66 We walked that way for half an hour. We paused to sniff things from time to time. Various animal scents, mostly. And then, I realized something. We weren't supposed to just be going for a stroll. The kits were hungry. I was their mother. And it was my job to provide for them.
If I didn't teach them to catch bugs, they wouldn't survive. Skunks eat some plants, but they also eat crickets and mantises and grass hoppers and even shrews and mice.
I stopped walking and looked back at "my" kits. Four almost identical little balls of black-and-white fuzz. Four curious little faces watching me. Waiting to see what I was doing. Eager to learn.
I'd been feeding them thawed frozen grasshoppers and thawed mice I'd brought from the clinic. Just as I'd been giving Tobias food since he was too busy to hunt properly. But these skunk kits couldn't be fed by humans all their lives.
Suddenly ... a crashing sound! Something rushing through the woods, careless, wild, noisy.
And coming right toward us!
I started to lead the kits back to the burrow, but the noise was getting closer. It was coming too quick! I tried to smell what it was, but the breeze was blowing the wrong way.
Then . . . ROWR! ROWR! ROWROWROWR! A dog!
A wolf would have known better. A wolf would have seen the black-and-white fur and decided he had an appointment somewhere else. A bear would have known. Just about any wild animal knew better than to annoy an adult skunk.
But this big happy dog was not wild. He lived with humans. He knew absolutely nothing about skunks.
Without even thinking, I turned my back to the dog. I raised my tail in warning.
The dog kept coming. Drool was dribbling from one side of his mouth, and his tongue was hanging out the other side, and he was having about as good a time as a dog could have. He was in the woods, and he had a bunch of little black animals to play with.
The kits were still lined up. They were watching me intently. It almost made me want to laugh -- if I could have. It was a big moment for them -- they were about to learn why no sensible animal picked on adult skunks.
I had no experience in spraying. But the skunk mind within my own knew exactly what it was it had to do.
I aimed.
I looked over my shoulder to judge the distance.
I targeted that dog's face, and I fired.
Just at the instant when I fired, I had the strange sensation that I knew this dog from somewhere. But it was too late by then. Way too late.
67 At a distance of ten feet, the spray hit with the accuracy of a laser-guided smart missile.
ROWR? ROWR?
The dog stopped dead in his tracks. The look in his eyes was sheer horror. How could it be?
How could the little black-and-white creature have done this to him?
And then, I heard something that made me feel really bad.
"Homer? What's the matter, boy?" Jake asked. "Oh. Ohhhhh, Homer. I told you not to follow me into the woods."
"Rrrreww rrrreeewww rrreeewww," Homer whined pitifully.
Jake, Marco, Rachel, and Ax all came up at a run. Marco was already laughing.
"You hosed Homer!" Marco giggled. "Cassie sprayed Homer! Wait, that is Cassie, right?"
I seriously considered pretending to be some other skunk.
"Sorry, Jake," I said.
"Man, that is nasty," Rachel commented. "No offense, Cassie. But I mean . . . gag! Oh. Ugh."
"Fascinating," Ax said. "That is possibly the worst thing I have ever smelled. " Homer tried to nuzzle up to Jake, but as much as Jake loves his dog, he was not going for it.
"I don't think so, big guy. I told you to stay home. But oh no, Homer, you had to come with me. Now, go home. HOME, boy!"
Homer decided home might be a better place than the forest, after all. He trotted off, tail between his legs.
"I believe the smell is causing me to become deranged," Ax said calmly. "I may have to run away in panic."
"Take me with you," Marco muttered.
"Well, this is perfect," Jake said. "Wonderful. My parents are going to so appreciate it when Homer gets back to the house reeking of skunk. Man, let's move away from this spot, okay? I mean, jeez, that's just awful."
We moved away from the scene of the stink, back toward the den. I led the kits inside, where they seemed happy to curl up and sleep. It had been an exciting outing for them.
I went back outside and demorphed. "Homer will be okay if you bathe him in tomato juice and leave him outside for a few days," I said to Jake. "Sorry."
68 "Not as sorry as Homer is," Jake said. "But we have bigger problems. Look, Cassie, we came to find you and Tobias. That guy Farrand? Ax and Marco tapped into the Yeerk computer at the logging camp."
"Yeah," Marco grinned. "The Ax-man knows his way around computers."
"Yeah, well, we found something out. Farrand isn't arriving this weekend. He's coming early.
He's coming to cast the final vote on the logging in this forest. In fact, he'll be here in about an hour."
We have an hour to make plans and get ready," Jake said. "One hour. Less, since we have to get into position."
"Okay, what do we know?" Marco asked. "We know this Farrand guy is the one who makes the final decision on the Yeerks going forward. We know he's not a Controller or he would have already voted to let the logging begin."
"We know the Yeerks won't leave it to chance," Rachel said. "He's coming here to the site.
They'll be ready to do an involuntary infestation. They have some slug sitting in a vat right now, waiting to crawl in the man's ear."
"They may just try to persuade this human," Ax suggested. "They prefer voluntary infestations. And if they can get this human to give them his vote, they may simply let him go. "
"So what do we do, attack?" Rachel asked. "Just storm in and mess everything up?"
"Hey. Shhh," Tobias said.
"What?" Rachel asked him.
"Don't you guys hear that? Even human ears should hear that. " We all listened very intently. Then it came, carried on the breeze -- the sound of diesel engines.
"Probably just our friends the Yeerks, moving their heavy equipment around. Putting it in nice, neat rows for the commissioner," Jake said. But then he thought it over and added, "Tobias? You mind going up to take a look?"
Tobias flapped his wings and soared above the treetops and out of sight.
"Okay, back to business," Jake said. "One way or the other, this Farrand guy is the key. If he votes yes, the Yeerks can log in this forest. If he votes no, they can't. Not without attracting way too much attention."
"Assuming they let Farrand live long enough to vote no," Rachel said.
"That's our job, then," I suggested. "We have to keep Farrand alive, and keep them from making him a Controller."
69 Everyone nodded.
"Too bad I have no idea how to do that," I admitted.
Just then, Tobias came rocketing down out of the sky. "They've already started!" he yelled as he shot past to land on a branch.
"Started what?" I asked.
"The Yeerks. They've started cutting trees. And they are coming this way!"
"Well," Jake said. "I guess that settles the question of whether the Yeerks are going to infest this guy."