The Fallen Star. Tracey Hecht

pangolin poked his snout into a pile of broken, spear-like sticks. Their jagged ends scratched his nose. “Oh!” he muttered, but then he paused. A whiff of damp fur played over his nostrils. His eyes widened.

      “Dawn!” he cried.

      The fox sprinted over at once. She grasped the sharp branches in her jaws and cracked them in half while Tobin shoveled branches and dirt behind them. Then, together, they lifted up one last clawful of leaves, and there he was: Bismark, flaps splayed flat, eyes clamped shut, and an angry welt protruding from the bald spot in the center of his head.

      “Oh dear!” Tobin cried, bending low toward his friend. “Bismark? Bismark? Wake up!”

      The pangolin’s snout was nearly touching the glider’s tiny face. “Bismark, can you hear me?” he asked. After a moment Tobin straightened and looked at the fox, fear welling in his eyes. “Dawn! He’s not answering! Is Bismark…? Is he…?” Tobin swallowed hard. He tried to speak, but he could not utter the rest.

       Chapter Three

       MIDNIGHT-BLUE CAPES

      Dawn gently moved Tobin aside. Then she turned to Bismark and studied him with a steady gaze. The moment seemed to last for ages, but finally, she relaxed. Bismark’s chest was rising and falling, ever so slightly. The movement was nearly invisible to most, but not to the fox’s keen eyesight.

      “He’s alive,” she sighed as she relaxed onto her rear haunches. She looked at the bare pomelo tree branches overhead. “It’s a long drop from up there, but his flaps likely softened his fall.”

      Tobin eagerly leaned in close to his friend, trying to detect the glider’s breathing for himself.

      Suddenly, Bismark’s eyelids fluttered. “Ah, mi bella Dawn, is that you?” he mumbled. “Your voice is moonlit music to my tired ears. Come, my sweet señorita, lean in, let our hearts beat as one.” He puckered his small lips for a kiss.

      “Oh goodness, Bismark!” said Tobin, quickly pulling away.

      The sugar glider’s eyes shot open. “Ack! Amigo, is that you?” Bismark leaped to his feet with sudden, renewed strength and frantically wiped his mouth with his flaps. “Irresistible as I may be, mon ami, you must learn to control yourself! Tame those emotions! Dawn is the one I love! He dusted himself off and stood up tall.

      “Oh Bismark, you’re all right!” Tobin exclaimed, enjoying his friend’s familiar banter.

      The sugar glider paused. He stared at the piles of sticks, rocks, and ruin. Pomelos from his tree lay scattered all about: bruised orbs of greenish-gold against piles of brown dirt and rubble.

      “Uno momento! Not so fast! I may look all right, but I most certainly am not!” Bismark exclaimed. “Look at what has become of the bounty of my tree!” He lifted a smushed pomelo in his paw.

      “Oh, Bismark, don’t worry!” Tobin foraged about frantically and finally located a single, unharmed fruit. “They’re not all bad. And we’re lucky the shooting star didn’t land right on top of us!”

      “Yes, we were lucky.…” Dawn said, voice trailing off. The falling star hit the valley the night before—that much was clear. But if Bismark’s entire tree had lost all its fruit here, how bad was the damage elsewhere?

      “Others might not have been as fortunate as we were,” she said. “We must find the star at once and see if anyone has been hurt.”

      “Mon dieu, that’s right! The fallen star!” Bismark’s gaze shot upward to the dark sky above as he remembered the incidents of the previous night. The moon reflected in his bulbous brown eyes, and he rubbed his paws together. “Mi amore, our very own piece of the heavens has descended. Now it is waiting in the forest for us to claim it!”

      The sugar glider scurried to the fox. “Don’t you realize what this means?” he continued. “The night sky has sent us a symbol of our love! Haven’t I always told you I’d bring you the moon, the stars, the heavens? Yes, we must brave this destruction and go find it at once. But first—”

      The glider put one finger up to signal his friends to wait. Then he scurried to a hollow in the trunk of his tree. There, he retrieved a midnight-blue snakeskin cape and tied it around his neck. “This calls for the Nocturnal Brigade!”

      In the night world of the valley, the Nocturnal Brigade was the name that the three friends were known by. Bold in adventure and brave in challenge, they came to the rescue of creatures in danger or in need of their help.

      Bismark gestured toward Dawn and Tobin and urged them to follow. “Come on, amigos, we cannot venture forth without our proper attire!”

      Tobin gathered his cape and Dawn’s as well. He grinned as he secured his around his neck.

      “The Nocturnal Brigade is back at it!” Bismark exclaimed, stretching an arm toward the fox. “Shall we, mon amour?”

      Dawn draped her cape around her neck. “Yes, we must go see if anyone needs our help.” The fox took one final glance at the fallen trees and split branches around them. “I hope we’re not too late.”

       Chapter Four

       THE FALLEN STAR

      “Keep…churning…those paws…mes amis!” Bismark coughed his way through the thick, dusty air. The Brigade was moving through the forest, heading in the direction of the fallen star. Dawn and Tobin raced along the ground while Bismark soared up above, flinging his small body through the treetops.

      “Oh dear.” Tobin coughed, too. The pangolin was pushing his stout legs to their limit, but the air around him grew dustier and dustier. It was getting harder to breathe, and it was becoming more difficult to see—the pangolin’s already fuzzy vision had begun to blur, and his eyes filled with tears.

      Tobin lifted his snout. “Ah-choo!” he sneezed. A burning, metallic reek stung his nose. There was something gritty and hot hanging in the haze. “Dawn? Bismark? Do you feel that, too?”

      Bismark had landed on the peak of a tall elm tree, where he shielded his eyes with a flap. From his perch, he could see a huge tower of dust billowing from the south. It was gradually spreading throughout the entire valley.

      “Mon dieu,” he muttered. “All this gunk on my lustrous coat!” He sailed a few tree lengths ahead. The closer he drew toward the fallen star, the less foliage there was in the tree tops. And fewer leaves meant less shelter from the clouds of dust rapidly approaching.

      “I’m blinder than a bat up here.” Bismark spat. “This will never do.” Spreading his flaps out wide, he let himself float to the ground in front of his friends. “Bad news, amigos! Thick clouds are rolling in. I can hardly see my own flaps up there. We must abandon the mission!”

      “Bismark, animals could be hurt,” Dawn said as she leaped over a fallen log. “We must hurry.”

      Scrambling alongside his friends, Tobin tried his best to feel his way through the swirling sand. “Oh goodness, I can hardly see a thing!” he said. “And that smell…it’s getting worse!” His sensitive snout was beginning to burn.

      “Mon dieu, indeed it is! It’s stinking like a boar’s backside!” Bismark said with a retch.

      “Hmm, it doesn’t smell quite like that, Bismark,” Tobin said, frowning. He tested the