My Race With Red

by Cubby250

Occasionally it can be good to be the biggest, clumsiest Lost Boy when it comes to racing.

"What do you look so down about, Furball?" Red asked as he walked along a limb above me with his arms spread to keep his balance.

"Of course I look down. That's because you're up there."

His groan turned into a yelp of surprise and I looked up to see his arms flailing as he tried to regain his balance. I didn't even have enough time to think about moving before he landed on top of me. It didn't take too long for me to get my breath back or to wipe the mud off my face and front that I'd managed to fall in. As I was cleaning myself up, I noticed that there wasn't a speck of mud on his coat.

"Thanks, Cubbs. I'd have probably hurt myself if you hadn't caught me." He looked around at the ground. "One of these days I gotta figure out how you do that."

"I don't think I had a whole lot to do with it. You were the one doing the falling. Remember?"

"Naw, not that. The mud. It hasn't rained here in ages and the whole ground is dry except for that one spot you fell down in. It don't matter what's going on, or where, you always seem to find a patch of mud to fall in. I think you got the mud curse."

"Aw don't even start that stuff. Next thing you know, you're going to start telling me that there are a bunch of rules to go with it."

"No such thing as rules for Lost Boys. Anyway, don't worry about that, we got a journey to go on, people to talk to and things to see." He started off and I tagged behind him.

"A journey where?"

"Everywhere and nowhere," he said as he jumped over a downed tree. I sighed as I climbed over the same tree, knowing it wouldn't do any good to try and find anything else about where we were going.

"Can you tell me how far it is?"

"Nope, sure can't."

"Whatcha mean you can't tell me how far it is?" I demanded coming to a stop. "Don't you know where we're going?"

"Course I do, Furball. We're going to that tree up there," he said pointing to a lone pine tree that was quite naturally located at the top of a hill. "It's where we're going after that, that the question arises."

That made as much sense as anything, so I followed him up the hill. We got about halfway up the hill when I suddenly yelled loudly enough that I'm pretty sure the pine tree lost some needles and tackled Red to the ground. "Look out!"

"What? What? What?" Red said as he tried to look everywhere at once.

"Bee."

"A bee? You practically broke my neck because of a bee?"

"You're welcome," I said smugly. I'd gotten more than my share of bruises from being saved from so many pine cones, ants, lizards, and other stuff by Red that I felt I should return the favor. Now had seemed as good a time as any.

Red nodded as he got up. "Uh-huh. I get it." He grinned. "Just remember, turn about is fair play. Now, unless we're being threatened by some other bug, let's go. There's someone waiting for us."

I took another look at the pine tree and saw someone sitting in the lower branches of it whom I'm pretty sure hadn't been there before. It was hard to see what they looked like, but it appeared as though they were playing some sort of instrument. At least they were holding something and a sound like music was spilling from the vicinity of the tree. "Who's that?"

"That's our guide. She's going to lead us on our quest."

I started to ask once more where we were going or what the quest was about, but figured that's just what Red wanted me to do so I didn't say anything. As we approached the tree, I saw that the figure sitting in it was an elf wearing a short sleeved green tunic and a dark something that looked almost like a skirt but clearly wasn't. I looked at her and suddenly snapped my fingers. "I know who you are. You're the person who gave me the book when I got here." When I'd first arrived on the island, I'd gotten a book of tales from her that had become my favourite. She gave a friendly grin and nodded in acknowledgement, but continued to play the strange looking instrument. It was like a cross between a guitar and a violin. She used her hand to play it, no bow, and sort of manipulated it like a guitar. It was more the size of a small violin and was the same dark wood and general shape of a violin. The notes it gave out were high-pitched bu very soothing. So soothing that for a moment I was floating between sleeping and waking and dreaming of walking on a fog bank.

"Wake up, Cubbs," Red said as he grabbed the top of my left ear (not the pelt ear) and yanked hard.

"Hey!" I yelled. "Whatdya do that for?"

"You were falling asleep and it would have taken forever to wake you up."

"So why didn't it work on you?" I asked as I rubbed my ear.

"Cuz it's a spell that only works on big, dumb animals and everyone knows foxes are about the smartest animals there are."

"Or it could be that foxes are sly and had their fingers stuck in their ears," the elf said as she stopped playing and proceeded to do a back-flip off the branch and lightly touch the ground on bare feet with no apparent effort at all. Even Red looked in awe.

"Where are you going to take us to?"

"You mean he didn't tell you?"

"No, he never tells me anything. For all I know, we're getting ready to slay a dragon or something."

She looked at Red. "I can't believe you didn't tell him where we were going. Don't you think you should have?"

"Nope," was all Red said. The elf nodded. "Okay, you'll find out when we get there. I can promise you it has nothing to do with dragons. They tend to get all skittish when Lost Boys are around."

I was a bit more than exasperated since I had thought she was going to tell me, but the fact that there weren't any dragons involved sort of made up for it.

We started off down the opposite side of the hill which turned into a meadow. There was a herd of unicorns at one end that steadfastly ignored us as we passed by. The meadow gave way to a type of savannah that stretched to the horizon in all directions. "There aren't any tigers or lions here, are there?" I asked.

"Not that you'll have to worry about," the elf answered as she stopped for a moment. She looked around and then pointed. "That way. About half a fenthing."

I wasn't sure what a fenthing was, but my paws were beginning to make it known that they'd done a fair amount of walking without a break. Still I couldn't complain too much because I'd been led to one of the few places on the island that didn't go uphill. "What was that you were playing on earlier?" I asked about the instrument that was now riding on the elf's back.

"It's a kryer. You can use it for a lot of different reasons." She pulled it off her back, did something that I'd say would have been tuning on any other instrument, and played a quick burst of music which sounded totally different from the music she'd been playing in the tree. This song made my feet want to move and for a moment considered dancing a jig. I squelched that thought real fast, although Red was carefully moving his feet in a brisk rhythmic pattern.

"How do you do that?" I asked as I ordered my feet once again not to do anything foolish.

"Magic, of course. But not the mundane magic that the other elves use. This magic lives in the music. Anyone can do it be they mortal, fey, or even those who are slightly-less-than-human and frolic around in bear pelts. Want to give it a go?"

"I don't frolic," I answered and then realized what she'd said after that. "You mean me?"

"Course I do. Why not?"

"What if I break it or something?"

"Then I'd just have to fix it. I don't think you'd be slamming it over bushy-tail's head would you?" I shook my head. "Good. Didn't think so and that's the only thing here hard enough to break it." Red gave a mock bow to the elf and stuck his tongue out at her. The elf let loose a laugh and then handed me the kryer. "Put your hands here and then like so. No, a little bit more this way. That's it. Okay now lightly strum it down here. No, no. That's way too hard. A little more than gliding, but not much."

I followed her instructions and after a couple of tries managed to make the kryer do something other than sound wounded. It was as if the tune were asking a question. I wondered what it was asking and how I could answer it. Red looked over at me and nodded approval. "Wow, was that me?"

"Probably, although the wind here is pretty strong," Red said. "Actually that wasn't too bad, Furball. I've heard worse."

I handed the kryer back to the elf and thanked her. I hadn't produced very much with it, but for some reason I felt the need to ponder on what I had done. We walked along in silence, Red seemed to be pondering just as much, until the elf suddenly came to a dead stop. "Here we are," she announced.

"Which is…?" There didn't seem to be anything special about this place except for a couple of bushes and some rocky ground.

"The place we were headed towards, naturally." I looked over at Red who nodded enthusiastically even as he looked like he wanted to burst out in laughter at my confusion "Don't worry, Cubby. It'll be clear in a moment," the elf said as she made some sort of adjustment to the kryer again. She stood there for a moment and then started riffing on the kryer. The notes that came out were pure, sharp, and just about visible. The air shimmered and the air between the two plants ripped.

"C'mon, Cubbs. Time to go," Red said as he pulled me to the ripped area between the two plants.

"Wait a second, where are we going?" I asked as I suddenly found myself in the ripped area. There was no sensation or weird feeling or anything like that. One moment I was on the savannah, and the next moment my paw-mocs were crunching through snow and I was freezing. I pulled up the hood of the bear pelt as the elf came through the rip and watched her as she wet her finger in her mouth and sealed the rip up as she moved her finger along it.

The area we were in now looked almost the same as the area we'd just come from. The same except for the fact that there was about a half foot of snow on the ground. The sky was cloudy and the wind was whipping over the plains carrying a little snow with it, but it was from the ground and not the sky. The elf took a moment to get her bearings and then satisfied, pulled out the kryer, tuned it once more, and played a complicated tune on it.

"Where are we?" I asked no one in particular. I was beginning to shiver a little and tried to hunker down into the bear pelt some more. I noticed Red doing the same thing, but the elf didn't seem to be bothered by it at all, nor did her bare feet. I absently noted that the tunic and skirt-that-wasn't-a-skirt were both white as the snow around us.

"We're in the same place we were before," the elf said with a grin. "You just don't recognize it because it's not the same time as it was before. It's a different time. So you can't go wandering off because you might meet someone you're not supposed to meet and then things would get very complicated and messy. Got it?"

I was sure I didn't have anything figured out, but she had said it in a way that let me know it was very important, so I nodded agreement. I was pretty sure I wouldn't want to do any wandering, anyway. She looked at Red who nodded his agreement as well.

"Great." She looked around and gave a sigh of exasperation. "Where are they? They should have been able to hear me just fine." She played another segment on the kryer, the notes a bit more pronounced as they hung around us instead of being taken by the wind.

"Whaaaaaa…" I yelled as I fell on my rump in the snow as it suddenly erupted in front of me. The only surprising thing was that Red performed the same trick. From the snow had come three snow leopards whose coats were pure white and almost indistinguishable from the snow. For a moment it looked as though there black noses and eyes were floating in the air with nothing behind them. The elf held out a hand and each leopard licked it after which they came over to where Red and I were still sitting in the snow, each one bumping its nose against ours.

"This is Dlow, Mlow and Wlow," the elf said in way of introduction. There was no way to tell them apart, but we both said hello. "They think it's very funny that they were able to startle you and that I didn't know they were under the snow. They're going to take us to the slides."

"Cool!" Red said as he got quickly got up. I got up a little more slowly as I thought about that. 'You mean they're going to guide us there, right?" I asked hopefully.

"In a way, but we'll actually be riding them. If we walked it would take us until the moon was above us to get there. These guys'll have us there before the sun moves."

I refrained from pointing out that the sun was hidden by a thick cover of clouds and it'd be impossible to tell if, much less how much, the sun moved. "They don't look very big," I said as I thought about the last time I'd ridden a unicorn who'd been a lot bigger than the leopards.

"That's okay, they're fast." The three leopards moved into a small circle looking towards each other. Two of them did something quickly with their right paws and one of them moved towards the elf after they finished.

"What are they doing?" Red asked as the remaining two did the same thing.

"They're playing claw, fang, whisker," the elf said as she got on the leopard that had gone over to her. The remaining two finished their game and Red and I suddenly had a leopard standing next to each of us. "Go ahead, get on."

"Did this leopard win or lose?" I asked as I carefully got on its back.

"Yes," the elf said with a laugh. The moment we were all on, the leopards took off with huge leaps. At first I thought it was going to be like riding a horse or a unicorn, albeit a small one. Instead all I could think of was that this would be what riding a kangaroo must feel like. Somehow the leopards feet seemed to only skim the surface of the snow. There was no running or walking, but huge, rapid bounds over the snow. I'd been scared that I was going to fall off with all the jumping, but it was hard to tell the leopard was actually moving except for the fact that my face quickly went numb from the wind. It was like being on a unicorn as it went from a trot to a gallop; from a rough ride to a smooth, rocking one. There wasn't much to see along the way, just a lot of white snow with nothing to break it up at all.

I was beginning to get antsy about where we were going when the view to the front began to change. Instead of being pure white, there was some grayish-black rock among it that looked like a mountain. It only took a few leaps before we started heading up the side. I had a death grip on the leopard's mane and my eyes tightly screwed shut even though there was no noticeable change in the ride.

Before I had a chance to wonder about what would happen if I managed to fall off, the rocking motion came to a stop. I slowly opened my eyes to see that we were on the summit of whatever it was we'd just come up. "Did you bring the stuff?" the elf asked Red. "It probably would have been better if I asked you before we got here."

Red rooted through his pockets and finally pulled out two large containers. "Is that…?"

"Yup. A hundred percent pixie dust."

I looked at the two containers. "That's more pixie dust than I've ever seen at one time," I said, a bit in awe. "What's it for?"

"To fly of course," the elf said with a laugh.

"But that's enough for every Lost Boy to fly to the 'real' world and back a dozen times."

"That's true, but it's also enough for something very big to fly for a few times as you will soon see." She played a few notes on the kryer and waved as the leopards vanished down the slope. It only took a couple of bounds before they were indistinguishable from the snow that clung to the rock.

"But how are we going to get back?" I asked. "Can you call them when we're ready to leave?"

"I could, but there's an alternative way to return which you'll enjoy more." She gestured for us to follow and we fell in line behind her. After the leopards I didn't even want to think about what she thought would be more enjoyable.

She led us over to the other side of the summit. It looked almost the same as the other side with one difference. There were two tubes of ice that looked remarkably like slides that ran down the side of the mountain. "Are these what you were telling me about?" Red asked the elf.

"Exactly the same. You'll go pretty fast in those pelts but I've got something that's better."

"Does it involve the pixie dust?" Red asked.

"Wait and see," she said with a wink. She jumped into one of the tubes, asked us what we were waiting for and zipped away down the slide. Red and I looked at each other, grinned, and followed. The slides angled back and forth and dipped and dropped. My stomach ended up in my throat a couple of times and there were a few instances when I had no idea which direction was up or forward. It was fast, but not too fast and both of us reached the end of the slide which dumped us at the foot of a huge snowbank.

"That was awesome," Red crowed as I yelled about how fantastic the whole thing had been. The elf nodded agreement.

"If you think that was good, wait until you see what's next." See reached into the snowbank and pulled out a handful of snow to eat.

"Stop!" Red yelled. "It's yellow snow."

The elf rolled her eyes at him. "No kidding. If you have something against lemon, there's grape, orange or lime," she said pointing to a patch of purple, orange and green snow. Red started to say something, paused, and then grabbed some green snow and ate it. Since there was no bluish-purple snow, I declined. "Now that we've gotten that out of the way, it's time to call some friends." She fiddled with the kryer and then played a tune that sounded slightly Celtic. It went on for awhile and when she stopped the stillness was overwhelming. That lasted for all of five seconds and was broken by a series of loud 'orping' sounds. Two seals appeared at the top of the snowbank and slid down to where we were. They were huge, enthusiastic, and looked to be very friendly. They spent several minutes 'orping' at us. The elf nodded and told us they were happy to see us and ready to play. "I'll need the pixie dust now."

Red handed her one of the containers and she spread it on the two seals. "Okay now, quick. Get on and hold on for dear life."

Red and I climbed onto the seals. It was sort of a squishy feeling and there was a strong but not unpleasant smell of the sea. The pixie dust slowly took effect and the seals sluggishly left the ground with a lot of orp-ing. The elf, who was floating alongside us after sprinkling some of the dust on herself, assured us this particular orp-ing was expressing great happiness at floating through the air because, "they don't get to float in the air very often and it's not like floating through the water at all."

The floating was a bit tentative at times as we slowly rose above the slope we'd just slid down until we came to the summit and gently bumped to the ground. The orps increased in intensity for a moment and then died down as if expectantly waiting for something. If I orped, I'd have done the same thing because I wondered what was next too. I didn't have too long to wait until the elf once again grabbed the kryer and played a few notes on it. These were tweaking notes. The type of notes you heard and wanted to laugh because you'd heard them. The seals gave loud, softer orps which sounded like whoops as they started towards the slides. It took a little effort, but with Red and I doing a little pushing both seals ended up at the top of the slides.

"Your turn," the elf said. "Wait 'til you see how fast you fly this time." I watched as Red quickly got on a seal's back and lay down so his head ended up right at where the seal's shoulder would be if seals had shoulders. Which they might and I just didn't know about.

"How often have you done this?" I asked Red whose familiarity with this whole thing seemed highly suspicious.

"Just a couple of times," he told me matter-of-factly as I lay on the seal's back. There wasn't really anything to hang onto so I just sort of hugged my arms against the seal's sides. The seal orped a question to which the elf said everything was fine. Then she called out, "Ready, set, go!"

I have no idea how two large seals suddenly go from zero to super-fast down a slide, but these two suddenly managed it. Sky and slide switched places dozens of time and I'm pretty sure I didn't breathe the entire way down even though I was pretty sure I was screaming at the top of my lungs. Screams of excitement for a change and not terror. I'm pretty sure I heard Red giving the same type of scream and my seal, at least, was whooping like there was no tomorrow. Compared to the ride down the ramp, the leopard trip was slow and my face went numb a lot faster than it had earlier. We got to the bottom of the slide. slid sideways across the area between the slide and the snowbank, and landed in the snowbank with a solid thunk. Suddenly I could taste lemon.

I dug my way out of the snowbank causing snow to fly all over. Red emerged from the snowbank a second later, his face as red as his pelt and laughing as hard as I was. The two seals popped out like corks as they orped enthusiastically at each other.

"Okay boyos, it looks as though we've got enough pixie dust for one more run. It looks like we used more than I thought we would. Someone's gotten a lot heavier."

"Hey, I didn't know that I'd be doing any flying and anyway it's not real often you find strawblueberries."

"Actually, Cubbs, I was talking about Belton," the elf said pointing towards the tubbier seal.

"Yeah, I knew that," I said, blushing as Red tried to choke by laughing so hard he couldn't catch his breath. I was pretty sure the barking that Belton was doing was tinged with laughter too even if he hadn't been able to understand what was going on. I do have to admit that the elf managed to keep a straight face during the whole thing.

"Now that that's been settled, there's only enough pixie dust for one more run. You guys up for it?"

"What about you?" I asked. "Don't you want a turn?"

"Not to worry, I get plenty of opportunity," she said as she poured most of the remaining pixie dust on the seals and the remainder on herself. Once again we floated up the side of the mountain and got the seals back on the slides. "Hang on tightly this time…"

"I was hanging on tightly last time," Red pointed out.

"Then hang on even more tightly," the elf said. "You'll be going even faster this time."

"That's not possible. I was going so fast last time that I almost fell off," I said.

"Then perhaps we'd better put you on Belton this time, Cubbs. He'll take care of you and this time it's a race. First one to the snowfield wins." This time I was really excited. Red and I had competed in dozens of races and he always managed to win. Not that the reason was real hard to figure out. I wasn't exactly a speed demon when it came to almost anything and I hadn't yet convinced Red to see who could fall out of a tree the fastest. Yet now I actually had a chance to beat Red at something. "Works for me," I said with a grin as I positioned myself on Belton's broad back. "Oh, wait a second. What's the other seal's name?"

The elf nodded. "Very good. His name is Glrolton."

"So he's related to Belton?"

"Yup, they're twins. Now are you ready?" Both Red and I nodded. The elf nodded, retrieved the kryer from her back and played what sounded like some sort of reel. There were a lot of notes, some of which sounded sort of sad, like good-bye and a few that brought up memories of things I had almost forgotten. Good things, though. When she finished she looked at both of us. "Still reading that book I gave you Cubbs?"

"Yeah, some of the stories I just gotta read over and over again."

"Thus they should be. How about your book, Red?"

"Always," he said. "Those'll be stories I'll remember even during the next adventure."

"Take care the next adventure begins not too early. I'll start you off and bid you good-bye until next time. It may seem like that takes long, but it won't be." With that cryptic comment she shouted, "Ready, set, go!"

"Wait. How are we going to get back?" I tried to ask, but it was too late. It was as though someone had shot Belton from a cannon and before I knew it I was sliding backwards off his back as quickly as he was flying forward down the slide. I managed to grab Belton's tail flipper and was flying down the slide right behind him. I blinked the snow out of my eyes and turned to look at Red. He looked at me in amazement, his mouth an 'O' of surprise. The really good thing was that he was even with me which meant Belton was in front of Glrolton. Before we got to the end, Belton went from sliding on his stomach to sliding on his back which meant I was too. The view was more interesting and another quick check showed we were still ahead of Red and Glrolton.

Before I could gloat too much, there was what sounded like a muffled explosion. We had reached the end of the slide, slid across the snowfield, and smashed into the snowbank causing an explosion of snow. I looked up to see snow flying everywhere. It only took a moment to punch through the snowbank and then I was weightless. I looked down to discover that the other side of the snowbank led to a ridge or cliff over a huge body of water. A body of water that all four of us were falling towards. The seals orped, I urped, and Red let loose with a crow of delight that came close to rival Peter's crowing. I took a huge breath and held it right before we plunged into the icy water.

The icy water was warm and as I broke the surface of the water and I found myself looking at a very familiar lagoon and sandy beach. Next to me Red's head suddenly shot out of the water. "That was awesome," he said. "I've never had this happen before. I didn't even know she could do that. It was amazing. I can hardly wait 'til we do it again. I can't believe it." He laughed and splashed me. "See? Wasn't that great Cub?"

"Totally," I admitted. "Especially when you figure that I beat you on the final run."

"What? No way, Furball. You just thought you did. How could you tell anyway? You were busy sliding on your rump. There's no way you won."

I didn't say anything, but just grinned at him. The fact he was so busy claiming to have won let me know that he knew as well as I did that I'd won the last race. Before I could say anything, there were a pair of splashes next to us. Two sea lions, about the same size as me, raised their heads and nodded at us as though giving us a hello, then turned tail and dove towards the direction of where the lagoon met the sea.

"Did you see that?" Red asked. "They sure weren't Belton and Glrolton."

"I know. And did you see their eyes? They weren't the same colour."

"Aw, you're imagining things. You must have drunk too much seawater."

I followed Red from the water onto the beach and looked back to the lagoon entrance. I couldn't see anything except the breaking of the waves, but I wondered if those sea lions might have been twins as well.