Chapter 7: The Small Intestine

"Where am I now?" he asked.
The hawk didn't reply. He soon realized that, wherever he was, there was no longer a danger of acid. This new area seemed more peaceful than the stomachs. Since he really couldn't see anything anyway, there was little for him to do. He no longer had to rub a stomach, which was good as his arms were getting tired. He thus soon fell asleep.

He didn't sleep long, maybe half an hour to forty-five minutes at most. He soon encountered villi, which made him start to dream that he was being slapped by evil octopuses, who poked and yanked at him. He awoke with a start to find that, at least to some degree, it wasn't a dream after all. Sure, it was tiny villi, not octopuses, but it still was incredibly annoying. He surely wouldn't be getting any sleep now!
He was glad that he had shoes and clothes on, but, unfortunately, his face and arms weren't covered, so he was tickled there until he laughed so hard that he peed himself. "Just great!" he moaned. The tickling made him laugh until he was nearly hoarse. He was tempted to bite the villi, but knew that that wouldn't make Agnes happy, and she might change her mind about sparing his life. He pulled his shift up over his face and arms. This helped protect him from being tickled endlessly, but it also made him stuffier than he already was in the small intestine. And, unlike in the crop, proventriculus, or even the gizzard, it would be a long time indeed before water reached him now. And just when he needed it most too!

Agnes awoke an hour later, having had a nightmare that woke her up in the middle of the night. Peter could feel her stir. "Glad you're awake. Where the heck am I?" he asked.
"Small intestine I think."
"Small. Does that mean it's short?"
"Kind of. It's actually longer than the large intestine, just smaller, tighter."

"Yes, I can feel it all right. Bruises me a lot."
"I'm afraid you're just going to have to deal with it."
"I wonder how long it'll be till I get out of here."
"As I said, unfortunately, it won't be till tomorrow night. You'll reach the cloaca by morning but I'll be back in my cage by then."
"Can you stay out for one day?"
"I could, but then I wouldn't get food for the day unless I hunted it."

"Couldn't you go out a few hours after morning?"
"I could, but I'd still miss breakfast, and I've already missed one meal because of you."
"You don't want to make this easy for me, do you?"
"To be honest, you're lucky to get what you're getting. You're the one who broke into the garden and stole all that food. It's not like I came to your home and took you."
Peter couldn't argue with that. He had indeed landed himself in his worst mess ever.

Agnes went back to sleep. Peter tried to sleep as well, but the poking of the villi made his sleep very intermittent, waking him up constantly. He also began to itch in his underwear, not only from the poison ivy, but from peeing, once more, inside of it, not wanting to risk his penis being tickled by the villi if he moved it out of his pants to urinate properly.

The further in Agnes' digestive tract he descended, the less he could hear her breathing, the less he could hear her stomachs gurgle, and the less he could hear her heartbeat. What he did hear more of, though, was the gurgling of her intestines, the slurping of nutrients being sucked up by villi, and, worst of all, gas as it went past him toward its exit from the hawk's cloaca. Peter could also tell that the food was starting to stink worse, which made him realize he must be getting closer to the hawk's butt, that vent-like hole under her tail that she called a cloaca. He dreaded this part most of all, save the stomachs, where he feared digestion, in the hawk's body. He knew that, sooner or later, he'd be covered in bird feces and also, as the worst sort of humiliation, be squeezed out the hawk's tailhole at the end of the journey. He hoped it didn't hurt much at the end of the trip. Around 4AM, he rounded the last bend of the hawk's small intestine and moved through an opening into her large intestine.