Oooooohhhhh….

Eleven

“Which is kind of sad, if you think about it. I’d never want to be a princess. All those things you have to do. Having to please everyone, and worry about everything.”

Toadstool finished, ruining the dramatic moment. Luckily, it continued without him.

The forest seemed to be frozen in ice. No one moved a feather or paw. 

High above the tops of the tallest trees, light-sky was dawning. Smoky greys mixed with reds and warm oranges illuminated the sky, and the misty fog suffocating the mountain peaks of Karioi was turned into warm air.

Starwatcher shifted her claws, terrified. Her? A princess? She was just a small, curious, irritating chick, who didn’t want to become queen. 

As much as she wished it didn’t, Toadstool’s words made sense. Everything fitted like it was meant to be. What Queen Moonstone was going to say before she died, why Kowhai murdered Dreamcatcher, her theory about Kowhai using Dreamcatcher’s necklace to hurt Queen Moonstone…her thoughts trailed off and fell into a pit of shadows.

Obsidian spat some green saliva onto the forest floor, growling softly. “We have to find her. Before she hurts more birds and stoats.”

“Well, she’s hardly likely to want to come take over your tribe,” Starwatcher pointed out insensitively. “…if your tribe is as useless at attacks and stuff as you say.”

Obsidian grabbed a fistful of leaves speckled in white mould and threw them at her face. Wrinkling her snout, she sat back down, hunched over.

“I agree,” Barbie nodded wisely, flicking a mosquito off his glasses-rim. “We have to find her.”

“But how?” whined Toadstool, who seemed to be the pessimistic contributor to their current conversation.

Star wanted to slap his beak into his face and throw him out to sea, never to hear a miserable complaint from him ever again. But she didn’t. Only just.

Obsidian got up, and coiled her tail thoughtfully. She scowled. “She’ll be going for the next mob, obviously.”

Toadstool flattened himself against the nearest tree trunk, trying very hard to avoid her gaze.

“She’s right,” Barbie mused grimly. “She’s just going for the next group, killing their leader and frightening them into bowing.”

“So then where’s the next ‘mob house’?’ Starwatcher asked curiously.

Barbie lifted a wing and rummaged around between his many feathers. He produced two large Buttercup Leaves that were neatly rolled up and bound by some Small-Mouth garden twine. 

He unrolled these leaves, adjusted his pink spectacles, and peered at them. Tidily etched into the first leaf was a lump. It had lots of dots and circles and triangles on it. The other leaf had another lump, with more dots and circles and triangles on it.

“What is it?” Star inquired brightly, peering over the top of the leaf.

“It’s a map of our mountain,” Barbie replied as-a-matter-of-factly. “This is the front view, and this is the back view. There are side views too, but I don’t carry all twelve of them around with me.”

“They kind of look the same,” the little Kiwi observed, realising afterwards that that may not have been the most sensitive thing to say, gauged from the insulted frown Barbie gave her.

“They are not the same at all. This side has spiny ridges along the top, and the other side slopes downward – that’s what the dots mark.”

“So then what do the circles mean, and the triangles?”

“The triangles show the dips and valleys. The circles mark camps. Mob camps. They used to be pest control areas, but I’ve noticed the kiwi mobs have inhabited them. It’s safer there, you see, because things like her can’t attack them.” He pointed a bitter claw at Obsidian, who snarled viciously in response.

“Some of the circles have crosses through them,” the little kiwi noted, taking the ‘back view’ map and peering at it intensely. “That must mean they’ve been taken over by Kowhai.”

“Correct,” Barbie nodded sagely. “The closest camp is Camp Frogfeather.”

“Who chooses these names?” Obsidian muttered.

“Would Kowhai be at Camp Frogfeather?” Star ignored the stoat’s comment. 

“It is probable,” was Barbie’s prudent reply. “All the same, I think we really ought to go there first. If we begin our quest-”

He was interrupted by Obsidian howling like a ghost – “whooooooooo our big grand magnificent quest!” – and spoke louder over top of her.

“If we begin our journey now to Camp Frogfeather, it’s possible we could get there before she moves on to Camp Swampbiscut.”

Now that is a seriously odd name,’ the little Kiwi’s brain thought with a chuckle. 

“S-so she’s really just going to take over every mob?” Toadstool cut in. He was shuddering quite violently indeed, so that the insects buzzing around him couldn’t land gracefully on his feathers.

“Presicley,” Obsidian replied before anyone else could with a wicked grin. “Unless you want King Eightpaws to take over instead? He loves a good fat Kiwi for his stoat ceremonies.”

Toadstool let out a whimpering cheep and shrank down so he was lying flat on the leafy carpet.

Obsidian turned to Starwatcher and Barbie. “I know those leaves are TERRIBLY FASCINATING, but if your glorious plan to stop Kowhai before she continues to take over the rest of your pitiful kiwi mobs, we’d probably better be trotting off to Camp Froggyfeathers or whatever it’s called.”

“Camp Frogfeather,” Barbie corrected her primly. “But yes, we really ought to be waddling along, not trotting, little stoat. Please use correct language around me – I get terribly itchy when birds and things use incorrect language.”

Obsidian smothered a snort and marched confidently through the trees. The rest of them followed suit, with Toadstool at the very back, trembling and fluttering his feathers.

High up through the tallest parts of the canopy, the sun shone bright and hot in the boundless blue sky. The three Kiwis were starting to feel horribly sleepy, but their accompanying stoat kept them awake by complaining about things and thinking of nasty insults and terrorizing Toadstool.

“I really need to sleep,” Star mumbled for the eleventh time, rubbing her eyes with her chest feathers. She pecked a slater wriggling across their path.

“Me too,” Toadstool agreed with a quiet yawn.

“There’s no time for that,” Barbie replied wisely, “our journey will not shorten itself just because you feel sleepy,” but there was a definite dreariness in his voice.

Sleep-deprived and grouchy, the Kiwis began grumbling about sour grubs in Root Circuit’s Kitchen Quarters. Obsidian felt a bit nasty about being left out, and she expressed this by asking a million questions to interrupt their conversation.

“What camp do us stoats live in?” she asked Barbie with a sneer.

“Section D,” Barbie offered. 

“WRONG!!! HA HA HA HA HA. We live in ClawTooth Hollow!!!”

Barbie rolled his eyes and opened his beak to continue talking about life as a Royal General.

“Yo Barbie, what’s a stoats’ diet?” Obsidian interrupted again.

“Stoats are carnivorous. They eat meat- why am I telling you this? You’re a stoat yourself!”

“WRONG!!! HA HA HA HA HA!! We eat insects and eggs and big juicy kiwis,” Obsidian cackled, looking over her shoulder and grinning hungrily at Toadstool.

The Kiwis trailed a little behind the stoat after that, and barely said a word, overwhelmed by sleepiness.

Shortly, though, nightfall came, and the kiwis were wide awake again, despite the sleep deprivation of light-sky before. The tramp tramp of leaves and mud squelching between her claws hummed in Starwatcher’s ears as she followed the stoat and other two Kiwis. 

“Where even is Camp Frogfeather?” Star asked a few hours later, positively bored out of her mind. 

“You’ve already asked me that question,” Barbie replied grumpily, shaking his head to dislodge a bug, but failing because it dislodged his glasses too. 

“Wasn’t it like, thirty-thousand Kiwis side-by-side?” Star thought aloud, a spring developing in her step.

“It was more like thirty-three-thousand-five-hundred-and-twenty-nine-point-five, but yes, I suppose if you prefer to round things up it could be thirty-thousand,” Barbie sighed flatly. 

He lifted his wing as he walked and produced the two tightly rolled leaves. “From our point here, the markers say to go directly ahead, but that will be the path Lady Kowhai will be taking, so I firmly suggest we take the outer route, through the stone cliffs.”

“Stone cliffs?” Obsidian growled, wheeling around. “This isn’t some nature hike! I’ll stuff Kowhai into an incinerator – then we can take the shortest path possible.”

“Then we wouldn’t need to take the path,” Star reminded her smugly. “Because the point is to stop her from hurting anyone at Camp Frogfeather.”

“Speaking of which, what are we going to do?”

Two blank-faced beaks and a wrinkled snout stared back at her. 

“You all have a plan, don’t you?” Star cried unhappily, stomping a foot. “A plan none of you have let me in on!”

“There there,” Obsidian murmured sweetly, vigorously patting her on the back. “Don’t get your nickerbockers twisted into a pickle.”

“What’s a nickerbockers?” Star asked, trying very hard to stay upset.

“A sack that gets strangled around a wingless-twoleg’s legs,” Obsidian replied, quite proud of herself for knowing that.

“Ah!” Toadstool and Barbie shuddered. “Us Kiwis do not wear articles of clothing!!” Barbie cried, flapping his wings.

Star smothered a snigger and flashed Toadstool a reassuring glance. The small needly Kiwi looked as though he could faint again.

“Here’s the beginning of MothBug Cliffs,” Barbie announced, checking his front-view leaf again.

Obsidian sighed dramatically. “You don’t even have moths here. They’re only attracted to lightbulbs.”

“What are lightbulbs?” Star asked eagerly.

“Another wingless-twoleg accessory. Honestly, they should just practice using their EYEBALLS like the rest of us developed animals. Spoilt fussed-over puppydogs.”

“What are puppydogs?” the little Kiwi inquired, cocking her head ever so slightly. 

Obsidian rolled her eyes. “Forget it.”

“I can’t,” Star replied darkly. “What. Are. Puppydogs?”

“Oh. Dear. Oh deary deary doo. Deary deary diddly-dumdy-kins-”

“WHAT IS THE MATTER?” Obsidian snapped suddenly. Barbie shifted uncomfortably. “We have to go through a tunnel. A long one.”

The party stopped. In her persistence to know what a puppydog was, Star hadn’t noticed the change from wet leaves to cold, spiky rock. It felt almost like the boulders by the waterfall back home at Root Circuit.

In front of them was a small, tight black hole. Echoing out to greet them was the ‘drip drip’ of slimy cave water. 

“Is there a cave in there?” the stoat wrinkled her nose uncomfortably. Remarkably, it was the least sarcastic or grumpy thing she’d said for the last twenty-four hours. 

“It’s almost geologically certain,” Barbie nodded smartly, adjusting his spectacles. “The Waikato mountains are mostly limestone, and when rainfall falls on the mountain and erodes the surface off, it seeps into the limestone, dissolving it and forming caves, of which-”

“OH MY GOSH NO ONE ASKED FOR A WIKIPEDIA ARTICLE,” the stoat snapped loudly, baring her teeth which caused Toadstool to shrink back again.

Barbie shrugged, unbothered. “This information is useful. Stoats with snails-for-brains don’t need to know this sort of stuff, because they just adapt to their environment. In fact-”

Obsidian rudely interrupted him by humming a very loud song and marching confidently into the tunnel.

From behind, Star could see her fur brushing against the cave walls, and her tail coiled under her bum in fright. With a deep breath, she stepped in.