Arc 2: Author's Honor
Chapter 5: The Porcupine and the Rabbit
"And I told him, I'm not twelve! Stop believing everything you read on the Internet!"
Flaky cracked up at her TV. Comedies were a guilty pleasure of hers.
After a morning of chores, she had finally gotten the time to settle down. She was relieved to have her hands relatively free again. All day yesterday she'd had to deal with a baby literally bouncing off the walls and it was a miracle nothing disastrous happened.
She got up to make some popcorn, but found she didn't have any butter. Flaky huffed in annoyance. She had to have butter on her popcorn.
She sighed and decided to hop to it, grabbing her helmet off the rack. The closest store was several miles down. She hopped on her scooter, pulling out onto the sidewalk and leaving a flame trail as she sped off.
Ten minutes later…
Flaky left the store, staggering with all the bags in her hands. Sometimes she got a little impulsive with spending money, but at least she had her butter! She stepped off the curb to unload her things onto her scooter.
SCREEEEECH!
She startled out of her quills and immediately spotted danger. A block down, a car had swerved around the corner and was careening full speed down the road right at her.
She screamed. Her legs tangled over each other and she tripped, sending her things flying as she hit the ground. The car wasn't stopping. She curled up into a ball and waited for the end. All she'd wanted was buttered popcorn!
What she hadn't noticed was that several seconds prior, a pickup skidded around the corner on the opposite end of the block.
"Ah, damn it!" Flippy swore. He was on time, but late.
He bared his teeth, clenching the steering with one hand and the handbrake with the other. The gas pedal couldn't have been flatter to the floorboard. He was almost in position.
Either the driver of the car was a stupid lump or a special kind of blind, with or without a murderous streak. They seemed very intent on running over the brightly-colored object in the road.
Flippy had long known it wouldn't veer or stop. He let off the gas and pulled the handbrake. His rear wheels locked tight and his truck swooped 180 degrees in a counterclockwise motion around Flaky, screeching to a halt with its back to the incoming car.
Flippy crashed out of his rearview window; he couldn't lower his trunk from the cabin. Wide-eyed and with fire in his blood, he undid the latch of his trunk and kicked it open. The car's headlights blinded him as he dropped hard to his front, just barely keeping his head.
The car flew up the makeshift ramp, flying majestically and catching the rays of the sun as it sailed through the air. It thudded to the ground, safely continuing down the street away from them. Flippy sighed, messing up his beret as he rubbed his forehead.
Flaky was still shivering on the ground with her hands over her head. Flippy fell out of his truck and ran over to try to rouse her. Nothing he did would work, not even poking her with a stick.
SCREEEEECH!
"Wha…?" Flippy wondered, looking around. Whoops! He'd forgotten the rest of what he'd read in the book. The car was doing a u-turn and coming back!
He shook Flaky hard enough to rattle her eyes around in their sockets. With a cringe Flippy picked her up, giving his arms an impromptu acupuncture session. As he hauled her away he tripped over one of the bags on the ground, causing the both of them to spill out onto the sidewalk. The car zoomed by, sideswiping his truck hard and causing it tilt.
Flippy gasped. His own truck was about to kill them.
SPLASH!
But thankfully it came up short, landing right in a huge mud puddle. Flippy stood up gingerly, now covered in mud and quills.
Most of Flaky's things were run over once or twice, and nearly everything was covered in filth. Her scooter was the only thing still in good shape. Flippy swiped his wallet out of his truck, checking his stacks as he went into the store.
By the time he came back out, Flaky was sitting on the pavement with her head in her hands. Flippy came up to her and held out several bags.
She glanced over, then realized it was him and flinched back. He wasn't too surprised at her reaction and set the bags down; inside of them were all the things she had bought before. She was too shocked to say anything.
Flippy was too focused on other matters and was already running to get in his truck. He pulled The Book of the World from the passenger seat and opened it to Flaky's section where that Bookworm had written:
Make sure to look both ways!
"Oh!" he exclaimed. The words were evaporating from the page, vanishing like mist into thin air.
It worked. It really seemed to have worked!
The Book of the World flipped to a blank page with a new message:
There, see? Maybe you are onto something. Finally feel like you can breathe?
And don't you wanna clean yourself off before continuing?
Flippy sighed in relief, resting his head back. He had a lot more work to do, but at least he knew one of his friends was safe in the meanwhile. He tossed the book on the passenger's seat and pulled off.
Meanwhile, Flaky had the strangest of all feelings. Her natural anxiousness made her intuitive.
She was beginning to rationalize how weird the last few minutes had been, how fast they had even happened. In such a small window of time Flippy had appeared out of nowhere, helped her, then left...it was almost like he knew something.
She felt like she had to know a little more.
Several minutes later...
Flippy waded out of the pond, shaking himself dry. Wet muddy drops splashed onto The Book of the World and rolled off, like the pages were slicked down in a thin layer of oil.
Wait, the book? He thought he'd left it in his truck, but it was now on the bank with its pages open, like it'd been watching him.
Well, whatever. He already knew who he'd get to next.
Cuddles. That rabbit only had to breathe to get into trouble. Flippy eyed the latest thing that had been written in Cuddles' row. He turned on the spot, searching the horizon. Due northeast was the tallest peak of a popular mountain climbing spot. It would be a bit of a drive, so he needed to book it.
Whistling, Cuddles hopped up the cliff with dozens of little baubles rattling around his neck. He was a good hundred feet up from where he'd started, all without the help of a partner or common sense. He figured it was all of the lucky charms he wore that were keeping him safe.
He stopped for a moment, looking down towards the earth in wonder. The cliffside was smoothed out into a gently sloping incline and ran hundreds of feet down to a deep ravine. It was the perfect time to capture a memory!
Cuddles was in the middle of taking a selfie when the rope snapped. He'd been using a homemade licorice rope just in case he got hungry during the climb.
"AAAAGHHHH!"
He tumbled roughly down the mountain slope, losing his gear and trinkets along the way. The earth disappeared underneath him and he spun through the air, right down into the ravine.
He hit something hard and felt his arm snap. He was tossed back into the air, then came down on his broken arm again. He had landed on…a trampoline? It was on the bed of a pickup truck.
Cuddles stopped bouncing, weakly clutching his arm. A shadow fell over him and he shrieked in horror. All of this was just like his dream about the space poachers from Uranus coming to steal his kidney beans.
"It's me!" Flippy exclaimed, raising a brow. He pulled a machete out of his back pocket to cut Cuddles' climbing vest loose. As he did, several shapes slinked out from the dry brush. A pack of wild dogs had been scavenging around the bottom of the ravine, though now they were more interested in the crippled rabbit that had fallen from the sky.
"Loo-look, look look look!" Cuddles panicked, pointing over the bear's shoulder. The pack drew closer. One dog crouched as it came within striking distance.
Flippy whirled suddenly, letting out a monstrous bellow that shook the air. The dogs nearly jumped out of their fur in terror and scampered off in the distance, yelping.
"Can I finish climbing?" Cuddles asked, as Flippy put his arm in a makeshift sling.
"No."
"Can you help me finish climbing?"
"No!"
"Can I get my lucky charms?"
"No!" Flippy said sternly, herding Cuddles into his truck. "You always have two with you, anyway!"
"Whew…"
An hour later, the bear was sitting in the hospital parking lot, pulling the book around. He grinned. By now, another entry had vanished:
Beaten and tenderized for a pack of hot dogs!