The Giant Forest - COMPLETED - True to life adventures of preteens.

Slow to Follow Directions

32

What Sycamore heard, he thought, sounded like the voice of one of his friends yelling out to him. He put his big hands up to his ears, one hand to each of his ears. He cupped his ears and began to rotate his entire body as if he were a radar antenna.

"Left! Brrrrr. Right! Brrrr. Left! Brrrr. Right! Brrrr," Sycamore gave himself commands than imitated the sound of a rotating disc.

He gradually squinted his eyes till they were completely shut.

"Maybe, if I turn off my seein', my hearin' will be better," he supposed.

"Left! Brrrrr. Right! Brrrr. Left! Brrrr. Right! Brrrr," he repeated.

Sycamore furrowed his brow till his bangs hung down over his eyebrows. After that he pursed his lips till his nose hung down low enough to touch his upper lip. His face decreased in area till it was about half the size that it was normally.

"I'm not lookin.' I'm not tastin' either. My ears'll preciate that," he thought.

"Maybe I should squeeze on my nose an pinch it shut and listen and close my eyes simul ... simul ... at the same time." He pondered out loud but not able to remember the word he wanted to use.

He tried to keep his left hand cupped next to his ear while also pinching his nose at the same time. He failed. He tried to do the same with his right hand. Cupped around his big ears, he thought he might reach is nose with his pinky. He could do it! But lost most of the cup that his hand had formed.

"Hmm. Hear or smells? Hear or smells? I guess hearins what I need now," he said to the beavers.

The three responded by putting their own paws up to their ears.

"Whaddya hear? Whaddya hear? Oh, right. You can't tell me. I have to guess.

He put his right index finger up to his lips and blew out a "Shhhh!!!"

The mama beaver and her two kits each put their paws up to their mouths also. But when they blew nothing came out.

"Did yous hear dat?"

The beavers padded their tails in sync.

Fwop fwop fwop.

"Shhhh!!!" Sycamore said as he tried to make his hands bigger but couldn't. He gave up on pinching his nose shut.

" I heared sombodis say someting.

"It seemed to come from up above. Up over that hill. Maybe it was upped that tree.

"Oh doggone it. I canned figger it out."

Fwop fwop fwop.

"Maybe wes oughta go up this hill here?" Sycamore half asked, half suggested and half tried to convince himself that it was the best thing to do. Too many halves. Sycamore was never very good at math.

The frequency of the padding of the beavers' tails decreased noticeably.

"Up the hill to the right of this here crick?"

The padding was slow.

"Back down the crick from where we came?"

The padding stopped.

"Continue on up the creek?"

Fwop, fwop, fwop, fwop, fwop ... in very rapid succession.

"Gots it. Slow means 'hot' and fast means 'cold?'"

Barb hung her head. The two kits fell over sideways, each to one side of Barb. One fell to the left and the other to the right and both looked as if they were playing dead.

"I's juss kiddin. Fast is 'yes' and slow is 'no.' I gots it!"

As if they had been trained to move totally in sync the two kits sat up in unison almost instantly. Despite the darkness you could see a sparkle in their eyes from the reflection of the moon. Sycamore smiled back at them. He tried to bounce his butt up and down as if his backside were a paddle. Instead he looked as if he might rather need to go behind a nearby tree and do something different.

"We continue on up the creek. Got it!" Sycamore turned and headed the wrong way. Barb cut him off. Circled him until he turned back to face the right direction.

The foursome trudged alongside the creek bank. Sycamore tried hard as he could to not step in the creek. Even so, every 4th or 5th step his left foot went for a swim. He didn't seem to notice is wet foot as he was too busy trying to pick up the sound he heard earlier.

"I gots it! I gots it! I knows what that sound was. I knows, I knows!!"

The beavers stopped.

"That was the voice of my friend Roci! Comes to think of it. That's right!!" Sycamore clapped his hands together so loudly that the echo reverberated throughout the little canyon they were in.

Thwuppp!

"That's why I am here. I remembers now. I come looking for her and my other friends. There's Roci and Mousi and Aim and Sybil," he said plainly.

"That was Roci's voice. I knows it was."

Sycamore scratched his head so intensely that it turned beet read. A couple more scratches and it would have begun to bleed. He didn't seem to mind.

"But I dunno what was she said."

His face went from being half its normal size to nearly double its usual size. He began to almost look as if he were in despair.

"I wanna ... I gotta find my friends!"

A steely-eyed determination came over him.

"I am gonna find them. That's why I is here."

The three beavers padded their tails and resumed walking up the creek, stopping every now and then to be sure Sycamore was not far behind.

"Find my friends, find my friends, find my friends ... " Sycamore repeated over and over again as if it were a mantra he had just discovered or a truth that came over him.

"Find my friends, find my ...., " Sycamore interrupted himself as he, Barb and the two kits came to the top of a hill. As they left the forest they found themselves on the edge of an open field.

Sycamore's eyes widened; he grinned from ear to ear. However, just as he was about to shout out he paused momentarily, then realized, slow as he was to make a decision that he probably shouldn't make another noise.