The air was no longer thick and sleepy; instead, it carried a crisp, invigorating bite that smelled of dry pine needles and wood fires. Along the winding roads, the quaking aspens were beginning their spectacular transformation, their golden leaves shimmering brightly in the moonlight in sharp contrast to the inky black night sky. The swallows were long gone, and in their place, the valley felt quiet and expectant, as if nature were holding its breath before the first true frost of the year arrived to tuck the farms in for the winter. The only sound to break the silence was the sharp crackle of crickets.
It was a perfect evening for another nighttime adventure, thought B-Jay, the red Beetle car, leaving the confines of his garage, his lights illuminating the road and catching the trees as they flickered by. 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, just climb the hill and then a few curves of the road as it weaved its way toward the woods and the cottonwood tree that lay just beyond. He would arrive in what seemed like no time at all.
As he pulled up next to his friends, his engine ticking over with a soft purr, he sensed that they were already busy discussing something important. Maybe they were deciding what adventure would be on the agenda for the evening. They certainly seemed more animated than usual and were looking around as if someone had something to search for.
"Hi everyone!" he exclaimed, tooting his horn and flashing his lights. "What are you all talking about? Did I miss something? What are you all looking for? Maybe I can help you find it."
As soon as he finished his introduction, he turned his full beams on thinking they might help. Digger Bo, the tumbling badger, wasn’t tumbling with his usual enthusiasm; he was pacing the ground, head down. Cressida, the proud black cat, wasn’t grooming herself; she too seemed agitated, her tail hanging low and stiff. Maxwell, the large St. Bernard dog, was wide awake and sniffing furiously, head down as if on high alert, his tail pointing in the same way as Cressida's. 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, and Zippo, the tiny ant, was nowhere to be seen. Something was definitely going on. All of a sudden, the noise that had them all so agitated happened again.
"Bwwuuuuuurp!"
"Oh my!" exclaimed B-Jay, realizing now what the fuss was all about. His side mirrors gave a nervous twitch as a response. He had no more of an idea than the others at what or who might be making that noise, or even indeed where it might be coming from. No one as yet had managed to locate the source.
"Bwwwuuuuuuuurp!" came the sound again, with a deep bellowing echo that seemed to carry on the wind. Wherever it was coming from, it didn’t seem close by.
"Oh my," exclaimed B-Jay a second time, now scanning the area with his lights. "What on earth is making that noise? Is somebody ill?"
"We have been trying to work that out for nearly an hour," replied Digger Bo, standing on his hind legs, his furry nose twitching, as he smelled the cold air. "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. He disappeared the moment we first heard it. Whatever it is, he doesn’t seem too pleased. Maybe you can talk to him."
"Where is Zippo?" inquired B-Jay, his windshield wipers twitching with concern.
"He is hiding in my burrow," answered Digger Bo, turning his head. "It seems there is something about that sound that has him worried. He hasn’t danced, he hasn’t sung, or even done anything to make us laugh all evening. He really isn’t himself."
"Are you okay, Zippo?" B-Jay asked, concerned for his friend's welfare.
"Not really," came an echoed reply from the side of the tree, his words shaking as he spoke. "There is something about that noise that has me scared, but I don’t totally understand why that is. Whatever it is, or whoever is making it, something tells me it is not friendly. It isn’t something I can’t explain; it is more of an instinct that I feel."
"Bwwuuuurrrrp!" bellowed the noise again.
"I am almost certain now that it is coming from the riverbank just north of here," stated Aruna, with a snap of his beak. "I need to go investigate immediately." And before anyone could reply, he stretched out his magnificent wings, turned his head sharply to the right, and was instantly airborne and flying quickly toward the river.
"I sense tonight’s adventure has just begun," said B-Jay, turning his wheels. "Maybe we should follow Aruna to the riverbank. I know the way there. We should follow him in case he needs our help." He gave a rev of his engine, inviting everyone to join him.
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 off the side of the road and heading down a twisted sidetrack. The path was uneven, and patches of clumped earth and tufted roots jarred his way as he negotiated the overgrown and untamed wilderness of the river's edge, turning on his full beams to light the way along the dark, bumpy trail. This would not be a good place to lose another wheel. Slowly he inched his way through the underbrush.
Minutes later, they spotted Aruna perched on a large log that had come ashore where the river's edge dipped to meet the water. He was standing tall and erect, looming like a sentinel, next to a very strange-looking creature, which he seemed to be observing most carefully.
The river meandered quietly in the background, moving gently as the moonlight glinted on the occasional ripple. The air was slightly damp, and the river had a fetid and slightly rotten smell that hinted that beneath its waters lurked many unfamiliar and possibly unfriendly things. An occasional splosh rippled the waters, disturbing the silence, and the few clouds that hung in the night sky shone with an eerie glow before leaving.
"Bwwwuuuuuurp!" came the noise again from the creature that sat before them on the log, and in the blink of an eye, Zippo had leaped from the dashboard, his knees trembling, and cowered in the glove compartment where it was dark and safe.
"He says that his name is Hudson," informed Aruna, breaking the silence, his head whipping around awkwardly. "He is a hop toad."
"What is a hop toad?" asked Digger Bo, who still wasn’t tumbling but digging at the ground with a single paw, before his attention was distracted by Maxwell, who busied himself sniffing the ground intensely. Maxwell's shoulders arched upward as he frantically paced this way and that, trying to identify the strange scents around the riverbank, intending to eventually get close enough to smell the toad.
"Bwwwuuurrrrp, Bwuurrp!" replied the toad abruptly, his cheeks puffing slightly, revealing a very wide grin.
Maxwell was just about to investigate the toad but jumped backward quickly, startled by the latest outburst, and decided it would be better to continue 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 grooming.
"Bwwwurrrrp!" said the toad once more, flicking out a rather strange-looking leg, revealing a webbed foot.
"What is he saying now?" inquired B-Jay, closely looking at the toad’s strange demeanor. He was squat and stout-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," informed Aruna, his feathers wafting gently in the breeze.
"You speak Canadian?" voiced Digger Bo with much surprise. His excitement at this discovery was enough to initiate his first tumble of the evening. He rolled forward twice before looking at the toad to see if he was impressed.
"I think you’ll find he is speaking Toad!" exclaimed Cressida with a rueful look on her face. She stretched out fully, leaving one leg behind her, unimpressed, having seen the tumble a million times before; then proceeded to prune her left cheek.
"You speak Canadian AND Toad?" exclaimed Digger Bo, twice as surprised as before. "You really are the wisest of wise owls!"
Cressida stopped her grooming and looked at Digger Bo with an expression no one had seen before. It was largely incredulity tinged with more than a measure of disappointment 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 grooming.
"Why did he come all this way?" asked B-Jay, concerned. "Isn’t Canada in another country?"
"Bwwwiiirrrruuuuuuup!" said Hudson the toad once more, shuffling on the rutted bark underneath him, his face inflating like a green balloon.
"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, his eyes firmly locked on the toad.
"Narco-what?" questioned Maxwell, who had stopped his sniffing and was observing the toad carefully, his head cocked to one side. "What does that mean?" he inquired before a random passing bug distracted his attention elsewhere.
"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 before launching several hoots into the night sky.
"Well, it is lucky that you speak Canadian and Toad," said B-Jay, his wipers flinching as he spoke. "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, his ears flicking forward attentively.
"Bwwwuuuuuurp!" said Hudson loudly, as if in response. He puffed twice before flicking out a tongue to snatch at the bug that had bothered Maxwell a few minutes earlier, then proceeded to chew.
"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, pacing in a circle, head down. "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, his engine revving quietly.
"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," replied Cressida knowingly, twitching her whiskers.
"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." His ears flopped forward as his mouth fell open at the corners.
"'Suddenly' is not a word I would have chosen in that sentence," responded Cressida with her usual tone of superiority. Her eyes narrowed as she flicked her whiskers for a second time.
"No wonder Zippo is so scared," deflected B-Jay, rocking on his tires and 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.
"He says he has never had a friend before and thinks that is a very nice idea," replied Aruna, flexing his talons for a tighter grip on the log, "though he doesn’t see how we can help him."
"Did you hear that, Zippo?" said B-Jay, flashing his lights with encouragement. "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 slowly, still hunched over and cowering slightly. He was 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; though he didn’t feel much like dancing. He stared at the toad from over the dashboard, remaining hunched. 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 skeptical. A promise was a promise, though, he told himself; though he wasn’t yet ready to spin his hat.
"So, how are we going to help him?" inquired Zippo, not knowing where the place called Canada existed, his voice a little steadier now.
"Couldn’t we send him by UPS?" asked Maxwell, scratching furiously at some unseen itch. "We get packages almost every day from UPS and they seem to arrive from lots of different places. If we wrote 'Return to Canada' on the box, I am reasonably sure he would get there."
"I think you’ll find that it needs stamps to pay for the postage," responded Digger Bo, his snout twitching.
"Couldn’t we just write 'Return to Sender' on the label?" said Maxwell, his head cocked sideways with an expression that said he still thought his idea was a good one.
"No—but maybe we could send him by Airmail," voiced Zippo, feeling braver, thinking that somehow posting him was still the best option.
"Still need stamps," responded Cressida with a sassy tone. "So can we forget UPS, FedEx, and any other form of postal delivery? And before anyone comes up with the not-so-bright idea of going to the post office to get some stamps—they cost money. We need to come up with something achievable or we will have to put up with that insufferable noise all night."
"What about an Uber?" asked Maxwell, feeling confident, despite not having cured his itch.
"Yes, what about an Uber?" said Digger Bo, tumbling backward, determined to impress the toad. "I am reasonably certain that they don’t need stamps."
"Bwwwuuuuurrup!" said Hudson, feeling a little despondent and unsure that his friends were going to be able to help him.
They all sat there silent, looking at each other and wondering if there were any other options.
"Well, we could drive him there," stated Cressida, lifting her head off her paws, "if anyone knows how to get there."
"Well, being a bird, I do have magical powers of navigation," said Aruna, staring at the sky overhead. "I guess I could fly there and you could follow my flight path. 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 with a double cheek puff. "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, squatting into the dark recess, Aruna 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 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, flexing his tired wings, before realigning his ruffled feathers. 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 with his bulging eyes, which blinked in recognition.
"It appears he finds this place familiar," said Aruna. "He sounds much happier 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, his toad legs stretched out behind him as his stout body hit the river.
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 savor 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, and for the first time that evening, he was back to his usual animated self, imitating a double hop along the length of the dashboard, before they all turned back the way they had come, heading for home. As they left the Canadian border, they heard it one more time.
"Bwwwuuurrrp!"