The second installment of my animal stories!

FINALLY!

                   Honey, I Shrunk the Porcupines!!!

    There once was a porcupine named Phoenix. He lived happily in Sherwood Forest with his family, friends, and foes. Phoenix was “living the dream”; he had good friends, he was the most popular kid in school, he was kind of a geek, and yet he was at peace with everyone. Well, mostly everyone, except for humans, of course. Humans were every porcupine’s nightmare.

    One day, Phoenix was sitting on his sofa in the shade across from his friends, Chester, Linda, and Jacob. The sofa was a large rock carved into a sofa shape and covered in soft, comfy moss (porcupines are very resourceful animals, and smart, too). The four friends were talking about typical teenage porcupine topics. You know, whose quills were the sharpest, who was the coolest kid in school, which teachers they wanted vaporized. “Why would you want Ms. Friday vaporized? She’s so nice!” said Linda, a girl who Chester had introduced to Phoenix only a few days ago. “I don’t think she is! C’mon, she makes us do Ah-ha Mom--” began Jacob.

    He never finished.

    BOOM!  Suddenly, something shook the ground—close. A loud horn sounded from behind them. Every single one of them thought the same thing: H-U-M-A-N-S! Phoenix had been in human drills at school, but obviously, this was not school! Jacob and Chester screamed like little girls and ran, or at least crawled, as fast as they could to get to safety. Linda actually hurried toward the sound. She was one of those tough, athletic girls who thought they could do anything. Phoenix made a quick decision and followed Linda into the bushes.

   

    The two, Phoenix and Linda, had secretly made a corridor through the large bushes. Nobody else knew about it or used it, so it was easy for Phoenix to follow Linda’s footprints. He finally got to the end of the corridor, and Linda was crawling confidently toward something that Phoenix couldn’t see. “Linda!” he shouted. Linda turned around to face him.

    “Why are you here?” she inquired.

    “You’re going to need someone to have your back.”

    “Who’s gonna have you’re back?”

    “I can have my own back!”

    Linda couldn’t make a comeback to that. “Fine. I’m trying to find out what the humans are trying to do. I have an idea that—“ Like Jacob, she didn’t finish. A large steel trap closed around Phoenix, and a separate one captured Linda. One pair of hands closed around the handle of each cage. A needle was injected carefully into both their forepaws. After that, they saw nothing.

    When Phoenix woke up, he was in a small, freezing room with odd, flashing lights on the walls and white tables everywhere. Phoenix’s and Linda’s cages were set on one of these tables. They were surrounded by test tubes filled with colored liquid.

    Phoenix waited a few minutes before Linda woke up. The two were silent, and soon a tall, skinny, dark-haired woman who looked to be in her mid-thirties wearing tinted glasses entered the room through a heavy-looking metal door on the far side of the room. After her came a man who was a bit thicker than her and had thick, brown hair that reached down past his ears. They both wore long cream-colored lab coats and didn’t look like they were in the mood for small talk. The woman had a name tag that said “Mrs. Jacquelyn Jones” and the man had one that said “Mr. Edward Jones”. They both filled their own small container with pale pink liquid from various test tubes. That’s when someone finally spoke. “Edward,” began Mrs. Jones, “this whole fight is silly. Plus, you’re freaking out Emma.” Mr. Jones flipped his lid. “Did you say that I’m the one  who started it all? Let’s not forget who was the one who wouldn’t pitch in!”

    Phoenix and Linda had no idea what they were talking about. What they did realize was that when Mr. Jones freaked out, he accidentally poured too much pink liquid in his container. He didn’t seem to realize this in his rage, for he screwed a cap on his container, attached it to a needle, and rushed over to Linda. Before she could protest, Mr. Jones stuck the needle in Linda’s back paw and pressed the trigger. Mrs. Jones haughtily copied him. She gave Phoenix one of the pink shots, too, also pouring too much liquid into her container, for she thought Mr. Jones had done it on purpose. Mrs. Jacquelyn Jones stormed out of the room. The second the door closed behind her, Phoenix looked over at Linda’s cage.

    She was gone.

     Not the kind of gone you’re thinking, like someone took her. She had just disappeared into thin air! Unfortunately, Mr. Jones had noticed, too. He was staring wide-eyed at Linda’s cage. Suddenly, Phoenix began to feel like he was inside a walnut. Either I’m shrinking or my cage is growing. He thought, Never mind. I’m totally shrinking.  Mr. Jones rushed to Phoenix’s cage to watch the process of Phoenix shrinking. Soon, Phoenix the porcupine was as small as a thimble.

    Mr. Jones stepped back in awe and looked at Linda’s cage. Linda wasn’t gone after all. She was just as small as Phoenix! “Honey!” shouted Mr. Jones, “I shrunk the porcupines!!”

    Soon, Mrs. Jacquelyn Jones was back in the lab. And she was angrier than ever. “You think I’ll fall for a joke as dumb as that? Are you calling me stupid?” Then she looked over at the porcupine cages and instantly apologized. “Sorry. But how exactly did you shrink the animals this time?” she asked casually, like this had happened before. Mr. Edward Jones shrugged and sighed. “At least we can do one thing with them. Give them to Emma.” The couple took Linda and Phoenix out of their cages and let them crawl on their fingers.

    The humans took the porcupines of the lab and up a staircase.       At the top, the two knocked on the first door to the left. “It’s open!” shouted a female voice from inside. Mrs. Jones opened the door. Inside was a room painted sky blue. Two walls were covered by four white wooden bookcases filled with books. Another had the sliding doors of a closet and a tall mirror was leaning against the wall. The last wall had a large, square bed with bedspread that made the bed look like a giant book. It also had a desk with a green lamp, an “easy” button in the corner, and different-sized glasses of various colors of liquid. A girl who looked like she was twelve sat on the bed wearing a neon green elbow-length sweater and long flare jeans. Her fingernails were painted blue and she had long brown hair that she wore in a ponytail. Like her mother, she wore glasses and was skinny. She was reading a copy of The Secret Garden, which was in perfect condition, like it had just been bought. The overall effect the girl had on Phoenix was a creeped-out one. Phoenix knew that this was Emma Jones, daughter of Jacquelyn Jones and Edward Jones.

    “What do you need, Mother?” said  Emma politely, without looking up from her book.

    “Emma, we have a surprise for you. We accidentally shrunk a couple of porcupines. Could you keep them safe in your room?”

    Emma finally looked up. She put her bookmark in place, stood up, and walked over to her parents. “More small animals? Oh, the poor things!” she said as she took the two miniscule porcupines from her parents and set them on the deck, or at least tried to. Phoenix and Linda fell to the floor, bringing down with them a glass of green goo. When the porcupines hit the floor, the green goo oozed around them. They suddenly started growing until they were normal-sized again. “Oh, so now we know how to turn the animals back every time we shrink them!” exclaimed Mrs. Jones. Everyone laughed in relief.

   

    A week later, Emma and her parents brought Linda and Phoenix back to Sherwood Forest. Emma said she loved that forest because it reminded her of the book “Robin Hood”. Phoenix and Linda were reunited with their friends and family and, like every good story should end, they all lived happily ever after.             

Hope you liked it!