When the noise died away, the night was silent again, except for the distant roar of firebeasts. No flat-faces appeared, but it was a long time before Lusa dared to emerge from cover. Clearly getting in through the window wouldn’t work, so she continued her search for a way in, peering cautiously around the next corner. There she spotted another door. This one was shut, so she couldn’t see what was beyond it. Several firebeasts were crouching nearby, but after she had watched them for a while from the shelter of the corner, she figured they were all asleep. Casting cautious glances at them, she trotted up to the door, expecting it to open and let her in like the transparent doors on the other side of the healing den.

“Ow!” Lusa let out a yelp of pain as her snout struck the door, which stayed obstinately closed. She raised a paw and rubbed her throbbing nose. “Stupid flat-face thing,” she muttered.

When the pain had ebbed, Lusa reared up on her hindpaws and pushed at the door with her forepaws. It didn’t budge. She gazed at it in frustration, then slid into the shadows beside one of the sleeping firebeasts so that she could think.

I don’t believe this! I’m so close to the healing den, but I can’t get inside to find the flat-face herbs that Yakone needs!

Lusa still hadn’t decided what to do when she heard the sound of the door opening. Yellow light spilled out onto the ground as a flat-face emerged. He strode out, leaving the door ajar, and got into one of the sleeping firebeasts—fortunately, not the one where Lusa was hiding. The firebeast broke into a roar and opened its glaring yellow eyes. Lusa had to wait for it to move away before she dared race across to where the door was slowly closing. It shut with a mocking click a moment before Lusa reached it. Frustrated, she threw herself against the unyielding surface, then slumped to the ground in front of it.

“Oh, Arcturus! Why is everything going wrong?” she wailed out loud.

Lusa retreated to the shelter of the firebeast, but no more flat-faces came out of the door. At last she realized that the sky was growing paler; dawn was breaking. I can’t stay here in daylight, Lusa thought. The flat-faces would catch me for sure, and kill me or take me off to bear jail. What am I going to do?

Already she could hear the sound of more firebeasts, and the voices of flat-faces coming from somewhere nearby. Stiff from crouching for so long behind the firebeast, she rose to her paws and tottered back to the gap under the shiny mesh barrier. Lusa dragged herself underneath the mesh and staggered over to the shelter of the nearest bush, where she flopped down, worn out from the tension and frustrated that her wonderful idea had come to nothing.