#ExploringNewWorlds
Challenge Day 9
What makes your protagonist angry!
But here... don't take my word for it, see for yourself!
We must make it, we
must,
Laurie thought to herself.
“Hopefully they can’t
climb trees,” Chris muttered to himself.
If only we can make it
to the edge of the marsh, mused Tarpin. He had a plan.
It was a narrow escape
when they finally reached the marshland.
“Climb the marshland
trees!” Tarpin yelled over the hollering of the Platonians.
Immediately Chris and Laurie grabbed hold of a
tree and started climbing. Tarpin climbed up after them. They were hardly in
the middle branches when out of nowhere came a band of one hundred Squirrels.
“Stay perfectly still,”
Tarpin advised quietly to the two. “The Squirrels will attack the Platonians
and drive them away; they think the Platonians are attacking them!”
The Platonians were
close on the heels of the refugees and nearing their hiding place. In the
branches of her tree Laurie fought back a giggle when she spotted a few of the
Platonians jumping away quickly from the areas where the ground was the
soggiest. The mud was soon the least of the Platonian’s worries once they heard
the distant war cry of the Squirrels.
Stunned they froze in the path and watched in
horror as the band of Squirrels descended on them, through the treetops and on
the ground. The Squirrels had spears, slings, and knives brandished high. The
Platonians, knowing the reputation of these fierce warriors, turned and ran out
and away from the marshlands as quickly as possible. The Squirrels stopped at
the edge of the marshlands and watched the Platonian retreat.
After putting up his
tegar, Tarpin hopped nimbly down from the tree,
“We thank you and your
tribe for saving us from that murderous tribe of Platonians,” he said, smiling.
Startled from the voice
behind their lines, the chief turned to face his new menace.
“What do you mean
‘saved you’? What are you doing here?” The Squirrel chief demanded.
“I said ‘we thank you’,
not ‘I’. There are three of us,” Tarpin reproved, as behind him the two
children jumped swiftly down, their tegars
still extended full length. “We came here to ask if your tribe has seen a group
of humans, like these children but older?”
“No,” the Squirrel
chief answered deftly.
“I know otherwise!”
Tarpin growled.
Unexpectedly rebuffed,
the chief responded, “What does it mean to you? Our spies tell us that their
group, calling themselves the EOE team, was planning to attack and overcome
us.”
“EOE stands for
Explorers of Exandra. We were on a mission to explore, not conquer!” Laurie
exclaimed, quite consumed with anger and frustration.
Chris laid a hand on
her shoulder.
“The young one speaks
the truth,” said Tarpin, his face stern.
“How can you be so
sure; you were not here when the humans came!” The Squirrel chief accused.
“These two were,” Tarpin answered.
“How can you believe
their story? How do you know they are not lying?”
“It is called trust,
thou who have none,” Tarpin said sternly.
“Ha, trust,” the chief
mocked.
Laurie knew that
neither the chief nor the Squirrels were convinced that the EOE team had not
come to the marshlands to cause them harm. Laurie was still quite aggravated
with the Squirrels, but now she had an idea. She took her MTD out of her pocket
and began pressing a few buttons. Chris looked over her shoulder curiously;
Tarpin was still arguing with the chief over whether or not the members of the
EOE team were conquerors or explorers.
After having finished,
Laurie walked over to a stump of a tree and set her MTD down on it. It looked
very tiny sitting open there, with its blue screen glowing slightly. She turned
it toward the others, who now stared at her with suspicion, wondering what she
was doing. She pushed a little blue button on the side of her MTD and stepped
to the side.
The Squirrels gasped
and muttered in surprise, a light shone from the MTD on the tree stump. Two
feet away from the screen, a hologram began to flicker and then the image
became steady. It was a 3D map of Exandra. It showed in detail all the hills,
valleys, rivers, and wooded areas that the EOE team knew of before they started
on their trek.
Most of these things on
the map were from the information Trib had given them. Nevertheless, there was
still a vast area of Exandra that not even the Laskonians had explored; these
areas were blank on the 3D map. The team had set out to explore a certain piece
of this unknown land. Laurie showed and explained to the Squirrels the map and
the team’s detailed plans for exploring more of the blank areas on the map.
Trying to persuade the Squirrel chief that the EOE team had not come to conquer
the Squirrels, she insisted that the members of her team did not even know the
Squirrels lived here.
“If we knew you were
here, don’t you think we would have ignored this area?” She asked.
“Not if you were coming
to attack us,” the chief answered.
Laurie shut her MTD off
and closed it.
“Oh, you are
hardheaded!” she exclaimed. “Don’t you think that if we were trying to attack
you we would try to come undetected and not walking out in the open?” Laurie
said, exasperated.
“Or what about the fact
that if we were attacking you we would have brought weapons; we were unarmed
when you ambushed us,” Chris added.
The Squirrels just looked
at the two children blankly.
Laurie shook her head.
“If you still don’t
believe us, why don’t you ask our group why they were headed here?” she
exclaimed.
“That is a capital
idea,” said Tarpin.
“Humph. Oh, very well,”
the Squirrel chief answered.
(End excerpt)
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