Chapter 15: When Good Animals Go Bad
This was very strange. Misty had jumped into the Fuchsia Ocean and come out in a small pond in a forest clearing. "How did I get here?" she wondered.
She got out of the water and wandered around. Damien stepped out of his cave and saw her.
"What are you doing here?" they both asked at the same time.
"I live here!" said Damien.
"I jumped into the water and was transported here," Misty said.
"If you jump back in, you'll go back, so do it, fast," said Damien.
Misty went back through the porthole to her planet, Pokémon.
It had been a day since Damien had gone swimming. The porthole should have been closed. He shrugged it off and soon forgot about it.
The next day, Snowy was in a bad mood. She came in from hunting. "What's for breakfast, Snowy?" asked Damien.
"Do it yourself! What do I look like? Your slave?" Snowy shouted.
She must have had a bad night, though Damien. He got up and went to fix his own breakfast.
It turned out Snowy wasn't the only animal in a bad mood. When Damien got to the food storage, Ember said, "You can't get food."
"Why not?" asked Damien.
"Because I don't want you to." Ember breathed fire up into the air. Damien backed off. He went back to his cave.
Later, everyone was outside, doing something or other. Sarah and Cathy were talking.
"What's wrong with all the animals?" asked Sarah. "They all seem to be in a bad mood."
"I know. I tried to get something for breakfast, but Ember said I couldn't." said Cathy.
"Yeah. Something weird is going on here."
"You don't think it could be one of those new kids, do you?"
"I never thought of that. I don't think Ben would bring those kind of people into the forest. And besides, when there's evil around the animals usually run away, and the water freezes."
"What about Damien?"
"Hey! He's not as mean as you think."
Suddenly, the conversation was stopped. All the animals were glaring at the girls and growling. "Let's get out of here!" shouted Sarah. They both fled in separate directions; Cathy went to Lee's cabin, and Sarah went to her own cabin. Everyone else went to the nearest home. The animals split up and guarded each of the four homes.
"I knew something weird was going on here," said Sarah.
"I agree."
Sarah didn't know there was someone else in the cabin with her. "Of all the people I could be stuck with, it just had to be you! You know, Cathy was right about you! You're a lot meaner than I thought! Trying to scare me like that!"
"I wasn't trying to scare you. I though you were talking to me," said Damien. His stomach growled. He hadn't eaten all day. He noticed Cathy's pot had some stew in it. He and Sarah shared it.
In Sarah's cabin, Ryan was sleeping. Anakin was the only other person in the cabin. He was kicking the fire grate. Suddenly, he kicked it too far, knocking the fire over onto his foot.
"Ow!" Anakin yelled. He hopped up and down on his good foot.
Ryan woke up. "Stop yelling!" he shouted, but once he saw what Anakin was yelling at, he started to laugh. He laughed so hard, he fell out of bed.
Anakin stuck his burned foot into the emergency fire bucket. Still screaming, he sat down on Tim's bed.
In Lee's cabin, which was now finished, were Cathy, Tim, Jacen, and Turtle. Ember was guarding their door. There was a knock on the door.
Jacen went to answer it. The basket they used to collect their food (if it was too much to carry) was floating at the door. An enchantment had been placed on the basket. The basket was now "alive". It could move on its own. In it, were some biscuits.
"Wow! Thanks!" Jacen said. The basket dumped four biscuits on the table and floated back out of the cabin.
"Let's eat!" said Lee and Tim, who were always hungry.
"I don't know, you guys. There's something fishy about all this," said Cathy.
"You don't know what you're talking about, Cathy! This food's perfectly fine! Look!" said Tim.
Cathy looked at the biscuits on the table. "Well, I guess they're okay," she said.
Lee and Tim took a biscuit each and ate it. A few seconds later, they gasped as if they had eaten something really spicy.
"Hot, hot, hot!" shouted Lee. Cathy handed him a bottle of milk, which he drank quickly. Tim drank from a pitcher next to the fire.
Tim groaned. "I don't feel so good," he said. He sat down on Lee's chair. Lee lay down on his bed.
Meanwhile, the basket was at it again. With a new batch of biscuits smothered in hot sauce, it floated over to Sarah's cave.
Anakin was still whining about his foot. The basket flew in and dumped two biscuits on the table.
"Food!" Anakin cried, hopping over to the table and eating both biscuits the basket had left.
In an instant, his mouth was on fire. He looked around desperately for something to drink. He spotted the emergency fire bucket that he had stuck his foot in, and drank the bucket's entire content. He lay down in Tim's bed, head under the cover and feet sticking out.
"We better get out of here, unless we want to be fried!" said Jacen, in the other cabin. Ember was standing by the door, an evil look in his red eyes.
"We can't go out the door; find something that we could bust the back wall with!" said Cathy. They searched around the cabin for something. In the drawer under Lee's bed, there was a fairly sharp knife. Ember banged on the door with his tail.
"I found a knife!" shouted Cathy.
"Hurry up and use it!" Turtle said. Cathy jammed the knife into the back wall of the cabin. Since Lee had built it, it was not very strong. The knife went through fairly easily.
Cathy hacked at the wall until a large chunk fell out of it. It was just large enough for them to fit through. She left the knife on the floor and squeezed through. Turtle, Tim, and Jacen did the same.
"Now what?" Turtle asked. The house shook as Ember hit the door with his tail again.
"Let's go to my cave," suggested Jacen. "Our door is made of rock. The dragon can't burn it."
They counted to three and bolted out across the forest into Ben's cave. Ember burst through the door and saw the hole in the wall. He was mad. He got out of the house and set in on fire. He went on to Cathy's cabin and bashed the door with his tail.
"Uh, oh! He's coming after us!" said Sarah, who had been watching out the window in the cabin door.
There was a small crack in the back of the cabin used to get light and heat into the cabin, but it was not large enough to squeeze out of.
"What'll we do?" asked Sarah.
Ember pushed in the door. "I've got you now!" he said. He breathed fire straight at them.
They ducked just in time. Ember had burned a hole big enough for them to get through, but the house had not caught fire. They hurried out the hole in the wall and ran around to Ben's cave, the closest house not on fire.
Ember pushed his big head out the hole in the back wall and tried to get them as they ran around the corner. He finally gave up and went to Sarah's cave.
Anakin heard Ember knock on the door with his tail. "What was that?" he asked.
"I don't know, but it doesn't sound good!" said Ryan. He jumped up as Ember hit the wooden door again. "We bettew get out of hewe!" he shouted.
Ember knocked in the door with another bang of his tail. Ryan, being little, ran under his legs, confusing him, and ran to Ben's cabin. Anakin limped along slowly. Ember came up to him. Anakin bolted to the door, even though that hurt his burnt foot very badly.
Ember felt bad he had failed so many times. This is my last chance, he though. He decided to burn down the door, giving no time for anyone inside to escape. This did not work for two reasons. One, the door was made of rock, which can not catch on fire too easily. Two, the door was enforced with The Force. Ember gave up and stuck to guarding the door with all the other animals.
They were all in Ben's cabin now. Turtle, Tim, and Anakin were sick from eating so much hot sauce. The basket flew in and dumped some vegetables on the table.
"Don't eat them," said Tim. "That basket's evil. All the food we got from it was hot-sauced." He made a face.
"This doesn't smell the same as the stuff you ate," said Cathy. "It's fruity."
"Like Anni," Jacen said under his breath. No one heard him.
"I'm still not eating it!" said Tim.
Ryan's stomach growled. "I'll eat it!" he said.
Sarah took a small nibble of the vegetables. "Tastes fruity, too. I think it's safe to eat," she said.
The basket must have confused the hot sauce for the fruit punch. The bottles look the same," Cathy said.
So they ate the fruity vegetables. They didn't taste too good, but it was better than hot sauce. And it was better than nothing.