Friends Reunited
“Aren’t you going to tell me what big eyes I have?” Renard asked.
Coco stood frozen with terror.
“You’d be right. I do have big eyes. They get big when I see something I want to eat.” And he leaned forward and sniffed her, just like Ben sniffed the gravy before he tucked into his Sunday dinner.
“Well, you’re not going to eat me!” said Coco bravely, even though her legs were shaking with fear. “One is not ready to die! There are still things I want to do in this world, like climb up the stairs to the bathroom and use Henrietta’s nail brush.”
“A high ambition indeed,” said Renard.
“Yes,” said Coco soberly. “It is.” She counted in her head. “It’s twelve steps to the landing and another six to the bathroom.”
“And all I want to do is eat every living thing in this thicket until there is nothing left.”
“That’ll take you a while,” said Coco as bravely as she could, “because the big oak tree’s alive and that will take a very long time to digest.”
“Enough of your cheek!” snapped the fox, and lunged toward her with his mouth open as wide as Coco’s when she tried to eat a whole Brussels sprout.
Coco knew if she turned and ran he would catch her. So she did the opposite and forced herself to leap forward, in between Renard’s legs. Renard stepped backward in surprise, trying to butt her with his nose.
Coco looked up. Her whiskers started to twitch. There was a rush of air and a shout. It was Eduardo, swinging down on an old rope some kids had tied to the tree.
“Caramba, bamba!” cried Eduardo as he landed on the fox’s back and grabbed his ears. Renard lifted his head and shook it, trying to throw Eduardo off.
Coco looked up in relief. “Oh, Eduardo! One is pleased to see you!”
“The pleasure’s all one’s, señorita. Now run for your life!”
“Quick!” Coco shouted. “The tunnel!”
“What tunnel?” Eduardo yelled, digging his nails into the fox’s fur to stay on.
“This one!” Coco scooted into the mouth of the tunnel.
The fox stopped just short of it. He shook his head in anger and Eduardo was thrown off. His little body easily plopped into the opening and he crawled after Coco. The fox was left at the entrance, snarling.
“DIG!” said Coco.
Coco and Eduardo dug frantically. It wasn’t long before they saw Fuzzy.
“There you are!” Coco exclaimed. “What have you been doing? Wallpapering the walls?”
“I got a bit stuck,” Fuzzy admitted.
“I told you to hold back on the avocados,” said Coco bossily.
“I haven’t had any, you silly thing!” Fuzzy said. “It was the way you tunneled. You just chucked the loose earth behind you and it made the tunnel narrower.”
“We don’t have time to discuss that now,” she said. “We have to go back to the hotel.”
“But I thought we were escaping?”
“Renard the fox is at the other end. Even Eduardo couldn’t stop him.”
“Renard?” Fuzzy repeated in astonishment. “Eduardo?”
“Yes! The tunnel comes out in the thicket!” Coco said impatiently, as if this was the most obvious news in the world. “I’ll explain later.”
“Is Eduardo OK?” asked Fuzzy as he turned around.
“I’m fine.” Eduardo’s voice came from behind them.
Boom!
“Caramba! What was that?”
Suddenly it was very dark. “Vamos!” Eduardo shouted. “The tunnel is collapsing!”
The guinea pigs hurried forward as fast as they could.
“There’s definitely no going back to the thicket now,” said Fuzzy miserably.
“No. We have to go on,” agreed Coco.
“So I get to go to the hotel after all,” said Eduardo, secretly pleased.
“Yes,” said Coco, “but don’t get your hopes up. It’s not going to be much of a vacation.”