The Fallen Star

by Tracey Hecht

  Click, click, click.

  Click! Click! Click!

  The glowers were drawing even nearer now—just a few tail lengths away.

  “Help! Help!” The glider shrieked and clutched Dawn’s hind leg once more. “Oh, you monsters, why don’t you go back to your own planet where you belong!”

  Click, click, click!

  Click, click, click!

  Tobin gulped. The invaders were close enough to touch now. And new ones continued to pour through the holes in the walls. There were so many—more than hundreds! Thousands! With tens of thousands of eyes! The creatures’ clicking grew louder, deafening. Their glow grew brighter and brighter. The pangolin felt his stomach twist and writhe and churn.

  “Somebody help meeeeeeee!” Bismark wailed. He was completely fastened to Dawn now, all four of his miniscule limbs wrapped tightly around her leg. “They’re going to kill me! Zip me! Zap me! Zoom me straight into space!” His yelps grew louder. “This is it! The grande finale! Death!”

  The sugar glider wiped his wet face on Dawn’s rust-colored fur, burying his cheek in its folds. “Oh, Dawn, light of my life, fire of my flaps, my sweet, my soul! I must profess my love to you in every tongue, in every language I know! Je t’aime. Ti amo. Yo…te…ti, tu, toi, Quoi!? I cannot remember the others. Even my words are lost! This is the end! All is over! Oh, for the lift of my flaps—” Bismark gazed up pleadingly at the night sky, preparing to beg the heavens for help…but then he paused. Where were the stars? Where was the moon?

  “Dios mio! Quelle horreur! Dawn, mi amore, my sweet—we are departing this earth…and we can’t even enjoy the romance of the full moon in our final moments!”

  The fox looked up. Indeed, the moon had retreated fully behind the clouds, as if it, too, were fearful of the star creatures. The sky was gray, and the entire universe felt suddenly barren, lifeless, and dull.

  Dawn shifted her nervous gaze back to the invaders. But now, somehow, there was no glow in sight. From the time she’d looked up to the time she’d looked down, the glowers had completely vanished!

  “Dawn…what’s happening?”uttered Tobin, squinting in the flat, black air.

  The fox remained silent and blinked hard, trying to adjust to the sudden darkness. She narrowed her eyes to focus. Then her amber eyes widened and the hair along her back pricked on end. She drew in a sharp breath and recoiled.

  The Brigade was not alone. In fact, they remained fully surrounded. But the creatures with them in the pit were no longer aglow. The fox’s mouth went dry as she studied them. Without their sharp blue light, she could see them clearly now—their two pincer claws, their six spindly legs, their eight beady eyes.

  Tobin had covered his face with his armored tail, but slowly lowered it to peek at the creatures. Row after row of them stood before him, with all of their eyes fixed on the Brigade.

  “Oh my goodness, where are the glowers?” he asked. “And who are they!?”

  Bismark gasped, confused as well. “Uno momento! Where did the star creatures go? Are they invisible? Are they above us? Below us? Inside us!?” The sugar glider froze in terror.

  Dawn’s gaze shot up to the opening of the pit, where the clouds were beginning to part, slowly revealing the full moon once again. Dawn looked at the creatures again. This time, in the partial moonlight, the aliens looked somewhat…familiar.

  The fox moved closer to them and stared hard. They were strange looking, yes, but aliens, no. These beings weren’t creatures from a distant star. These beings were from this world!

  “Scorpions!” she cried.

  The creatures moved toward Bismark and started to glow again, transforming before his very eyes.

  “How is this possible?” Bismark screeched. “Aliens who have the power to look like earthlings? What evil magic is this?”

  “They don’t look like earthlings,” Dawn said through clenched teeth. “They are earthlings. They are scorpions,” she repeated. The fox’s gaze traced the mass of creatures, who, once again, shone with their eerie, blue glow. “I’d always heard they glow in moonlight, but I’d never seen it with my own eyes because they spend most of their lives underground.”

  Dawn nodded as all suddenly became clear. “Now I understand why there are so many mounds,” she said. “When the fallen star hit the earth, it disturbed the scorpions, and they all surfaced. It’s all making sense now.…”

  “But if these little buggers are from the forest, why are they attacking us?” Bismark cried, throwing his flaps in the air. “What do you want, you scuttling scoundrels? What are you doing with that appalling aye-aye?”

  The scorpions did not reply. Nor did they stand down. Instead, they continued to click their pincers and draw in toward the Brigade.

  “Um, hola? Comrades? Forest friends?” said Bismark. “Maybe you don’t know who you’re talking to after living underground for so long. I am Bismark, god amongst gliders, and we are the Nocturnal Brigade, heroes amongst all! Don’t you know how to treat your friends, your leaders, your—”

  The fox placed a paw over her friend’s mouth, muffling the rest of his words. “Quiet, Bismark!” she ordered. “Scorpions are earthlings, but they’re also poisonous. Poisonous and deadly.” She narrowed her amber eyes. “They may not be dangerous star creatures, but I fear they might be even worse.”

  “Poisonous,” Tobin repeated. “So they’re the ones who ruined the pomelos! They’re the ones who made us sick!” The pangolin clutched his stomach. Fear mixed with queasiness was making it rumble and roil.

  Dawn nodded. “They must have.” She looked at the scorpions’ black, beady eyes and sharp, venomous stingers. “Make no mistake about it—these creatures are not friendly.”

  Tobin, Bismark, and Dawn watched in terror as the scorpions prepared to attack, carefully and precisely arranging themselves in the sharp shape of a triangle, its point aiming right at the Brigade. Then, together, they ever so slowly raised their curved tails above their heads, their stingers dripping with poison.

  “Oh goodness, no!” Tobin cried, covering his face once more.

  “Mon dieu,” Bismark wailed. “We are doomed!”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  GEYSERRHEA

  Click, click, click!

  The scorpions trained their thousands of eyes on the Brigade and let out a loud, menacing hiss.

  “Oh for the love of the night, for l’amour de la nuit! I promise to live my life to the fullest, if only I may live!” Bismark sobbed. “I will glide off the tallest peaks, touch the softest fur, feast upon the sweetest fruit! I will never take anything for granted. Never let the moment pass me by. Just let me live!”

  In a sudden blur, one of the glowers darted toward Bismark with a sharp click before falling back. The sugar glider let out a terrified yelp and scrambled up Dawn’s leg and onto her neck.

  Click, click, click.

  Hissssssss.

  Click, click, click!

  Hissssssss!

  The scorpions were close enough to touch now, their glow growing brighter and brighter. But then, suddenly, the moonlight above disappeared again, and the creatures’ eerie light melted away.

  The Brigade looked up: Aye-Aye Iris had reappeared, and her wild, ragged fur cast shadows that darkened the pit to nearly pitch black.

  “What are you waiting for!?” she screeched at the scorpions. Her long, bony hands clutched the rim of the pit. “End them!”

  “Quick, mi amore, look out!” Bismark cried. The sugar glider tugged at the fox’s ears as one of the biggest scorpions made a quick jab at her front paws. Dawn jerked back, quickly stepping away, but her rapid movement sent the sugar glider hurtling off her back and high into the air.

  “Oh mon dieu! You’ve tossed me straight into the den of death!” Bismark cried, He waved his flaps frantically above the mass of scorpions beneath him, trying to escape them, but it was no use. The glider hovered above the creatures for a moment, then fell directly into the swarm.

  “No, no, not mo
i!” Bismark wailed as the scorpions scuttled around to face him. Then the largest, most menacing of the invaders stepped forward and hissed. All eight of its beady eyes flashed with fury. Its body tensed and its stinger arched behind it, poised to strike.

  “Bismark!” Tobin screamed. His stomach lurched and a searing pang stung his side. The fear of the moment, the thought of losing Bismark, the last of the poison still in his system—it was all simply too much to bear. His entire body began to convulse, as if he was being torn apart from within.

  “Eurrghhh!”

  The force of it hit him like a boulder. All the pressure that had been building up since he had eaten the blue flower and all the fear he’d felt since his capture had finally reached its peak.

  The pangolin squinted his watery eyes.

  “Tobin, what’s wrong?” Dawn knew Tobin well, but she’d never known him to make a noise quite like that.

  Bismark raised one eyebrow and froze in place, and even the scorpions that surrounded them paused, tails in mid-air, stiffening at Tobin’s startling sound.

  “Tobin?” Dawn whispered urgently.

  The pangolin was sweating now. His entire body was vibrating.

  “Tobin! What’s wrong?” the fox tried again.

  The scorpions began to buzz and click. A few began to clack furiously, and the biggest of the bunch let out a wild hiss. And then, all at once, at the sight of the quivering, quaking, shivering, shaking pangolin, the scorpions started to scatter, scurrying back into the holes from which they’d emerged.

  “What’s going on down there!?” shrieked the aye-aye. She began striking her gnarled fingernail against the ground in enraged taps. “Where do you think you’re going? I did not dismiss you!” she screamed. “You haven’t finished your job! You haven’t—!”

  “Eurrrrgggghh!”

  Tobin’s extraordinary, pained grunt came again, and Iris shot him a terrified glance. The pangolin now lay in the center of the pit with legs splayed. His mouth gaped open, then it closed, then opened again. Iris’s orange eyes widened in alarm.

  The muscles in the pangolin’s face tightened and he clenched his jaw. Dawn’s heart jumped. She knew that look.

  “Aim for the tunnels!” she shouted. “Tobin, back up to the wall!”

  Half-sliding, half-crawling, the pangolin eased his way to the pit’s wall just in time.

  “Eurrrrgggghh!” His knotted stomach finally let loose—and with that, his scent glands unclenched.

  Torrents of spray shot from him, straight into the underground tunnels. Tobin’s pain eased. Then the pressure began to build again…and another wave of spray shot out…and another. With every passing moment, the pangolin felt lighter and lighter, freer and freer, clearer and clearer of the remaining poison that had ravaged his insides for the past few nights. Finally, with one last little toot, he fell from the wall on wobbly legs and squinted up.

  For a moment, nothing seemed to have happened. The Brigade stood motionless, alone within the pit.

  “Oh, Dawn!” Tobin looked to the fox. “That’s …that’s all I’ve got,” he said breathlessly. “I…I don’t think your plan worked.”

  “Just wait,” said the fox.

  The moon slipped out from behind the clouds, and the trio stared up at it, contemplating their fate. And then…

  Whoosh!

  Bam!

  Blast!

  Suddenly, the moonlight was obscured—not by rain clouds, but by clouds of Tobin’s powerful, defensive spray! Green clouds of stink exploded up above from the tunnels that the scorpions had dug.

  Poof! Poof! Poof!

  All across the crater, Iris’s hypnotized lemurs were blown off their feet by the stinky geysers of gunk, which shot out of the mounds at their feet like hot springs.

  “Oh mon dieu!” Bismark cried. “May the moon have mercy. It’s geyserrhea!”

  Straining to see above the rim, the Brigade could just catch sight of the lemurs fleeing in all directions. But the thick fog of Tobin’s spray was making it nearly impossible for them to navigate, and the geysers kept knocking them down left and right.

  “Lemurs!” From somewhere in the distance, Iris’s voice rang out.

  “Aye…aye.…” The lemurs responded, awaiting their next command, but the chant had barely passed their lips before another explosion of Tobin’s geyserrhea shook the earth and blasted them into oblivion.

  The aye-aye let out a terrible squawk then cried out again in desperation: “Aye-Aye Iris commands you to close your noses! She commands you to hold your breath!”

  But it was no use. With great blasts of Tobin’s gunk shooting out all around, the lemur legion slowly but surely tumbled, unconscious, to the crater’s harsh ground.

  “No! No! No!” Iris’s cry pierced the dark. “You incompetent creatures! Worthless ring-tails! Stupid servile rodents!” The aye-aye ranted and raved, her cracking voice echoing throughout the crater. But then she paused.

  “No matter!” she croaked. Her tone evened off. “Aye-Aye Iris doesn’t need you anyway. Aye-Aye Iris has won!” The ends of her lips curled up. “Only Aye-Aye Iris knows where all the blue flowers are. Aye-Aye Iris will be needed by everyone. She has the only cure!”

  With one final cackle, Iris fled across the crater. Then, with the lemurs unconscious and the aye-aye gone, the night fell quiet.

  Tobin and Bismark looked at Dawn.

  “Now what?” asked the pangolin, finally recovering from his mighty blast.

  Dawn narrowed her eyes and checked the walls of the pit. With Tobin’s spray softening the soil, it would now be possible to climb out. “Now we escape,” she said, her voice hard with determination. “Now we go get that aye-aye.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  BISMARK’S FLIGHT

  “Blech! Great Scott, pangolino, your powerful poofs melted the pit into stinky sludge!” sputtered the sugar glider. Bismark shielded his nose with a flap as he scrambled up the pit’s slimy slope. “Your latest explosion is your worst one yet! It nabs the nostrils, thrashes the throat, fouls my fabulous fur!”

  Tobin bowed his snout bashfully. “Oh goodness. Well, at least the poison is finally out of my body!” he said shyly.

  Dawn nodded.

  “Mais oui,” agreed Bismark. “And I suppose I must thank you, despite all this crud on my coat. Merci, my stinky amigo, for soiling the soil and saving the night!” With a final leap, the sugar glider surfaced above ground and lifted his flaps victoriously. “Free at last!” he cried.

  With a helpful nudge from Dawn, Tobin made his way out of the pit as well. Dawn hoisted herself up after him and scanned the crater. Dozens of lemurs lay motionless, passed out in the muck.

  “Oh no,” she murmured. She looked around wildly, darting a few steps to one side then circling back. She sniffed the air and muffled a small cough. The oily residue of Tobin’s blast was still too strong to catch the scent she was seeking.

  “Quoi, mi amore? What is it?” asked Bismark, affectionately petting her side. “I know it’s stinky up here, but we’re free! Show me that foxy grin of yours—we’ve escaped!”

  The fox’s eyes narrowed and she took a step toward the crater’s outermost edge.

  “Yes, Bismark. And Iris might, too, if we don’t move quickly.” Dawn gestured with her snout across the crater’s floor. Tobin and Bismark followed her gaze just in time to see two small glints of orange and the stringy tip of a tail fleeing into the night.

  “We need to catch her before she vanishes for good!” said the pangolin.

  “Yes! After her…now!” rallied Bismark. At once, the sugar glider spread his arms and half-flapped, half-skittered across the crater’s slippery ground. Tobin and Dawn scampered after him.

  The Brigade hurried through the crater—but quickly skidded to a halt. Just ahead, a few paw’s lengths away, the ground began to alight—with an eerie, blue glow.

  Tobin’s eyes widened into petrified orbs. “The scorpions!” he cried. “They’re back!”

&n
bsp; “Do not let them pass!” Iris’s scratchy command echoed from the distant, dusty darkness.

  With a sudden crackling, the ground erupted with new mounds of soil. Scorpions streamed from the earth until the ground where the Brigade stood was completely aglow with the creatures’ eerie illumination.

  Click, click, click.

  Hissssssss.

  “Oh mon dieu, don’t you glowbugs know when to quit?” Bismark shouted. “Out of the way! We’ve got a loco lemur to catch!”

  But the scorpions didn’t listen. Instead, they parted to let the biggest, angriest glower scuttle to the head of their group. Bismark’s eyes widened. It was the one that had nearly nabbed him in the pit!

  “By the stars, he’s coming after me again! Do you see this, my love? Mon ami? Even the foulest fiends of the underworld cannot resist me!” he cried.

  The sugar glider scrambled back, darting away from the poisonous foes. Dawn and Tobin quickly followed, keeping their eyes on the glowers, but the scorpion leader pressed forward, closing in quickly.

  “Dios mio! Have mercy!” The sugar glider stumbled on the uneven soil and landed in a heap. He cowered, wrapping himself in his flaps as the scorpion raised its tail to strike. “You’re making a mistake! You don’t want moi! Not the innocent, little sugar glider! Not the—”

  Bismark peeked out from his flap. The scorpion had disappeared. The glider’s eyes widened. “Mon dieu, I did it!” he whooped. “Victory is mine! I knew I’d fight my way out of that one!” He took a step toward the other scorpions who had scuttled closer, puffed out his chest, and held up his two scrawny fists. “Now which one of you is next?”

  “Dawn! Look out!” The crater echoed with Tobin’s sudden cry. The scorpion leader hadn’t been after Bismark. Dawn was its target, and it resurfaced from a hole in the ground…right at the fox’s feet.

  Click, click, click!

  “No! Not mon amour!” Bismark wailed. “Not my tawny true love!”

  The scorpion paid him no heed. Instead, it hissed, arched its body, and aimed its venomous tail. Dawn quickly leaped to the side, evading the sting, but her foot slipped in a puddle of the pangolin’s goo and she fell to the ground.