Taterskin & The Eco Defenders: Book 2, Chapter 53
Book 2 ("Tell It to Future Generations"), Chapter 53 of 56
CHAPTER 53
Since the owners and managers of the mine had shown they would stop at nothing to oppose our efforts, we determined that it was time for us to ‘pull out all the stops.’
Alexis’ idea was to increase the size of all of the animals, even those who were already more than moderately large. Not only would the small and medium-sized animals grow, but even the Elephants, Ocero the Rhino, and Jowls the Hippo would be doubled and re-doubled and re-re-doubled in size; in other words: doubled, squared, and cubed. And not only we original members of the Eco Defenders were enlarged, but our new members were, too: Capybaras, Jaguars, Tapirs, Green Anacondas, Giant Anteaters, Giant Otters — all of us!
A lot of jovial laughter ensued, as we saw each other grow in stature and girth to the point where we were taller than the largest mining trucks and excavators — even taller than the Kapok trees — and correspondingly wider, too. A few of us retained our natural size (my family did, so did Alexis, and all the humans), but most opted for the supersizing of themselves.
The result of this was that the mere appearance of us as we knocked down the gates (thanks to the five-story tall version of Jowls) and made our entrance caused almost all of the miners and their managers and bosses to high-tail it out of the area without delay, at top speed.
A few especially stupid, brave, or greedy workers remained. They must have been offered a bonus or triple-time pay or something, because they kept driving their trucks and operating their vehicles as if it were just another day at the mine.
We respected their courage — if that’s what it was — so we first warned them to leave. A scant few of them listened to reason, but a handful remained yet.
Still patient, we showed them what we could do. Jowls dug a giant trench with his horn, into which he and the Elephants pushed the trucks, loaders, dozers, and excavators. After that, the other animals covered the mining equipment over with dirt, as if they were covering their excrement or shoveling dirt into a grave pit at a cemetery.
The few die-hard miners continued working. In these cases, it was the Elephants, Ocero, Jowls, Stripes, and Rory who took over. They were extremely angry over the way Ravelle had been treated, and the big Cats (who were now undeniably outsized Felines) had the added impetus of a feeling of culpability spurring them on. They still felt guilty for having allowed Ravelle to be kidnapped in the first place.
Here’s one example of what happened: Jowls saw a truck barreling down at him. He took his stand in the road, turning his side to it and bracing himself. The truck driver stepped on the gas pedal, flooring it. The collision was one-sided: the truck came to an immediate standstill, with its back end raising up in the air before flopping back down and bouncing violently around. The driver was thrown around the cab. He flailed his arms and cursed out of anger, pain, and fear. Ocero then trotted up and punctured all four tires with his horn, one by one, making a circuit of the truck: pop! ... pop! ... pop! ... pop! Stripes jumped through the open driver-side window while Rory crashed through the glass on the other side.
The driver decided it was a little too crowded in the cab, and scrambled out, leaping to the ground; he didn’t look like Usain Bolt, but he ran like him. Adrenaline can be an impressive thing.
Tubthumper and Chumbawumba teamed up to push the truck into the pit that had been excavated earlier. Soon it, too, was covered over with dirt and debris.
The sight of that sequence of events was more than enough for the remaining stragglers. In less than a minute, the mine had been abandoned by the last of the workers. We animals were the only souls left in it. We finished our mop-up work, seeing to it that nothing was left in a usable condition. The buildings were flattened, the equipment smashed and buried. The land would now begin to be reclaimed by the forest.
Our work there was done. We left the mine and returned to the Zephyr and the Androcles.
But as we were about to say farewell to our friends — the animals of the forest and river, as well as the Terena warriors and New Amazons — we were accosted by the mine manager, who had watched the destruction of the mine from afar through binoculars, from a safe distance, and then followed us.
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