Chapter 6 Samuel, King, and a Happy Reunion M

ica, still recovering from the shock of seeing a squirrel steal a piece of lettuce right out of the mouth of a tortoise named Tommy, is being carried by Mr. Heetderks as they round a corner and move away from the tortoise enclosure. They are almost at the end of their tour and the clouds are getting heavy in the sky. It appears it will rain soon.

Mica turns as she hears in a very high pitched, whiny voice say, “Mwaaaahh!!” There is a very large goat leaning up against the fence where Mr. Heetderks finally stops.

“Yes, yes, that’s why I’m here. I know it’s time for you to eat,” he says, answering the goat. He reaches out with his free hand and unlatches a gate and then, making sure he doesn’t allow the excited goat to get out, steps through the gate into the fenced area.

He sets Mica down saying, “Why don’t you spend some time with Samuel while I get his food.” Before Mica can object, she’s on the ground beside a very large and hairy animal who is now looking down at her through slightly crossed eyes. Mr. Heetderks is already five steps away.

“We’ve been waiting for you,” Samuel says.

His voice is not at all what Mica expects. Unlike his “Mwaaaahh” from earlier, this voice is very low and soothing. It almost sounds like singing.

“Mr. Heetderks has been excited to have you here, he’s been planning it for a while.” He continues, “How has your time been so far? If I believe the reports I’m hearing, you’ve had an exciting first day,” he looks at Mica expectantly.

Mica doesn’t know how to respond and sits with her mouth open waiting for something to come out. Nothing does. Samuel politely continues not wanting to put too much pressure on her.

“I would be overwhelmed too, coming to a new place so far from home,” he says, his beard wiggling back and forth. “Have you made new friends yet?” he asks, trying to help Mica along in the conversation.

The wise old goat waits while Mica squirms a little and then after a few beats continues. “Well, don’t worry, there are lots of friends to be made in WorldWonder. And look, here comes my son, King. I think you may get along nicely with him.”

As he says this a small white goat with a round belly waddles up and flops down beside Mica, but not too close. He flicks his eyes in her direction and then back quickly. Then he turns his head a little, but only enough so he is still able to see her out of the corner of his eye.

“King, this is our new friend, Mica,” his dad says casually. “She’s the one that Cane says can leap all the way to the top of the firepit wall without falling into the pit. Can you believe someone so small can jump so high?” as he is saying this, he nudges King with his hoof a little.

“Yeah, that’s really cool!” King says wagging his tail slightly.

Mica is embarrassed by the attention and isn’t sure how they know about the firepit. “Who is Cane?” she is wondering to herself, “and how does he know about the firepit?” Cane, of course, is the toad that she was talking with just before she leaped onto the firepit wall. But Mica never knew his name, only that he was a long-winded toad causing delays while she was trying to find her brother.

“I can jump pretty good too,” King says shyly, interrupting Mica’s thoughts. As he says this, he shifts a little more in her direction. “I can jump all the way to the shelf now, wanna see?” he says with a hint of eagerness in his voice.

Mica hesitates and then remembering her manners says, “Yes, please.”

Samuel laughs, apparently finding Mica’s politeness amusing, and says, “Well, that settles it King, now you must show her. The lady said ‘please.’” He pushes King again with his hoof and says, “Go ahead, you can show her around.”

King is very pleased with this suggestion so, wobbling to his feet, he starts trotting over to the structure in the back of the fenced area. Mica looks up at Samuel whose beard is swinging back and forth from his chuckling, and then turns and reluctantly follows behind King.

The High Door

Mica watches as King trots into his house. The door of the house faces in such a way that, for a second, he disappears around a corner. As she turns the corner herself, she sees a large opening in the wall. Even though it’s cloudy and about to rain, the inside of the house still seems very dark. She hops forward one step, then another until she’s standing in the shadow of the doorway. At first, she doesn’t see King anywhere and then, from her left, King says, “I couldn’t get up here until two days ago.”

Mica looks and as her eyes adjust to the darker room begins to see the outline of the little goat about a foot off the ground on a platform that is sticking out of the wall. She notices there are several other platforms going up to the right. They are positioned to be steps going up to a small door exiting to the outside at the top of the wall. The soft, inviting light is streaming in from outside.

“Can you jump up here too?” King asks, invitingly, bringing Mica’s attention back to him.

Mica hesitates and says after a second, “Yeah, I think so.” Then after staring at the platform for a moment adds, “Is it safe?”

King responds by jumping up and down on the platform, in quite an uncoordinated and silly way, stomping his hoofs and making hollow thunk, thunk, thunk sounds on the boards. He says, “Yeah, my dad comes up here too. It’s the only way he can get to the roof to see WorldWonder. He likes to go up there to keep watch. I can’t get up there yet, but dad says if I keep practicing, I’ll be able to soon.”

“Okay,” Mica says, half convinced and starts moving toward the first platform.

“There’s plenty of room,” King adds as she gets closer. “If you can jump to the top of the firepit, you can definitely get up here,” he offers encouragingly.

Mica wrinkles up her face a little and says, “How do you know about that?”

“Know about what?”

“The firepit,” Mica says. “How do you know that I jumped to the top of the firepit?”

“Cane told my dad,” King offers curtly.

“Whose Cane?” Mica asks as she positions herself at the base of the platform, preparing to leap up.

“He’s a toad,” King says.

“Oh,” Mica thinks as she remembers the toad by the firepit that was going on-and-on while she was trying to find Mac. She gathers herself for a leap.

THWUMP!

Mica lands effortlessly beside King on the first platform.

“WHOA!”King exclaims with wide eyes, “How’d you do that?”

Mica is shocked and looks around for a second, not sure what King is talking about. Mica is a very humble kangaroo, and she doesn’t really think about how good of a leaper she is. When she needs to leap, she just leaps. But to small goats who are learning to leap like King, she leaps very well.

“You just jumped high. How do you do that?” King asks.

“I don’t know, I just…” Mica says shyly, not finishing her sentence.

King doesn’t mind that she doesn’t finish her sentence and says after a second, “Do you think you can get all the way to the door?” as he looks up in that direction. “My dad says he loves it up there.”

“I don’t know…” Mica says, reluctantly as she struggles with the idea. She is curious and would love to see where that door goes. But she’s a very young kangaroo and it has already been a very exciting day.

King looks like he is about to convince her to try, when they both turn toward the sound of Mr. Heetderks voice calling in from outside. He is just arriving back with food for the goats and is calling King and Mica to come.

King doesn’t hesitate. He jumps down and trots with his large belly swinging back and forth out the door, pausing briefly to look back and call to Mica, “Come on, Mica, it’s time to eat.” King turns and disappears back out the door.

Mica looks after him for a second smiling. Then she turns and looks up at the high door. It appears for a second like she is about to leap all the way to the top of the steps and out. Then, she drops her shoulders, relaxes her muscles, and turns back and hops to the ground. A second later she is back outside squinting in the relative brightness and making her way back to the entrance of the goat enclosure.

Momma

As Mica’s eyes adjust to being outside again, she notices that there are more animals with Mr. Heetderks than she expects. She sees King closest to her and just beyond him she sees Samuel standing by a food bowl waiting patiently. Beyond that she sees Mr. Heetderks standing with a big bag in his hand. He’s leaning on the front gate but to his left there are two other animals.

She looks and blinks but doesn’t do anything at first. Finally, her Momma breaks the silence and says, “Hello Mica.”

Mica’s shock at seeing her parents breaks and she yells as she leaps over to her, “MOMMA!”

All the craziness of the past couple hours floods back to her in a wave of emotion. Arriving in a strange place, being picked up for the first time by Mr. Heetderks, losing her brother, finding him only to discover that he is hurt, being forgotten inside the Nature Center, seeing a big scary snake, getting lost, having a conversation with a parrot, discovering that she is curious, finding the courage to explore, going on tour with Mr. Heetderks, the crowds of loud, excited kids, meeting Samuel and King, seeing the high door and all of it. She’s overwhelmed and realizes in a second how much she has missed her momma and dad.

“Yes, it’s been a long time hasn’t it,” Momma says as she hugs Mica close.

Mica’s dad says, “Samuel has been telling us all about your adventures, you’ve been very brave.” As he is saying this, he thumps his tail on the sawdust; something he does when he’s happy. Mica hops over and nuzzles her nose against his leg.

Just then, Mica’s momma leans toward her in the way she always leans when she is expecting Mica to leap into her pouch. Mica instinctively starts toward her but then stops.

She looks up at Momma who is looking back expectantly. Momma seems to understand and leans away ever so slightly and says with a knowing smile, “Mr. Heetderks has set us up with a nice place to stay while we’re here. Would you like to see it?”

Mica straightens up and looks at Momma and Dad feeling very big. “Yeah!” she says. And the three of them make their way to the far side of the fenced in area toward their new home just as the first huge drops of afternoon rain begin to fall.