Animal Rescue
By Joseph A. Davis
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Unfortunately, Melvin the Moose could not quite reach the shiny red apple he had climbed up to get. Even more unfortunately, he couldn’t climb down out of the tree, either.
“I’m stuck!” he complained, but no one was around to hear him.
Well, there were some people, but they were all inside the church making noise. Melvin could hear them through an open window, since the apple tree that was causing him so much trouble was on the church’s property. As Melvin struggled to get unstuck, he could hear the people singing and talking. One man in particular did an awful lot of talking. He told stories about how bad his life used to be, when he drank too much alcohol, and how happy he was that God had helped him to stop.
The meeting was very long, and after about an hour, Melvin finally gave up his struggling as he was forced to admit the truth. He was really stuck. Try as he might, he could not get himself out of the tree. He hung there with his antlered head slumped, looking down at the half-rotten windfall apples on the ground below. It occurred to him that if he had not eaten so many of them, he might not have gotten the silly idea to climb up into the tree in the first place. The apples had been sweet and sour and bitter, and after eating about fifty of them, he had started to feel a bit dizzy and decided to go for the nice shiny red one in the tree.
Melvin glared down at the half-rotten apples. They were the cause of all his trouble, and he hated them. However, as he stared at them, he couldn’t help but remember the sweet, sour, bitter taste and to think that if he ever got down from the tree, maybe he could just eat one or two more …
As he considered this, he noticed that the people inside the church were singing a song together:
Turn your eyes upon Jesus
Look full in His wonderful face!
And the things of Earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of His glory and grace
Melvin looked up from the rotten apples down below. The little gold-painted cross on the church’s steeple was gleaming in the light of the autumn sunset. As Melvin gazed at it, enjoying its beauty, he found himself forgetting all about the fallen fruit. The calming melody floating from the church window soothed him, and he relaxed and breathed deeply.
A few minutes later, the meeting ended, and the humans came out of the church and noticed the moose stuck in the apple tree.
“We need to call animal rescue!” an old woman said.
“Do you really think they can handle a job this big?” a young man replied. “I think we need to call someone who has some experience dealing with trees – like some professional apple pickers or something.”
Should they …
Call the apple pickers?
A few minutes after the old woman made the call, a large white van rolled into the church’s parking lot. “Newton & Sons Apple Technicians,” the bold text on the side of the van said. Under the text was a picture of Sir Isaac Newton, with a speech bubble containing the words “What goes up must come down.”
The van’s sliding door opened, and two young men dressed in outfits that looked like spacesuits jumped out and hurried towards the tree. Each man was armed with something like a net with a claw on the end of a very long pole – a special apple-picking net.
“Clear the perimeter!” an old man with a long gray beard ordered, stepping out of the van and closing the drivers’-side door behind him.
“Away from here, you church people!” the taller of the two young men shouted, waving his apple picker at the crowd that had gathered. “This is a matter for science! Apple science!”
Most of the people, seeing that the professionals had come to take care of the situation, shrugged and went home. But the old woman who had made the call remained. “Apple science?” she said. “Wasn’t Sir Isaac Newton both a scientist and a churchgoer?”
The tall young man glared at her. “What does Sir Isaac Newton have to do with anything?” he said.
“You’ve got a picture of him on your van,” the woman pointed out. “And embroidered on your spacesuit. Why are you wearing a space suit, anyway?”
“Enough questions!” the man snapped. “It’s harvesting time! Back away or remain at your own risk!”
The woman chose to remain at her own risk.
Meanwhile, the older man had made his way over to the tree and was stroking his beard thoughtfully as he studied Melvin the Moose. “It seems,” he said after a long moment, “that what we have on our hands is the greatest apple-picking challenge the world has ever seen.” He turned to the young men. “My sons, whichever of you can find a way to harvest the moose will inherit my entire apple-picking business and win glory and fame as the greatest of all apple technicians.”
“We need to make the moose heavier,” the taller son said quickly. “If we feed him enough, the branches holding him will break, and he’ll fall to the ground. We can use our apple pickers to feed him windfall apples,” he added, pointing to all the half-rotten apples lying at the foot of the tree. “That way we can clean up the lawn at the same time and charge double.”
The old woman gave him a stern look. “What a terrible thing to do to the poor moose!” she said. “Don’t you see that he’s already eaten far too many of those apples? They’ve made him sick!”
“And what do you say, my son?” the bearded man said, turning to the shorter of the two young men.
The second son stroked his chin thoughtfully. “The moose is trapped by gravity,” he said, “and it looks like a sturdy apple tree. I think trying to pull him down, with his own weight or with ropes or anything, will only get him more stuck. We have to pull him up. I say we get the space ship. Send him to outer space.”
Should they…
Feed Melvin more windfall apples?
Feed Melvin more windfall apples?
Ignoring the old woman’s protests, the two young apple technicians got to work. While one held the woman back, the other loaded his apple picker with windfall apples and raised it to Melvin’s lips, and he ate.
At first, Melvin told himself there would be no harm in just tasting an apple or two. But soon enough he had eaten forty, and he was feeling awful. The more apples he ate, the worse he felt, and yet it was surprisingly difficult to stop. He kept telling himself he would just eat one more, then just one more.
After about twenty minutes of this, there were no more windfall apples left. Poor Melvin had eaten every single one. He felt really sick and dizzy and wanted to lie down, but he could not, because he was sill stuck in the tree. He began to cry.
At that moment, a group of teenagers arrived on the scene. They had come for the church youth group’s movie night, but when they saw the apple technician in his spacesuit holding the old woman back, they hurried to help her.
“Leave Agnes alone!” one of the teens shouted.
The apple technicians, seeing that they were outnumbered and that they had failed to harvest the moose, ran back to their van and sped away.
“We have to help the poor moose!” Agnes said, pointing to Melvin, who was still feeling very sick.
“Poor thing,” one of the older girls in the group said. “Come on, let’s build a ramp and get him down!”
And so the teens got to work. Their movie night forgotten, they built a long ramp leading up to the tree. Once the ramp was in place, they very carefully sawed off a few of the apple tree’s branches, with the supervision of Agnes who was a grown-up. At last Melvin was free, and they helped him stagger down the ramp onto the grass, where he immediately collapsed and lay breathing heavily.
The teens decided to have youth group on the lawn that evening, and they took turns feeding Melvin some healthy leaves and twigs as they sang worship songs and had their Bible study. They even made it a sleepover, pitching some tents around Melvin and taking care of him all night.
By the next morning, Melvin was feeling quite a bit better. He’d had so much fun at youth group that he decided to keep coming back every week, and he became the official youth group moose.
And the teens, following Agnes’s instructions, were very careful to pick up all the apples that fell from the tree and to put them in a hidden compost heap where Melvin would not be tempted to eat them.
THE END
Send him to outer space?
The old woman could only watch in horror as the two apple-picking brothers, under the supervision of their bearded father, built a launch platform around the tree, dressed the trapped moose in a spacesuit and tied him to a small space craft that they got out of the back of their van.
“But you can’t send him to space!” the woman protested.
Melvin agreed loudly, but since he was a moose, no one listened to him.
“I’m afraid we have to,” the bearded man said. “All apple technician decisions are final. Sorry.”
“Yeah,” the taller of the two sons said, “and anyway, it will be the best thing for him. Just think, he won’t be stuck in the tree anymore.”
“Yeah,” the shorter son agreed, “instead he’ll be stuck in space. Or maybe on the moon or somewhere.”
“Wait,” the old woman said, “you don’t even know where he’s going to end up? But you must be going up there with him, right?”
The two young men exchanged significant looks.
“But you can’t send the poor moose up there alone!” the woman said. “If you’re not going up there with him, what are your spacesuits even for?”
“Fashion,” said the taller brother. “Spacesuits are all the rage these days.”
“Well, then you’d better give me one,” the old woman said, “because I’m going up there with him. I can’t let that poor thing face the cold unknown of outer space all alone.”
The two brothers tried to refuse, but their father refused to refuse. “Give the lady a spacesuit,” he said. “Getting her out of our hair is worth the price of a suit.”
A few minutes later, the old woman was dressed in a spacesuit and strapped to the same rocket as the moose, who was dressed in a spacesuit of his own, with a very large helmet to provide room for his antlers.
“Don’t worry, you poor dear,” the woman said. “I’ll go with you and take care of you. My name is Agnes, by the way.”
“I’m actually a moose, not a deer,” Melvin pointed out politely. “But thank you, Agnes. I’m Melvin.”
At that moment, the rocket blasted off, and Melvin and Agnes cried out as they were launched skyward. In no time at all they were rushing through the clouds, then through the upper atmosphere, then out among the twinkling stars.
“That looks like the moon up ahead,” Melvin said, nodding his antlered head. “Maybe we should try to get inside our spacecraft so we can land there properly.”
“Wait, but what’s that?” Agnes said, pointing to a distant light that came streaking toward them through the darkness of space. As it got closer, she and Melvin were able to make out a long, metallic shape with a bright light and a kind of cowcatcher in front. “Why, it’s a space train coming our way!” Agnes said. “Let’s stay out here and try to get their attention. Maybe they’ll pick us up!”
Should they …
Get inside the spaceship and land on the moon?
Try to get the attention of the space train?
Land on the moon?
Together, Melvin and Agnes were able to help each other get unstrapped from the outside of their spacecraft, climb over to the door, get inside and close it behind them.
It was a bit cramped inside. There weren’t really any controls, either, other than a lever that adjusted the one seat that they were forced to share. So, after cranking the seat all the way back to give themselves as much room as possible, they sat and watched the moon getting larger and larger in the viewscreen as they got closer and closer.
“You know,” Agnes said, “I just realized that this thing doesn’t have a seatbelt – and it doesn’t seem to have a way to slow down, either.”
“I think you’re right,” Melvin agreed. It seemed safest to agree, since he was a moose and didn’t know what a seatbelt was. He was also still feeling a little bit dizzy from the half-rotten apples and mostly just wanted to lie still.
“And this is a problem,” Agnes continued, “since it looks like we’re going to smack into the moon very fast. But I’ve got some yarn and some knitting needles in my purse. I could knit us a really big seatbelt – or maybe a parachute to slow the whole spacecraft down.”
Should she …
Knit a parachute?
Working quickly, Agnes was able to knit something like an extremely wide blanket, which she attached to their spaceship with the very last of her yarn as they drew closer and closer to the moon. The idea was that the knitted blanket would act like a parachute, dragging behind them and catching the air to slow them down.
Unfortunately, since there is no air in space or on the moon, there was nothing for the blanket to catch, and they did not slow down the slightest bit.
But that was okay, because they landed on a lunar trampoline.
The Space Rescue Team, who were piloting the space train they had seen earlier, had noticed that they were in trouble, figured out where they were going to land, gotten there first and set up a trampoline to catch them.
Melvin the Moose did not enjoy bouncing up and down on the space trampoline. Their little spaceship bounced about eleven times, and each time, he felt like he might throw up. But once they finally came to rest and Agnes explained that they were still alive, he was at least a little bit thankful. Mostly because Agnes climbed out of the ship to greet their rescuers, and so he finally had room to stretch his poor legs out a little bit.
“Come on out, Melvin!” Agnes called after a moment.
Melvin sighed, then staggered to his four feet and out of the spacecraft.
The moon was very pale, and he did not see any leaves or twigs to eat, which did not make him very happy.
The space train was parked next to the giant trampoline that had caught their spaceship, and Agnes was sitting on the edge of the trampoline talking to what appeared to be a sheep in a spacesuit.
“Melvin,” she said, “I’d like you to meet Sheepy. He’s a member of the Space Rescue Team who just saved us.”
Melvin grunted a hello and asked Sheepy if he had any leaves or twigs that he could eat, or maybe just a few half-rotten apples.
Agnes turned and gave Melvin a very stern look. “Melvin my friend,” she said, “you have had enough of those half-rotten apples. Remember how they made you feel?”
Sheepishly, Melvin realized that she was right.
But thankfully, Sheepy – who was sheepish in a completely different sense, being a sheep and all – had something much better than half-rotten apples. “Follow me,” he said, helping them get down from the giant trampoline. It was a bit of a jump for Melvin, but thankfully he felt much lighter here on the moon, so it didn’t hurt.
Sheepy led them into the space train and to the dining car, where dinner was just being served. There were all kinds of delicious things to eat, from Caesar salad to wild mushroom pasta with moon cheese, to some kind of fancy French vegetable soufflé, to carrots. Agnes helped Melvin take his helmet off, and he ate to his heart’s content as the space train took off to bring them home.
THE END
Knit a seatbelt?
Agnes got to work knitting an extremely clever seatbelt. It was like a big spiderweb of yarn, filling up the little cockpit of the spacecraft, ready to catch them no matter which direction they might fly in. And it worked amazingly. When the spaceship finally landed on the moon, Melvin got jostled so hard he thought he might throw up, but once the ship came to a full stop and his dizziness mostly wore off, he was fine.
The fact that Agnes had found the button to slow them down while knitting her web seatbelt probably helped. The button had been under the arm of the chair the whole time, which was a really silly place to put it, but she found it while wrapping the yarn around the chair arm.
“So this is it!” Agnes said. “The moon! Shall we get out and have a look?”
Melvin wasn’t very eager to move. He was still feeling a bit sick from the half-rotten apples. But he didn’t want to let his new friend down, so, once Agnes had untangled the web of knitted seatbelt, he followed her out through the door onto the surface of the moon.
The moon was very pale, and to Melvin’s disappointment, he didn’t see any leaves or twigs to eat. But he did feel very light here, only about one sixth as much as he weighed on earth, and that was kind of fun.
Soon he and Agnes were skipping and bounding around on the pale lunar surface, laughing as they leaped higher and higher.
“This place is amazing!” Agnes cried, doing a double backflip. “My hip isn’t even bothering me here!”
“Do you think we could bounce all the way back up to Earth?” Melvin asked hopefully, looking up at their cloudy blue marble of a planet hovering in the black distance of space.
“Hmmm … I don’t think so,” Agnes said. “I think we’ll have to either figure out how to get our spaceship to bring us back, or we’ll have to find some aliens who are willing to give us a ride.”
“Really?” Melvin said, leaping higher and higher. “I think with a few more bounces, I might just make it.”
Should they …
Try to get the ship to bring them back?
Try to find some aliens to give them a ride?
Just keep bouncing?
“I really think we should keep bouncing until we get back up to Earth,” Melvin insisted.
“All right,” said Agnes. “You go first. Tell me if you get there, and I’ll come after you.” She sat down on the edge of a crater and watched him.
Melvin bounced and bounced, but try as he might, he could not quite bounce all the way back to Earth. After about a minute, he gave up with a sigh. “All right,” he said, “I guess we have to try something else.”
Try to get the ship to bring them back?
Try to find some aliens to give them a ride?
Try to get the ship to bring them back?
It seemed that the best way to get back to Earth would be to use the space ship. After all, what are spaceships for if not traveling through space?
Unfortunately, their spaceship seemed to be a single-use ship, mostly made of plastic and without enough fuel to do more than just crash into the moon once.
“Whoever designed this ship is so irresponsible,” Agnes said after discovering that the fuel tank was nearly empty. “It’s like it was designed just to become plastic junk on the moon. We can’t just cover the surface of the moon in plastic garbage, can we?”
“Well,” Melvin said, “if that’s what it was designed for …” He was a moose, so he didn’t really understand things like littering or recycling or protecting the environment.
But his words seemed to give Agnes an idea. “Melvin,” she said, “You’re a genius!” And then she got to work covering the surface of the moon in plastic garbage – or at least, a small part of the moon.
“Help me take the spaceship apart, will you?” she said as she began tearing pieces of plastic off of it and tossing them on the ground.
Melvin shrugged and joined her. Since he didn’t have thumbs and couldn’t bite at the spacecraft with his helmet on, he most just kicked at it. But that helped to break the little craft, and soon it was just a pile of plastic pieces.
Agnes took these pieces and laid them out carefully on a flat bit of moon dirt. She seemed to be using them to make a kind of pattern.
“I’m writing the word ‘help’,” she explained, since Melvin was a moose and couldn’t read. “If anyone sees it from space, they might come help us.”
Her plan worked like a charm. Soon enough, the space train that they had seen earlier stopped by to pick them up. The train even had little recycling bags next to every seat, so Agnes and Melvin didn’t have to leave all the plastic garbage lying around on the moon. However, they did have to spend the entire ride back to earth moving from seat to seat, and by the time they arrived on earth, every single bag was full. But the train was passing by the recycling center anyway, so it all worked out in the end.
THE END
Try to find some aliens to give them a ride?
Finding aliens on the moon was a bit difficult that day, since most of the aliens had left for Earth earlier that morning to celebrate Invasion Day. But Melvin and Agnes were able to find one little old alien with gray skin and a big head, who had stayed at home because no one had invited him to join the celebration.
“The other aliens are all so mean to me,” he complained after explaining why all his neighbors were gone. “They always forget about me, and they never invite me anywhere. Now they’re probably playing ‘catch the human’ and making crop circles and quietly replacing world leaders without me, and I’ll bet none of them are even giving me a second thought! No one wants to be with me!”
“There, there,” Agnes said, patting the alien’s skinny shoulder comfortingly. “Melvin and I want to be with you! In fact, he and I need to get back to earth. You’re welcome to join us, if you can provide a ride. You can even join us for dinner if you want!”
“Do you mean it?” the alien said, sniffling.
“Of course we mean it,” Agnes said. “Don’t we, Melvin?”
Melvin nodded.
“Thank you,” the alien said quietly. “You’re too kind.”
He showed them to his ship, and in no time at all they were entering Earth’s atmosphere and then landing on the lawn by the church. It was now evening, and the moon was just coming up over the horizon.
“Wow,” the alien said, trying to walk down the ramp from his ship and immediately staggering. “The gravity is very strong here! I feel about six times heavier!”
Melvin and Agnes each took one of his arms and helped him to walk.
“Are those Earth fruits?” the alien said eagerly, noticing the half-rotten apples lying on the grass under the tree.
“You don’t want those,” Melvin said quickly. “Trust me.” He made sure to turn his head away from the apples and look at the cross on the church steeple, which was now gleaming in the moonlight. He even held his breath until they had passed, so that he wouldn’t smell the sweet, rotting scent of the fallen fruits.
Agnes led the way to her house, which was quite close to the church, and she quickly set about making dinner for them. She made the most delicious vegetarian lasagna, and both Melvin and the alien had second and even third helpings.
All in all, it was the best Invasion Day they had ever celebrated.
THE END
Try to get the attention of the space train?
Agnes and Melvin started waving their arms like crazy – or rather, Agnes waved her arms and Melvin waved his front legs. But as the space train’s light slowly drew closer, Agnes started to fear that this might not be enough.
“What are you doing?” Melvin asked as Agnes dug a ball of yarn out of her handbag.
“Making us easier to see,” she replied, finding her knitting needles and getting to work.
Over the course of her 75 years of life, Agnes had gained about 65 years of knitting experience, and without the gravity of Earth weighing her arms down, she was able to work lightning fast. In no time at all, she had knitted a long red flag, which she waved frantically.
It seemed to do the trick: as the space train approached, it slowed and pulled up alongside them. A hatch opened near the front of the long vessel, and what appeared to be a sheep in a space suit came floating out.
“Hello,” he said, his voice crackling inside their helmets over some kind of universal space radio. “My name is Sheepy, and I’m a member of the Space Rescue Squad. It looks like you’re on course to crash into the moon. Would you like to be rescued?”
“Yes please!” Agnes said.
“All right,” Sheepy said. “Let me just get some tow cables attached to your vessel, and I can pull you along with us.”
While Sheepy worked with the tow cables, Melvin helped Agnes fold up the flag and stow it away in her handbag.
“All right,” Sheepy said once their little spacecraft was secured alongside the space train. “So, where are you headed? You look like earthlings. Would you like me to take you back to Earth, or would you rather follow along to our next destination?”
“Well, we really don’t want to put you to any trouble,” Agnes began.
“Where’s your next destination?” Melvin interrupted.
Sheepy blinked. “Well,” he said, “since we’ve adjusted course to match yours, we’re due to crash into the moon in about five minutes.”
Should they …
Get a ride back to Earth?
As a moose, Melvin really liked the Earth, since it had everything that a moose could want: leaves, twigs, grasses, more leaves … So he asked Sheepy to bring them back.
Sheepy was happy to oblige. “I like Earth,” he commented as he worked the controls and steered toward the cloudy, blue-green planet. “It has some very nice grass.”
“I know, right?” Melvin said. “Not to mention the leaves and twigs!”
As he and Sheepy sat chatting about different kinds of delicious plants, Agnes took the opportunity to take a nap in a comfortable chair.
Soon enough they arrived on Earth, in fact, right back on the church lawn next to the apple tree. Melvin was careful not to look at the half-rotten apples lying on the ground under the tree. He turned his gaze to the cross on the church steeple, shining in the moonlight, and breathed slowly though his mouth so that he wouldn’t smell the sweet scent of the dangerous fruit.
“Aren’t you going to wake your friend?” Sheepy asked, since Agnes was still sleeping in the comfortable chair inside the train.
“Can’t you do it?” Melvin asked.
But since they were both too polite to disturb Agnes in the middle of a good nap, they just let her keep sleeping.
Melvin thanked Sheepy for the ride and hurried to the forest on the other side of the church, away from the half-rotten apples. Meanwhile, Sheepy blasted off with Agnes still sleeping in the comfortable copilot’s seat. Hopefully she was dreaming about something peaceful, because when she woke up, she would find herself halfway across the galaxy, on a death-defying adventure with the Space Rescue Team.
THE END
Crash into the moon?
“Really?” Sheepy said, wrinkling his brow. “You want to crash into the moon?”
Melvin shrugged, which was a really impressive trick for a moose. “Well, if it’s on your way,” he said. “We really don’t want to put you to too much trouble.”
“Hmmm,” Sheepy said. “All right. I guess that will give me the chance to test the space train’s new cow catcher at least. Welcome onboard. I think you’ll be safer if you’re inside the train when we make impact.”
Melvin and Agnes followed him into the space train. On the inside, they found it to be surprisingly similar to a normal train, but since Melvin was a moose and had never been inside a normal train, this was completely amazing to him.
“Wow,” he said, looking at the carpet on the floor. “It’s like very, very short grass, but it tastes horrible!” He had already tried a bite of it, after Agnes had helped him take off his space helmet.
“Tell me about it,” Sheepy said sadly. “But if you’re hungry, dinner should be just about ready in the dining car. The only problem is that you probably won’t get farther than the appetizer before we crash into the moon. We should be making impact in about two minutes.”
“What’s the appetizer?” Melvin asked.
“Breadsticks with marinara sauce,” Sheepy replied.
That sounded good to Melvin, and Sheepy showed him and Agnes to the dining car. They found a table that was already set, and a robot waiter brought them some breadsticks. “If you’ll excuse me,” Sheepy said, “I have to go man the cowcatcher.”
“That’s fine, dear,” Agnes said, helping herself to a breadstick.
Sheepy looked at her. “I’m not a deer,” he said, “I’m a sheep.” Then he hurried off back in the direction of the engine.
The breadsticks were without a doubt the most delicious breadsticks Melvin had ever eaten, since he was a moose and had never before eaten breadsticks. He thoroughly enjoyed them, especially dipped in the marinara sauce.
However, he didn’t have time to eat more than three of them before they suddenly crashed into the moon.
“How inconvenient,” Agnes said as they were thrown out of their seats, and breadsticks and sauce went everywhere.
Thankfully, the cowcatcher must have worked quite well, because when Agnes and Melvin staggered to their feet, they found that they were pretty much unhurt. Unfortunately, Melvin got marinara sauce all over his space suit.
Because it was the only space suit he had, he was ashamed to be seen in it and refused to go out and meet the aliens when Sheepy came to tell them that the moon people had invited them to a feast.
Thankfully, he had a feast of his own, eating breadsticks off the carpeted floor as he waited for Sheepy and Agnes to come back and take him home to Earth. They really were the most delicious breadsticks he had ever eaten.
THE END
Call Animal Rescue?
The old woman made the call to Animal Rescue, and a few minutes later, a black van with the words “Wolfina’s Animal Rescue Service” on the side pulled into the church parking lot. A door with tinted windows opened, and a very strange-looking figure emerged.
She was very clearly a wolf, but she seemed to have learned the trick of walking on her hind legs, and she was dressed in dark sunglasses and a very professional-looking uniform.
“All right, everyone, nothing more to see here,” she said as she approached the apple tree. “I’ll have that moose out of the tree in no time, but first I need you all to get out of here and give me some space. We don’t want to scare the poor thing more than necessary.”
The crowd, seeing that a professional had arrived to take care of things and that the moose really did look scared, headed home.
Unfortunately, the reason Melvin looked scared wasn’t the crowd of people – it was the hungry-looking she-wolf dressed in an animal rescue uniform, who was currently approaching the tree where he was stuck.
“You know, I think I’d rather just stay in the tree if it’s all the same to you,” Melvin said.
“Nonsense,” Wolfina said, reaching the tree and climbing up to the first branch. “I’ll have you out of there in no time at all. You see, the problem is that those delicious front legs of yours are stuck. But if I just remove them …” She climbed higher and went for one of his legs.
At that moment, there was a loud cracking sound. The apple tree, unable to handle their combined weight, gave up and dropped them on the ground along with a broken branch. Melvin landed on top of Wolfina, who was helplessly pinned under his weight. Her dark glasses had fallen off, revealing her angry yellow eyes.
“Hey!” she cried. “Let me up!”
“No,” Melvin said. “You’re too dangerous. If I let you up, you might bite my leg!”
Wolfina heaved a deep sigh. “How many times do I have to tell everyone this?” she said. “Wolves are not dangerous! Globally, only 489 people were attacked by wolves between 2002 and 2020, and in most of those cases, the wolf had rabies, which I clearly do not. Anyway, wolves don’t want to attack people – they’re afraid of humans!”
“But he’s not a human, he’s a moose,” someone said, towering over them.
It was the little old lady who had called Animal Rescue in the first place. Apparently she had stayed behind when the rest of the crowd had gone home.
“Help!” Wolfina screamed. “A human!”
“What do you say, moose?” the old woman said. “Shall I punish this rascal? I’ll bet you’re not the first animal she’s tried to bite. ‘Animal rescue.’ Hmph! Sounds like a sneaky way to find stuck animals to bite!”
“I’m sorry!” Wolfina cried. “I won’t do it again! And I’ll make up for it somehow! Please just let me go!”
Melvin thought about the words he had overheard as he had listened to the meeting in the church earlier. Things about forgiveness, second chances and lives being transformed.
But still, he didn’t like the idea of his leg getting bitten.
Should Melvin and the old woman …
Punish Wolfina?
The first punishment that Agnes, as the old woman was called, came up with was to put Wolfina in time-out. Which meant that she had to lie there, stuck under the heavy moose, for five whole minutes and think about what she had done.
This also meant that Melvin had to stay there for five minutes and keep Wolfina pinned down. This was pretty boring work for him, and since Wolfina wasn’t going anywhere and seemed kind of harmless at the moment, he spent the time chatting with her – or rather, listening to her.
The she-wolf begged and pleaded to be let go, promising that she would never bite another stuck animal again and that she would make up for every bad thing she had ever done.
“Oh really?” said Agnes, who was still standing over them with her hands on her hips. “And how do you intend to do that?”
Wolfina was silent for a moment. Then she said, “I know! I could rescue animals for real! I mean, I already have the truck and the uniform and everything!”
Agnes gave her a stern look. “Rescue animals?” she said. “Even if you really do want to turn your life around and make amends, do you really think it’s the best idea for you to go looking for juicy, delicious trapped animals and try not to bite them?”
Wolfina’s mouth began watering at these words. Then she seemed to come to her senses and shook her head.
“But what if she helps someone that she doesn’t want to bite?” Melvin suggested. “Like humans? After all, you said that you’re afraid of humans, right, Wolfina?”
“Well …” Wolfina gave Agnes a frightened look and then looked away. “Yes. I think they might be too scary for me to rescue, in fact. And anyway, it already says ‘Animal Rescue’ on my van, not ‘Human Rescue’, and I really don’t want to get it repainted.”
“But you wouldn’t have to!” Melvin said. “After all, you’re an animal, right? So if you’re rescuing people, it would still count as animal rescue! And anyway, if it feels scary, then maybe … well, maybe you wouldn’t have to do it alone. Maybe we could do it together?”
“Really?” said Wolfina, her golden eyes wide. “Could you really be so kind to me, after I was so nasty to you?”
Melvin, as if fully realizing what he had just offered to do, looked away. His gaze fell on the gold-painted cross on the church steeple, gleaming in the light of the setting sun.
“I don’t know,” Agnes cut in. “I think the safest thing might just be to donate Wolfina here to the zoo.”
Should they …
Donate Wolfina to the zoo?
Melvin decided that he would rather not risk getting bitten again, so he and Agnes agreed to donate Wolfina to the zoo.
Thankfully, the local zoo already had some wolves, so Wolfina didn’t have to be completely alone – which was important, since wolves are social animals. Still, she would have preferred to have a little more space, and since her new packmates listened to rock music (the sound of the artificial stream in their enclosure gurgling over the rocks), and she preferred hip hop (the sound of rabbits hopping around outside their enclosure), sometimes she felt a bit lonely. But Melvin and Agnes came and visited her now and then, and at Christmas time, Agnes even knitted her a sweater.
THE END
Give her a second chance?
Melvin, who was trying to turn his own life around and stop eating half-rotten apples and getting stuck in trees, decided that he should give Wolfina the same chance.
Before letting her up though, he made sure that they were in agreement on how she would make up for biting all the trapped animals she had ever pretended to rescue. From now on, she would perform real rescues. She would help trapped humans instead of trapped animals, so that she wouldn’t be tempted to do any biting. And Melvin would go with her to keep her from getting too scared to help the humans.
“And I,” Agnes announced, “will also go with you, to make sure you don’t bite Melvin. Also, I can make meals for both of you, to make sure that you’re nice and full so that neither of you gets too tempted to eat anything you shouldn’t.” She gave Melvin a significant look, and he hastily looked away from the half-rotten apple that he hadn’t even realized he had been staring at.
Once they had agreed on everything, Melvin let Wolfina up, and they got to work starting their new animal rescue business – the kind of “animal rescue” where animals rescue humans.
First they did some work on Wolfina’s van. They repainted the outside so it said “Wolfina and Melvin’s animal rescue”. They also redid the inside, adding a moose bed, a cot for Agnes and a little kitchenette where she could cook for them. Then they went online and updated the website so that people would know to call them for human emergencies, not animal emergencies. Working quickly, they were able to finish this final task by about noon the next day.
No sooner had they updated the website than Wolfina got a call on her cellphone. It was from an older fellow named Bert. His little granddaughter Sara was stuck in a tree in the park, and he needed their help to get her down. While Wolfina was still on the phone with Bert, Agnes noticed that they had just gotten an e-mail. It was from a boy named Cedric. He said he was being kept in a big building against his will, and they were feeding him disgusting fish with white sauce and making him do math, and he wanted to go home.
Should they …
Rescue Cedric from the fishy math building?
Rescue Sara from the tree?
An old man who must be Bert came running as soon as he saw the Animal Rescue van pull up near the gate to the park.
“Quickly!” he said as the Animal Rescue Team climbed out of the vehicle. “You have to come rescue my granddaughter! She’s in that tree over there!” He pointed to the tallest tree in the park, a towering white pine that must be at least eighty feet tall. About fifty feet up, a little girl of about three years old sat on a branch, smiling and dangling her legs. She looked surprisingly cheerful for someone in her position, Melvin thought as he, Wolfina and Agnes trotted after the distressed grandfather. He remembered his own time in the apple tree, which had not been very fun.
“How did she get up there?” Agnes asked as they approached the base of the tree. “It doesn’t exactly look like an easy climb.” She pointed to the tree trunk, which was completely bare until the first branch about ten feet up.
Bert looked embarrassed. “I … well, I tossed her,” he admitted.
“Excuse me?” Wolfina said. “You tossed your granddaughter up into the tree?”
“It’s not what it sounds like,” Bert said. “You know that game where you toss a child up as high as you can, and then catch her? Sara loves that game. She has the most delightful laugh, and I would do anything to hear it. So when she says ‘Higher, Grandpa, higher!’ I just can’t say no.”
“So you tossed her up to the first branch, and she climbed the rest of the way?” Melvin said.
Bert shook his head sadly. “I tossed her all the way up to the branch she’s on now.”
The Animal Rescue Team gave him three blank stares.
“I have superpowers,” he admitted. “It runs in my family.”
“All right,” Agnes said, “regardless of how she got up there, she’s up there now, and we need a plan to get her down. Any ideas?” She turned to the wolf and the moose.
Wolfina looked up at the girl thoughtfully. “She seems to be sitting on the branch with the help of her legs,” she said finally. “If I were to go up there and bite them, maybe she would fall down.”
“No biting legs!” Agnes said sternly. “Anyway, I thought you said wolves usually don’t bite humans.”
“Not normally,” Wolfina said. “But this would be for her own good. To rescue her. Well, I guess I wouldn’t have to bite her legs. I could just push her.”
“And what exactly would keep her from getting hurt if she falls fifty feet to the ground?” Agnes asked.
“Ummm … Good intentions?” Wolfina said hopefully.
Agnes gave Wolfina a stern look. Then, as if she had suddenly thought of something, she checked in her handbag and pulled out a ball of yarn. “Actually, I could knit a safety net for her,” she said. “What do you think, Melvin?”
Melvin considered. In a way, he had been rescued from the apple tree the same way – by falling out of it. But fifty feet was a very long distance to fall … He looked at the grandfather. Had the old man really thrown the girl all the way up there? Melvin wondered what else he could do.
Should they …
Ask Bert about his superpowers?
Try Wolfina’s plan?
Getting up into the tree was no easy feat for Wolfina. Well, in a way it was easy enough, because Bert was strong enough to toss her up there without a problem. But getting tossed by Bert and getting close enough to the girl to push her down meant facing her fear of humans.
Now, she had already started getting used to Agnes, but that was completely different. Ever since Agnes had gotten the kitchen in the van up and running and fed Wolfina her first portion of delicious home-made meatballs, Wolfina had started thinking of the old woman as less of a dangerous human and more of a friendly, helpful animal, like a slightly senile goat, or a pygmy hippo or something. But Bert was frankly terrifying, with his upright posture and his human shoes and everything.
“Come on, Wolfina,” Melvin urged. “You can do it – I believe in you!”
Wolfina gritted her teeth, took a step closer to Bert and closed her eyes. “I’m ready,” she said.
One second later, she was flying through the air at a speed that made her feel like her stomach was going to fall out of her body. She opened her eyes and saw branches whizzing past. Two little legs dangled over the edge of a branch above her, and she slowed to a stop and just managed to grab the branch and scramble up onto it.
The little girl laughed and reached out a hand to pat her head, which made Wolfina back up and whimper with fright. She almost fell off the branch, but she managed to catch herself at the last moment.
“I believe in you!” Melvin shouted from down below. “You can do it!”
Wolfina took a deep breath. Then she took a step forward and quickly prodded the little girl’s back with her muzzle, pushing her off the branch. The child fell with a delighted squeal.
It was first then that Wolfina remembered that she was supposed to wait until Agnes had knitted the safety net.
Thankfully, the girl’s grandfather saw her plummeting to the ground, hurried over to the spot where she was about to land, and reached up and caught her. He gave her a big hug and a kiss on the forehead, then set her down to toddle off and amuse herself.
“I can catch you, too!” he called, reaching his arms up again for Wolfina.
“Well, that’s kind of you,” Wolfina said hesitantly. “But actually, I think I quite like it up here in the tree.”
“Come on!” Melvin called. “I know you can do it!”
“But I don’t know!” Wolfina shouted back. “So I can’t!”
“Poor dear,” Agnes said down below.
“She’s not a deer,” Melvin pointed out. “She’s a wolf.”
“Would it be easier if I knitted the safety net for you?” Agnes suggested.
Wolfina thought that sounded much easier, and she waited patiently as Agnes got to work. Meanwhile, the man thanked them, took his granddaughter and headed home, which made her feel a lot calmer. Still, it was a bit boring being stuck up in the tree.
Melvin, a true friend, helped her pass the time by telling her stories. His stories weren’t particularly good, since he was a moose, and so most of what he had to say had to do with leaves and bark and stuff like that, but it was nice of him to make the effort.
After the fifth or sixth story about a moose who found some bark and started eating it and kept on eating it until it was fully eaten, Agnes announced that the safety net was ready.
It really was impressive, a giant red spiderweb of yarn anchored to a bunch of trees and a basketball hoop. Wolfina jumped down onto it and landed safely.
“Well done,” Agnes said. “I think you’ve really started to turn your life around. You were a real hero today.”
“I couldn’t have done it without the two of you,” Wolfina said.
“I know,” Agnes said. “Which is why we’re going to stay with you and help you keep turning your life around. Now if you wouldn’t mind taking down this net for me, I’ll go back to the van and get lunch started.”
“Can we have more of those delicious meatballs?” Wolfina asked.
“And some more of that delightful bark pasta?” Melvin added.
“Of course, of course,” Agnes said, smiling. “Now you two take good care of each other while I go get your lunch ready.”
And they did.
THE END
Ask Bert about his superpowers?
“So you said that you have superpowers,” Melvin said. “Which makes it sound like you have more than one – otherwise, you would have just said that you have a superpower.”
Bert chuckled. “Oh yes, I have plenty,” he said. “Super strength, the ability to tell how delicious cheese is just by tasting it, the ability to fly … and oh, I just found out I can talk to animals!”
“Is cheese delicious?” Melvin asked. Since he was a moose, he had never tasted it.
“Wait a minute,” said Wolfina, “did you say you can fly?”
“Like a dragonfly,” Bert boasted. “They’re among the best flyers in the world,” he explained. “They can fly up, down, forward, backwards, side to side – they can even hover in place! And so can I. But they do it with their four wings, and I … well, I have a different method.”
“So why don’t you just fly up there and get your granddaughter?” Wolfina asked.
Bert’s eyes widened. “Oh,” he said. “Now why didn’t I think of that?” He screwed up his face like he was trying to force himself not to spit out something that tasted very bad, and his ears, which were a little bit on the large side, began to wiggle slightly, and then to flap like little wings. After a moment, his feet left the ground, and he rose up into the air.
A few moments later, he was back on the ground with his laughing granddaughter in his arms. She seemed to love her grandfather’s flying trick.
“I really can’t thank you enough,” Bert said, holding his granddaughter close.
“That’s okay,” Wolfina said. “You really don’t have to. I’m deathly afraid of humans.”
Bert gave her a strange look. “But what about your friend there?” he said, pointing to Agnes.
“Oh, I don’t really think of her as a human anymore,” Wolfina said cheerfully. “She’s my friend, so I think of her more like a friendly animal – like a capybara, or a porcupine that makes really good meatballs, if you know what I mean.”
Bert didn’t know what she meant, but he was happy to thank the Animal Rescue Team one last time and then take his daughter home for lunch.
And Wolfina and Melvin were very happy to follow their friend Agnes back to the van, where they enjoyed a delicious lunch of homemade – or rather, van-made – meatballs and bark pasta.
THE END
Rescue Cedric from the fishy math building?
The fishy math building was really huge, Melvin thought as the Animal Rescue Team arrived on the scene and he and Wolfina climbed out of the van. Agnes stayed behind to get lunch going for them.
“Melvin,” Wolfina said meekly as they approached the large, red-brick building. “I don’t suppose you’d let me ride on your back? It smells like humans in there, and well … I’d feel safer if I were on your back.”
“Do you promise not to bite me?” Melvin asked suspiciously.
“I’ll try my best,” Wolfina said.
With a sigh, Melvin knelt down and let the wolf climb up onto his back. She wasn’t all that heavy, and actually, carrying her felt kind of nice, like wearing a backpack – though Melvin didn’t really know what that felt like, since he was a moose. But he saw a little group of human children entering the building, and they were all wearing bags on their backs. So he assumed that wearing Wolfina on his back would help him to blend in.
He was wrong. As he and Wolfina followed the directions they had received from Cedric, climbing a flight of stairs and taking the corridor to the left, every single child who saw them reacted in terror, screaming and fleeing. Wolfina also seemed to be quite afraid, from the way she clung to Melvin’s back.
“You’re okay, you’re all right,” Melvin assured her. “I’m here.” Unfortunately, the fact that he could speak did not seem to reassure the children in the slightest.
They arrived at classroom number 205, where a little red-headed boy who must be Cedric sat in the back corner doing math on a piece of paper. Most everybody in the room was doing math, except for a tall, skinny adult man who was walking around making sure that everyone else kept doing it.
Until he saw Melvin and Wolfina, that is.
Apparently he was afraid of wolves or something, because the moment he saw them, his eyes widened and he shouted for the children to run and then showed them an example of how it worked by running out the door himself.
“Wolves don’t really bite people!” Wolfina called after him. But it was too late. Everyone was gone, except for the little red-headed boy who still sat in the corner.
The boy looked up from his paper. “Thanks for coming to rescue me,” he said.
“No problem,” said Melvin. “Would you like to follow us to our van? Our friend Agnes is making meatball and bark pasta for lunch.”
“Maybe in a minute,” the boy said. “Just let me do a few more math problems first. I think I just got the hang of it. It’s actually kind of fun, once you know what you’re doing.”
THE END
Trolyrien 