The long, hot summer had finally left Elmwood. It had eased itself lazily over the distant mountains, headed for some far-off land as a blustery wind brought in a change of the seasons.
Fall had arrived at last and with it the shortening of days and the lengthening of nights. The autumnal air was cooler, and the colors of the landscape reflected the changes of the seasons. The hills were no longer a vibrant green. They were mottled in parts with a brownish stain, while gold and yellow leaves adorned the trees.
It was a perfect evening for another nighttime adventure, thought B-Jay, leaving home. It had been several weeks since he had seen his friends, so tonight he was eager to catch up with them and hear of their latest exploits. He didn’t have to travel far and arrived at the cottonwood tree in what seemed like no time at all.
As he pulled up next to his friends, he sensed that they were already busy discussing something important. Maybe they were deciding what adventure would be on the agenda for the evening. He hoped so, as he was feeling rather excited, as usual.
“Hi everyone!” he exclaimed, tooting his horn and flashing his lights. “What are you all talking about? Did I miss something?”
Digger Bo the badger wasn’t tumbling with his usual enthusiasm, Cressida the overly proud cat wasn’t pruning herself, and Zippo the ant was nowhere to be seen. Maxwell the dog was wide awake and sniffing furiously, as if on high alert, and Aruna the wise Great Horned owl was spinning his head around in all directions so fast that B-Jay was surprised he wasn’t giving himself a headache. Something was definitely going on.
All of a sudden, the noise that had them all so agitated happened again.
“Bwwuuuuuurp!”
B-Jay had no idea what the noise was, and it seemed that no one, as yet, had managed to locate where it was coming from.
“Bwwwuuuuuuuurp!”
“Oh my,” exclaimed B-Jay to anyone that was listening. “What on earth is making that noise?”
“We have been trying to work that out for nearly an hour,” replied Digger Bo. “It seems that no one has heard a noise like that before, so we are all confused and more than a little concerned—especially Zippo.”
“Where is Zippo?” enquired B-Jay, scanning the tree area with his lights.
“He is hiding in my burrow,” said Digger Bo. “It seems there is something about that sound that has him worried.”
“Are you okay, Zippo?” B-Jay said.
“Not really,” came the echoed reply from the side of the tree. “There is something about that noise that has me scared, but I don’t totally understand why that is.”
“Bwwuuuurrrrp!” came the noise again.
“I think it is coming from the riverbank just north of here,” stated Aruna, taking flight. “I need to go investigate immediately.” And before anyone could reply, he was airborne and flying towards the river.
“I sense tonight’s adventure has just begun,” said B-Jay. “Maybe we should follow Aruna to the riverbank. I know the way there.”
They all climbed aboard, except for Zippo, who sheepishly needed some coaxing from the safety of the burrow. Once B-Jay assured him he would be safe if he stayed on the dashboard, he made his way there very quickly.
The road to the riverbank was fairly straightforward, and it wasn’t long before B-Jay was heading down a sidetrack, turning up his headlights to light the way along the dark, bumpy, river’s edge trail. They spotted Aruna perched on a large log next to a very strange-looking creature and parked close by.
The river meandered quietly in the background, moving gently as the moonlight glinted on the occasional ripple. The air was slightly damp, and the few clouds that hung in the night sky shone with an eerie glow.
“Bwwwuuuuuurp!” came the noise again from the creature that sat before them on the log, and in the blink of an eye, Zippo had leapt from the dashboard and cowered in the glove compartment where it was dark and safe.
“He says that his name is Hudson,” said Aruna. “He is a Hop toad.”
“What is a Hop toad?” said Digger Bo, who still wasn’t tumbling, his attention distracted by Maxwell who busied himself sniffing the ground. He was frantically pacing left and right trying to identify the strange scents around the riverbank, intending to eventually get close enough to smell the toad.
“Bwwwuuurrrrp, Bwuurrp!” said the toad abruptly.
Maxwell was just about to sniff the toad but jumped backwards quickly, surprised by the latest outburst, and continued sniffing from a safer distance. Cressida laughed at the dog’s fragile bravado and seemed less interested or affected by the strange presence of the toad as she attended to her pruning.
“Bwwwurrrrp!” said the toad once more.
“What is he saying now?” enquired B-Jay, closely looking at the toad’s strange demeanour. He was squat and squidgey-looking, with bulging eyes that blinked constantly. Occasionally he puffed his cheeks, and it looked like his head might explode.
“Like I said, he says that his name is Hudson, and it appears he has drifted on this log a long way from his home in Canada.”
“You speak Canadian?” enquired Digger Bo with much surprise. His excitement at this discovery was enough to initiate his first tumble of the evening.
“I think you’ll find he is speaking Toad!” exclaimed Cressida with a rueful look on her face.
“You speak Canadian AND Toad?” exclaimed Digger Bo, twice as surprised as before. “You really are the wisest of wise owls!”
Cressida stopped her pruning and looked at Digger Bo with an expression no one had seen before. It was largely incredulation tinged with more than a measure of disbelief at what she had just heard. She resolved the matter with a conclusion that badgers and dogs were roughly equal on the scale of intelligence and continued her pruning.
“Why did he come all this way?” asked B-Jay. “Isn’t Canada in another country?”
“Bwwwiiirrrruuuuuuup!” said Hudson the toad once more.
“He says that he fell asleep on the log as he is narcoleptic and, while he was sleeping, the strong current carried him away. Eventually the river calmed and he ended up here at the riverbank,” said Aruna.
“Narco-what?” said Maxwell, who had stopped his sniffing and was observing the toad carefully, his head cocked to one side. “What does that mean?”
“The word is narcoleptic, and it means that he falls asleep a lot. He cannot help it, and in this incident, it has ended with him drifting a long way from home,” replied Aruna.
“Well, it is lucky that you speak Canadian and Toad,” said B-Jay. “I don’t know how he would ask for help otherwise.”
“This might seem like a question that a badger might think of,” voiced Cressida with a wry smile on her face, “but why did he not just hop off when he woke up?”
“Good question!” said Digger Bo, eager to hear an explanation.
“Bwwwuuuuuurp!” said Hudson loudly, as if in response.
“It would seem that he is also acrophobic,” mentioned Aruna. “Which, before you ask, means that he is also afraid of heights. So he doesn’t hop.”
“Oh dear,” said Digger Bo. “I think Hudson really does need our help if he is to ever find his way home. It doesn’t look like that log is going to go anywhere quickly.”
“You’re very quiet, Zippo,” said B-Jay, who really was enjoying their latest adventure.
“I think he is worried that Hudson might be very hungry after such a long journey and, as everyone knows, toads eat ants. They also eat grubs, spiders, worms, insects, slugs, snails and various other invertebrates,” said Cressida knowingly.
“Wow—you and Aruna seem to know everything there is to know,” replied Maxwell. “Suddenly I feel a little stupid at knowing none of this.”
“'Suddenly' is not a word I would have chosen in that sentence,” responded Cressida with her usual tone of superiority.
“No wonder Zippo is so scared,” deflected B-Jay, concerned by his friend’s lack of enjoyment in the evening’s discoveries. “Can you ask Hudson nicely to promise that he won’t eat Zippo, and in return, we could choose to be his friend? I think that would be a good idea, as friends don’t eat friends, and then we could find a way to help him get home. After all, friends help friends.”
“Bwuurrrrp,” said Hudson, blinking and puffing out his cheeks.
“He says he has never had a friend before and thinks that is a very nice idea,” replied Aruna, “though he doesn’t see how we can help him.”
“Did you hear that, Zippo?” said B-Jay. “You can come out of the glove compartment now. Hudson has promised not to eat you. He has chosen to be our friend.”
Zippo crawled onto the dashboard, relieved that he didn’t have to hide in the dark anymore and more than a little curious to see what was making the noise that had scared him so. He found the toad to be an enigma and wasn’t sure if any of the ants from his colony had ever seen a toad before. Not only could he be the first ant to witness the presence of a toad in Elmwood but he could be the first to have one as a friend. He felt special even if he was still a little sceptical. A promise was a promise, though, he told himself.
“So, how are we going to help him?” enquired Zippo, not knowing where the place called Canada existed.
“Well, we could drive him there,” said Cressida, “if anyone knows how to get there.”
“Bwwwuuuuurrup!” said Hudson, feeling hopeful that his friends might have a plan to save the day.
“Well, being a bird, I do have magical powers of navigation,” said Aruna. “I guess I could fly overhead and you could follow my flightpath. Though we may have to drop him off at the border. We won’t be able to drive into Canada without our passports, but we could at least find a river near the border checkpoint for him to swim the rest of the way home.”
“Bwwurrp,” responded Hudson. “Bwurp, Bwwurrrup!”
A few seconds later, everyone climbed aboard, and Aruna picked Hudson up with his talons very gently and placed him in the glove compartment. Zippo remained on the dashboard despite his earlier fears, and everyone else took up their usual seats. Once Hudson had settled himself for the long journey, Aruna the Great Horned owl stretched out his rather large wings and shook them in preparation for a long flight. He whispered some instructions to B-Jay and then pushed off into the night sky.
The journey took at least an hour, and it gave everyone time to reflect on what they had experienced that evening. Hudson had learned that choosing friendship really was the best way for finding solutions to problems. He could not have done this alone. It might have taken him weeks to walk there, and he wasn’t even sure he knew which way to go.
It wasn’t long before they arrived at the border, and once Aruna had shown them the way to a small river nearby, he landed on a tree branch. Everyone then joined him, assembling by the bank of the river. Even Zippo left the safety of B-Jay’s dashboard, excited to see that his new friend got home safely.
“Bwurrrup, Bwurrrp, Bwurp!” said Hudson as he surveyed the surrounding landscape.
“It appears he recognises this place,” said Aruna. “He sounds very excited and more than a little relieved to be home.”
It was true. Hudson did not enjoy being lost and was glad that he had agreed to be their friend. They really had saved the day. He was so overjoyed that he suddenly did something very unexpected. He hopped twice before diving into the water.
B-Jay was very overcome when he saw this, as he knew how much excitement it must have taken for Hudson to overcome one of his fears. He tooted his horn and flashed his lights over and over as the toad swam away. They all took a minute to savour the moment before resuming their places for the long journey back to Elmwood.
A smile even crossed Zippo’s face as he heard one final noise in the distance.
“Bwwwuuurrrrp!”