Thunder stared across the field again. The elephant herd was slowly lumbering off out of sight. Panic rose in his chest. How was he going to find his herd, if they kept moving? “They’re going away!”
Penelope shook her head sadly. “Nobody’s home. Ring the doorbell.”
“There’s no doorbell, you pedantic parrot!” Sydney corrected her.
Penelope shook her head at Sydney and mimicked the sound of a doorbell. “Ding! Dong! Ding, dong, ding!”
Sydney slanted her head at the parrot. “Ha, ha, ha. Very funny.” The sarcasm was only lost on Penelope.
Thunder continued to look off in the distance. “Penelope, can you take a closer look?”
“Aye, aye, captain.” She raised her gray wings and nodded to Thunder before taking off into the air. When she got closer to the fields, she circled around it once then returned back.
“Moat. Castle bound. Raise the battlements.” Penelope said as she landed on a branch nearby.
“Great. More obstacles,” grumbled Soma.
Thunder’s eyes were fearful again. “Oh no. Not again.” Nothing seemed to be going their way.
“Demons are at the gate.” Soma shook her head.
Persius patted the rhino consolingly. “We’ll figure it out.”
Sydney glared at Persius. “No pressure.”
Cedric agreed with Sydney. “That’s not something I want to cross.”
Penelope shook her head sadly. “Can’t go there. Door closed. Not today. Not for the four-leggeds.”
“Yeah, but not for us!” Sydney interrupted the gloom.
Cedric put his wingtip on his beak and shushed, “Shhh!! We’re in this together! It’s no good if we don’t all get across!”
“Unsafe territory. No, no, no.” Penelope made clicking sounds with her tongue on the roof of her mouth.
Cedric pointed up to a circuit box. “Look!”
The egrets jumped back in fright when they saw where Cedric was gesturing. Persius almost tumbled from Soma’s back, but Sydney helped to steady him.
“Eek!! It’s a hot wire.” Sydney shrieked.
Persius put his wings behind his back and squared his eyes on the box. “We have to turn the power off! Are you ready?”
“No! Not really,” Sydney said in a panic. “Let’s say we did and come back another day, huh?”
Persius shook his head. “Great! I never thought of you as a scaredy-cat, Sydney. It’s plum embarrison’.”
Sydney puffed out her chest and ruffled her feathers. “I’m not a scaredy-cat!”
Persius’s beak turned up in a grin. “Allrightythen! Let’s go flip that switch!”
Sydney’s eyes bugged, but she kept her beak shut this time.
The egrets darted up and over the circuit box. Circling around it, they took turns pecking at it with their dagger like beaks. They aimed for the wire terminals with each strike.
A zap of light burst from the wire shocking Sydney enough to make her feathers singe. “Oops! Ow! Ow! Ow!”
She stiffened in the air, and fell like a bomb heading toward the ground. She opened her wings before she landed hard on the ground where she lay unconscious.
Persius cautioned, “Don’t touch that one! It’s a live wire!”
Cedric tilted his head. “Too late.”
Sydney woke up and shook her feathers out. She walked around unsteady for a few steps, teetering first to the right then the left. “Oh, I knew I didn’t want to do this. Now just see where it got me. Where am I? Is it hot in here or what?”
Sydney walked a few more steps then fell back down. The other two egrets swooped down to help her up.
“Look! Over there!” Thunder pointed with his trunk to where a few uprights were bent over weeding their garden with hoes. He took a few steps in that direction, but Soma moved in front of him and blocked his path.
“Don’t go there, Thunder,” she warned.
Penelope gave a sharp shrill whistle. “No, thank you.”
“That’s right. That’s not gonna fly,” agreed Soma.
“Are you trying to be funny?” Sydney glanced up at Soma.
Persius blinked his eyes in confusion. “What? What was so funny? What did I miss? Soma was funny? Somebody please tell me!”
Sydney snorted through her beak. “Never mind. Aaakk! Never mind.”
Thunder tried to push Soma away. “But what if it’s them? What if they got away?”
Penelope addressed Thunder, “Hello, honey. Glad you’re back.”
“Yeah! And the good news is no one’s after us,” interjected Cedric.
Sydney hooted, “Bingo! We’re in the clear! Smooth sailing! Let’s go!”
Soma shook her head at them. “That’s what you think.”
A bug flew near the electric fence. It caught Sydney’s eyes. She was about to hop after it when it flew directly into the fence. A loud sizzle was followed by a burning smell that made the others jump back.
“What to do? What to do?” Penelope’s head hovered on her neck from left to right. “Can’t go there.”
Thunder stomped his feet again and the ground trembled beneath his feet. His ears perked up around his face and he listened in desperation. He stomped again, so hard that the dust kicked up around them making Sydney cough. He watched in helplessness as the herd started to disappear from sight.