CHAPTER 21
We then bade farewell to the friends we had made in late 18th Century Australia, our partners in keeping the world and its inhabitants safe. After wishing each other well, we ascended skyward in the Zephyr while waving goodbye and shouting our final encouragements to the animal friends we had coached and grown to love. We asked them to convey our farewells to our friends who inhabit the watery deep, too, and they promised they would do that.
Terri didn’t like the VTOL part of the flights, that is to say, the takeoffs and landings, during which instead of moving horizontally through the sky, the Zephyr moved vertically up (on liftoff) or down (when landing). Terri said that it didn’t feel natural to be moving straight up or straight down that way. So, what she would do is wait until we had reached our cruising altitude and had begun hovering, and then she would fly up and join us (or, when hovering prior to landing, she would glide down to the ground and wait for us there).
As Terri noisily flapped her oversized wings on the approach to her perch on the back of the Zephyr, I was struck by the juxtaposition (most humans would be surprised that a dog not only knows that word but also understands what it means and can use it in a sentence) of ages that were represented among us passengers: Here was Terri, dating from 15 million years ago, and then there were the rest of us, who had all been born millions of years after her, and were sitting in a state-of-the-art time & space travel vehicle that was not created until hundreds of years in the future (it was 1788 still, and the original Arodnap wasn’t designed until the early 21st century).
Once Terri was aboard and had folded her wings against her side, we waved to the eager upturned faces below one last time, and off we flew, a short distance to the forest where we had first met Yookie.
We were soon hovering over that place, stationary in space but rapidly advancing in time. We saw many of the trees directly below rapidly grow up toward us, as if we were watching time-lapse videography.
After advancing in time all the way to 2525, we spotted Yookie a short distance below us, slumbering high up in his favorite Gum tree. He had not even finished eating his last Eucalyptus leaf before taking his siesta—a half-chewed piece of it was still sticking out of his mouth.
“Hey, Albert, I have an idea!” Drako said. “I want to play a trick on Yookie. Land the Zephyr over that hill yonder, so he won’t see it when he wakes up.”
Albert humored the Bearded Dragon, and Drako excitedly clambered out of the Zephyr as soon as we landed and made a beeline toward Yookie’s tree.
Scaling the tree (no pun intended) as silently as she could, Drako settled on a branch next to her Koala Bear friend. Not wanting to give away her joke by countenance or voice, Drako forced herself to wipe the silly grin off her face (the first time she had ever done so of her own accord) and act ‘cool.’
‘OK, breathe deep, calm down, and think serious thoughts,’ she told herself. Once Drako was ‘earnest’ enough to commence with her little prank, she stretched and yawned in an exaggerated way. Yookie twitched his nose, but then inhaled and sighed deeply and, without even opening his eyes, went back to sleep.
Drako frowned, then stretched and grunted and yawned again, louder this time. Yookie absent-mindedly began slowly resuming the chewing of his eucalyptus leaf, but soon stopped. Drako now started hissing, and finally, when she saw that had no effect, slapped Yookie in the face with her tail. That woke the Koala Bear up.
“What’s going on? What’s happening? Where am I? Who am I?” he mumbled, rubbing his eyes with his forepaws.
Drako just stared at Yookie, reminding herself to keep a straight face and calm voice.
“Drako, it’s you!” Yookie said, as the Koala Bear gradually became fully awake. “Where did you come from? Or when did you come from, maybe I should ask. . . .”
“What do you mean, my friend?” Drako said, with a confused and concerned expression on her face.
“What do you mean ‘what do I mean?’ I haven’t seen you in months and now here you are all of a sudden!”
“Are you feeling OK, Yookie? I haven’t been anywhere. We’ve been talking and napping and eating here in your tree this whole time—don’t you remember?”
“Now, Drako, don’t pull my tail. I last saw you in Zenia, when I left your home there with Warble and Mary McGorkle, who then dropped me off here at my wonderful, beautiful tree, at my home sweet home in Oona-Woop-Woop, Australia.”
“Warble and Mary McGorkle? I’ve never heard of them. And Zenia? Where in the world is that? I think you must have had a vivid dream, my friend, or . . . You haven’t been smoking those leaves, have you?”
Yookie paused, gulped, and looked around, trying to get his bearings and make sense of all of this.
“But it’s as clear in my mind and solid in my memory as us sitting here right now talking, Drako. Don’t you remember when we went to Darjeeling, India, where we dropped off Mullah Gitani and picked up Stripes? Or going to Switzerland, where Warble wanted to hollow out the mountains? Or to Africa, where we met Rory Zamba the Lion, the Elephants Tubthumper and her brother Chumbawumba, and Yukyuk the Hyena?”
“Yookie, either you’re the one pulling my tail, or you’re going ‘round the bend. I don’t know anything about dropping off soup in India or getting infected with shingles there, or any of the rest of that stuff you’re blabbering about. These animals you talk about meeting . . . that never happened! They are figments of your imagination. To think of it, Lions and Tigers”—
“Wait just a minute there, Missy!” Yookie interrupted. He was fully awake now, his mind working like a steel trap.
“I’m a Ms., thank you very much,” Drako corrected.
“OK, then wait just a minute there, Ms! I said nothing about a Tiger. That is, I mentioned the tiger’s name, but you claimed to misunderstand me, saying that I was talking about shingles. You have been pulling my tail this whole time! Here I was, so glad to see you back again, and all you can think to do is play a trick on me, and embarrass me!”
Yookie angrily turned his head away, insulted and disappointed by the practical joke his so-called friend had pulled on him.
Drako felt bad then. She realized she had gone too far with her ‘fun and games.’
“Come on, now, Yooks. Yook! Yookie, look at me—please!” Drako pleaded.
Yookie finally turned his head back around slowly, but with the injured and outraged look still in his eyes.
“Well?” he said, continuing to glare at Drako.
“I’m sorry, Yookie; I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings that way. I thought it would be funny.”
“It wasn’t!”
“I see that now; would you please forgive me? I apologize from the heart of my bottom.”
“Still with the jokes! I was going to forgive you, but now I don’t know . . .”
“Please, it was a slip of the tongue, Yooks, my old pal and bosom companion. I apologize, profusely and unconditionally, from the bottom of my heart.”
“Well . . . I’ll think about it. . . . I’m not even sure you’ve got one.”
“A bottom? Oh, I can assure you, I do,” Drako replies.
“You just can’t help yourself, can you?” Yookie says, shaking his head, trying to stay angry but involuntarily revealing the beginning of a wry grin.
“I guess you’re right, Yookie,” Drako admits. “Just as a Tiger can’t change his stripes, a Bearded Dragon cannot always suppress her wit. Anyway, why don’t you come down to see Albert and the rest of the gang—a pair of newcomers have joined us; I’m sure you’ll be interested in meeting them. One of them only recently joined us, is from here in Australia, and the other is from nine thousand miles and 15 million years ago.”
“OK, OK, you had me at ‘Albert and the rest of the gang,’ but I’m a little curious about those two newcomers, also; let me grab one more eucalyptus leaf ‘for the road,’ and down we’ll go.”
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