CHAPTER 11
CHASING RHINOS
Flossy hadn’t quite reached Town Hall when a herd of rhinos went thundering by.
‘Hey, stop!’ she yelled. ‘Stop I say. What’s happening?’
The rhinos didn’t stop so Flossy turned and sprinted after them. Their fierce, serious expressions made her sure they would be heading for the action, which is where she could be most help.
Animals jogging towards Town Hall—made curious by Reginald’s trumpeting, no doubt—made way as she hurtled across Town Square after the rhinos. She leapt over two slow moving crocodiles as she rounded the Heat Tree, its hot coral branches fizzing and hissing at the touch of raindrops condensing from the fog.
She cannonballed past a large group of surprised school excursion students being herded out of harm’s way by two worried looking camel-teachers. The ground was slippery and the foggy conditions made running treacherous but this didn’t slow Flossy down in the slightest—there was action afoot and she didn’t want to miss it.
She lost sight of the rhinos as they passed the Stinging Nettle and turned onto Zigzag Road. That’s where the action would be, she was sure of it. She followed them, nearly slipping as she careened around the corner.
As she ran down the long hill and bounced through the switchbacks Flossy kept an eye out for Harry and the others but saw no sign of them. They were to look for pirates below the Square while she and Reginald looked above. Perhaps the rhinos were running to help them fight cornered pirates. She hoped she wouldn’t be too late to join the fray. She would love to face the dogs, a sword in her hand and friends at her back, the numbers more evenly balanced. It was easy to have courage in a pack. Would they cower and whine or run and hide if they were outnumbered? Now, that would be something to see!
Flossy was breathless when she finally reached Gateway Quay and her foot hurt; she had stubbed a big toe on an uneven cobblestone. The rhinos had arrived well before her. She could hear their snorts and hoof-clatter on the timber boards further down.
She jogged with a limp under the old stone gateway, slowed at a work shed bulging with rhinos and drew her bright sword. Two of the rhinos wouldn’t fit so their rumps poked out like leathery pillows and she had to push in between them.
Somewhere at the back of the shed, behind the hull of an upturned boat surrounded by wood shavings, two rhinos were arguing.
‘No, I can’t do that. You put your hoof there and I’ll wriggle this bit with my horn,’ said one Rhino, annoyed.
‘I can’t see in this light. Step sideways, will you,’ said the other. ‘You know my eyes have never been good in the dark.’
‘Ouch, you pushed me onto a nail or something,’ said the first. ‘They’re all over the floor.’
‘Sorry. I’ve got my horn in, so you pull… okay?’
There was a muffled struggle and some frustrated huffing.
‘No, not like that, move around to that side.’
Flossy pushed to the front. ‘Can I help?’ she asked.
‘Oh, it’s the human! These knots are… difficult and you’ve got fingers.’
The big rhinos moved aside, revealing Stanley fettered and tied securely to a roughhewn timber stanchion that held up the roof. A potato sack was on this head.
‘Stanley! What have they done to you?’ she cried, reaching up and removing the sack.
‘I was… I was screaming my-my-myself horse... They’ve taken Harry and Sally!’ he said.
‘Pirates?’ she asked.
Stanley nodded vigorously.
‘When?’
‘At least an hour, an hour ago. M-May-Maybe more. They’ll be well gone by now, I...’ Stanley looked away and drew a deep breath to steady his stuttering, one eye twitching. He turned back, looked at Flossy and said slowly, carefully: ‘They had a plan. And they knew… they knew who Harry was.’
‘Where’s Larry?’ asked Flossy.
She put down her sword and untied Stanley as quickly as she could.
‘I don’t, I don’t know.’
‘We know,’ said one of the rhinos. Like the others, he had thick, grey, leathery skin and dangerous-looking horns armoured with bright metal. ‘Larry Monkey’s at Town Hall.’
‘Well at least he’s okay,’ said Flossy. She finished untying Stanley. Even in the dim light of the shed she could see dark red welts were he had been straining against his restraints.
‘But the Throwback probably won’t be by now,’ another Rhino said, grinning. The others sniggered.
‘Do you mean Sergeant Boar? How do you mean?’ asked Flossy, turning to face them.
The rhino told Flossy what Sergeant Boar had done and how the Mayor had reacted when he found out. Larry had been setting a trap to stop the pirates before they could leave with Harry and Sally and the boar had stopped him. But not only that, the boar had bound and gagged him and when he struggled had thrown him to the ground again and again to subdue him. Then, when he was unconscious, he had carried him back to Town Hall like a trophy.
‘But the Mayor had wanted to honour Larry for bravery,’ said Flossy, dumbfounded.
‘Yes, but the boar said he didn’t know that, that orders were orders, and that the monkey looked suspicious, like he was trying to escape on a boat. The Mayor roared, and I don’t blame him.’
For a moment Flossy was silent. Then she stamped her good foot hard on the floor and roared too, so that everyone took a step back. ‘That stupid pig!’
There was a sharp squeak and a shuffling noise behind her. Flossy picked up her sword and unsheathed it. The bright, curved blade flashed.
‘Who’s there?’
She stared into the gloom at the back of the shed. There was a long workbench scattered with tools and wood shavings and a curved timber beam held by clamps next to a neat stack of coiled rope.
‘Just m-m-me,’ replied a terrified voice from under the bench.
‘Don’t make me come in there and get you!’ said Flossy.
Nothing happened for a few seconds then a tortoise, its shell a composite of differently-sized brown tiles, waddled out from the shadows. It was shaking so much she was amazed it could walk at all. It looked up at Flossy, then at her sword, then across at Stanley’s confused and angry face, then past him to the herd of rhinos that filled the shed to bursting. The tortoise’s face flushed with terror and it retracted into its shell like an overwound spring and fell with a clatter to the floor.
Flossy pointed her sword at the creature. ‘Who are you?’
‘Assam T-T-Tortoise, Miss Human. I work here.’
‘Assam, are you going to tell me that you were back there all along and you didn’t help Stanley?’
‘Please spare me,’ said Assam, whimpering.