Taterskin & The Eco Defenders: Book 2, Chapter 50
Book 2 ("Tell It to Future Generations"), Chapter 50 of 56
CHAPTER 50
This had all started with a report being delivered to Ravelle’s camp that a giant iron ore mine within the confines of the Basin was causing massive deforestation, pollution, and was infringing and impinging on land owned by the natives of the area.
Ravelle recalled the Million Paw March that had been undertaken three-quarters of a century earlier, in 1903. For good reason, though, it seemed to him as if it had occurred only a few weeks in the past. Since the mine was vastly enormous, Ravelle felt a similar campaign would be impressive. It would attract more and more supporters, and the results of it would be made known far and wide. A precedent set there would be an example to the good and a warning to the despoilers.
Consulting with some of the local animals about what he would need in order to make the trek, Ravelle was advised by them, “While traversing the rainforest, as long as you take along a machete, you can live on the three Ps: Pineapples, Passion Fruit, and Palm Oil.”
“Pizza, Poison, and Palmolive?” Yukyuk asked. Maybe she had misheard the advice, or hadn’t been paying close attention. Or, and this is more likely, she might have been trying to crack a joke.
“No, that’s not exactly what I said, but Palmolive does contain palm (and olive) oil,” replied Freddy the Fungus Beetle.
“Be sure you watch out for the Stinkbirds,” someone warned.
“You mean Hoatzins?” Scarlet asked.
“Yes; we all just call them Stinkbirds, though,” another forest dweller said. “They ferment their food in their guts. When they belch” —
“No matter what you do, don’t poke them in the belly,” the first one advised us all.
“That makes them belch?”
“No; if you do that, they sing opera.”
“What?”
“Sure, you can tell by the look on their face that’s what they would do if you poked them.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“The caterwauling of opera singers sounds like a Stinkbird that has been poked in the belly with a hatpin.”
“How can you tell? I’ve never heard a Stinkbird sing at all.”
“As I said, you can tell what they would sound like from the look on their face. If you poke them in the belly with a hatpin, watch out! They will launch into that infamously irritating caterwauling and wailing otherwise known as opera singing.”
I don’t know whether any of that was factual, or if it was merely conjecture. Mind-bogglingly enough, some Dogs (with less experience and taste than I have) claim to actually enjoy opera singing, so: caveat emptor or whatever. As for me, I prefer howling along with ‘mountain music,’ such as bluegrass and such.
Anyway, word was passed by means of the Birds and the Howler Monkeys, and the second Million Paw March commenced. The troop of volunteers grew steadily larger and larger, to the point that the Jaguars and Ocelots and Spectacled Bears and Bush Dogs and Lizards and other Mammals and Reptiles, as well as Insects trudging, tramping, crawling, and slithering along the forest floor could be heard for miles. Adding to the din were the Monkeys swinging and leaping from tree to tree in the canopy, raucously howling and hooting and screeching. The flapping of wings above was also absolutely clamorous.
Ravelle had been wrong about how many would join the march, though. Instead of the million paws (or feet, in the case of the Birds and Insects and such), by the time the animals neared the outer edge of the giant mining pit they had eclipsed that number a thousandfold — it had become a Billion Paw March!
That was the time, though, when the trouble really began for Ravelle.
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