RJ's screaming woke me up and I looked at him, panicked, "Whoa, dude. Calm down."
RJ looks shaken up as he looks himself over, "O-Okay…four p-paws…f-fur…still alive…still alive." He clutches his chest with both hands.
"Bad dream?" I ask, propping myself up on my elbows.
"You could say that." RJ says, chuckling nervously.
The sound of squeaking wheels and girls talking gets our attention. We both look over the hedge and see two girl scouts pulling along a red wagon full of cookies.
RJ immediately roots though his bag and pulls out some paper that had magazine clippings all over it.
"What's that?" I ask in confusion.
He looks over at Verne and the others as they are gathering bark and leaves and then jumps out of the tree to talk to them.
"Or just ignore my question and leave me in a tree…" I say with a roll of my eyes, carefully sliding down the branch and landing on the grass, cringing under the weight I put on my leg. I almost toppled over but managed my footing and walked over to the others.
"Okay…" Verne says, taking a bite of bark, "This is great. Granted it takes some time to chew…But that," He chews some more before swallowing, "that was very satisfying. And by the way, lots of fiber in there. Lots."
"I gotta admit." RJ says, walking over to Verne, "That does look tasty."
Verne spits out a mouthful of bark and stares at RJ in shock, "What are you doing here?"
"I'm here to help with your…foraging…thing." RJ says with a grin.
Verne just glares at him.
"Verne, look, you said a word yesterday. About your little gang here. Starts with an 'f'. Do you remember what it was?" RJ asks.
"Family?" Verne says as if RJ was stupid.
"Right, right, that!" RJ says, tapping his chest, "You know, that got me right here. You see, Verne, I used to have all that, my own place, surrounded by loved ones, a universal remote, but then all that went away with..." RJ trails off before giving Verne puppy dog eyes, "…the weed hacker incident…" RJ then bent over and began to sob into his hands.
I stare at him in shock, "What a load of sh-"
"Oh, come here!" Hammy cries, running over and hugging RJ around his middle. "Yeah, that feels good, doesn't it?"
RJ pats Hammy's back and stares over at Verne, bottom lip quivering.
"Oh brother." Verne says with a roll of his eyes.
"Jeepers, Verne." Penny says, walking over to him.
"We could always use the extra hand around here, you know." Lou adds.
"The weed hacker, Verne! The weed hacker!" Hammy says, staring at Verne in sympathy.
RJ sticks out his bottom lip and nods before he slowly pushes Hammy away, "Okay, not your problem. I'll just go…" RJ begins walking away towards the hedge. Hammy sends Verne a look of astonishment.
Verne rolls his eyes.
"This is me…going." RJ says, "It was nice getting to know you all…"
I look around to see everyone's sad faces, they can't possibly be buying this, can they?
"I'm sure I'll see you around the forest…" RJ says, sadly.
"Oh…" Hammy whimpers.
"Alright." Verne says with an annoyed sigh, "Hey, RJ?"
RJ stops in his tracks.
Don't give him what he wants. I taunt in my head.
"You can…you can stay." Verne says.
RJ bolts back immediately and body slams into Verne, picking up the turtle into his arms, "Woo hoo!"
"Ah!" Verne cries as RJ spins him in his arms.
"Come here you big lug!" RJ grins.
"No!" Verne responds urgently.
"I knew under this hard crusty exterior there was a soft nougat-y center in there!" RJ says, noogie-ing Verne's head, making him recoil into his shell, "You mind if I call you 'Uncle Verne'?"
Verne pokes his head out of his shell and glares at RJ, "With every bone in my body."
"Great. Hey can I work with Hammy?" RJ says, walking past Verne and over towards Hammy.
I watch them as they walk away towards the hedge together and am half tempted to follow them but decide otherwise and just walk/stumble over to the log and climb on top of it, my legs dangling off the side as I sit there.
"Got a pretty bad limp there, don't cha?" Penny asks, walking over to me.
"Oh, yeah." I say, lifting up my leg and turning it a bit, "The human messed my leg up last night when she was swinging that broom around."
"Jeepers!" Her eyes widen at my leg, "It's swelling up a bit, huh?"
"Just a little. It's better than it was last night." My leg lowers back down and I sigh, "If RJ hadn't saved me it would have been a lot worse than this."
"RJ saved ya?" Lou asks, jumping in on the conversation.
"Yeah." I say with a small smile, "He pulled me out of the way just before the human crushed me with that broom."
"Good golly." Lou says.
"You're lucky he was there." Penny adds.
"Yeah, I guess I was." My smile grows slightly and I look back down at my leg before looking at Penny, "You think you could get me something to put on my leg to take down the swelling?"
Penny nods, "I'll be right back, little missy. Don't you worry about a thing."
When she disappears into the bushes Lou looks at my leg, "You know how bad it is?"
"Just a sprain, I'd say." My ears go up as I think about it, "I wouldn't be able to walk on it if it was broken."
"So you can walk on it?" Lou asks, gently lifting my leg up so he could take a closer look at it.
"Yeah, just stings a bit." I say, "It'll feel better once the swelling goes down."
Penny runs over to me from the bushes and hands me a ball of snow which was wrapped in a large leaf and tied with a vine at the top, "I found you some snow. Wasn't much left, I tell ya."
I place the snow on my leg and let out a sigh at the cool feeling, "Thank you, Penny."
"No problem, dear." Penny says, tapping my shoulder reassuringly.
I jump when I hear screaming from the other side of the hedge.
Then I hear yelling, "Go! Go! Go! Go!"
RJ and Hammy shoot through the fence with the red wagon which was filled to the top with cookies and soda cans.
Everyone stares at the wagon as it comes o a stop by the log and RJ grins at everyone, "I bring you a bounty of food."
"Is it good?" Lou asks, walking a bit closer.
"You tell me." RJ says, tossing Lou a cookie.
As soon as Lou takes a bite his eyes widen, "By golly, that's good!"
Soon everyone is swarming the red wagon like crazy.
"Mmhm, that's right! Don't push." RJ says, passing the cookies out to everyone, "Plenty for everyone."
"I want some of them, there." Penny says, pointing at the cookies.
"Got a box right over here for you, Penny." RJ says, passing her a red box of cookies.
"Oh, Jeepers, that is good." Penny says, taking the box, "Kids, dig in, anything that tastes this good, has to be good for you." The triplets begin stuffing their faces with cookies.
RJ hops over and passes me a box of chocolate chip cookies, "For the lady."
I take them from him and open the box, "Thanks." I take one out and pop a cookie into my mouth, "I've really missed these…"
RJ sends me a grin, "You are very welcome." Then he picks up a soda from the wagon and passes it to me, "Want one of these?"
My smile widens and I take that from him as well, setting it at my side, "Thanks. You know, for a guy that's full of himself, you do have your moments."
He nods, "Of course I do."
I roll my eyes and I open my mouth to respond when I hear Penny let out an excited jitter.
"Hold that thought." RJ says before turning back to the others. "You feel that buzz in the back of your skull?"
"Yeah!" Penny says, grinning.
"That's called a sugar rush." RJ says as the triplets begin to get jumpy, "That's what keeps the humans going. That's why they don't hibernate." RJ pops oven a can and hands it to Spike, "Top that off with a little of this…and what usually takes you all summer is only going to take us a week!"
The triplets gulp it down immediately and begin bouncing off the walls.
Hammy pops the seal on one of the sodas and begins to lift it to his mouth. RJ runs over and snatches the can from Hammy, "Whoa, hold on there, Ham-squad. The last thing you need is caffeine."
RJ walks away with the can, leaving a very disappointed Hammy behind him.
"That's right, come on." RJ says, passing the can to Lou, "Dig in. Cause this, my friends, is just the beginning!"
"What?" Verne says in shock and horror.
(A/N: I'm just moving right along with this story. So many ideas are pumping in my head so there'll be a new update pretty soon!)