“Haaawt raaawds,” the camel mooed.
Unenlightened, Phin resumed fly-swishing. A minute later, he spotted the car, then spotted Freddy, hot on its heels. He was still barking his head off.
“A ’Cuda! A ’Cuda! Got a dual carb! A Barracuda! Crazy!”
Phin thought Freddy was crazy. The car looked like an old two-door junker, and it made an unseemly racket as it tore past the farm. It certainly wasn’t in the same class as the Ingrams’ luxury sedan. There was just no accounting for taste.
Twenty minutes later, Freddy came panting back down the drive. He looked beat, but his eyes held a fanatical gleam.
“Couldn’t … make ’em … stop,” he gasped. “Too fast … for this … tripod daddy-o. But man … that was one … unreal street machine.” He collapsed in a heap in his patch of shade, sides heaving.
“Why did you want them to stop?” Phin wondered. “I mean, I get it that you like the car, but what are you going to do with one?”
“Catch a ride … out of … Nowheresville, hombre. I’m just … bidin’ my time … waitin’ for … the right ride.” Freddy staggered to his paws and headed for the water trough.
It was a typically hot day, but Phin suddenly felt cold all over. The farm without Freddy? It was not a place the pony wanted to imagine. And just as he realized how much he’d miss the mutt, Phin also realized that he had a friend. He looked with real affection at the dirty, flea-bitten, three-legged dog and knew that he’d never met anyone quite like him.
“I didn’t think that car was anything special,” he said petulantly.
“Aw, Phinny, don’t tell me you’re dumb as a cat about cars! And here I thought you’d wised up some. Well, I’ll give you a break, I guess, seein’ as you can’t exactly ride in one. But brother, I tell you, there ain’t nothin’ in the world better’n being in the bucket seat of a hot rod, nose out the window, layin’ a patch of highway.…” Freddy’s eyes glazed over dreamily, and then he was asleep.
He called me “Phinny.”
* * *
Just when Phin thought it couldn’t get any hotter, it did. The air was so humid, it was like having your face pressed up against Wally’s muzzle, only less stinky. Phin and Freddy spent most of their time in the crick with Sumalee. Freddy liked to fish, but he didn’t care to eat his catch, which gave Phin the inspiration for a sneaky diplomatic coup. When Freddy was busy cleaning his paws, Phin pinched his nostrils to slits, picked up one of the larger trout by its tail, and cantered as fast as he could to the little barn where Mixie, Maxie, and Moxie spent most of the day sleeping on hay bales.
“Hey, girls, Freddy just caught this and asked me to bring it over. He thought you might like a change of pace from all the kibble.” The sisters were still on rat-catching strike.
Watching the cats’ lunch was worse than watching Sven at the salt lick, but it was worth it. Not in his wildest hopes had Phin anticipated such a complete attitude change. Even Freddy, once he’d recovered from shock, couldn’t resist the worshipful, merciful silence with which the cats now regarded him, and he took to casually tossing them his catch every day.
“Pride goeth before a fish,” Sumalee chuckled. “Well done, Phineas.”
The pony was glad to receive the compliment but happier to hear the water buffalo’s laugh. Sumalee had been uncharacteristically anxious lately, watching the skies and spending less time in the creek.
“It’s the weather,” she explained to Phin. “Can’t you feel it?”
Before Phin had come to the farm, weather was mostly something he’d experienced from the window of his climate-controlled stall, so he wasn’t particularly attuned to its variations. He knew it was hot, humid, and uncomfortable, but that was about it. He shook his head.
“Take a deep breath,” Sumalee told him. “Plant your hooves and feel the ground. Listen to the wind.”
“What wind?” Phin snorted. But he did as Sumalee instructed, flaring his pink nostrils and pricking his ears forward, though he felt a bit silly. It was so hot. So hot that it was making him jittery. Is that normal? he wondered. Shouldn’t I just feel lazy and stupid? Instead, he felt a bit on edge. The heat was all-encompassing, smothering. It seemed to lay a blanket over the farm, silencing the insects, stilling any breath of air. It was unnaturally still. Was that what Sumalee meant?
“It feels a little weird.” Phin couldn’t do better than that, but it was the truth.
“I agree,” Sumalee said, and the worry had returned to her voice. “I could be wrong, but it feels to me like the calm before a storm. We’re approaching the season of heavy rains.”
“Ugh.” Phin shuddered. “I’ve got to figure out the shelter situation. The last time it rained, we all ran for the shed, then nobody wanted to leave, so we were stuffed in there like Isabella in her breeches. For hours. I think I’ll assign rain stations. We’ll give Wally and Sven the shed, they’re the tallest, and since the truce, Freddy and I can join the cats in the hay barn. So that leaves—”
“Phineas, I think we may have more to worry about than where to shelter the Fuzzy Butts,” Sumalee interrupted gently. “I think a … big storm is coming.”
Her tone made Phin shiver. And like his friend, he started watching the skies.
* * *
It turned out that Phin didn’t have to worry about the Fuzzy Butts—at least not all of them. Despite Sumalee’s ominous words, he’d decided to go forward with the shelter assignments, but when he cautiously approached the rabbits’ hutch to determine its weatherproofing, the only Fuzzy Butts in residence were an ancient, lop-eared grandfather and two of the smallest youngsters, one of whom was the great-nephew that Freddy had rescued from the briar patch.
“Aw, didn’t I tell you?” Freddy said when Phin asked him if he’d seen the other rabbits lately. “They took off a coupla days ago. That red-eyed goof got spooked by the weather. Said they were headin’ for higher ground.” The dog yawned contemptuously. “Thought he was doin’ me a favor—said he owed me one for savin’ that little fella’s tail—told me to blow this joint and head east. I told him he was gettin’ his whiskers in a knot over a pile of nothin’. Little rain never hurt no one, ’specially not Freddy.”
“But they left one of their old grandpas, and that baby you saved!”
“Told you—them’s some mean bunnies. Didn’t want to be slowed down. Ruthless little fur balls.”
Phin was now officially worried. If the Fuzzy Butts were sacrificing their weaker family members to get away from whatever weather was coming, it was definitely serious. The pony sniffed the nonexistent wind again, and this time he thought he smelled rain.
* * *
But when it came, they weren’t ready.
All day, a heavy bank of clouds had lowered toward the farm, chasing out the sun and finally kicking up the wind. The air moved in scattered gusts, tossing leaves and dirt and rattling the trees, then dying down to the dense silence that set Phin’s nerves on edge. All day, the skies roiled and sulked. Sometimes the belly of a thick purple cloud would flash with lightning; sometimes the clouds would thin to a nauseous yellow-gray. The strange light gave the field an eerie incandescence that reminded Phin of the way the city park looked when the sidewalk lamps first flickered on at dusk. But still it didn’t rain.
That evening, the sun didn’t set so much as collapse, and it was abruptly dark. The animals gathered at their assigned rain stations—Sven, Wally, and Matilda under the three-sided shed; Freddy, Phin, and the cats in the hay barn; the chickens, goats, and leftover rabbits in the big coop. Sumalee decided to stay near the creek, though Phin wanted her to join them in the barn.
“I don’t mind getting wet,” the water buffalo said, smiling.
At around midnight, the heavens opened. It began with pit pit pat pat pit pat, like someone smacking a dozen wet tennis balls on the driveway. And then, as if a cord had been pulled, the clouds opened and started dumping their contents on the farm.
“Looks like the old man upstairs is t
hrowin’ the kitchen sink at us!” Freddy yelped.
“What?” Phin whinnied.
“I said—oh, never mind.” It was impossible to be heard above the clamor of the storm.
The noise was outrageous. Phin pinned his ears back flat against his head, trying to block the rain’s roar. He could just make out the sheets of water cascading from the roof of the barn; otherwise, the darkness beyond the doorway was impenetrable. Phin scooted closer to Freddy and together they faced the barn door, waiting out the storm.
Hours passed, and still the rain came down. Phin drifted in and out of a disoriented doze—sometimes the wet howl outside was Poppy’s neigh, sometimes it sounded like Jack crying the day Poppy died, and then like Jack crying when he left Phin at the Funny Farm … Jack’s tears were pooling up all around them … really, it was getting quite wet … Phin awoke with a snort, tossing his head. He was standing in water up to his cannons.
The pony whinnied in surprise. “Freddy! Freddy, where are you? The barn’s flooding! FREDDY!” he trumpeted, frantic to be heard over the rain.
If he hadn’t been wet, stiff, and frightened, Phin would’ve laughed when he finally found the dog in the darkness of the cramped barn. Freddy had joined Mixie, Maxie, and Moxie on a hay bale and the four were curled up together, sound asleep—the very picture of a peaceable kingdom. All we need now is a Fuzzy Butt kissing a goat and I’ll be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Phin gave Freddy a shove with his muzzle.
“Wake up, cat lover! IT’S FLOODING!”
Freddy jumped, sending cats flying in three different directions, and Phin heard three distinct splashes as they hit the water. Even the raging storm couldn’t mute the yowls that followed.
“I’M GOING TO CHECK ON THE OTHERS!” Phin bellowed. “STAY HERE.”
“NO WAY, HOMBRE. I’M COMIN’ WITH,” Freddy barked back. “STAY DRY, GIRLS,” he told the sisters, spitting and hissing at him as they clawed their way back up the hay bale.
The rain hit the pony and the dog with a force that bowed their heads the instant they stepped out from the barn’s protection. They slogged their way toward the shed, where Sven, Wally, and Matilda were huddled in a miserable, extremely damp clutch, trying to avoid the rain that penetrated the roof, floor, and open side of the leaky shed. Phin grimaced sympathetically, then he and Freddy slogged out to the coop, where the chickens, goats, and remaining Fuzzy Butts were irritatingly dry and snug.
“No room,” croaked the old rabbit. “Go find your own coop.” Freddy made a very rude gesture as they left.
“GOTTA CHECK ON MISS SUMALEE,” he barked in Phin’s ear as the pony started to trot to the barn. “BE RIGHT BACK.” Just as he turned toward the field, a flash of lightning suddenly illuminated the farm, seeming to freeze fat drops of rain in place like a photograph, and casting eerie shadows over the water. The water. There was so much water. Phin and Freddy stood stunned as the flickering white and silver of the lightning’s pale fire revealed the wave flowing up from the creek, devouring the field. Just before the image was swallowed by the night, Phin spotted Sumalee, no more than a hundred yards away. She was swimming.
“Uh-oh,” Freddy said.
CHAPTER 10
For a moment—a moment that seemed to stretch out in an eternity of rain, rain, and more rain—Phin’s brain was frozen, stuck as fast as Sven in the fence. Where has all that water come from? And where is it going?
Then the pieces clicked into place, and Sumalee’s strident bellow as she struggled toward them only served as confirmation. “The river and the creek have flooded! We must move to higher ground!”
“No kiddin’,” Freddy growled. “Didn’t take a swimmin’ buffalo to puzzle that one out.” Phin knew his grouchy tone was a poor mask for the palpable relief in the dog’s eyes as he watched his friend thrash through the last of the flooded field to reach them.
“Where’s higher ground?” Looking out over the enormous body of water that seemed to inch closer by the minute, swallowing up swaths of the farm as it advanced, Phin felt very small and very lost. He thought longingly of his penthouse stall high in the city sky.… No flood would ever reach him there. But this was no time for wishful thinking, the pony knew. He was long past the point of hoping that if he closed his eyes and waited long enough, he’d somehow be home again. He was home, for what that home was worth, and now it was time to leave … again.
“East,” Freddy barked. “Durn Fuzzy Butts knew what they were about, I guess. Follow the county road out.”
“Then I’d better go break the fence,” the pony said resignedly.
* * *
The weakest part of the fence was closest to the creek and not an option—the fields in that direction were now a bleak waste of water and bracken. Instead, Phin picked a spot by the salt lick—Sven had already done considerable damage to the planks there, and while the water was knee-high on the pony and rising, he thought they could get everyone through before the flood’s crest hit. A few well-aimed kicks cleared a respectable gap, and Phin plunged back through the murky dark to round up the animals.
A drenched, frightened crowd awaited him in the shed. Even Sumalee looked relieved when Phin poked his head in the door. He found that he’d grown surprisingly indifferent to the rain—the lightning was bothersome, but he rather agreed with Freddy. A little rain never hurt no one.
“Can everybody swim?” he asked.
Sven nodded. “Reindeer are quite strong swimmers,” he said gloomily, “though of course I’ll need some guidance.…”
Wally nodded, but then added, “What’s swimming?”
Only Matilda shook her head.
Phin was relieved. “That’s fine. Sven, you can hold on to my tail if necessary. Wally, you’re so tall, I doubt you’ll have to swim. And Matilda, you can just, er, fly. Right?”
“We’re flightless birds, you daft Sepo1!” she squawked.
Phin momentarily forgot his more pressing worries. “What on earth is the use of a bird who can’t fly?” he exclaimed. “No wonder they wanted to turn you into a purse!” And then he quickly ducked his head out of the shed before Matilda’s powerful claws could find him. As he did, another flash of lightning lit up what was once their field. The water had gained a frightening amount of ground. Phin, realizing that this was no time to pick a fight, shouted an apology to Matilda.
“I can gun it, thank you very much,” she snarled at him. “You don’t have to worry about keeping my tail feathers dry. Emus run up to fifty kilometers an hour.”
Oh please, Phin thought. Like she expects us to believe that. He caught Freddy’s eye and the dog lifted a similarly skeptical eyebrow.
“Wow, that’s … that’s really impressive, Matilda.” Phin thought he better butter her up for what he was about to suggest. “So, you’ll carry the cats, okay?”
He had to duck his head back out of the shed as the emu exploded with indignation. He could hear violent thumps and bangs as she attempted to muscle past Sumalee to get at him.
Then: “Enough.” Sumalee’s voice was low but firm. “Matilda, we all need to work together. Phin’s right. The cats can’t swim well and your feathers will protect you from their claws. You’re the only one who can carry them.” Phin waited out the emu’s renewed complaints and protests, straining to see the line of the floodwaters in the dark, but this time there was no lightning to give him a view. He ran through the list in his head. Sven, Wally, Matilda, cats … now goats, chickens, and Fuzzy Butts. He never doubted Sumalee and Freddy. It would be like doubting himself.
* * *
“Brother, you ain’t lived till you’ve seen three cats riding shotgun on an emu.” Freddy gave a vigorous shake as he hopped into the coop, sending a spray of water into Phin’s face. The pony hardly noticed. What he did notice was that Freddy’s spirits seemed in inverse proportions to the worsening storm. The dog had been tirelessly herding goats through the field to the gap in the fence and then to a rendezvous point on the road where Wally and Matilda and her jock
eys already waited. He was winded, but his eyes positively shone with delight. He licked at his coat for a moment, then seemed to give it up as a bad job.
“Water’s gettin’ pretty deep by the gap, Phinny,” he commented. “We better go on and get everybody out. It means swimmin’.”
“I know, I know,” the pony whinnied with frustration. “I just can’t figure out what to do with the chickens. They’re so petrified, they’re just running around like, like … well, you know.”
“Like the sky is falling?” Freddy barked with laughter. “Or like their heads were cut off?”
“Don’t get them going again! I just got them calmed down!” Phin whickered vehemently.
“Like maybe there’s a fox in the hen—” A tremendous explosion swallowed the rest of Freddy’s sentence.
Dog, chickens, rabbits, and pony were thrown together in a wet heap. Phin felt his bones rattle with the impact of what could only have been a very, very close lightning strike. Like the time the Ferris wheel was hit—the simp heister, Poppy and Jack called it—“The heister got it in the keister!” Poppy had neighed.… Now we’re getting it in the keister.
And then the coop collapsed around them.
“Freddy! Ouch, what was—”
Bock BOCK BOCK bock bockbockbock!
“Great jumpin’ Jehosaphat…”
The world was very dark, very wet, and apparently upside down. Phin’s nostrils were filled with muck and he wasn’t entirely sure where or what he had landed on. Shards of wood and wire lay strewn around him, snaring up his legs and tail, and his eyes were bleary with mud. He was uncomfortable, especially now that he was out in the torrential downpour instead of under the protection of the defunct chicken coop, but he didn’t think he was actually injured. Just as he was struggling to his hooves, shoving off various bits of wreckage, the flood’s big wave reached them.
Suddenly Phin was swimming. It happened as fast as that. He whinnied with surprise, his legs uselessly thrashing beneath him. He’d never swum before, and it took him a minute to coordinate his movements. “Freddy!” he cried. “Freddy, where are you?” He couldn’t see the dog anywhere, but a flicker of lightning showed him a tree branch full of chickens.
Little Prince - The Story of a Shetland Pony Page 7