Jack O’Neill held up his hand and the group of four came to a halt – yet again. He wrestled open his bag and checked the GPS tracker housed there. He nodded knowingly, scanned the African plain that stretched out in front of them, and began waving everyone into position. Tomy quickly moved to fall in behind him and accidentally stepped on a root, causing a silence-piercing crack. Jack whipped around and trained his weapon on her, a fierce look on his face.
Tomy immediately held up her hands in surrender. “Sorry! Horsy people aren’t naturally light-footed,” she whispered.
Jack just glared at her.
“Come on, Jack. Lighten up. This isn’t a military operation,” MacGyver said, coming to Tomy’s defense.
“So I noticed. I thought engineers were usually clean cut,” he said, pointedly glaring at Mac’s longish hair.
“I’m not an engineer, I’m a physicist.”
Jack smiled mirthlessly. “That would explain it.”
Jack shouldered his weapon, obviously giving up on military precision. “According to the GPS tracker in Shady’s sat phone, she’s still moving. Unless she changes direction, she should pass right by us shortly.” He took up a point position at the edge of the tree line where they’d taken cover, while the others took seats behind him and waited. Mac was tinkering with something. Tomy watched the clearing with Jack. Vespurrs opened her pack and handed out more bottled water to everyone.
“How do you do it, Tomy?” she asked, mopping her brow. “You don’t even look tired.”
“I’ve been teaching in the heat all summer. I guess I’m getting used to -”
Everyone froze as they heard a rustle in the canopy above them. They were in a strange transition zone where the jungle opened up onto the savannah, and the forest behind them was very dense. Jack swung his weapon around, cocked it, and trained his gaze upward.
“It’s probably just Pheral,” Vespurrs said quietly.
Jack turned and glared at her while rubbing the back of his head pointedly. “All the more reason to be on the look out.”
Tomy cringed. “She’s probably still just chasing birds.”
Jack wasn’t impressed.
“Maybe?” she amended. Tomy wasn’t sure what crack Shady had been smoking when she’d requested them all for the extraction team. Jack and Mac had been bickering the whole trip -- personally, Tomy wished Shady had requested Daniel instead. And Pheral wouldn’t leave poor Jack alone. On the flight over she’d given him a gash on the chin by tripping him as he went up the stairs to the plane, stabbed him in the hand with her fork, ordered hot coffee from the flight attendant only to pour it in his lap, and beaten him over the head with her tray table. But after landing, she’d quickly been distracted by the brightly colored local fauna. Tomy was going to have to talk with Moonbeam about Pheral-proofing their plane before she had to fly anywhere with the energetic cat again.
The noises in the trees got louder, closer. Suddenly the jungle was flooded with a strange cry.
WheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeCrack!
Tomy blinked and had to do a mental rewind to be sure she saw what she thought she saw. Yep. That was Pheral, swinging on a vine Tarzan style, brandishing a large tree limb, and cracking Jack across the head and shoulders with it.
“Pheral! Come down from there,” Vespurrs yelled in her best ‘mom’ voice, but they could hear laughing above them followed by a song that trailed off into the trees.
“A whumping we will go. A whumping we will go. Hi-ho the dairy-o, a whumping we will go.”
Tomy let out a sigh and she and Vespurrs each gave a very dazed Jack a hand getting up.
“I’m fine,” he grumbled, rubbing his shoulder and brushing off their attempts to help. He stalked back to his position muttering a string of curses and threats of bodily harm.
~*~*~*~*~ Tomy was tired and hot. Jack had been peering through high powered binoculars for a while now, but there was still no sign of Shady. She and Vespurrs were resting while Jack stood watch and Mac continued to tinker with some strange-looking curl of bark. Tomy wished Shady would hurry up and get there.
“Pheral!!” Vespurrs suddenly yelled in a stern voice.
Tomy looked up just in time to Pheral hide a pair of sharpened chopsticks behind her back as Jack whipped around and aimed his gun at her, inches from her face. Pheral grinned and tried to look innocent. It was the same look that Tomy’s cat Riker gave her. The one that said, ‘I’m not doing anything’ when he was just about to climb up the Christmas tree.
“I’m just here to help,” Pheral said, starting to back away. But something caught her eye and she bounced over to the edge of the trees. “Oh, hey, isn’t that Shady now?”
They all crowded around her as an elephant lumbered towards them. Perched precariously in the curl of its trunk sat Shady.
“Oh! And look at that,” Pheral said, her tail twitching in excitement. “A WATERING HOLE! With zebras and gazelles and antelopes!!!!” Pheral was crouching and her butt was wiggling dangerously.
“Pheral, no!” Tomy warned, but it was too late. She sprang out of the trees and loped across the plain toward the watering hole, crossing right in front of the elephant.
The group looked on in horror as the elephant bolted, thundering through the tall grass. Jack leveled his gun and took aim.
“Stop!” Vespurrs yelled. “Don’t kill him.” She batted the barrel of Jack’s gun down.
“Don’t worry, I can help stop the elephant,” Mac piped up. He pulled out the thing he’d been tinkering with. “It’s a tranquillizer dart gun made out of a tree bark, backpack ties, and granola bar wrappers. The tranquillizer is made from distilled Lemon Balm leaves. I used the lenses from Tomy’s binoculars to heat it to a slow boil. Then I coated an acacia thorn in the concentrated solution to create a dart. It won’t put him to sleep, but it should calm him down and bring him to a stop.”
Tomy started at it, amazed. Then she grabbed Mac’s arm. “Come on!”
They ran out onto the plain to get closer to the stampeding animal. As it roared by them, something flew off the beast’s trunk, just before Mac shot the elephant with the dart – scoring a hit right in the rump. The elephant quickly slowed and then stopped. But it didn’t let Shady go.
“Now what?” Tomy asked.
“We’ll have to try something else,” Vespurrs said leading the way over to the animal while Jack went to investigate the jetsam.
“Hi guys,” Shady said, looking tired and frazzled. “This guy is one of those guide elephants, but I can’t get him to let me go.”
Tomy scooped up a handful of grass and held it out toward the elephant. It sniffed the grass, but didn’t take it. “Nice elephant. Good elephant,” she said softly. Then she said, “Down,” gently but firmly. The elephant eyed her for a moment. “Come on honey, down.” She used her eyes to implore him to obey and tapped the ground in front of her until finally the elephant went down on one knee and lowered his head. Tomy waved the grass in front of his trunk and he finally let go of Shady in order to take his treat.
“How’re you doing, Ks?” Tomy asked.
Shady tried to stand but fell immediately to the ground. “I’m soooo dizzy.”
Tomy and Vespurrs helped her up and she wrapped an arm around each of their necks. “Thank you so much for coming to my rescue.”
“You’re welcome. We’re glad you’re okay,” Vespurrs said.
“SHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!”
Shady glanced past Tomy to see Pheral bounding toward her. Before any of them could react, Pheral had them bowled over onto the ground and was staring into Shady’s face. “Hi! Glad you’re okay.” Then, just as quickly, she sprang away to chase an unfortunate zebra.
“She seems to be having fun,” Shady said, laughing as they helped her up yet again.
“Good luck getting her back on the plane,” Vespurrs said with a tired smile.
“Nah, we’ll just lure her with Jack,” Tomy suggested. She glanced around, confused. “Speaking of Jack . . .”
They turned to find that he wasn’t where they’d left him. Then Shady raised her hand and pointed. “That’s not him is it?”
Tomy followed her gaze to a lone figure skipping through the grass, flapping his arms as he went. She looked at Shady, horror creeping into her chest. “Ks, what did you throw from the elephant when you went past us?”
“Moon’s muse. I didn’t know what you guys were going to do so I wanted to at least get her to safety.”
Tomy let out a sigh. “We left him with an unfettered muse.”
“Oh no,” Shady said darkly.
“What? What’s wrong?” Vespurrs asked.
“Muses are like inspiration fountains. They’re constantly churning out idea after idea. It’s up to the writer to wade through all the options and find what works, what can be reasonably done,” Shady paused, staring at the frolicking Jack, “and what’s in character.”
“Without a writer to keep them in line, muses have complete control over characters,” Tomy finished.
“Oh,” Vespurrs said.
Shady sank down into the tall grass and they heard Jack’s voice singing in falsetto as he became smaller and smaller in the distance.
“I’d like to teach the world to sing . . .”
“I suppose this would be a bad time to mention that Moon’s in a ficathon so we need to get her muse back before next week?” Vespurrs said.
“In perfect harmony . . .”
Both of them dropped next to Shady on the ground.
“I’d like to hold it in my arms and keep it company.”
Shady let her head drop into her hands. “This just keeps getting better and better.”
~*~*~*~*~*~ To Be Continued...