"Come on Pablo!" called Uniqua from the front seat of the car.
"Just a second!" yelled Pablo. He quickly put the cheese in the boot of the car. Then he took off his apron and cheese hat and placed it on top of the cheese, closing the boot.
Austin watched from the driver's seat. "Why did you take your apron off?" he asked.
"Um, well, I don't want anyone to know that I own the cheese shop."
"Why not?" asked Uniqua.
"Well, since no one in Paris has been able to buy any cheese, it's become much more rare and people aren't allowed to take cheese out of the border of France. Luckily, things will slowly get back to normal. But for now, I don't want to get any unwanted attention."
"You can't take any cheese out of the border of France!?!" asked Austin, "Then how are we going to get this cheese to Tyrone and Tasha? By smuggling it?"
"Exactly." said Uniqua, grinning.
It was risky. It was dangerous. It could go horribly, horribly wrong. But desperate times called for desperate measures.
They started the car and drove off. After a few minutes, Uniqua, Austin, and Pablo could just see the boarder of France.
"We're almost there!" said Uniqua, "We made it without being caught!"
As if on cue, the sound of police sirens was suddenly heard. They all looked behind them and saw a police car following them.
"Uh-oh." the three of them thought out loud. Austin stopped the car.
The police car also stopped and an officer walked up to them. His face was covered by his helmet, but his white fuzzy ears and furry paws showed that he was a polar bear.
"Do you know why I stopped you?" he asked.
Austin answered. "Uh... because you wanted to say 'hi'?"
"Yes, hi!" he waved, "But also to check to make sure that you aren't carrying cheese with you. Any cheese that you have needs to be confiscated before you leave France."
Another guard stepped out of the police car, and then a six-foot-five brown bear border gendarme (that's French for 'scary cop who held a police notepad in one hand and the Backyardigans' fate in the other). He began his interrogation.
"Where were you?" he asked in French.
Uniqua answered, also in French. "France."
"Why?"
"We were doing research for school."
"For only one day?"
"Yes. We have a report due tomorrow." It was a lie. They weren't evenin kindergarden yet.
"Empty your pockets!" screamed the gendarme, "All of you! Now!" The two guards stepped forward.
Uniqua and Austin knew the guards wouldn't find any evidence of cheese in their pockets. Only wait. Pablo! Austin turned to look at Pablo, who looked like he was about to have a panic attack. When Pablo reached into his back pocket, a fistful of cheese badges spilled out.
"The cheese shop!" said the gendarme, grinning with malevolence.
Austin spoke up. "Look, the cheese shop is selling cheese now, see for yourself."
"That may be true, but we are still supposed to check for cheese." said a guard.
The other guard literally picked up Pablo out of the car (the roof of the car was already down) and placed him (gently) on the sidewalk. Uniqua and Austin opened the car doors and walked out. Pablo -who by now was looking slightly pale and mildly traumatized- walked over to his friends and found something fascinating to stare at on the ground between his toes.
Uniquaand Austin, sweating, watched a brown and white spotted dinosaur (named Boy) nose through the car with the police. A pair of mechanics came and removed the doors and ripped them apart. Nothing. Then they put them back together, which was very nice, considering.
They opened the glove compartment. Two of Uniqua's books were in it, completely un-related to cheese. The gendarme looked astonished. He picked one up and started flipping through it.
Uniqua began to prattle, almost beg. "Je te disque je suis etudiant," she said, "I told you I studied. We don't have cheese. We - I - would never risk my life on something like cheese. Please. Everything's fine. There is nothing. Yes, we went to the cheese shop. We were able to look at cheese, but we brought nothing back."
They'd never spoken such fluent French in their lives.
The gendarme wasn't buying it.
Suddenly, the dinosaur sniffed the boot of the car and started barking. The gendarme walked up to him.
Uniqua looked nervously at Austin. Austin just looked down and shook his head, his ear drooping. Pablo covered his eyes. This was the end.
The gendarme opened the boot. One of the guards peered in. "Chapeau, c'est tout." "It's just a hat." he said. He thought the dinosaur had just smelled Pablo's cheese hat, and he didn't bother to look under Pablo's apron, which was covering the real cheese. They were saved.
"OU EST LE FROMAGE?!" the gendarme demanded, louder now, the frustration ringing in his voice. "Where is the cheese!?! I know you have it!" he yelled.
Austin just shrugged. He knew enough French to understand the question, but he pretended like he didn't. Uniqua and Pablo said nothing.
The gendarme stared back at the three of them with a mixture of annoyment and boredom. "...Au Revoir," he finally said, dismissing them with a wave of his hand.
Uniqua, Austin, and Pablo jumped into their car and drove away. In the car they were overjoyed. Giddy.
"That was close." said Uniqua.
A/N: This chapter was inspired by a story tittled "The Crossing", by Jason Sheftell, and a scene from a Backyardigans episode called 'Caveman's Best Friend'. And yes, I did 'cheat' the Backyardigan tradition of only having five talking characters by adding the three police officers. I decided to make one of them a polar bear because it is Nelvana Studio's (the studio that animates The Backyardigans) symbol.