Chapter 13
At long last, my time on look out duty was over. It was time for me to wake up Philip. Since nothing exciting had happened whilst I was sentry, I had spent much of my time (apart from fantasizing about Sam, that is) dreaming up ways to prank Philip. And at last I had come up with one. It had occurred to me that the Andalite Eramas had spoken to us using thought-speak, whilst we were being chased by the Hork-Bajir. He had, quite a few times, yelled out orders and direction. But the Hork-Bajir never seemed to notice them, or know what we were about to do. So, I speculated, maybe thought-speak could be transmitted privately. Just to a couple of people, or maybe just an individual. Perhaps you could swing the other way and broadcast your thought-speak publicly, for all to hear. A plan had hatched in my mind. I crept closer to Philip, still in stag morph. It was easier to be quiet and to sneak up on people if you're a deer. I took a quick look at him to make sure he was still asleep, then, to Philip only, I yelled in my loudest thought-speak,
--STAND TO!--
Philip's eyes snapped open immediately. I repeated the warning order that soldiers in the army use if their platoon harbour has been attacked.
--STAND TO!-- I yelled again. --STAND TO! STAND TO! STAND TO!--
Philip was in true officer mode now. His hands groped about in the dirt wildly, as if he was looking for his rifle. He patted his head, and grunted to find no helmet resting upon it. Suddenly, he woke up properly and glared at me, realising what I'd done.
"Ferdinand, you prat," he muttered sleepily. Then, more angrily, "What did you have to go and to that for?"
I began to demorph. --Because it was funny!-- I giggled childishly. --You should have seen the look on your face when you woke up. Hilarious! You're on sentry duty, now, if you hadn't guessed.--
"Yeah, well, I didn't find it funny," he snapped. "And you'd better get out of that Bambi morph before I go wolf and take you down, without having to look at your sorry face," he retorted.
As Philip morphed wolf and went on look out duty, I tried to snuggle down to sleep. I watched as Philip did he first wolf morph of any of us, and hoped he was better at controlling it's instincts than I had with the stag. It was difficult to see in the low light, but I was sure Philip had acquired a rare black wolf. It had huge yellowy eyes and sleek blackish blue fur that glimmered in the moonlight. Pretty cool, I thought, before I at last drifted off to sleep.
"Ok, guys, time to get up!" Sam's voice chipped happily.
"Ohhh! Whaat? Already?" I moaned sleepily. It seemed like only seconds ago I was demorphing from stag. I had managed to sleep reasonably well, but I still felt exhausted.
"Come on, Ferd, it's got to be after eight. Still got a long way to go yet. And you can do your stag morph again…"
This woke me up. The stag would be wide awake and alert even if it had just run a marathon. I stood up and stretched, brushing dirt off my clothes. The sun was fully risen now, and the sky was gorgeous and cloudless in the late August weather. Rare for Wales - where it usually rains continuously.
"I've even taken the liberty of getting us something to eat," said Sam, dropping a big handful of berries down in front of us. "There's water from the stream, too, if you want it. We shouldn't get dehydrated."
Philip yawned and peered at the berries. "What, you just picked those randomly?" he asked incredulously. "Do you even know if they're poisonous!"
"They're…raspberries," said Sam.
Philip started picking out berries and throwing them over his shoulder. "Can't eat that," he muttered. "Not that…it's poisonous…that tastes disgusting…"
Eventually he presented each of us with a very small helping of berries. "There you go. You can eat these ones."
"Is that all?" I asked.
"Unless you want to go hunting and start a fire, yes. That's your lot."
I raised my eyebrows and started eating the berries. Most of them were really sour or bitter, but some were sweet. When he'd eaten our pitiful breakfast, we trudged over to the stream and started lapping up the water.
"We should carry on in ground morphs," said Sam, looking up at the sky. "Once or twice last night, I thought I saw a helicopter or something fly over."
"Where are we going?" I asked.
"Still making our way to Cardiff. I don't think we need to change plans any more than we have to. Philip, you guess we're somewhere in Wales-"
"Probably a while east of the Black mountains," he said.
"Which means we have to carry on South. We'll do most of it on foot, then, and once we get closer, we'll go raptor."
"Which way's south?" I asked. We were pretty much in the middle of nowhere and none of us had a compass.
"Well, the sun rises in the east, and it's morning," said Philip, rolling his eyes at me. "So that way is east," he said, facing into the sun. "If we get the sun on our left, then that way will be south."
"Great. Ok, then, everyone had enough to eat and drink?"
"No," I said.
"Good then. Philip and Maggie, you two want to go wolf? Me and Ferdie will morph stags again."
"Sure," said Maggie. "The wolf morph is cool. Great sense of smell, and it can run forever!"
"Excellent. Ok then, let's be off!"