Animal Amulets (4)
She hadn´t gone far into the narrow brown pipe when she stopped and carefully put some of the bright blue poisonous pellets into the bag the cat gave her. Perhaps they would come be of some use. Then up she got up and off she rushed mumbling all the while to herself, “find the toad, find the toad.”
Then it happened, she had only travelled two thirds of the length of the pipe when the brownness of the pipe turned a strange orange then yellow and red and then all the colours of the rainbow circled around her head. Suddenly everything went out of focus. She was sure Tiger was playing with the pipe and just throwing it up in the air and catching it. She felt as if at any moment she would empty the contents of her stomach. Then it stopped. All of a sudden everything was very still. Whereas before she had heard the twittering of birds outside now she heard something else. It sounded like birds playing jazz. She came out of the pipe a little shaken but relieved that the ground was firm. She looked up to where she thought the noise was coming from and sure enough, there in the branches were birds playing jazz. She had never seen such a sight. Maybe they were good at what they were playing but as Molly had no interest in jazz she didn´t even try to appreciate it. She waited impatiently for them to finish.
When they finally started putting away their instruments Molly shouted, “Excuse me, but do any of you know where I can find a toad called Thunder thighs.”
The blue bird that had been playing the saxophone turned his head downwards.
“ You won´t find any of our kind hanging out with toads, let alone being seen around toads, they are too into heavy metal for our liking.”
The other birds clicked their claws and said, “yeah, yeah.” in unison.
“Oh, well then, I´m sorry to have bothered you all,” answered Molly.
“Wait a minute, why don´t you ask the frogs, they´re cool, they sometimes sing tenor for the operatic society,” said the crow who had been playing the bass.
“I will so and thank you so much, can you point me in the general direction please?” she asked.
“No problem,” said the sparrow who had been playing percussion. “Just head towards the ponds beside the waterfall, head northwards through this forest and you´ll get there in no time.”
Molly thanked them all again and she also told them their music was marvellous. She didn´t really think so but she thought they would like to hear it anyway. She liked to keep everyone happy. So with a little more hope, off she skipped northwards into the wood.