“Wow! I’ve never seen them but I’ve heard stories from the other raccoons. They don’t dare venture out in the pastures while it’s daylight.”

The goat stared off into the sky and puffed his chest out. “Yeah, well you tell your little friends they don’t have to worry about those pesky goats anymore.” Benjamin covered his laughing mouth.

“But Matador,” said Clementine. “Don’t you think they’re out of the bushes by–”

“Shut up, pig!”

“Matador?” Malcolm was still impressed. “Is that what they call you?”

“It’s the nickname they gave me after I took care of their leader.”

“It’s because he fainted,” Clementine said matter-of-factly.

“You fainted?” Malcolm asked.

Paco intervened. “Let’s keep moving. Clementine, will your heart hold up?” The pig laughed. “Malcolm, would you please continue on to the creek?”

“Sure thing. It’s not far.” He glanced back at Roscoe. “He fainted?”

Roscoe muttered under his breath. “And if I hadn’t we’d all be–”

“What was that, Matador?” Clementine asked.

“Baaaah!”

Benjamin knelt by the goat and patted him gently on the head. “Roscoe, I’ll never forget how you saved us from those big, mean, crazy goats.”

Roscoe nuzzled him gratefully and they set out.

• • • • •

THE WEEDS AND GRASS got scarce and the ground became partially covered in pine and cedar needles. The animals walked under the branches but Benjamin had a harder time passing through this part of the forest.

“Why are these trees so bare?” Benjamin held a dead pine branch.

Malcolm looked them over. “Something’s killing them.”

“Perhaps if we had a beaver instead of a raccoon, Sire?” Paco joked.

“No kidding! Clementine, do you eat wood by any chance?” Benjamin asked.

“I tried wood once. Eh, I didn’t care much for it.”

The boy was pushing stiff tree limbs out of his face when he felt something cold and squishy in his palm. He opened his hand and saw green and black jelly mixed with legs and skin. “Oh, yuck! Grub worms!” he said in disgust.

Clementine laughed at him wiping his hand on a tree branch. Then something crunched under his hoof. “Aaaaggh! I just stepped on a grasshopper!”

“Eight years of bad luck,” Roscoe noted with pleasure.

“Eight? I thought it was seven.”

A growling noise caused Benjamin to look down at Paco, vigorously shaking a slug. “Paco, that’s nasty!”

“Help me! Help me!” the slimy slug pleaded. Paco looked at the sickened faces of the other four and dropped it on the ground.

“Sorry. Old habits die hard.”

“I’ll say!” Roscoe replied. As he turned his head he came face to face with a hornet on a branch. “Uh…fellas, what’s with all these bugs?”

The dead trees were crawling and slithering with them. Even the ground was covered. Roscoe shot air through his nose. “Shoo! Get out of here!” The hornet jabbed its stinger in his nose.