“Thing is, I love elephants,” says the driver. “My daughter collects stuffed elephants. I mean, you know. Stuffed toys. Not stuffed real ones.” She listens to her radio for a moment.

“Get animal control out here,” says the skinny officer. “Get a van. Get a moving truck. Get a 747, I don’t care.”

“Ivan,” I whisper in his ear, “this is not looking good. You and Ruby gotta stay put. Don’t make any sudden moves. No funny business, okay? These guys are freaking out.”

Ivan sits down on the ground. Slowly. Very, very slowly. Ruby settles next to him.

The driver smiles. “Aww, that’s so cute.”

Skinny officer nods. “Yeah, in a deadly kind of way.”

“I gotta do this,” I say to my friends. “If you stay calm, they won’t mess with you.”

“But Bob.” Worry clouds Ivan’s face. “You need us.”

“What I need is for you to stay alive,” I reply.

I can see he isn’t going to listen to reason, so I try a different approach.

“Ivan,” I say, “it’s like this. Boss is my sister. I let her down once, and now, well, I have a second chance. I’ll explain it all later, but . . . I need to do this.”

Ivan looks at the officers, guns drawn, then nods. “You are the one and only Bob,” he says. “You got this, pal.”

I leap into the air, into the vast unknown, just like Kimu did.

Well, maybe not quite so elegantly, but I do my best.

lightning and fireworks

It isn’t far to the bridge. But far is relative when the wind is blowing down houses like the big, bad wolf.

I watch a stop sign fly past. I navigate around trees scattered like Popsicle sticks. I keep an eye out for gators and pythons.

Lightning strikes a tree. I brace for the thunder. It shakes the earth, the air, my teeth, my bones.

A branch falls on a power line. Sparks dance like fireworks.

I hate fireworks.

I move with more care after that. I know enough to stay away from downed power lines, thanks to the weather channel and Storm Chasers.

Man, I love TV. I’d give anything to be watching it from my nice, cozy bed right about now.

Good thing I know where the bridge is. My swollen nose throbs. What’s the point in owning a top-of-the-line sniffer if it’s not working right?

When I pass a bird’s nest on the ground, I offer to help the owner, a jay. She swears at me. At least I think she does. I hear “nuts” and some other interesting words.

I tend to forget that in some circles, dogs are considered predators.

I wonder how Kimu and the other escapees are doing. One thing I know for sure, having been on the inside and the outside, is that way too much of the world ain’t made for wild animals.