We did the only natural thing; we made like a banana and
split. The position of Mr. Thumb’s house had obviously been compromised and so
we needed to leave, get out of town, and find a new and better place to hide.
I felt stupid for allowing us to grow so complacent; we
should have never stayed for so long in one place. I should have known that
Lord El Stinko would send an assassin after us. But it was far too late for
that now. Hind sight is 20/20 I suppose, which is exactly what someone would
say after they had accentually stuck their hand into the toaster against all
other advice. What was done was done though.
We went back into the surrounding forest. We didn’t have to
worry much about the weasels since we were running for our lives, and we didn’t
have any intensions of stopping until we were out of the forest again. Except,
of course, to rest. It turns out that even when one is on an adrenalin rush,
one must eventually run out of steam. Which was precisely what happened to us
after about three minutes of running though the trees and bushes of the forest.
“What do we do now?” Chris asked between panting breaths.
“I don’t know,” I replied, my chest heaving from exertion. “We’ve
got to get someplace safe and then we can figure all of that stuff out.” We
didn’t hear anybody coming after us from behind so we decided to slow our pace
to a quick walk. If Sir Champagne really wanted to come running after us he
could, but he would be out of breath when he finally found us. Then, perhaps, we could bash him on the head
with a rock or something, I mused. That,
or we could try to force feed him toxic mushrooms from the forest.
“This forest never ends!” Chris groaned in frustration. “I
miss Mr. Thumb’s house already.”
But just as she spoke we walked out of the trees and into a
little clearing, where there were only short grasses in our path. In the center
of the clearing dwelt a little cozy cottage in the moonlight. The lights of the
house were not on.
“Maybe someone in there will let us stay for the night,” I
suggested.
“Sounds as good as any plan I can think of,” Chris said. “Let’s
go.”
We both walked up to the house, but as we approached I
couldn’t help but notice that there was something definitely strange about the
house. It seemed oddly elevated from the ground. About two or three feet,
actually, as if it were floating in the air. But that wasn’t entirely true I
noted, because I could see that there were two lumpy supports under the house
that held it off of the ground. They were strange… I couldn’t exactly make
out what the supports were…
Chris knocked on the door. And a light in the house came on.
We heard a voice muttering on the other side of the door, and shuffling on the
floor as someone walked slowly toward us from the other side.
I looked over at the strange supports, and that was when I
realized what they were. There were talons! As if they were the talons of some
giant bird of prey. I then realized,
again, that they actually were talons
and that they were attached to feet, and the feet to legs. There were two legs!
I couldn’t help but gaping. If they had to belong to any
bird, I reasoned, I supposed that they would belong to a chicken. They were
curled under the house as if it were warming eggs underneath its wooden
frame.
“Look!” I said pointing to the legs underneath the house.
But Chris didn’t have time to look because just then the door of the cottage
opened. And there in the doorway stood the most hideous sight I had ever seen…
To Be Continued…
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