don nodded stiffly and turned to leave.
"Excuse me, how long until they arrive?" Heather asked.
Don stopped and hesitated a moment. "Probably around fifteen minutes. Just hang out or... something, until then." And he quickly stepped out.
"Who's coming?" I asked.
"The police," she said.
"The what? Police?"
"Yeah, while you were out, the park staff did some calling around, and eventually the police said they were coming to take care of the situation."
"You missed a lot of action," Ted said. "First there was everyone trying to figure out what to do about us, and then these bikers came in because they were worried someone's stuff had been taken, and... well, that was pretty much it, but it was really funny to watch them, all gaping and staring at us, like we were freaks or something."
"I probably would have done the same thing, too, you know. If I saw a bunch of talking animals in my office, I'd probably freak out. Actually, I might even leave the room."
"Why?" I asked.
"Well... I guess it'd be... superstition, I guess. Or I just couldn't handle the situation."
"Heck, I could handle it," Ted said. "I can't see why anyone would be bothered with it. Well, I mean, a talking squirrel is probably bizarre, but hey, in Spain people let themselves get chased by bulls on purpose! Now, this is a lot less weirder than that, I guarantee you!"
"We're not freaks," Ben said.
"What? Oh, I... I didn't mean... I wasn't suggesting that..."
"I bet you like this, don't you?" Ben said, his anger rising.
"I... well..." Ted stammered.
"You just love this 'cause everybody's noticing you, right? You think this is just some chance to be noticed?" he yelled.
"No, no, no, no," Ted quickly replied, "I'm just trying to make the most of... I mean, I just..."
"Why don't you ever think about anyone else besides yourself?! Why don't you ever think about something besides impressing your girlfriend?!"
"Hey, Ben, look, I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry. Let's just calm down."
"No, I can't calm down! Don't you see we're stuck like this?! He's never gonna change us back! We're gonna be stuck like this forever!"
"Hey!" Don came in from the other room, looking sharply at us. But this time, he suddenly softened up. "Is something the matter?"
"Um, no, just a little problem coping with... life," Heather replied.
"Heh. Tell me about it," Don walked in and seated himself at the other side of the table.
"What, is it hard being a ranger?" Ted asked.
"Ugh, don't call me a ranger. I'm just a conservationist," Don said. "Sorry about... seeming cold, earlier. I just didn't know what to think of you."
"Yeah, yeah," Ted shrugged off.
"I mean... well, this is a strange situation. I suppose it's been a while since I've had anything unusual to deal with."
We were silent for a moment. "It's harder for us, of course," I said.
"So, tell me," Don said, "is there any... reason that you're... talking like this?"
"Reason, heh," Ted replied, "it's very unreasonable, frankly."
"From what we've gathered," Heather continued, "there's this nature spirit who's angry at what we've done to the earth, and now he's getting back at us. Or going to, or something."
"Yeah," I followed up. "We're supposed to give a message to you, and everyone else living around here." I stopped for a moment, trying to reconstruct exactly what the voice had told us.
"What message?" Don asked blankly.
Heather answered, "That he's going to take back the land, and everyone with it, unless they get off it."
Silence. As I expected. Don turned to look at each of us, his face turning with doubt. And finally, he sat back and frowned.
"Hmm... that is... a strange message. Terrible, if it were true," he ruminated. "But... if that's the only explanation we've got, then... Well, dang... Excuse me for a moment," he got up and left through the door. He seemed to be shaking, but perhaps I was just imagining it.
"Well, no one believes us. I could have guessed that," Ted said.
"He's not everyone, you know," Heather argued.
"But I'm sure we'll get a lot more reactions like that."
"Besides, he seems to have believed us, for the most part."
"If we're gonna go out in public, telling everyone that the world is doomed, no one's ever gonna believe us, even if we are a bunch of talking animals."
"It's worth a try, isn't it?" Ben said. "If it's anything to get us back to normal..."
"Ben, you know the spirit said..."
"Ahem!" I coughed up. Ted glanced at me, and said nothing.
We heard the lodge doors open, and two people coming in the lodge. Don peeked in through the door, with his blank face back in place.
"The police are here for you," he said, and after a pause, added, "Good luck."
{{#if:k|{{#if:To Be Continued...|
To Be Continued... 
|
}}|
}}