Munoola's Toes, Chapter 3

By Teal Rain and Camille Kay

A few hours later, Munoola awoke to the sound of grunting and shuffling. She must have fallen asleep. She looked up, and saw the strange bear was squeezing through the cave entrance, carrying a tray of weird looking cheese.

"Bird pretty cheese hungry?" he asked, holding out the tray of smelly cheese. Munoola looked at the cheese, then him. "It took you that long to get a platter of cheese? What kind is it, anyway?" she asked, sniffing it. It smelled like feet, cabbages, and horse hair.

"Home cheese is cheese," the bear answered. "Best cheese is home is." Munoola doubted this greatly.
"I'm not hungry," Munoola said, trying not to breathe too deeply. The bear frowned.
"Bird pretty eat must," he said.
"No, than--" Munoola started, but the bear interrupted her.
"BIRD PRETTY EAT!" he roared.

Munoola shrank back it shock. "O-okay, okay! I'll, um, I'll eat it!" she managed to choke out. The bear smiled, and held out the tray. Cringing, Munoola grabbed the smallest slice.

"Eat now cheese now, bird pretty!" the bear said in excitement. Holding her beak with her other wing, she took a small bite.

The cheese tasted even worse than it smelled--like an expired peach. Not that Munoola knew what that tasted like. But she didn't want to anger the bear again, so she forced down the bite and smiled weakly at him. He beamed.

"Bird pretty sleep now," he said. "Tomorrow day is big!"

"Why?" Munoola asked. Ignoring her again, the bear cartwheeled to the door.

"Day big, day big, day big..." he muttered to himself.

Munoola just stared after him, her mouth hanging open. "Wait! What's tomorrow?" she cried. The bear turned back to her,

"Day big bird pretty sleep big day big!" Munoola groaned in frustration as the bear moon-walked out the entrance. She face-palmed.

Munoola looked helplessly at the rope. She tried chewing through it, but it tasted like sweat. Then she spotted a particularly sharp rock sticking out of her "bed." Gripping the rope as well as she could in her wings, she began to rub it back and forth on the rock.

Ignoring the slight pain of the sharp rock, she kept sawing the rope, until just a few fibers remained. In her excitement, Munoola failed to hear the shuffling and grunting at the cave entrance.

"Bird pretty sleeping?" the bear asked, loud enough to wake her up if she had been asleep. Nearly gagging with fright, Munoola flopped onto her side and pretended to snore. The bear shuffled into the room and peered at her.

Suddenly, he growled. "Bird pretty rope broken," he said. Munoola tried not to move. "BIRD PRETTY ROPE BROKEN!" the bear roared.

Munoola jumped up and tried to run, but the bear caught her. "Bird pretty no should cage be," he said. "No choice have." He dragged her out of the cave into an adjoining one with a cage in it. "Cage??" Munoola asked. The bear nodded.

"Bird pretty must stay," he said and locked her in the cage.

Munoola watched as he dropped onto his bottom in front of the cage, watching her suspiciously. She had no idea what to do, so she started wailing very, very loudly. The bear roared and clutched his ears, but Munoola refused to stop. She kept screaming, and screaming and screaming.

BIRD PRETTY STOP!" the bear roared. Munoola kept wailing until the bear threw a piece of disgusting cheese at her. It landed in her mouth, and Munoola coughed. "Bear not hurt bird pretty," the bear said. "Bird pretty must sleep for day big tomorrow. Tomorrow day bird pretty leave!"

Spitting the cheese out, Munoola threw it back it him. It hit him on the head. "What do you mean, leaving? Does that mean you're letting me go?" she said, her voice was dry and scratchy from all the screaming.

"No, bird pretty other bears go," the bear said cryptically and left the room. Munoola slumped against the bars. The cage wasn't ideal, but at least she would be free in the morning. "Psst," a voice hissed. Munoola opened her eyes. It was... the goldfish from the lake! He had a key tied to his tail, and he flopped toward the cage.

"Unlock yourself," he rasped, clearly uncomfortable on land.

"But I'm leaving tomorrow," Munoola replied.

"Bears... use ostriches... as decoration," the fish coughed. "This bear... sells them."

Munoola gaped at the goldfish. "Sells them?" she asked in horror. The fish nodded, then started coughing.

"Unlock yourself...quick, before...he comes back..." Munoola decided she better listen to him. Reaching out a wing as far as it would go, she scrabbled to get the key untied from the fish. At last, she got it free, and quickly unlocked her caged. Munoola was already headed for the entrance, when she heard the fish cough again.

"Take me... with..." he dissolved into coughing.

"Oh, I forgot!" Munoola said. She rushed back, scooped the fish up in her wings, and dashed to the entrance of the cave. "How did you get here, anyway?" Munoola asked.

"This cave is... underwater..." the fish gasped.

Munoola stopped dead. "UNDERWATER? How do we get out?" the fish gave her a look like she was stupid.

"We...swim...duh..."

Munoola spluttered. "I-I-I- can't s-swim! I don't have my toes!"

The fish opened his mouth to retort, but coughed instead. Munoola decided to deal with the swimming later; the fish needed to get in the water. She followed a skinny corridor down yet another cave. When Munoola ran inside it, she gasped. Instead of a stone roof, the ceiling was made of water. Munoola threw the fish as high as she could.

Unfortunately, it wasn't high enough, and the fish dropped back down, landing on the stone ground with a grunt. "Oh, I'm so sorry!" Munoola cried. She picked him up, and despite his objections, Munoola threw him again. This time, thankfully, he soared up and landed in the water.

The fish swam around in a gleeful circle, then poked his head through. "Climb the wall and swim up!" he said. "The bear could come back any second!"

"I told you, I can't swim!" Munoola cried.

"Use your tail!" the fish answered. Munoola swallowed and glanced around the room. She spotted a ladder carved into the wall--presumably, it was how the bear got in and out of the water. Shakily, she pulled herself up the wall and into the water.

Holding her breath, she followed the fish up. Or at least she thought it was up. It was hard to tell. Finally, just when Munoola thought she was going to passout from lack of air, her head broke the surface of the water. Taking in huge gulps of air, she looked around for the fish. He was swimming circles around her in delight. "So, what's your name?" Munoola asked.

"Skoyuchnel." it replied.

"Skychanel?" she repeated the strange name.

"No, Skoyuchnel."

"Skochonono?"

"No! Skoy-"

"Skochminney?" Munoola tried again.

"NO! Sk-"

"Skychovski?"

"It's--"

"Zoltair?"

"What?" the fish asked. "You know what, fine. I'm Zoltair."

Munoola grinned and Zoltair rolled his eyes. As Munoola looked around, she noticed that she was back in the clearing where she had met the elf.

"How did the bear make the water grab me like that?" Munoola asked. Zoltair eyed her like she was insane.

"What are you talking about?" he asked.

"Never mind," she answered. "So... why did you come back for me?"

"Questions, questions, questions!" Zoltair stormed. "Sheesh!"

Munoola stared at him. Swimming closer, she slowly moved her face closer and closer to Zoltair, still staring. "Gah! What are you doing?" he cried uncomfortably. Munoola didn't reply. An inch away from him, her eyes widened slowly, until they were the size of dimes.

"What are you DOING?" Zoltair asked.

"Are you a Shape-Shifter?" Munoola asked slowly.

"NO!" Zoltair yelled. "Honestly! You ask the most idiotic questions!"

"She's right to be careful," a quiet voice said. It was the purple-haired elf! "You never know who might be a... Shape-Shifter..." At these words, the elf's face bubbled and her limbs distorted and began to stretch.