CHAPTER 52
“Now wait a minute,” Salt-Croydon said to his partners in mayhem. “I think the situation here is that one or maybe a few of these animals are their special pets or projects or something. Some scientific experiment they’ve got going, maybe.”
“That’s gotta be it,” Meany agreed. “Look,” he said to Albert, “Just tell us which ones you don’t want killed, and we’ll leave them alone. We’ll give you some tags to mark them with, and we’ll spare the one that’s special to you, or the few that’re special to you. That’s fine with us; we’re willing to give you that concession. After all, we don’t want to be unreasonable.”
“You’ve got it all wrong,” said Albert. “We are not protecting any individual animal or just a few or a particular species or two. It’s all of them we are protecting.”
“We are united,” Alexis affirmed. “It’s ten quintillion for one, and one for 10 quintillion. We are putting you out of business, now and forever.”
“Just how we put you out of business is up to you,” Ward said, as he walked up. “The easy way for all of us is for you to simply turn around, go home, and take up a different profession — an honorable one.”
“Oh, I get it now,” Bouquet said. “You want to get in on the business yourself. You’re trying to drive us away so you can hog it all for yourselves. And you’ve driven together a prodigious windfall here. The Elephants and Rhinos alone will make you a fortune.”
“That’s obviously not it, you nitwit,” Warble said, approaching the group. Warble’s dander was really up now; he was starting to look like the old Warble, the difference being that he was on the opposite side of the ideological spectrum as he had been in his previous incarnation. “If we were aiming to hurt these animals, do you think they would follow us here — to act as partners in their own demise?”
“OK, sure, whatever you say,” Salt-Croydon then said, agreeing with his words but not with his sarcastic tone of voice. “As if they’re smart enough to know what’s going on here. Look, let’s cut to the chase,” he said, as he pulled out a thick wad of bills of high denomination and held them out to us. “Take this money, and leave the field to us. And every week from now on, we will cut you in on a percentage of the loot.”
At that Warble reached forward and slapped the bills out of Salt-Croydon’s hand. “We don’t want your bloody money! Now get out of here!”
That was when it really, finally, hit home to me that Warble had fundamentally changed. This was no superficial alteration or mere phase that he was going through. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined Warble turning his nose up at money, let alone treating it as if it were less than valueless and scattering it upon the savanna.
The bills seemed to explode out of the poacher’s hand, flying in every direction at once. Alexis snatched those she could out of the air and quickly ripped them to bits with her sharp beak, tearing and hurling the bits violently to the ground as fast as she could.
As the rest of the bills started to flutter to the ground, a stiff breeze arose from behind the poachers and picked up the shredded pieces of legal tender, strewing them high up into the air and sending them far and wide like clumsily constructed paper airplanes. Some of the wayward banknotes ended up being blown onto the chests of the Lions and other big Cats, while others fell like confetti onto the tusks of the Elephants and the horns of the Rhinoceroses. They then dispersed further along the sand and dirt and mud, being driven by eddies of wind this way and that.
“You people are impossible!” Meany then said, gritting his teeth and turning red with anger. “You’re impractical! You’re extreme!”
“Yes,” Albert said, “You’re right. We are making it impossible for you to continue your evil deeds, we are making it so that continuing in your chosen profession is impractical for you, and we are extreme in that we will accept no compromise, and offer no concessions or flag of truce to you.
“If you ever raise a finger to poach any more animals, no matter where or when, our combined forces will attack you by air,” and he pointed up to the circling birds and then back at Terri, “By land,” and he jerked his left thumb backward and then pointed to both sides with his arms at the huge array of animals which had the poachers surrounded on three sides, “And from the rivers and seas, if necessary.”
“Never come back,” Alex squawked. “We will be watching you like Hawks — literally. Always. One false move from you, and you will live to regret it — or not live at all. It’s up to you. No more warnings. That word is our sign of parting, you fiends!”
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