Chapter 106
Surf's Up
The group sat on the sand at the edge of town, utterly deflated. Nani, Kairi, Selphie, and Lilo searched through newspapers, hoping to find another help wanted ad, any chance to help Nani find a job, but it was fruitless. They sighed in dismay as Sora, Riku, Mickey, Donald, and Goofy looked on sadly.
"Hey, Lilo!" a young man, David Kawena, Nani's boyfriend and a friend of Lilo's, greeted as he approached. He had a tattoo looping around his upper arm and he wore a pair of swim trunks and a string necklace with a fish hook-shaped pendant. He carried a surfboard under his arm. "How's it… Nani?" He trailed off as he realized that the Pelekai sisters seemed depressed.
"We've been having a bad day," Lilo explained.
Sora and Mickey noticed Aqua standing twenty feet behind David, applying sunscreen to her arms. A blue surfboard was propped up in the sand next to her.
David squatted down in front of Lilo and Nani. "Hey, I might not be a doctor, but I know that there's no better cure for a sour face than a couple of boards and some choice waves," he suggested. "What do you think?"
Nani and Lilo looked at each other and smiled. "I think that's a great idea," Nani replied.
David grinned. "Great." He looked over at the rest of the group. "You know, I was just about to give Aqua over here a surfing lesson. You guys want to join in?"
Kairi nodded. "Sounds like fun," she said, pushing herself to her feet.
"Uh, I don't really know how to surf," Riku admitted sheepishly.
Nani giggled. "That's okay. We'll show you."
"I'll be back in a jiffy with a change of clothes," Selphie promised. She ran off to head home, which was not too far away, and do just that.
"We should probably do that, too," Sora said.
"Actually, we should only need to find the nearest Safe Point," Kairi advised. She glanced at Mickey, silently inquiring if he knew where it was, and the mouse pointed further down the beach. "Okay. We'll only be a moment."
"You guys packed swimsuits and just got them from your ship?" Selphie asked in disbelief once she returned wearing a swimsuit and found that Sora, Riku and Kairi had already changed.
Kairi nodded. "It was her idea," Sora said, pointing to Kairi.
"Just in case," the redhead added.
"Wow," Lilo said in amazement. She and Nani had already changed as well, and had gotten surfboards for themselves as well as Sora, Riku and Kairi. Mickey, Donald and Goofy chose to stay behind and watch them have fun.
The party decided to catch up with Aqua. "So, are you enjoying yourself here?" Kairi asked.
Aqua nodded. "This place is so beautiful," she said. "Everyone is so friendly."
"Almost everyone," Riku corrected, but he otherwise still agreed.
"I came here about an hour ago to relax on the beach, and I started to watch people surfing," Aqua continued. "I figured that it might be fun to give it a try." She blinked as she glimpsed Stitch behind her friends. "Is that…"
She walked past her friends and approached Stitch. Lilo's pet noticed her and grinned widely. "Ah-koo-wah!" he shouted, waving both of his arms.
Aqua giggled and crouched down to meet him as he ran up to her. "Hey, there. I never thought I'd see you here."
"You know Stitch?" Lilo asked.
Stitch turned to Lilo and nodded excitedly. "Ah-koo-wah, fren!" he answered.
"Wow. Little guy has a lot of friends," David commented.
Riku crossed his arms in contemplation. "Wait. If Aqua knew Stitch, then that means…" He did not finish the thought as he simply winced at the realization about the small alien's age. Sora, Mickey and Donald did a double take as they reached the same deduction.
"Well, how 'bout it? Let's go." Kairi hefted her surfboard up and beckoned them to follow her to the water.
Sora and Riku laughed and followed after her. Stitch watched the waves crash, fearful, as he quickly realized what they were doing. Aqua, Nani and Lilo ran down to the surf. David noticed that Stitch was not following, so he picked him up and carried him down with him. Nani set her board down in the shallow water and sat on it. Lilo sat in front of her, and David set Stitch down behind her.
They paddled out across the water. Stitch watched the shore recede and looked down into the water nervously. He poked his finger into the water to test it, only to pull it back in terror. Sora paddled alongside them and petted him on the head. Lilo looked back at Stitch and noticed his nervousness, and she wondered what could be bothering him. Before she could think too much on it, David picked her up and put her on his board, then paddled ahead to meet the first wave.
"Watch how I do," David instructed to Aqua. He maneuvered around and turned so that he was riding the rising wave, then stood up and surfed on the wave, while Lilo laughed and Kairi and Selphie cheered. He brought the surfboard back up beside Nani and Stitch, and he and Lilo posed triumphantly. Nani responded by playfully kicking him off of his board, causing Lilo and Sora to laugh.
Aqua smiled. "Okay. Let me give it a try," she said. She went up to take the next wave and began to surf on it. Her balance was imperfect, but once she got a feel for it, she managed it with grace. When she came back, she was met with a round of applause from her friends, including some excited cheering from Stitch.
The rest of the party took a few waves each. As Stitch refused to ride the waves, he was frequently swapped from surfboard to surfboard when his current partner wanted to surf a wave. After Kairi and Selphie demonstrated, Sora tried it out. He heard cheering from the shore and looked back to see that his parents were on the beach, and they were watching him learn how to surf. He smiled, emboldened by their faith, and rode up to the closest wave. Remembering his skill on a skateboard, he proved himself to have a talent on the surfboard easily. Riku was less successful, wiping out on his first three attempts. However, he got better with each attempt, and he succeeded on his fourth try. Kumo and Suta cheered from their vantage point. Mickey, Donald and Goofy held up signs, giving him scores of 8, 7, and 8, respectively. Nani stared at them in bewilderment, wondering where they got the cards.
At one point, when Sora, Riku, Kairi, and Aqua were all stationary and together, with Stitch sitting on Aqua's board, Sora decided to address something that he and the others had been wondering. "So, Aqua, how do you know Stitch?" he asked.
Aqua looked down at Stitch, realizing that there was something different about him from when she had last seen him. "Well, while I was traveling around fighting Unversed, I found myself on this huge alien spaceship. I saw this little guy, and he was holding a trinket made of scrap metal which looked like the Wayfinders I made. Before I could ask him about it, he fled into the ventilation to escape a security guard, a big whale-headed guy named Gantu," she explained. "Gantu brought me to meet the Grand Councilwoman, a sort of space government official, I guess. I offered to clear the ship of Unversed, and she also asked me to help track down two fugitives who had escaped detainment. It turns out that this little guy was an illegal genetic experiment created solely for destruction, and he was created by a quote-unquote 'Evil Genius' named Jumba Jookiba as the so-called Experiment 626. But after he escaped, he met Terra and stole his Wayfinder. Terra told him that it was a gift from a friend, and it looks like that inspired him to try to understand friendship. He built the trinket to emulate the Wayfinder, and he seemed to be really fond of it. When I tracked them down and brought them in, I made an appeal to the Grand Councilwoman, asking that she reduce his sentence because he seemed to really be trying to make friends. She agreed to consider it if he behaved himself."
"Fren-ship circle!" Stitch exclaimed.
Aqua nodded. "Yeah. We're a part of each other's circle of friends," she agreed.
"Well, it looks like he got out of there alright," Sora said. "Donald, Goofy and I bumped into him a few months ago in Radiant Garden. He caused trouble in the computer room and got us zapped into the world inside the computer."
Stitch looked down guiltily, indicating that he felt ashamed for getting them into a seemingly-dangerous situation.
"I guess leaving a charm that let us summon him to aid in battle was his way of saying sorry," Sora surmised.
"Ih," Stitch said, nodding in confirmation.
Aqua chuckled. "I guess that although he's still somewhat troublesome, he is genuinely trying to be good."
Kairi diverted the conversation by cheering as she watched Nani surf across a wave, with Lilo hanging on.
They spent some more time surfing before returning to the beach to play on the sand. Stitch stood back and watched as Lilo, Nani, and David played together, and he wondered if he could ever have the same kind of bond that they shared, as well as the kind shared between Sora, Riku and Kairi. As he watched Nani, David, Kairi, and Selphie build a sand castle with Lilo half-buried underneath, Stitch halfheartedly sat down and shoveled sand onto himself, taking a leaf and sticking it on top of the pile to mimic the flag which Nani put on top of the sand castle. However, he did not feel at all fulfilled, and only more lonely.
Goofy walked up to Stitch and sat down next to him. "Hey, fella. Gawrsh, is something wrong?" he asked. Stitch mumbled a few words which Goofy did not understand and looked over at Lilo and Nani. Goofy scratched his head in contemplation. "Hmm… You want to spend time with them? Have some fun?"
"Ih," Stitch answered sadly. Goofy guessed that the word meant "yes".
"Well, I'm sure they'd love to have you join them. But what do you want to do?"
Stitch thought deeply for a moment, then turned to look at the surfboards that had been stuck up in the sand several feet away. He looked out at the water hesitantly, then back at Lilo. Reaching a decision, he climbed out of his pile of sand and went over to the surfboards. Lifting Nani's board out of the sand with ease, he dragged it over to Lilo, who at that time was playing in the sand on her own. The girl looked back at him when he tapped her on the shoulder, wondering what he wanted. It did not take her long to realize that he wanted to go surfing with her, at which point she smiled in delight.
"Oh, can't complain, Mom," the skinny one-eyed alien, Wendy Pleakley, who at the moment had abandoned his disguise to don a blue uniform, said over his intergalactic phone. "I'm camping out with a CONVICTED CRIMINAL!" While over the past days he had been fascinated by what he had found on his visit to the strange planet which he had previously only studied from afar, but overall it was not a pleasant experience for him as he was forced to chaperone the scientist on a hunt for what had been designed to be the most dangerous creature in the universe. He had even lost his excitement over getting an up-close examination of the endangered mosquito, a rare creature under galactic protection along with the creatures in its food chain, when an entire swarm of the insects bit him and began to drain his blood. Right now, he just wanted the mission to be over so he could go back and sleep peacefully in his cot.
"Wait. Something's not right," Dr. Jumba Jookiba said as he spied on his renegade experiment through his binoculars. He saw Stitch walk with Lilo and Nani to the water, Nani carrying her surfboard. "Is returning willingly to water?"
"Oh, hold on, Mom. Another call," Pleakley said before switching over to the new caller. The screen on the device showed an alien with wrinkled grayish-green skin and small, beady black eyes. He gulped in surprise.
"Mr. Pleakley, you are overdue," the Grand Councilwoman declared sternly. "I want a status report."
"Oh, uh, things are going well," Pleakley said nervously, knowing full well that he and Jumba had not made any progress in days as they waited for Experiment 626 to be alone so they could intercept him. "Things are going well. Jumba, aren't they going well? Jumba? Jumba, help me out here."
However, Jumba paid no attention to him. He remained fixated on Stitch's present actions. "He cannot swim. Is too dense. Why will he risk drowning?" he asked himself.
"I would have expected you back by now, with the experiment in hand," the Grand Councilwoman said, somewhat disappointed.
"Just a few things left to pack up, and, uh, we'll be…" Pleakley stammered. Before he could finish, Jumba took his phone and hit a button, causing the screen to go blank.
"Hang up," Jumba ordered. "We are going swimming."
Sora, Riku, Kairi, Selphie, Aqua, Mickey, Donald, Goofy, David, Kumo, and Suta sat on the beach and watched Nani paddle the surfboard out over the water, Lilo sitting on the front end and Stitch sitting on the back. Donald was momentarily distracted by something round moving across the sand and into the water a distance away, but he elected to pay it no mind. The alien pet looked around nervously before he simply relaxed. He smiled, starting to enjoy the experience. His smile faded when he saw Nani stand up and he realized that they were going over a wave. As they rode through and along the wave as it curled over them, Stitch flailed about to avoid falling off and grabbed onto Nani's leg for dear life. However, as he felt the breeze blow against his ears, saw the calm blue of the water beneath him, and heard the tranquil sound of the waves, he relaxed and began to enjoy the experience again. He let go of Nani and began to emulate her stance.
Sora, Aqua, Donald, and Goofy cheered Stitch on as he started to have fun surfing with Nani and Lilo. Kairi, Selphie and David cheered for the trio as a whole.
Stitch grinned widely and prepared to let out a triumphant laugh, but he was suddenly grabbed by Jumba as the rotund alien dove in from within the wave, tackling him off of the board and into the water. This inadvertently caused Nani to wipe out and for her and Lilo to fall into the water.
David and Kumo cringed at the sudden wipeout, but Sora, Riku, and Donald, who had noticed the circumstances behind the wipeout, reacted with sudden concern. "Did you guys see that?" Sora asked.
"Yeah, and they were doing great," Selphie replied, dismayed, not understanding what Sora was referring to.
Shaking his head in disappointment, Sora ran to the water and swam out to check on Lilo, Nani and Stitch, with David just ahead of him. As they swam, they saw Nani and Lilo break the surface of the water.
"What happened?" Lilo asked, confused by the sudden turn of events.
"Some lolo must've stuffed us in a barrel," Nani guessed as she swam over to Lilo.
"Where's Stitch?" Lilo asked. She got her answer as Stitch broke the surface, thrashing about in a panic. He climbed onto Lilo for safety.
"Get off of her!" Nani yelled, afraid that Stitch would only drag her down. Before she could pull him off, Jumba, unseen by anyone above the water, grabbed Stitch by the legs and dragged him down. As Stitch was still holding tight to Lilo's arm, the girl was pulled down as well.
"What happened?" David shouted in worry as he saw what happened.
"Stitch dragged her down!" Nani replied. She and David dove down to rescue her.
Struggling to escape Jumba's grip, Stitch reached down and bit his hand to force him to let go. He then began to orient himself so that he could try to swim back to the surface with Lilo. At the same time, Nani and David reached them. Nani grabbed Lilo by the hand and kicked Stitch in the head to make him release his grip, then she and David swam up with her. The three of them broke the surface and gasped for air, finding that Sora had joined them.
"We lost Stitch!" Lilo exclaimed as she realized that her pet was not with them. Not hesitating, Sora dove under and swam down to reach Stitch while Nani and David focused on bringing Lilo back to shore. He was in such a hurry that he did not consider switching into his half-dolphin form, but he would later decide that it would have been better that he stay as a human. He swam down as fast as he could to reach the alien. As he drew nearer, two other shapes slowly came into focus.
Jumba attempted to restrain Stitch while Pleakley worked to put cylindrical handcuffs on him, but Stitch refused to be taken. He dodged Jumba's grasp and let him grab Pleakley's head by accident, taking the cuffs from the skinny officer and closing them on his small hand. Jumba threw a punch at him, but he positioned the cuffs so that the purple alien's hand went straight through them up to the wrist, the restraining device expanding by virtue of in-built nanomachines to fit the larger area of the hand and tightening around the wrist. While Jumba and Pleakley struggled with the cuffs, Stitch chomped down on Pleakley's scuba tank. Air escaped through the bite hole and propelled the two aliens out of the water. Only Donald, Goofy and Aqua noticed them bounce across the water, as everyone else was too busy making sure Lilo was okay.
Stitch tried to swim back up, but he was too dense due to the excessively-compressed muscle mass with which he was designed to grant his incredible strength, and thus was unable to get anywhere. He quickly lost the energy to try, as his lungs were filling up with water, and he began to lose consciousness and sink further. However, Sora caught up to him and scooped him up in one hand before swimming back up to the surface.
Nani brought Lilo to shore, and their friends gathered around to check on her. Kairi pulled Lilo into a quick hug. "Lilo, are you okay?" she asked.
Nani turned Lilo to face her. "Lilo. Lilo, look at me, baby. Are you hurt?" she asked, checking her sister's face and arm.
"No," Lilo answered sadly, more concerned that, from what she was aware, Stitch was still underwater. Suta reached into her handbag and pulled out a Potion, then made Lilo take a sip. Nani, relieved that her little sister was unharmed, simply pulled Lilo into a hug.
All eyes turned to Sora as they saw him step out of the water, breathing heavily, with Stitch weighing in his arms. "He's unconscious, but I think he's alive," he said. Lilo, Aqua and David ran over to check on Stitch. David knelt down and put his ear to Stitch's chest, hearing a faint heartbeat.
Stitch began to cough up the water. A moment later, when he could breathe normally, he flipped over onto all fours and began snarling, entering a defensive mode in case his attackers were still around. Nani scooped Lilo up into her arms protectively, fearing that he might lash out at her. While Sora and Aqua assured Stitch that he was safe and worked to calm him down, Nani turned and saw Cobra Bubbles standing several feet behind her.
As Cobra started to walk up to them, Nani turned to David. "David, please take Lilo," she said, passing her sister into his arms. David, Lilo, Kairi, and Selphie watched solemnly as Nani went up to talk to the social worker. "This isn't what it looks like," she told him. "We were… I-It's just that…"
Cobra took his glasses off and met Nani's gaze, his eyes clearly filled with sympathy. "I know you're trying, Nani, but you need to think about what's best for Lilo, even if it removes you from the picture." Nani deflated on hearing this. Cobra frowned, as he did not want to take Lilo from her sister, her only remaining family, but he feared that Nani would not be able to properly take care of her. "I'll be back tomorrow morning for Lilo. I'm sorry." He turned to leave, putting his sunglasses back on as he did so.
Kairi approached Nani and put her hand on her shoulder, trying to comfort her but having no idea what she could do. Nani turned around and pulled her into a hug. Stitch watched this, feeling guilty over letting Lilo nearly get hurt, and realizing that the incident may have only made things worse for the sisters.
David walked up to Nani, still holding Lilo in his arms. "Nani, is there something I can do?" he asked.
Nani shook her head sadly. "No, David. I-I need to take Lilo home now," she said, on the verge of crying. David passed Lilo to her. "We have a lot to talk about, Lilo. Thanks." She turned to head home. Kairi and Selphie followed, wanting to provide whatever support they could.
Stitch stepped up next to David and watched them go. "You know, I really believed they had a chance," he heard David say. "Then you came along." Stitch looked up at him in shock, but David simply shook his head and walked away. He turned back to watch Nani and Lilo depart and sulked, as he processed all of the trouble that he had caused them.
While Stitch, David, Mickey, Kumo, and Suta lamented what had happened, Sora, Riku, Aqua, Donald, and Goofy gathered together to discuss the incident. "Did you see anything while you were out there?" Donald asked.
Sora nodded. "There was this big purple thing pulling Stitch down," he explained. "And there was also a skinny green thing with it."
"Purple…?" Aqua mused.
"A Heartless?" Donald guessed.
Sora shook his head. "I don't think so. I couldn't see them clearly, but it looked less like they were trying to tear at Stitch than they were trying to restrain him with something. And it looked like one of them was wearing scuba gear. Stitch bit the tank and they shot out of the water."
"You know, I thought I saw something heading into the water way over there," Donald said, pointing to where he had seen the mysterious sight.
Riku nodded. "I'll take a look. See if they left any clues behind." With that, he ran off to investigate.
Goofy turned to the direction in which Nani and Lilo had gone. "Gawrsh, do you think there is anything we can do to help them?" he asked.
Sora sighed and shook his head. "I don't know. I don't know how we can help them get through this."
Sora, Aqua, Mickey, Donald, Goofy, and Stitch followed Nani, Lilo, Kairi, and Selphie up to Nani and Lilo's house. Riku caught back up to them halfway up, having been unable to find any clues about whoever had attacked Stitch and Lilo. In the interim, everyone had also changed back into their normal clothes, Nani and Lilo having also put flowers in their hair. Night had fallen, and Nani had lit a pair of tiki torches to illuminate the deck behind the house as she and Lilo sat in a hammock. Kairi and Selphie sat on rugs on the deck. Sora stepped up to the deck and sat down right next to Kairi. Aqua took a seat in one corner. Riku and Mickey stood behind Sora and Kairi. Donald and Goofy stood on the hill just off of the deck.
Stitch despondently walked up the stairs, stopping when he came face to face with a duck that stepped out of a bush. They stared at each other for a moment before the duck turned her head and quacked, calling five ducklings to hop out and follow her, and they all stepped off and continued on their way. Stitch watched them go, envying the family that the ducks had. They were a unit that waddled together, but while there were people who tried to give him a family, he only caused it pain. He looked up at Lilo and Nani. The pain and sadness on Nani's face broke his heart.
"Lilo, honey," Nani said softly, "we have to, uh…"
"Don't worry. You're nice, and someone will give you a job," Lilo assured her, not seeming to fully understand the depths of her worries. "I would."
Nani sighed. "Come here." Lilo crawled over to her and Nani pulled her into her lap. "Aloha 'oe, aloha 'oe," she began to sing. Stitch sat down and listened, entranced by the sad song.
"E ke onaona noho i ka lipo," Nani continued. Kairi leaned to the side and laid in Sora's lap. Selphie sighed. Aqua hugged her knees to her chest. "One fond embrace…" Nani took the flowers from her and Lilo's heads and held them in front of her. Lilo reached out to put her hands over top of the flowers. "A ho'i a'e au/ Until we meet again." They released the flowers and let them float away in the wind. Everyone watched them fly along the breeze, scattering across the winds.
Kairi sighed, tears rolling down her face. "What if we found what it was that Maleficent and the others are looking for?" she asked. "Could we use it to help Nani and Lilo?"
Sora shook his head. "We can't do that. You heard what they said it was for. It messes with everything."
"But if we just do a little thing, I mean. We could fix it so they could stay together. Nani can have a job to support Lilo. Social Services can stay off their backs. Who knows? Maybe bring their parents back."
Riku shook his head. He knew where she was coming from, but he knew that it was still something they could not do. "Sora's right. There's too much that we don't understand about it to even consider it. And it would mess with too much for us to agree with."
Mickey nodded. "There's a reason that even the people keeping the artifacts safe aren't allowed to know how to get to it. For all we know, it will only do more harm than good. I'm sorry, but we can't."
Kairi sighed. "You're right," she admitted. "I don't know what I was thinking."
"It's okay, Kairi," Sora reassured her. "You just want to help the people you care about. There's nothing wrong with that."
"But you need to make sure you're not bringing more trouble when doing so," Riku added. "It can be hard to know where the line is. You could try to do good or make things right, but if you're not careful, you could only cause pain."
Unbeknownst to them, Stitch overheard the conversation and reflected on all of the pain he caused. Saddened and ashamed of himself, he turned and walked away.
Kairi began to cry. "Their o'hana is coming apart and we can't do anything to help them," she lamented, keeping quiet so that Lilo would not hear her.
Sora did not know how to respond. He simply held her tightly.
Kairi sniffled. "I'm going to ask Nani if I can stay here for the night," she said. "Try to give them some comfort. Spend one last night with them as an o'hana."
Sora nodded. "I'll let your dad know."
Stitch entered Lilo's bedroom and climbed onto her bed. He moved her pillow, revealing a photograph depicting Lilo, Nani, and their parents. Lilo's father played on a ukulele for a young Lilo while Nani and her mother smiled at them. Stitch could tell that they seemed happy.
"That's us, before." Stitch turned to see Lilo standing just inside the door. "It was rainy, and they went for a drive." Stitch processed what she told him, putting together the cause of her parents' deaths. "What happened to yours?" Stitch was taken aback by the question. "I hear you cry at night. Do you dream about them?"
Stitch did not know what to say. He had no family in his past. He was created in a laboratory, and he was arrested only a few days after he was fully gestated. Jumba was not a father to him, and the first time he experienced any warm feelings such as those Lilo, Nani, and Sora felt for those around him was when he met Terra, and then Aqua and Ven. He had never found a family of his own. All subsequent efforts to find friends following his escape from Galactic Federation custody resulted in him being chased out after his mischief caused more harm than good. Sora was the first person to give him a second chance, and that was only after he used his destructive instincts to join the Hollow Bastion crew in fighting the Heartless, when he sought out Merlin and asked for a way to make it up to Sora after causing him to be stuck in the computer world. Even still, he had nothing to call home.
"I know that's why you wreck things, and push me," Lilo continued. Stitch slipped off of the bed and went over to the box which Lilo had set up the previous night to serve as a makeshift bed for him. Lilo climbed into her bed and slipped under her blanket. "Our family's little now, and we don't have many toys, but if you want, you could be part of it. You could be our baby, and we'd raise you to be good." Stitch pulled his blanket aside and took out a book which he had taken an interest in the previous night, "The Ugly Duckling". He wondered if, like the title character, he could find a place where he truly belonged.
Stitch held the book close and walked across the room. Lilo watched him go to the window, understanding what he was meaning to do. "O'hana means family. Family means nobody gets left behind," she said. "But if you want to leave, you can." Without saying a word, Stitch climbed out of the window and left. "I'll remember you, though. I remember everyone that leaves." Lilo laid down and closed her eyes.
Stitch climbed back up to have one last look at Lilo. He saw Kairi enter the room. She noticed Stitch's empty bed and frowned. She then knelt down beside Lilo and kissed her on the forehead.
Stitch dropped down and started walking. He walked through the woods for a short while before stopping. He opened the book to a page with a picture of the "duckling" being found by a swan family that took him in as one of their own. He then turned to glance over at the immediately preceding page, which showed the "duckling" all alone, shouting "I'm lost."
"L-L-Lost…" He turned around and looked up at the sky, spying the stars whose light showed other worlds watching down on the people on the island. Emotionally torn, he admitted his failings and the loneliness they brought, and pleaded for a blessing from someone or something that cared, channeling his pain and sorrow through the words written on a page in a children's book. "I'm lost."