CHAPTER 3

LOST AT SEA

The adults were still on sea as the storm finally blew over. Everyone hid in or under leaves and seaweed. It was pretty dangerous and violent at the same time. Once they all got up and shook off any access water or dirt on them, they all wandered around the place to see where they were. They knew the middle of the sea was not the greatest place to end up at.

Manny walked over to the edge of the float. "We're still sailing away from home." They all looked around, seeing that home was nowhere in sight.

Even under a gray cloud, Brooke knew how to make it bright. "Yeah, but we survived, and we still have each other."

"She's right," Cheril said, "We made it through storms, tidal waves and a vicious assortment of seafood." To prove that point, Cheril pulled a small tuna out of her hair and three it back in the water. "What more can they hit us with?" She ended up getting whacked in the head by a stick. "Ow! What the..."

"If I wanna get up, I'll get up," a voice in the tree hole said, "I don't get why I have to be woken up in the middle of the day."

Cheril peeked inside the hole. "Hello?" She ended up getting whacked in the head again. "Ow!"

"Dagnabbit, I'm trying to sleep!" yelled none other than Pappy, who had poked his head through the hole.

Brooke gasped. "Pappy! You're alive!"

"And may I say how thrilled we are to see you too," Cheril said.

"Hey, tub tubs, wanna get me out of here?" Pappy asked. Manny wrapped his trunk around the old sloth. He tried pulling him out, but his body weight was holding him inside the tree. "Come on. Pretend I'm a dessert. That's your motivation." Manny was finally able to pull Pappy out of the tree, but landed on top of Brooke. His cane smacked her in the face.

"Wait a second," Ellie said, "You slept through that storm?"

Pappy stood up, walking towards the edge of the float. "Eh, I slept through the comet that killed the unicorn." He fell into the water. Everyone screamed. "Thanks for drawing my bath, Brooke."

"Pappy, grab my paw!" Brooke called out, extending her paw out.

"No way! This is my first bath in decades." A bunch of fish rose up on the surface of the water. Plus a shark.

"There's your proof," Shira said.

"Somebody do something!" Brooke shouted, panicking. Ellie picked her up and threw the female sloth in the water. Brooke swam over and grabbed Pappy. "I've got you, Pappy."

"Get off me!" Pappy yelled, hitting Brooke upside the head with his walking stick. The female sloth finally placed her grandmother on the ice float. Pappy looked up at Shira and Ellie. "What are you two women looking at?" The two girls turned around. "A man like me who works harder than anyone can't take a bath in peace? Whatever happened to the sincerity that women used to give to men?" Pappy waddled off.

"What's a life expectancy for a male sloth?" Shira asked.

"He'll outlive us all, you know that, right?" Ellie told her.

"Probably."

"Yeah, the spiteful ones usually live the longest."

Everyone decided to get settled on the boat. They knew they were in for a long boat trip.

Meanwhile, Scrat and Scratte were sailing the seas, trying to find land so they could bury their nut. They were finally able to find it in the sea sailing on a tiny ice float with a leaf sail. Scratte somehow ended up placing the nut in the ice float that she and Scrat were on and it fell into the water, which also broke the float in half and tried to pull the saber-tooth squirrels away from each other. They dove into the water to find the acorn, but they were also losing air from holding their breaths for too long. They spotted the nut on the ground, but when Scrat pulled it out, it was hollow and broken in half. Scratte saw something on the other side and turned it around so she and Scrat could both see it. They both widened their eyes when they saw it was a map that would lead them to a world full of acorns. They gasped, but when they did, both their air bubbles tried to escape. They caught them and sucked the air back in. They looked at the map and started taking the first steps.

As luck would have it, they both stepped on a wooden anchor, rising them up and made them take along sea plants, shells, and even a crab. They were both hauled up on an iceberg, where Scrat held a piece of coral that was shaped as a trident and was wearing a blue fish tail while Scratte looked like a pink mermaid. Not only were they on an iceberg, but it was also a ship and in the background you could hear the sound of a bell.

Back out with the mammals and Cheril, everyone was becoming dehydrated from the lack of water and all were starving and tired.

Ellie started getting furious and agitated. "HOW BIG IS THIS OCEAN?!" At that point, she had no idea what else to do.

Brooke couldn't take the lack of water, either. "Water. I need water. It's everyone. I must find some." She slid to the edge of the boat and looked to see that water was everywhere. "Oh, there's a drop." Without a care in the world, she drank it. "Oh, that's a little..." Her face became dry..."salty."

"Pudgy?" Pappy called out, "Daddy's calling for you. Pudgy!" Ellie saw that Pappy was making his way towards the edge of the boat so she turned him around. He made his way over to a tired and hungry Cheril. He used his cane to turn her head. "Hey, ugly looking hair man, have you seen Pudgy?"

"If you mean the imaginary, or perhaps deceased, pet that you keep searching for, no, I haven't," Cheril said, rolling her eyes.

Ellie looked up in the sky to see a seagull flying above. "Guys, look up there. When there's birds, there's land, right?"

"Hey, buddy, come here!" Shira shouted.

The bird flew off, making Cheril groan. "Great, now he's gone. We're never gonna get off this stupid ice boat."

"Never say never, Cheril," Brooke said.

The bird flew back in on the ship, looking at a large figure in front of him. "It's even better than I imagined. They're all on the ship. Two sloths, a smelly one and a pretty one, two plumped mammoths, and two felines. But that's not all. They have a human female with them."

"In my ocean?" the figure said, "What a terrible turn of events. I love terrible turn of events." The figure smiled, showing his disgusting yellow teeth.

A fog came through, but it was thick enough to see that a giant ice ship was coming towards them. Cheril could see it coming. "Am I hallucinating, or is that ice coming straight towards us?"

"Yeah, I can see it," Ellie said.

"It's coming," Shira said.

"Hooray!" Brooke cheered with excitement, "We're being rescued! We're being rescued!"

Diego's sensitive ears picked up noises from the ice. "I hear laughter."

"Oh, it must be a party cruise."

Bone anchors attached to the flat ice boat, showing the large ice ship that was floating upon the sea. Coming up were different types of mammals. An elephant seal, who was jumping up and down with joy, a purple kangaroo, who had a look of wanting to fight anyone around her, a crazy rabbit who was just crazy about slicing and dicing, and various other animals that included a warthog, a badger, a seagull, but most of all, it had two sloths. One sloth was an old female sloth with purple fur and carried a cane. The younger male sloth got Brooke's attention.

He was a tall yellow sloth, who was pretty chunky and from far away you could smell the fumes coming from him, proving that he hasn't had a bath in so long. That didn't matter to Brooke, though. She gave him a look that expressed love at first sight. Ellie and Shira caught on and started snickering.

The crazy rabbit started swinging his tiny sword around. "Get ready to slice and dice, boys!"

"Not it off, Squint," the young sloth said. He had the older sloth next to him knock the rabbit name Squint in the head. "Wait for the captain's orders."

"Where is that dumb monkey, anyway?" the old sloth asked.

"Granny, behave."

The older sloth name Granny smacked the young sloth in the head. "Respect your elders, Sidney!"

"Ahoy, down there!" a voice called out. The herd looked to see an ape swing on a vine at the top of the ship. "You know, these waters are infested with pirates. Good thing we were able to bump into you before they did." He sat on a vine swing. "Captain Hurt, here to help."

Shira gasped, hiding behind Manny and Ellie. Pappy smiled. "You know, that's a nice monkey."

"He's not that nice," Shira whispered to herself.

"Listen, we don't want any trouble," Manny said, "We just want to get back to the continent."

"The continent?" Gutt said, "That pile of rubble?" Everyone started laughing with him.

"Our children are there all on their own, so if you could just-" Ellie said, but was cut off by Gutt.

"Your children? How touching! Well, I hope you said your goodbyes, cause there's no way back."

"Yes, there is," said the jolly elephant seal, "Don't you remember, Captain? You can sail to Switchback Cove and catch the current back from there. It's like a steel trap, this noggin is."

"Thank you, Mr. Flynn!" Gutt said, stomping on the elephant seal name Flynn's tail. He cringed in pain.

"I knew it!" Diego exclaimed, "There's always a way to get back home."

"There is no way home!" Gutt stomped on the ship, walking up to the edge. "There's only here, and here, your ship belongs to me." He turned to look at his crew. "Battle stations!" The crew started preparing for a battle against the herd. "Fly the colors!" The pirate badger made his way to the top of the wooden pole and started waving like a flag. Gutt looked at the herd. "Now surrender your ship or face my fury."

"Or face your furry what?" Brooke asked.

"Not furry. Fury! Fire!" The pirates started shooting ice balls at the herd. Gutt looked towards the purple kangaroo. "Fire the starboard cannons, Raz!"

"I love...this...job!" the purple kangaroo name Raz said, using her feet to push the ice balls inside the cannons.

Gutt looked over at Sid. "Sid, use your smell power on the sloth. And take Granny with you. She'll be plenty help as well."

"Aye, aye, Captain!" Sid said. He looked to see that Brooke was trying to unhook the float from Gutt's, but Sid stopped her. "Well, look at you. You almost made it."

"I'll go ahead and warn you that I'm not violent, but I will use tae kwon do if necessary," Brooke said, getting into battle mode.

"Oh, I don't fight girls." Sid placed Brooke in her arms. "I dance with them."

"Then let's dance!" Brooke smiled happily, knowing that her charms were leading up to them being together.

"With pleasure." Sid's plan was to pretend to dance with Brooke only for Granny to knock the female sloth in the head with her came.

"Too bad," Granny said, "You and my grandson would be perfect together."

Gutt was looking through his spyglass to see someone that he thought he would never see again. Shira was trying to find a place to hide, but he got the cannon ready. "Lights out, tigey-wigey." He blew the giant ice ball out of the cannon.

The ice ball headed right in Shira's direction, but Ellie saw what was about to happen and pushed Shira out of the way. "Shira, watch out!" The female tiger slid to the other side as Ellie got hit in the forehead, seeing her vision become blurry and falling to the ground. The last thing she head was Manny and the others calling out her name as everything went dark.

LOOKS LIKE THE HERD HAS MET GUTT AND ELLIE'S BEEN KNOCKED OUT. YES, I HAVE ADDED IN SID AND GRANNY. THEY ARE FINALLY HERE. AWESOME! WELL, IT LOOKS LIKE NEXT CHAPTER'S GONNA BE OFF THE HOOK.

WELL, THAT'S ALL FOR NOW.

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