Larissa angrily did. During those three weeks, she had to do his chores as well as her own. But then she got her own back when Paula had Pedro do her chores as well as his for six weeks. She called it a double punishment.
Rachael held up a little black patch. She squeezed it and a red liquid started to fall out. It was only red wine. “Well, I took it from Pedro and kept it because I thought it might come in handiness, which it did. And I took some pills that put me into a twenty four hour coma. By the time I woke up, my casket arrived in Florida and I tried to find out all I could about this war, but I haven’t found any really useful to tell. Still, I never gave up even when every country started to bomb each other.”
“Well, anything you tell us is useful,” Kathy said. “So, in your own time.”
“Well, for a start, I found out that she’s alive,” said Rachael, pointing to the driver’s seat.
Kathy heard the door to the driver’s seat open behind her and Larissa. As she turned around and saw the driver of the van walk through the door, she had to rub her eyes. She just couldn’t believe it. In fact, she less believed it than when she first saw Rachael. “Petunia?”
The driver was a human being. An old grey-haired female human dressed in black trousers and a pink flower shirt hiding under a black coat. She smiled and she held out her right crinkly hand. “Hello, Kathy.”
Kathy looked at her hand but didn’t shake it. She turned around to make sure that her head was clear again. She didn’t know what was happening to her. Fighting colossal squids, being kidnapped by her crocodile friend and now after three years she was meeting her old mentor Petunia Clockson alive. After pinching both of her cheeks to double check she was not dreaming or in heaven, she finally knew she was alive and awake. She finally turned around and embraced the old lady in tears. “I’m sorry, Petunia,” she sobbed happily. “I just can’t believe you’re alive.”
Petunia smiled again. “I completely understand, Kathy. Like Rachael, I had to fake my death without you knowing as well. Among the many reasons, I did all this for your protection.” She could see her former zebra apprentice was so confused. “I’ll explain everything later, dear, and I do hope in time you’ll understand. But we’ve got a war to stop first.”
“First question: are we in Florida?” asked Kathy.
Petunia nodded. “Yes, we are. And we strongly believe that the crook that started this war is around here somewhere. The sooner we get there and grab him or her, the better.”
“Petunia, sorry to interrupt your reunion,” said Rachael, “but you need to see this urgently.”
“Kathy, strap yourself and Larissa in. We’ll fill you guys in later.” Petunia joined the crocodile in the driver’s seat and closed the door behind her.
Kathy thought Petunia and Rachael should let her in on this. She tried to open the door for a little peek, but it was completely locked. Then a new mystery was popping into her head. First, Petunia had to fake her death and so did Rachael. Then they showed themselves to her out of thin air and they wouldn’t even let her in on their discussions, even though they could be very important. She began to wonder if they were up to something when the van started to drive. Seeing as there was nothing else she could do, the curious zebra decided to go with the flow for the time being.
“I know Rachael, Kathy,” Larissa said, as she sat on the pull-down passenger seat, “but I don’t know anything about Petunia, apart from her being your ex-mentor and was thought to have died three years ago. I don’t know that much about you, to be honest.”
After putting the belt on for her, Kathy sat in the opposite pull-down passenger seat and strapped herself in. Seeing as there was nothing else to do, she decided to share her painful life story.
“The earliest memories I have was being five years old, living in the Canadian Rockies and wearing nothing but a torn brown dress. It had been only been fifteen minutes since my parents and three elder sisters were killed by the human poachers that wore torn shirts and trousers with wellington boots full of holes. They immediately chased me, leaving me no time to mourn for her family. I tried to lose them in the tall trees and the chilly lakes, but they always showed up and chased me again every time I thought I was rid of them.
“I continued to run for so many hours before I began to lose focus. Then I finally collapsed on the steps of a small wooden cottage all by itself. I was so tired that I couldn’t be asked to hide either inside or behind it even though I knew I was a sitting duck. I looked up and saw all four human poachers reaching for me. Then a gunshot echoed through the trees and the blonde female fell down with blood falling out of her forehead. I turned to see an old grey-haired woman wearing old black baggy trousers and a red jumper on the wooden steps of the wooden cabin. She aimed her shotgun and fired. The ginger haired man fell down with blood leaking out of his neck. Only the black haired poachers were left. They quickly dropped their guns and ran away as fast as they could, but they each were shot in the back and they fell down dead in a pond of blood.
“I closed my eyes as I saw the lady approaching me. ‘Just do it quick,’ I told her. Then I found myself on my feet and saw my hands were being held by the lady’s. She was even smiling.
“‘I’m not going to hurt you. I’m going to help you. Come on inside.’ Then she put her hand on my back to comfort me as we went into the wooden cottage. I was still suspicious about this lady because she was a human being, but remembering I had no family or shelter to go to and this human being was offering to let me live instead of becoming supper unlike the deceased human poachers that chased me, I decided to check the cottage out. I was so amazed with how it looked. Even though the floor and the walls were all wooden, it had mansion quality: large glass windows, huge grand paintings, a large fireplace and a bookcase so massive it could be mistaken for one at a library.
“‘Children,’ called the lady.
“Then I saw young animals on their two feet like me entering the room and standing in a line in front of me and the lady. There was a young deer, a young antelope, a young bear, a young newt, a young bald eagle and a young crocodile.
“‘Good morning, Miss Petunia,’ said the little animals.
“‘Say hello to Miss…’ Then Petunia realised she didn’t even ask my name.
“‘Kathy, Miss. Kathy Toronto.’
“‘Miss Kathy Toronto,’ Petunia finished at last.
“The little ones greeted me warmly as they could. It was as warm as toast that had popped out of the toaster and no one ate until ten minutes later. I was grateful for having a home, but making friends with the young animals was not so easy. As the days went on, nothing seemed to get better. No one seemed to want anything to do with me. The main exception was Petunia who taught me all the life skills anyone would need to survive: cooking, reading, writing and saving everything as much as she could. She even taught me all she knew about self defence which, I believed, must have helped me through all the G.C.A. missions I’ve been on.”
“What about Rachael?” Larissa asked.
“Well, Rachael was the only one who didn’t get on with the other animals either,” Kathy said. “I don’t know why, but I think they were all a little nervous of the young croc even before her baby teeth got replaced by sharp teeth. But, to my surprise, she wanted me to play cards with her some days after I joined the orphanage. I’m still puzzled by this day why she asked me to do so. After we had a good game of cards, we played hide and seek. And then we read together. And then we’ve been doing stuff together every day since. But I’m glad she did so. That was when I finally had another best friend other than Petunia.
“Then years later, Canadian policemen and soldiers arrived to arrest Petunia under a lot of many accusations of many murder attempts years later. She confessed her killings, but she said it was not murder; she only killed the poachers to save the endangered animals of the Canadian Rockies from becoming dinner. Never being one for surrendering, she fought the soldiers to let me, Rachael and the other orphans flee
for their lives. Rachael and I tried to convince her to run with us, but she ordered us to leave and kept on fighting. I was shocked to leave after seeing Petunia getting shot in her burning cottage and being left to die. Seeing there was nothing to do to help her, Rachael and I decided to run before the military could see us.
“Rachael and I had been running non-stop for hours. We didn’t know where the other orphans were and they were soon spotted by human poachers. We came to the edge of a waterfall and tried to hide as we had nothing to defend ourselves with, but the poachers spotted us. Before they could kill us, they were shot themselves… by Global Creature Alliance. It was Squad J and the only person we knew at that time in the squad was Stu Pot at the time, supervised by Lukeson. They spoke to us and convinced us to join G.C.A.
“And we said yes,” Kathy finished. “Then all the English animals got promoted to Squad I, leaving me, Rachael and Stu Pot in Squad J.” She started to slowly feel better for finally getting it out of her system.
Larissa smiled admiringly. “This is why I look up to you, Kathy. No matter what happens to you, no matter how hurt you get, you still move on. I wish I was more like you when my parents were killed.”
Kathy wondered she really did move on any better than Larissa did.
Petunia popped her head in. “Kathy, Larissa. Be ready for action in ten minutes.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Kathy said, as she watched Petunia returned to Rachael.
“I can see how much she meant to you all your life,” said Larissa. “I wish my Aunt Paula was more like her.”
As if not getting on with her brother was bad and stressful enough, Kathy could not also understand why Larissa had very little respect for her only aunt, especially since she was the lucky one for being the one in the squad that had an aunt and a brother. Kathy, Stu Pot, Mengy, Lukeson and supposedly Rustom had no relatives at all.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Stu Pot mumbled as he started to open his eyes. He thought they were deceiving him when the first thing he saw once both his eyes and his mind were awake enough was not at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean while being wrapped in squid tentacles but high in the blue skies with white clouds. He thought he was onboard a plane in the sky and he was dreaming on it.
Then he noticed he had his blue glasses still over his eyes. He tried to take them off so he could see if it was real and he wasn’t dreaming, but he found out that he couldn’t move anything at all.
This was making no sense to Stu Pot at all. He saw that his hands and his feet were shackled and chained up, but he couldn’t see what was holding the chain that was holding his shackles. Probably a big white cloud? But how is that possible? He tried to see beyond the chain, but all he could see was just white fluffy clouds. Then he looked down and saw that he was hanging above the sky. He realised that he was not dreaming when his trembling feelings overtook his whole body from mane to toe. His worst nightmare of being chained up high in the sky was happening right now!
“Whee!”
Stu Pot turned left to see Pedro was in chains and shackles like him, but he was below him and swinging around like a monkey swinging on a jungle vine.
“Pedro, what are you doing?” Stu Pot asked.
“Since there’s no way out of this,” said Pedro, “I thought we might as well make the most out of the remaining two minutes and fifty three seconds we had left.”
“Before what?”
“Why, before our three chains get snapped by an automatic chainsaw and we fall down to our deaths, of course,” replied Pedro. “And before you ask, I saw the automatic chainsaw underneath the cloud while I was swinging around.”
What? We’re thirty thousand miles high in the sky in chains and about to fall to our deaths by some sort of automatic chainsaw cutting on the three chains that are holding us into the clouds? And Pedro seems fine with it? Stu Pot wished it was a dream now.
Three chains? The zebra turned to his right and found Rustom snoring. He was wondering how and why the three of them were up in the clouds and none of the rest of their fellow squad mates were when he heard a snap and he dropped a few inches. He immediately knew what it meant: the chainsaw had nearly finished cutting the chain that was holding him.
“Rustom!” he called. “Wake up! We need to find a way to get out of this!”
But the rhino didn’t open an eyelid.
Stu Pot was dropped a few more inches. “WAKE UP!”
“Yeah, yeah,” Rustom yawned. “In a minute.”
The zebra fell a few more inches. “I wish I was indestructible like you, Rustom, but we need to be free this very second!”
“I’m working on a plan, all right? Just shut up and let me think.”
Stu Pot decided to give up on nagging him. “Fine, but if I become paralysed or worse dead –”
“You’ll do what to me?” Rustom chuckled. “You seem to forget that I’m indestructible and immortal. No prison can trap me and no creature can make me feel guilty. And I’d like to see how unconfident, weak, smelly, poor eyed, stripy idiots like you try.”
Stu Pot had been insulted all his life. He had been criticised by Lukeson and Skipton and teased by other animals, including his teammates. But nothing like Rustom’s last sentence had ever made him really flip over. He roared angrily as he charged for the mean rhino, but then he saw that he was getting further away from him. He quickly realised that he stretched so far that the chain had completely snapped. His falling speeded up. He held his eyes shut tight as he fell down and screamed at the top of his lungs.
“Oh, shut up screaming and wake up, you stripy idiot,” said Rustom’s voice.
Stu Pot opened his eyes and saw the rhino and Pedro free from their chains were standing on the clouds. He saw that he was not falling down anymore and free from his chains as well. “But how are we standing on the clouds?” he asked.
“You’re welcome for saving your life,” said Rustom.
“I’m not thanking a creature for insulting me for no reason! I think I’d rather fallen to my death.”
“I only said those things to make you snap your chain to break free so I could grab and toss you and Pedro to the clouds, genius. You said you wanted to break free as quick as we can.”
The zebra wondered how he felt none of that when he had his eyes closed very tightly while falling down. He started to wonder if his brain was turning fluffy. “I’m sorry, but that doesn’t justify your right to be as rude and aggressive as you wish.”
“Where I come from, your death wish would have been granted in milliseconds. And you’ll get worst insults from the creatures that live there than from me, I can promise you that.”
“Care to give us more details about your home?” asked Stu Pot.
“I could tell you more, but I can’t tell you the information you want to know about.”
“Can you at least tell me was it whoever raised you taught you to be ruthless?”
“You could say that. And where I come from, it was ruled by one selfish bastard and we were all his warriors or slaves, committed to obeying his orders without a single question. He had no advisors, no inventors and no ambassadors. And if you were not smart and strong enough, you would have been killed. You would have to be perfect for his standards. He had no soft spots for anyone. Even disabled creatures of both physical and mental conditions would not be spared.”
“If you left your place to only to get sympathy, you’ve come to the wrong zebra. So just go and leave me alone.”
Rustom scoffed. “You know I can’t.”
“Just bugger off!” Stu Pot roared.
“How you forgotten that your elephant pal has invisible chains inside my legs? The furthest away I can be away from any of you is fifty yards.”
Stu Pot had forgotten all about that and if Rustom was going to insult his memory he couldn’t handle it. “Then just don’t talk to me! And don’t even look at me!”
“Hey, check this out!” cried Pedro.
Stu Pot and Rustom saw that the l
ittle penguin was kneeling behind a big cloud. The boys went over and hid with him.
“What are we hiding from, Pedro?” asked Stu Pot.
Pedro pointed his wing upwards. They looked up to see a long black haired male human who was wearing black trousers, black boats and a blue vest falling towards them. He was carrying a spear. Then the falling man appeared with two giant grey pigeon-like wings sticking out of his back! He flew upwards and out of their sight again.
“What the hell is that?” asked Pedro.
“Has Aunt Paula told you anything about swearing?” Stu Pot said sternly.
“You know my aunt,” said Pedro. “There’s no life for her beyond her inventions.”
“Don’t badmouth your aunt,” warned Stu Pot. “She still loves you and is trying to help you in every way she can.”
“Then why do I struggle to see her as a role model?” asked Pedro.
That question Stu Pot made decide that there was no choice but to draw the line there. “Just don’t swear anymore, all right?” But even though he knew that it was none of his business, he still thought it was wrong for Pedro for not thinking much of his only living relatives. He suggested Mengy to give the young penguins a potion so they could be better friends, but she said she didn’t learn to create such a thing.
“A wingman,” replied Rustom.
“What?” Stu Pot and Pedro said together.
“That’s what the hell that is…” He stopped when Stu Pot glared at him. It didn’t bother him; he just had enough of Stu Pot’s moaning. “Just like the land has humans and the sea has mer-people,” said Rustom, “the skies have a populated humanoid species with wings known as ‘Wingpeople’. They live in the clouds and their mission is to protect them along with their fellow birds from any danger.”
“How do you know this?” asked Stu Pot. “Did you scan that creature?”
“No,” replied Rustom. “I studied back at my place. If I had to say one good thing about it, it would be that it’s like being in a research centre. My friends and I would research and study all over this planet and the universe, trying to gain as much knowledge as we can. It’s bigger than the internet and has accurate information, not misleading.”
The Cult of Kishpu Page 17
