I do not own Over the Hedge or any of its elements or characters. They belong to Dreamworks Animation and Michael Fry and T. Lewis. All I own are Abby, Tony, Slim Jim, Delilah, and anything or anyone else Dreamworks, Fry, and Lewis didn't think up for Over the Hedge.
Chapter 8
The sun, edging off the dark outlines of the pine and oak trees and following night's imminent departure, met a hazy atmosphere of tired silence, the quietude the result of the oddball group of animals just emerging from their slumber and dreams. Tonight had been an easy sleep, all conditions (and associated emotions) considered and the dawning light seemed to promise smooth sailing for today, the warm air flowing in breezes, rustling the dewy grasses while birds of various plumes and hues sung and tweet melodious tunes.
In fact, Tony, in a rare burst of Abby-like optimism (not to mention being a bird himself), chirped a merry tune, unable to contain this odd sense of joy inside him. He couldn't quite pinpoint from where this sense came from...and quite frankly he couldn't have cared less! He felt so giddy, so unreasonably ecstatic...
Hopping to and fro across the green, green grass and amongst the flowers in a display of joy, the Azure descendent rang out from his vocal cords, his baritone voice ringing smoothly off the tree trunks, "Oh...Hot diggedy dog! Hot diggedy cat! He got's ta eat this. Well he's gotta eat this! I've gotta eat this. Well he's gotta eat that!" (1)
"I'm sure those ain't quite the right words ta...well, whatever the hell the song you're singing is, pigeon," a familiar snarky voice an octave lower than Tony's commented from somewhere in the background.
Tony rolled his eyes in mock exasperation, too caught up in his euphoria to feel bothered by Vincent's sass today. The blue jay craned his head and caught the amused smirk of the bear, whose back was leaning back against a standing tree trunk, arms crossed so nonchalantly the manner itself could be almost infuriating.
"Oh, so now you're a lyrics writer now?"
Vincent merely shrugged his shoulders and pouted in a thoughtful manner. "No...but I'm sure I'd make a better comedian."
"Wow, a playful taunt in place of an insult—be still mah beatin' heart," Tony put a wing to his chest in exaggeration, "I must be dreaming."
To these words, the lumbering ursine scoffed, his characteristic attitude returning bit by little bit, "Yeah, well, don't get used to it. I'm in a good mood this morning, which is rare for me, so enjoy it while it's still lastin'."
Tony didn't respond for a while; instead he trained his teal eyes on Vincent out of his own peripherals. The bear was acting rather chipper today...a little too chipper to be considered normal, actually. The azure avian raised a wing to his non-existent chin then hummed to his self.
"This wouldn't have anything to do with that, uh...talk you had with Abby last night...would it?"
For the space of a nanosecond...Vincent lost all traces of his bravado. But it was long enough for Tony to catch an iota of weakness—fear, pain, desperation, the bird couldn't discern for sure—in the bear's golden eyes...only for years-old defenses to come back online in the form of not only a scowl but also a gruffly stated, "Would that have anythin' to do with your business?"
No reply came; Tony merely stood in his current location, sapphire eyes neither accusatory nor teasing. He only tilted his tiny head sideways in quietly wonderment and simply stated, "No...I'm just realizing Abby's finally having an effect on you."
'Effect on me...?' Vincent was certain he hadn't heard right. "So what...?"
To the bear's growing frustration, the avian shrugged his shoulders. Only answer: "So...what...?"
Resisting the urge to bite someone's head never proved more difficult for Vincent. "What difference does that make?"
"It never had to...but it did anyway." Tony craned his head to gain a better observation of his towering associate. "Thanks to that girl, something inside you's shifted."
Vincent pretended to sneer and joke the comment off. "What? Like an internal organ...?"
"Your eyes...," the Aristo avian commented mistily as he pointed a feather at Vincent. "There's a different light in them than before."
Then slowly, bit by bit, a bemused smile slipped over Tony's beak. Wider and wider it became until it looked almost zany. The bird shook his head the same way a knowing father would to a young son denying his own first crush.
"Did about the same thing to Jim and me, too—took a little longer in your case, of course...She don't look like much—and believe me, I should know—but I swear to God that girl is something special." No more words passed in the air as Tony peeled his gaze away from Vincent and towards the enamoring sunrise, his cerulean feathers tinted orange by the emblazoning light.
He never bothered to notice Vincent walking away, the bear's frowning muzzle the only hint to his struggling thoughts.
SPLISH! SPLASH! SPLISH! SPLASH!
Again and again and again—the results never changed. And that's what Vincent continuously puzzled over.
'I look the same as ever.' Seriously, same fur, same imposing height, same massive beer-gut, same muscles, same glower, some razor-sharp teeth...Okay, granted, he'd discovered a few gray hairs on the sides of his head...much to his sudden discomfiture...
Age: he was surprised at himself for never thinking about it before. He certainly wasn't getting younger, after all. Maybe he'd gotten so used to being a loner after the incident that the future had lost all meaning to him. All he had cared about for the last eight years was survival...well, that and...and...
Wait.
What else...?
Vincent paused in his face-washing and gazed at nothing but the distant wall of trees for a while.
In all honesty, the thought of the emptiness of his familiar lifestyle, for the first time in years, unnerved him. He was a loner. As such, he had had very little contact over the years, much less companions he could call friends.
To his cringing pride, Vincent suddenly realized that RJ used to be the closest the bear ever came to actually having a friend, let alone having someone to call a friend. Even though their relationship had been strictly mutual and based on death threats from the bear's end, the raccoon still proved to be a constant presence in the otherwise solitary ursine's life. Up until the whole fiasco with the winter supply, one could have gone so far as to even call the two animals buddies.
In a way, that had been true. As long as RJ had stuck to his part of the deal, Vincent tolerated him. In fact, the black bear could recall a few rare moments of when his behavior towards the raccoon was civil—tense and wary...but still civil.
'Yeah...'till that fool of a raccoon tried ta make off with my food!' That's right. He did. Vincent had every right to be mad at RJ for that offense! He had every right to scare that shrimp out of his fur! He had every right to—to...
'C'mon, Vincent, just say it!' One simple word: kill. Maim, murder, massacre. Any of those words would do. All he had to was say it— shout it—scream it! Let the whole damn world know what that raccoon had coming to him!
His throat refused.
The word, that oh-so-simple word, kept dying on his tongue. Like a beached jellyfish trapped on a sizzling beach...
SPLISH! SPLASH! SPLISH! SPLASH!
Again and again and again...only this time, Vincent knew the truth; he just didn't want to face it—not now. But even someone of his pigheadedness couldn't deny it, which was why he buried his face into his paws, groaning in complete and utter disbelief.
He had changed...for better or for worse.
And he knew just who to blame (or thank?) for this development.
Sharp, piercing whistles rained down in the forest as Slim Jim and Abby trotted down the path back to the campsite where they and their friends spent the previous night, Abby's arms chock-full of the hard-earned fruit of their morning search. Needless to say, today was off to a good start, after all.
"Whoooo doggy! Mornin' ya'll! This is the Abigail Express, all shipped, stocked, an' ready ta serve! Abby, sugah, show these here folks what we got!"
"You got it!" So Abby released her grip and allowed the bag of various fruits, nuts, and bugs to lie on the wooden top of the ancient yet surprisingly sturdy picnic table.
Tony fluttered up to and landed upon said top to goggle at the plethora of plenty standing (or, better yet, sagging) right before his widened eyes. Even the surly Vincent, who just returned from the lake not too far away, impressed by the sheer haul of food, couldn't help but gawk at the results the wizened old rat and overly saccharine bearess managed to attain in one morning.
Mind still in shock, Tony numbly asked, ever taking his eyes off the food, "Where exac'ly did ya'll get this stuff?"
Abby, ever the eager to explain something, pointed a paw down the way from whence she and Slim Jim emerged. "From over there—there's a bunch of edible berries just over that way. In fact, we passed them on the way over here yesterday." She set her hands akimbo then fixed a perplexed stare on Tony and Vincent. "You didn't notice?"
The slow, collective "uh" from both males answered that question quite easily. Abby waved off their confusion. 'Oh well, boys will be boys.'
Her rodent friend suddenly chortled, "Aw, shucks, you two boys stop bein' so gosh dang bashful now! This here grub's ain't gonna last all day, y'know!"
"Me—the illustrious Antonio Aristo Azure—bashful?" Tony rolled his eyes and snorted in boisterous confidence as he swung a wing downward in dismissive denial. "Oh, perish the thought!"
Vincent merely shook his head at the avian's show; the big lug just wanted to eat already, and, if this bird would rather be flapping his gums than his beak, than, hey, his loss then. In fact, Vincent already began reaching out for one of the apples in the bag—only to receive a painful whap on the wrist from Abby.
"YEOW!"
The larger bear instantly retracted his paw, shaking it in order to numb out the pain. He threw a dirty glower Abby's way...only to discover her sending him one back in full force! The returning look actually managed to make Vincent lose the edge of his anger, even though his paw still stung from the slap.
He had no idea the lady—or heck any lady for that matter—could ever match him glare for glare.
'First the massage, then the talk from last night...and now this—is this kid trying to meet a quota for how many times she can catch me off guard?' He wouldn't put that possibility past Abby, especially if her music selection, or at least what he'd been able to hear of it the night before, was any accurate indication.
Abby never lost her glare as she motherly rebuked, "Oh no, Mister Grubby Fingers! You forgot something!"
'Forgot what?' Vincent glanced at Tony, who caught his stare and shrugged in response, just as perplexed to the significance of the bearess's words. Slim Jim, on the other hand, appeared to understand Abby's words of admonish perfectly well for he was nodding in affirmation, his frown strongly matching that of the female ursine.
A few more seconds of bafflement passed before Abby sighed to herself in childlike exasperation and ceased her attempts of letting the two males figure out the "mystery" themselves. "We gotta say our graces first."
The reactions to this simple explanation varied.
Slim Jim, looking serious for once, nodded again, his eyes closed in solemn anticipation.
Tony silently gasped in realization, internally reprimanding himself for forgetting something so morally essential.
Vincent looked about ready to scream—and maybe claw his own eyes out in the meantime, too. "Graces...," he slowly uttered, shivering as if the word itself were a swear-word, "Woman, please tell me you're jokin'."
Once again, Abby pulled off the same glare from before, huffing a bit for added measure. Rather than be dumbstruck this time, Vincent chose to return the look back; he just wanted some stupid food for crying out loud! Was that too much to ask for?
Then to his imminent confusion, Abby dropped her look, replacing it with a firm stare of...pity?
With great boldness, she stepped up to Vincent, craning her neck up while doing so in order to look the taller male in the eyes, the greenery of her pupils full of questioning sadness. All males, Vincent included, were either too stunned or, in Jim's case, too impressed for words to comment or ponder on the girl's sudden shift in attitude.
Abby tilted her head, unbelieving of the lack of gratitude in her friend. "You know...life is a pretty easy thing to lose, Vincent. You'll have it one day and barely think about it at all; it's just that easy to take for granted; heck...I'm guilty of that myself...but what about tomorrow?"
Her voice dropped along with her line of sight but Tony, Jim, and Vincent still heard her just as well, especially the latter; the bearess placed a paw over her heart with something akin to regret and nostalgia. "What would you do with the time you have now if you never know if tomorrow may even come for you?"
Was she asking Vincent that...or was she also asking herself that? No one could say for sure.
All Vincent knew for certain was the fact that this young woman, so supposedly inexperienced with the ways of the forest, managed to shoot down his temper-induced argument with words that should have come out of the mouth of someone a thousand years older than all of them, even Jim.
Out of the blue, the abnormally quiet bearess regained some semblance of her usual self by plastering a half-hearted grin and clapping her paws together in hollow firmness. "Um...on second thought—let's just forget the graces for today. 'Kay?"
Vincent numbly nodded in response, the only action he could do, unable to shake off the light of...recollection in Abby's usually cheerful eyes.
'And I got a strong feeling the rat and the bird saw it, too.'
Me: Abby, are you alright?
Abby: (gently shrugs my hand off her shoulder): Yeah...I'll be okay. (Walks off)
Me (looking unsure): Um, right...anyway, I hope this chapter was decent for everyone. Don't forget to review!
1. Those lyrics came from the Catdog song "Cat Diggety Dog." Both the song and the show it originates from belong to Nickelodeon.
