"Aw, c'mon. You said you'd do it. You can't back out now," Red jeered at me.
"He's right. You didn't just say you wanted to do it, but you said you had to do it. You know it's going to be stupendous. In fact, I bet that a million years from now that this tale gets told. I'd give anything to be the one to be doing this."
"Hey," I said, taking a step back and gesturing to the slope that looked like it was at about a 65-degree angle heading down, "knock yourself out, Tig. I won't be upset. I'm not the glory seeking type no way."
Tig peered down the slope and shook his head. "You're due some glory, Furball, and you did say you'd be the first one down."
"Chicken?" I asked, surprising myself that I'd say such a thing since I knew I was.
"Nope, I'm just a bit too fond of this adventure to be going downhill."
"Downhill? You'd be better off saying downcliff," Roo advised.
"You think I'm going to die? You're the one who said how safe it'd be."
"I didn't say you were going to die, I just said that I was fond of my life. I mean, c'mon. You're all the time falling out of trees and falling into pits and…" he paused. "You're pretty clumsy, aren't you?"
"Are you seriously asking me that question? Seriously?" Tig looked responded to my question by looking a bit sheepish.
"Naw. I know you get tangled in your paws a lot, but I didn't really think about how many different places you manage to get tangled in."
"Or stuck in,' Red added helpfully.
"So are we going to do this or what?" Tig asked, looking at me expectantly. I don't know why we even bothered playing this game cause everyone present on the mountain top knew that I was going to go down on the toboggan the moment we'd arrived at the top of the mini-mountain. The snow on the slope was a good foot deep and didn't have a single print on it anywhere. A belt of trees bordered each side of the slope and halfway down narrowed the cleared path to a couple of feet before the trees retreated after a few yards leaving a large area the rest of the way down, a very long distance. I figured that the whole thing was probably close to a mile, even if I took off the distance I knew I was exaggerating.
The toboggan had been Tig's idea. Made with pieces of wooden ships that had washed ashore during a century of storms, it was long, heavy and unwieldy. It was easier to drag than carry, and it had taken all four of us to drag it up the 'hill'. The back of the hill wasn't nearly as long, steep or snow covered as the front of it was, so it hadn't been too horrible. I'd asked how we'd ever get the thing to the top of the hill again, but Tig said that he knew a couple of polar bears who owed him a favor. I'd badgered him for the entire trip asking him how one managed to get polar bears to owe them favors. His response was to tell me that he'd tell me when it was necessary. Tig was always saying stuff like that. It probably went hand-in-hand with his ability to create 218 different rules for tic-tac-toe.
"If I do this, I want…" I'd been ready to mention blueberries or chocolate or something else, but caught Roo looking at me, "…broccoli."
"Yeah sure, that won't be a problem… huh? What?"
"Broccoli," I repeated to answer Red's question. "What's so strange about that?" Red, Roo and Tig looked at each other.
"It's okay, we'll get you some broccoli," Tig said in a placating voice as he held up a hand that I guess was supposed to soothe me or something. I'd have preferred chocolate to broccoli, but their reactions sort of made up for it. I wondered what they'd have done if I'd asked for beets.
"You know, there's no way to steer this thing," I said as I examined a rope that appeared to be on there for decorative purposes only.
"You lean," Tig said, confidently. "You'll pick it up in no time. Besides, it's not like you're going to need to steer. When we start you off, we'll make sure you're aimed straight down the center." I wasn't impressed, but that wasn't something I was going to share with anyone.
"Whatever, I guess we might as well do this."
"Told ya," Tig told Red smugly.
I helped the other three carefully aim the toboggan in the right direction, Tigger carefully having us move it an inch one way and a couple of inches the other until it was lined up to his satisfaction. "Hop on," he directed me.
"Do we need pixie dust?" Red asked as I got on the device. I glared back at him. "I meant because the sled was so heavy."
"It's not a sled, it's a toboggan. There's a huge difference," Tig advised.
"Yeah, you can steer a sled."
"But you can't steer a cardboard box." We all stared at Red for a moment. "You can't. Try it and see." There was no answer to that statement at all, so I grabbed the rope the way I figured cowboys did when they were riding broncos. I was seated in about the middle of the toboggan and waited while Tigger dusted the contraption with a bit of pixie dust, sneezing when he sprinkled some of it on me.
"Ready, steady, go!" Red called out as the three started pushing the toboggan. In spite of the weight, it started off quickly. I heard a thump from behind me and threw a look behind my shoulder to see Roo kneeling behind me.
"What happened?" I yelled, figuring he'd slipped or something even though that wasn't like him at all."
"Nothing," he yelled back at me. "This looked too cool not to try." That was the second statement in less than a minute that there wasn't any answer to, but it brought a grin to my face. Roo had been sort of down in the dumps and possibly acting a tiny bit like a grown-up lately. I thought this was a very good sign. The grin stayed on my face until I noticed that Tig's careful alignment had us whizzing towards the trees. "Lean! Lean! Lean! Lean!" I yelled leaning towards the left although there was probably a good third of a mile until that would become a problem. Through some quirk, the sled angled to the right, did a couple of 360s and a partial and ended up still angled towards the trees, but now going backwards.
"That was unexpected,' Roo said before dissolving into laughter.
"They thought I was crazy," I muttered to myself, as I leaned to the left this time so far that the right side of the toboggan threatened to leave the ground. We completed another couple of spins and wound up heading forward again, although still angled towards the trees.
"Wolf!" Roo yelled. For a moment, I wondered what the heck that was supposed to mean until there was a thump in front of me as a snow wolf suddenly appeared on the toboggan. It looked as though it had been running across the slope and had managed to intersect our course. It gave me a look of surprised disgust (which is hard for a lupine face to express) causing Roo to break out in renewed laughter. That in turn caused the snow wolf's expression to look even more disgusted before he turned to face forward and sit on his haunches, ignoring both of us. In the meantime, the trees continued to loom in front of us as we got closer.
"You really ought to do something about not running into those trees," Roo suggested. At the rate we were eating up ground, we had a couple of minutes before that event would occur. As if in agreement, the wolf's tail thumped a couple of times against both the toboggan and my face. As wolf tails go, his was pretty long.
"I'm open to suggestions," I retorted as I attempted to lean in either direction. The wolf wasn't small and his weight, combined with that of Roo was enough to keep me from having any effect on anything. I tried moving from side-to-side in an attempt to get something to happen causing Roo to comment that I was acting as though I needed to go to the bathroom. "I'm not heavy enough," I said, fairly positive that it was the first time those words had ever been strung together in a sentence describing myself. "You need to lean too. To the right on three." I counted to three and Roo and I leaned towards the right. We might have gotten shifted more than we did, but the wolf leaned to the left at the same time. "Seriously?" I asked in his direction. He gave a yip and I counted to three again. This time all of us leaned to the right in concert and the toboggan smoothly moved to the right. "Stop!" I yelled, moments too late. We were now perfectly aimed at the tree belt on the other side of the clearway. The wolf's tail thumping increased in momentum and I was getting fur in my eyes.
"What'd ya do that for?" Roo demanded from the back. "Now we're going to crash into the other side." He wasn't laughing as he had been before, but there was a definite note of excitement in his voice that I hadn't heard for awhile.
"If you think you can do better, feel free."
"Like I could get past you and your friend to be able to steer."
"You can't steer, it's a toboggan." I figured he already knew the rope was just for... whatever Tig had put it on for. It sure wasn't for steering anything. Before Roo could make a comment back I felt a weight on my left shoulder and turned to see that a raven had landed on it. It stared at me with bright black eyes and gave a caw before ignoring me and facing forward. "I don't think that's a good sign."
"What? The raven? I don't think they're bad luck. At least not too much. I think it's some other bird that's supposed to be bad luck and only if they're following a ship or a boat or something like that. If it was a skunk that landed on your shoulder, then that would definitely be bad luck."
I declined to point out the fact that, fortunately, there weren't any flying skunks on the Island that I knew about. The trees were now close enough that I could see individual branches. I wondered for a second if all the branches really were pointed towards us or if it was just my imagination. The wolf let out a howl, but declined to leave the toboggan. The raven didn't either, although it spread its wings, cawed, and did something that both myself and my pelt wished it hadn't. The light dimmed as the toboggan entered the small forested area between two tree trunks. "I can't see the forest anymore, there are too many trees," Roo sang out. I started to wonder if he'd somehow managed to get some pirate rum. We generally didn't grab that on raids, but there had been mistakes made in the past.
"We're going to die," I sang out in counterpoint. The wolf yipped and Roo laughed. "Not with your luck," he said. "If I were on this thing with anyone else, I might be concerned but with your luck there's no way they're going to let you die riding a toboggan in the middle of a forest."
"Lean!" I yelled as a tree trunk loomed in front of us. We all leaned to the left, including the stupid raven, and there was a buzzing sound as the toboggan scraped the tree trunk as it flashed by.
"That was fantastic," Roo decided. The wolf howled with what could have been agreement, disagreement, or a prelude to getting ready to rip my head off. The way things were going, I sort of figured it was probably the first one.
"Are you crazy?" I demanded but quietly enough so he couldn't hear me. There was something good going on behind me and I didn't want to take a chance of ruining it or having it end too soon. The toboggan sped over a root mound and became airborne for several moments before crashing back to the ground with a teeth-rattling thump. I ended up falling backwards and found my head in Roo's lap. The raven had let out a caw and had leaped from my shoulder as I went backwards. I looked up to see Roo grinning so wide, it looked as though his face would split. What really got me, however, was the quick look I got of his eyes. They were a kid's eyes, at least for now.
"Get up," he said. "Someone's got to be in charge and it ain't me." I grinned back and struggled back up to a sitting position as he 'helped' by pulling up on my hair. We were still moving rapidly through the tree belt and I saw that the raven was now perched on the wolf's head. Neither one of them seemed concerned about events. The trees thinned briefly and we were racing across a pond or small lake. There was a distinct cracking sound under us, but by the time I'd even figured out what words were appropriate, we were back on land again. A branch slapped my chest as we went past it and there was suddenly a pear in my lap. Anywhere else, that wouldn't have been possible, but on the Island... I liked pears almost as much as blueberries, but was pretty sure I knew what this one was for. I picked it up and held it behind my back, letting Roo grab it. I'm pretty sure it was thanks he offered me, but it was hard to tell through his mouthful of pear pulp.
"Left," I screamed as I started paying attention to what was in front of us again. For something that hadn't looked real big from the summit, this belt of trees was taking forever to get through. Everyone leaned left as the raven directed things with a spreading of wings and insistent cawing. Once more we didn't quite make it and sideswiped the tree leaving behind part of the right side of the toboggan which was now vibrating. I felt something new thump into my lap and looked down to see a raccoon taking a look around. I tensed, since raccoons aren't that fond of surprises such as these, and waited to feel teeth and claws against me. Instead the raccoon finished looking around, lay down in my lap and closed its eyes. I'd thought about closing my eyes as well, but there were just too many trees around for that. Sometimes closing one's eyes wasn't the best solution. Actually it wasn't the best solution most times, but it was really not the best one when you were zipping past trees.
"Don't even think about bringing it back to the Tree," Roo advised. "There's no telling what reaction Stumble might have to a real raccoon hanging out." There wasn't any time to ponder on that particular train of thought because we zipped out of the trees and were on bare slope again. As if overjoyed to be cleared of the trees, the toboggan started picking up speed. I'd closed my eyes as the sun shone full upon us without the tree branches to block it any longer. Roo let out a cheer.
"Uh, Roo, we got a problem." Ahead of us the ground did something unexpected.
"No we don't, not with your luck. Anyway, even if we did, it'd be your problem since you're the leader of this wonderful expedition." The raven showed its superior intelligence by giving a caw and winging off the wolf's head and into the sky.
"There's a cliff," I pointed out. "It's right in front of us and there's no way we're going to be able to stop in time." It wasn't so much a cliff as a crevice. The snow covering both sides had made it all but invisible from the top of the summit. The distance between the two crevice sides was only a couple of yards or so. Even I could have probably jumped it on a good day, with the wind at my back and my eyes tightly screwed shut. None of that applied at the moment.
I felt Roo shift and look over my shoulder at the approaching topography. "That's not good." The wolf apparently had the same idea because it gave a yip and sprung off the toboggan and loped away. The raccoon continued to sleep. "Show off," Roo called after it, a smile in his voice. "Well Furball, it's a good thing at least one of us is prepared."
"Maybe if we roll off..." I had to stop to let a huge sneeze out. It was big enough that I'm pretty sure the toboggan slowed a little from the force. It was caused by something that Roo had sprinkled over my head which had gotten into my nose.
"Steady, Furball. Be sure and grab the raccoon and think about blueberries."
"Blueberries?" I asked as I grabbed the raccoon in a bear hug which seemed to concern it not at all.
"Happy thoughts," he said as the bottom dropped out from under us when we ran out of ground. The toboggan continued forward where it smashed into the opposite wall and pretty much became bits of driftwood and sawdust that rained on whatever was below. Violating pretty much a whole slew of physical laws, Roo and I came to a stop over the middle of the crevice. I was thinking of happy thoughts as fast as I could, but I was slowly sinking. I was jerked to a stop as Roo grabbed my hair and pulled me up. The raccoon forced its head out of my arms and was staring around as though raccoons didn't normally find themselves a couple hundred feet above nothing. "I should have brought more pixie dust," Roo sighed.
"It's because of the raccoon. It weighs a ton." I wasn't even convincing myself with that comment and the raccoon gave a squawk of indignation. I'd never known that raccoons could squawk.
Roo didn't say anything, but pulled me by the mane to the edge of the crevice and above solid ground again. A few yards beyond the edge, the pixie dust went wherever used pixie dust goes to and we both tumbled to the snow. I lay there catching my breath while the raccoon crawled to my chest and gave me a good chewing out in raccooneese before turning tail and waddling off. I carefully moved various pieces of my body, but didn't feel anything that would indicate I'd broken, sprained, punctured, or slashed anything. Roo was already on his feet and was giving me a crooked grin.
"That was fantastic," he exclaimed. His face was bright red from the cold and excitement and the grin on his face was contagious and I found myself grinning back at him like an idiot. His eyes were still young which was all that counted to me at the moment. "Can we do it again?"
I almost choked, but found myself nodding in agreement. "All we need to do is get back up this hill." I sighed as I contemplated the journey back to where the others might or might not be waiting for us. I wished we had some more pixie dust, but figured I could probably make it without tumbling down the hill after a misstep and ending up rolling into a snowball.
We'd climbed about 100 feet and I'd already broken a sweat and was huffing when Roo turned around and looked at me. "Thanks." He turned around and continued climbing. I was still struggling, but after that I knew I could probably, somehow, climb a mountain three times this one after that.