Taterskin & The Eco Defenders: Book 2, Chapter 35
Book 2 ("Tell It to Future Generations"), Chapter 35 of 56
CHAPTER 35
As we disembarked and started to explore the surroundings on the small and, as far as we knew, unnamed island, we had some visitors. If Paul Revere had warned us about them, he would have directed that two lanterns be lit.
But Revere wasn’t there (it was a couple of centuries after his time), and the visitors were not enemies, but allies. At first, they were simply curious, but we soon became partners, brothers, and friends, so to speak. They were a pod of Amazon River Dolphins, an aggregation of Manatees, a holt of Giant Otters, and a candle of Tapirs.
The humans tried to speak to the Dolphins and Manatees, but could not understand them. The problem was they had their Doolittles set to Fishian mode when they should have been set on Mammalian. Once that confusion was cleared up, all of us, including the humans, had an interesting chat with them.
We explained to them what had brought us there, and what we had previously accomplished. We told them all about the war we averted in 1861, the massacre we prevented in 1890 — with Chapawee being ebullient and effusive in her animated description of what had happened there at Wounded Knee — and the shutting down and shuttering of all vivisection establishments in 1903. This caused the Manatees to clap their flippers and the Dolphins to swim back and forth, hurtle themselves out of the water, twist their bodies in the air, and emit some high-pitched whistles and staccato clicks. This was how they expressed their joy over what we had accomplished. What they said can be roughly translated as “Yippee,” “Yee-ha!”, “Hallelujah!”, and “Boy Howdy!”
Our recounting of the events from 1911 at the Triangle Shirtwaist factory were a little anticlimactic at first until we told them about the fire that would have incinerated and smokified 146 human and untold other souls had we not been there to prevent it from happening.
The river dwellers were only back in full celebration mode, though, when we told them about an adventure on our previous campaign, when we put an end to poaching in Africa. On hearing the specifics of our exploits in regards to that, more flipper-clapping and water-splashing was in order — or so thought our new colleagues, at any rate.
That brought us down to the present.
“So why are you here now? Here in the Amazon in 1978, I mean — What are you setting out to accomplish?” asked Hugh the Manatee.
“The world will be greatly endangered if the pollution and deforestation of the Amazon is not halted,” Albert replied. “Greedy commercial interests have told the world that they will make life better and easier by mechanizing and automating as many things as possible, and to do so, they must strip the earth clean of all its resources. But we’ve been sold a bill of bads. Life on earth will get worse and worse, and finally unsustainable, if we don’t reverse this trend.”
The swimming mammals wondered if Albert was a little bonkers. Was it truly that bad? They looked at Ravelle and Chapawee, whose gestures and facial expressions indicated dead seriousness and their complete agreement with what Albert had said. We, too, the animal members of the Eco Defenders, let these river animals know that what they were hearing was no exaggeration. We had to act, and act quickly.
They were then much more amenable to accepting the urgency of the situation, but still wanted to know more. “What’s deforestation?” Boto the Dolphin asked.
“You can think of it as the poaching of trees,” Albert replied.
“What do you mean by that?” asked Knowbetter the Otter.
“The trees of the Amazon rainforest are chopped down — usually illegally — which, among other bad effects, destroys the habitat of many of the animals of the forest. And as if that’s not bad enough, the world’s weather is also adversely affected.”
Albert went on to tell them about the detrimental effects of large-scale ranching, farming, and mining, in addition to the logging already mentioned.
Soon enough the Dolphins and Manatees declared themselves ready, willing, and able to help us in any way they could.
Those of us capable of it, and willing, swam to the north bank of the river; the rest of us — including those who could swim but preferred not to (such as Marmalade and the humans) — got Dolphinback and Manateeback rides over.
I guess I should have more succinctly said that they got Dolphin and Manatee rides over, but since people say ‘Horseback’ when riding a Horse, these were the words that came to mind. To be more analytical about it, though, the appended ‘back’ part of those words seems superfluous, for where else on the animal would you ride — on their stomach? On their tail? On their head? Obviously, you are going to be on the horse’s back when you’re riding it (not on their forehead or muzzle or ankles or elbows), and the same goes for riding a Dolphin or a Manatee (although they don’t have ankles or elbows, anyway).
As for Rovette and me and the pups, we dog paddled across the river. The Elephants swam across. So did the Rhino. This may surprise you due to their girth, but both types of animals can, indeed, swim. The Elephants, when necessary, use their trunks as snorkels so as to be able to breathe without the necessity of breaching. Hippos love being in the water, and can swim as well as anybody. They may look a little ungainly, but they don’t drown, and they get where they are going, and that’s all that really matters, right?
Rinky also swam; Duck-billed Platypuses prefer being in water than out of it, the same as Hippos. After making sure Marmalade was safely aboard a Dolphin, Stripes and Rory and Jubatus jumped right in, too. Although they are Cats, they are not averse to water as House Cats like Marmalade are.
Yukyuk jumped in, cannonball fashion, and swam across, lifting her forelegs high above her head, one at a time, and splashing them violently down, while also churning her back legs as if she were trying to ride a bicycle as fast as she could. It looked clumsy, to be sure, and although she did tip over backward a couple of times, Yukyuk did eventually get across.
Drako can swim — in fact, Bearded Dragons will, prior to taking a couple of laps around the pool, inflate themselves with air to make themselves more buoyant. As I said, they can swim, but it isn’t their favorite activity in the world, so Drako opted for a ride on a Manatee. She always preferred getting rides as opposed to walking (or swimming), anyway. Ooga can’t swim, so he straddled two Manatees, and they ferried him across.
And so it was that, via either assisted transport or self-propulsion, we all made it safely across the river.
Terri and Falcona flew across. Alexis, too. Terri only had to flap her gigantic wings once, and then glided to a landing spot smack dab in the middle of the rest of us. She was so proud of her size and her “beautiful complexion and classic features,” as she put it, that she liked to position herself where everyone else could see her. She shook her pinions to draw visual and aural attention to herself.
“Listen up, people!” Terri croaked out. She considered her voice to be melodious and pleasant, but in actuality it was anything but. That’s just my opinion, though. Others, with less discernment, may disagree with me.
“This is what we’re going to do,” Terri continued.
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