So sorry I haven't posted for a long time! I've just been busy with other stuff!
Anyway, on to Chapter 7! Enjoy!
He was in the room again. The same circular white room with the huge window at one end that opened out onto the stars. And he was standing before the same three men: the blonde-haired Captain Kirk, the pointy-eared Spock, and the grouchy-faced Dr McCoy.
"She's a good ship, Sid," smiled Kirk. "Take care of her, and she'll always bring you back home."
"I will," he answered.
Then he was sitting in the chair at the centre of the room, as his ship powered out towards the stars.
"Heading, sir?" asked one of the humans at the forward console.
"Any way you want, Lieutenant." He leaned forward, gripping the armrests in anticipation.
"Aye, sir."
Then the stars out of the window in front of him blurred into a whirling tornado of light, and he plunged into it…
March 22 17,732BC Anakoha Bay, New Zealand
…and then he found himself staring up at the blue midday sky.
Sid the sloth was not racing out through the stars in an incredible, futuristic ship. He was back in the herd's clearing in their peaceful, quiet home.
He was still trapped in reality.
Sid sighed, sitting up on his bed of rock. He'd had that dream again. The one with the same three humans inside the same round room, flying out into the starry realms of space.
He'd been having it for the past week.
Every time he closed his eyes, whether it be for a midmorning nap or a full forty winks at night, he would be back inside the extraordinary ship with Kirk, Spock, and Doctor McCoy.
If he'd had it only once, he could have passed it off as a strange but normal dream, like Shira had said. But now, he couldn't pass it off as ordinary. It was too special to be just another old dream.
No chance telling Shira about it now, though. In these final days of her pregnancy, she was becoming increasingly tired. She only ever travelled within a few kilometres of her den (although whether this was due to fatigue or Diego's concern for her and the cub's safety was still not clear) and her mood could change from cheerful to raging in a matter of seconds.
And there were still plenty of reasons for the repetition of his strange dream.
'I just really, really want it to mean something…'
THWACK!
Just then, something came flying through the trees and crashed straight into Sid's head, sending him sprawling off his rock and onto the ground.
Through blurred vision, the sloth saw a small, striped animal slumped on the ground next to him. It was Crash…or was it Eddie? He couldn't tell which one of the possum twins it was. Not only was his vision fuzzy, but his head was spinning so badly he couldn't even think straight.
"Eddie? Eddie? Eddie!" a voice cried as another possum burst through the forest and rushed straight for its counterpart lying on the ground.
'Right…so the one on the ground is Eddie,' Sid managed to think through his dizziness.
"Eddie!" Crash helped his dazed brother to his paws. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah, don't mind me," Sid muttered loudly.
Eddie groaned loudly, stumbling slightly as he stood up. "Uggh…remind me not to do that again. That was really nasty…"
"Boys?"
The possums squeaked in alarm as a large tan-and-golden furred woolly mammoth burst through the bushes and towered over them. "What have you been up to this time?"
It was Ellie.
Crash and Eddie giggled weakly as they looked up at their adopted sister. "Hee hee hee…nothing?"
"I don't think I'd call that 'nothing'," boomed another, deeper voice as Manny entered the clearing. "We could hear you screaming and crashing through the trees a mile away! You probably woke up everybody in the whole neighbourhood!"
"I'll say," Sid, still lying on the ground, added.
Ellie gasped as she noticed the injured sloth and rushed over to help him up. "Sid, did he crash into you?"
"Got it in one."
"Are you alright?"
Sid shrugged jokingly. "Ehhh, I'll live."
Ellie rounded back on Crash and Eddie. "Have you two said sorry?"
The possums shifted guiltily from paw to paw. "No."
Then they turned awkwardly to Sid. "Sorry, Sid," they mumbled in unison.
"Awww, it's okay, guys," Sid smiled, letting Crash and Eddie know that everything was forgiven. "Just try not to land on me next time."
"No kidding," Eddie replied, rubbing his still-aching head. "I think I'll leave the stunts to you next time, Crash."
Manny cleared his throat loudly.
The possums looked up anxiously.
"If you're going to do any more stunts like that," the mammoth said, "I think you should do it somewhere away from the forest. Just so you don't wake everybody up again."
"You know, boys," Ellie put in, "there's a clearing at the edge of the west ridge. It's got a dead tree that could be used as a catapult, and there's lots of soft grass to cushion your landing. I heard Peaches talking about it the other day. She was pretty surprised that you hadn't found it yet."
"You mean there's a great stunt area that we didn't even know about?" Eddie gasped.
"Then what are we waiting for, bro?" Crash cried. "Let's go check it out!"
"Yeah! Awesome!" the other possum whooped, instantly forgetting about the pain in his head as he raced off with his brother into the bushes.
Ellie shook her head in bemusement. "Those two. You wouldn't think they've ever grown up."
"Did they ever grow up?" Manny pointed out.
"Sometimes I wonder." The mammoth smiled as she started her way out of the clearing. "Come on, Manny. Let's go find some lunch."
But just as Manny began to follow his mate out of the clearing, he heard a sad sigh from behind them. Glancing around, he saw Sid sitting, shoulders slumped, on his sleeping rock. He looked completely and utterly miserable and dejected.
'This is not like Sid,' the bull mammoth thought. 'He's been like this for a week now. Something's up with him.'
"Hold on a minute, Ellie," he said slowly, turning around and walking back towards his sloth friend.
To be honest, he was a bit nervous about talking to Sid. The last time he had tried to find out what was wrong with a friend, he'd taken offence and driven that friend out of the herd. Sure, he'd patched things up afterwards, but he didn't want to go through that again.
Manny sat down beside Sid. "You alright, buddy?"
The sloth looked slowly up at his friend. "Have you ever had a dream that keeps on happening every night? One that you can never get out of your head, no matter what?"
Manny nodded sympathetically. "I once kept on having a nightmare about Ellie dying, but…"
"It's not a nightmare," Sid interrupted. "It's a great dream. One of the best I've ever had." He smiled slightly. "Well, apart from the ones about the pretty lady sloths."
"Then what's wrong?" the mammoth asked, trying hard not to think about Sid's other fantasies.
"It's always so…real. And I feel that it's got to mean something important." The sloth sighed. "But it can't. It's probably never going to happen."
"I can't tell you if it's too crazy to be real or not if you don't tell me," Manny pointed out with a smile.
Sid nodded. "I'm always inside this big circular room. There are lots of humans in red, yellow, and blue uniforms sitting at desks. But there are three humans who just seem to be the most important. I can still remember their names; Doctor McCoy, Spock, and Captain Jim Kirk. And we're always flying through the stars in a big starship and heading out on a big adventure."
He paused, looking up anxiously at his friend. "I know. It's crazy, isn't it?"
Honestly, Manny didn't know what to think about Sid's dream. Part of him wanted to burst out laughing at the ridiculousness of the fantasy. Another part of him found the dream so absurd he couldn't even believe it. And another part of him wanted to soar through the stars in that spaceship.
He had dozens of responses he could give to Sid, each one reflecting his many viewpoints on the sloth's fantasy.
But, in the end, he could only give one.
Sid was Manny's friend. And he needed someone to understand him and gently correct him.
"Sounds to me like you're thinking of another adventure," the mammoth smiled. "But we've finally arrived at a nice new home. Wouldn't you say it's time to settle down?"
"Yeah, I guess."
"And we're always going to have lots of adventure at home." Manny winked down at Sid. "Y'know, I think there's some nice big kiwifruit up near the waterfall. Ripe for picking."
Sid instantly perked up. "Kiwifruit?! Oh, yummo! I haven't had one in such a long time!" Leaping off his seat, he raced up the path that led up to the waterfall surprisingly fast for a sloth. With a shout of "Thanks for the tip!" he was gone.
Smiling, Manny walked back to his mate. "That was easier than I expected."
"Apparently guys do talk about guy problems," Ellie replied with a smirk.
"Only once in a while." The bull mammoth shook his head with a bemused sigh. "Did you hear what he said? Talking humans in huge 'starships?' If I didn't know him better, I'd say he's gone mad."
"Well, he has thought up of crazier things before," his mate answered. "Like trying to raise three baby dinosaurs all on his own."
"Let's hope he doesn't get this idea stuck in his head too," Manny nodded. "Now, what about some lunch?"
"Good idea," Ellie smiled, and the two mammoths started down the forest path again.
However, as they vanished into the lush green bush, neither of them saw a bright flash momentarily light up the blue sky, outshining for a second even the brilliance of the sun.
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