8/25/12 –
I'm back. This chapter is going to be the first night, because everyone who gave their opinion on the matter requested it. Great, now they all have to survive camp in the dark. Ha ha.
Disclaimer: I do not own Arte . . . ah, you get the point.
Thank you to:
WolfButler
The Authoress
Harry Artemis Jackson
Rynn Wolfe
HollyArty fovea
Serena
BLURPENSKIRF boom
captain-ah-mazing
Captain Juliet
TurquoisePeach
fuzzypurpleangel
WordWings
nintendgal101
Silver Tiger 123
BRILL WILL
TrinityFlower of Memories
ThelastAncient
Sunfall
FlowerofNaraku
Clovers13
2 Guests
For the reviews. And also to:
SirGambit – for making this a Favorite Story.
HollyArty fovea – for putting this on Story Alert.
captain-ah-mazing – for putting this on Story Alert AND making this a Favorite Story.
donthaveacareintheworld – for making this a Favorite Story.
WordWings – for making this a Favorite Story.
hartemis 10 – for making me a Favorite Author.
DaemonicBlackCat – for putting this on Story Alert.
Rose Starre – for making this a Favorite Story.
TrinityFlower of Memories – for putting this on Story Alert.
Flare1412 – for putting this on Story Alert.
Hitthefloorrunning – for putting this on Story Alert AND making this a Favorite Story AND putting me on Author Alert.
MySecret XxX2 – for putting this on Story Alert.
Clovers13 – for putting this on Story Alert AND making this a Favorite Story AND putting me on Author Alert.
juniperfalcon17 – for putting this on Story Alert.
BRILL WILL – for making me a Favorite Author.
W-O-W, that was a lot of typing. But that's a really good thing ;-)
Alrighty, then, here comes night time!
11:30 pm . . .
Everyone was sitting around a campfire after discussing their evenings in great detail and mild embarrassment. Well, the majority at least. Some of it was censored for the sake of self-dignity and not getting in trouble.
After the day they had all had, no one really had the energy to get something to eat. Apart from Mulch, of course, who was stuffing marshmallows down his throat by the bagful. They were uncooked though, since dwarves do not have an overwhelming joy of being in the presence of fire.
Approximately twenty minutes later, Mulch had run out of marshmallows and when no one would get up to retrieve more, he went to bed. He was followed shortly by No1 and Foaly. Then Angeline and Artemis Sr. tucked the twins in and retired to their tent with Orion. Shortly after the Butlers extinguished the fire while everyone else dragged themselves to their sleeping bags.
Upon entering his tent, Artemis sighed. Myles and Beckett had opted to fall asleep in the dead center of tent, leaving a small space for him and not even close to enough room for Butler. Artemis scooped up Beckett in his arms, and relocated him and his pillow and sleeping bag to the far right corner of the tent. Artemis repeated the process with Myles. Thankfully, once moved, the twins curled up into little balls, leaving Artemis almost enough room to stretch out his legs from his spot across from them. Butler, who entered seconds later, was able to spread out in the front half of the tent, with his head touching one end and his feet brushing the other. Within the hour, everyone on the campsite had fallen asleep.
3:45 am . . .
"Artemis."
Artemis Fowl the Second gave a small moan and rolled over in his sleep.
"Artemis!"
Artemis rolled back over and opened his eyes to see the fuzzy image of Beckett Fowl standing over him.
"What is it?" yawned Artemis.
"I need to go to the bathroom," whispered Beckett.
"Right now?"
"Yeah."
"Alright," said Artemis rubbing his bleary eyes. "Let's go."
Butler awoke when Beckett had whispered Artemis's name for the first time. He was already waiting outside by the time Artemis had hauled himself out his sleeping bag and gotten one of his shoes on.
"Myles is basically on top of the flashlight and I think we should give him a chance of a good night's rest, so we'll just borrow one from the girls instead," Butler announced when Beckett and Artemis had joined him outside.
Unfortunately, it was pitch black outside, and within nine steps Artemis had tripped on one of the cords that were holding up Holly and Juliet's tent. Butler caught him before he could fall flat on his face and he hadn't collided with the string hard enough to cause it to snap. He had, however, caused the entire tent to shake, effectively dislodging a large flashlight from its position in the netting at the top of the tent and knocking it onto a sleeping Holly's shoulder.
"OW! What the . . . D'Arvit Mud Boy!" yelled the irritated elf, correctly assuming that Artemis's size and lack of coordination were the perfect pair to cause this kind of incident.
"Sorry," hissed Artemis from outside.
Holly unzipped the door of the tent, massaging her soon to be bruised shoulder. Juliet had woken up and appeared beside her brandishing the flashlight.
"I assume that you're looking for one of these," smirked Juliet, handing the light to her brother.
"Yeah, thanks," smiled Beckett.
Juliet and Holly stepped outside and walked to the clearing with them where they met Mulch halfway up the path, who had been walking over for a late night snack.
When they reached the clearing containing the food and the latrines, Juliet took the flashlight and walked over to the toilets with Beckett. The others were left in darkness. Even so, Holly was just able to make out a faint shape in the moonlight.
"Mulch?" she asked, turning her glare from Artemis to him for the first time since she had woken up. "Is that our food in a screen tent over there?"
"Yes," said Butler, now also making out the shape. "I seem to recall you being given specific instructions to tie it up in a tree."
Mulch gave a nervous half-laugh and took a step backwards.
"Yeah, well, you see, the thing about that is . . ." he began, but was cut off by a crashing sound near the tent.
Artemis pulled out his cell phone and lit up the screen, directing the small light at the tent. Because they were standing so far away from the tent, the only things that the light made visible were two round eyes that it reflected off of. There appeared to be a raccoon standing on a two-foot tall pile of food, but it was hard to tell considering the creatures eyes were the only things anyone could see with their pathetic light source.
Even the animal was probably standing on food, contributing to the height of the eyes, Butler and Holly couldn't help but think that the size of the eyes suggested that this must be a rather large raccoon.
"Hey, shoo!" called Mulch. "That's our food, get away!"
He continued shouting at it for another minute or so until Juliet and Beckett returned. Seeing the eyes, Juliet turned the full force of her flashlight on the animal.
This did not make it happy one bit, and the raccoon stood on its hind legs, which were actually on the ground, to reveal its full seven-foot height, and that it most certainly was not a raccoon.
"BEAR!" yelled Mulch, diving into the ground and tunneling away.
Butler grabbed Artemis and Juliet grabbed Beckett as they took off down path with Holly matching their stride. When they got back to campsite they saw the zipper of Mulch's tent close as a hairy head ducked inside. Butler and Juliet went back to the clearing to scare off the bear, leaving Artemis and Beckett with Holly. Artemis picked up Beckett and got him to fall asleep again, then returned outside to see Holly as Butler and Juliet returned.
"It spooked and ran off into the woods pretty soon after we went back," said Juliet.
"I wouldn't blame it," said Holly under her breath.
"The tent is destroyed though," said Butler.
"And a lot of food is gone now, Mulch," finished Juliet, aiming a kick at the tent in the spot where she remembered Mulch was sleeping. A yelp followed by "You didn't have to hit me that hard, Stinker!" confirmed that she had hit her target.
Butler sighed. "We'll have to buy more in the morning, for now, let's just try to take advantage of the few hours of darkness we have left."
And everyone went to their tents, thinking about how to explain the night's events to the others and ways to kill Mulch as they fell asleep.
Hope you enjoyed that! You can let me know in a review (hint, hint)!
Throughout all of this, I can't help but feeling like the Butlers need a couple years of paid vacation far away from fairies and Fowls. Oh, well.
The next chapter will be about the first day. See you then!
Sayonara, Sweethearts :-P
