The Fallen Star. Tracey Hecht

out!” Dawn suddenly shouted.

      The pangolin’s eyes shot open, but it was too late. His claws had caught on a fallen branch, and he flipped right over the ledge of an unexpected drop. He quickly curled into his protective ball of armor and rolled down the slope like a runaway pinecone. Faster and faster he went as he careened away from his friends.

      “Dios mio, Señor Scales! Look at you go!” Bismark cried. “Wait for us, oh circular one! We were not made to bounce and bowl like you!” The glider spread his flaps and glided down the slope after Tobin. Dawn picked up her pace as quickly as she could.

      “Oof! Ow! Ouch!” the pangolin grunted as he bounded down the hillside. To protect himself, he tucked in his limbs, creating an even tighter ball, but this only made him roll faster.

      “Slow down, muchacho! I am supposed to be the fleetest-of-flaps around here!” Bismark shouted. The glider was skimming the surface of the ground at top speed, landing every so often to sprint a few steps and then take off once more. Dawn followed close behind in a blur of amber fur.

      “Tobin, stop! Use your claws!” she yelled.

      “Oh goodness, I’m trying!” the pangolin called back. He jammed his claws into the earth, but he was tumbling too rapidly to bring himself to a halt. Bouncing off a bump, Tobin launched into the air. For a brief moment, his round body seemed to hover weightlessly, concealing the full moon in a total eclipse.

      “Your arms, mi amigo, flap your arms! Bismark cried. “Oh mon dieu, he’s going to crash like the falling star! This is it, the end, the final good-bye. Hasta luego, oh scaly one!”

      “Tobin!” Dawn shouted. “Reach for me!” The fox leaped through the air with all her strength and caught the pangolin’s bulky body with her front legs. Tobin’s stumpy arms wrapped around her neck as she guided him to the ground with a thump, her body softening his fall.

      “Oh fantastico! Mi amore, mi amigo, what form, what grace, what panache!” The sugar glider applauded. He skidded to a dusty halt next to his friends. “But I must ask, my love, where was that saving embrace last night, when the one hurtling to the ground was moi?”

      Tobin, meanwhile, examined his scales for scratches. He steadied his legs and looked up at the steep ledge where he had tripped and taken flight. “I don’t remember there being a cliff in this part of the valley.”

      Dawn was thinking the same thing. Her eyes strained through the clouds of dry earth that the three had kicked up in their descent. Where were they? All she could tell was that they had dropped somewhere far below the normal level of the forest floor. But how was that possible?

      Then, suddenly, Dawn detected something in the dusty dark, and her eyes flickered with understanding. “That was no cliff,” she said.

      There was a brief pause. Tobin and Bismark stared at her blankly.

      “My lady, maybe your fall to the earth last night didn’t go as smoothly as I thought,” Bismark said, scratching his chin. “Trust me, we sugar gliders know all about the dangerous drops of the earth. That one, my lady, is absolutamente a cliff.”

      “No, Bismark,” she replied coolly. “It’s a crater! And—look! That’s what we’ve been searching for.”

      The fox gestured into the gloom. The dust had settled around the Brigade, and as the air cleared a dark shape was slowly materializing out of the shadows. The trio watched the dim form in awe. Then, at last, a moonbeam glinted off its surface, bringing it into focus: it was the fallen star!

      Tobin gasped.

      “Way to go, pangolino! Your tuck-and-roll brought us right to it! That and the radiant rescue from my lady,” said Bismark, nudging the fox’s haunches.

      The three friends stared up at the strange, foreign object. It was a large, dark mass, roughly the size and shape of a hippopotamus. Except for a jagged crack across the front, it was as smooth and black as volcanic glass.

      “So this is what a fallen star looks like? A giant rock? A stone from the sky?” Bismark asked, stepping toward the star to peek inside its fracture. “Where’s all the light? The heat? The shining brilliance of the stars? All this one’s got is a little crack.… Too dark to see inside, though …”

      “Don’t get too close,” Dawn warned. From a few paw’s lengths away, the fox studied the black stony object. “When a star falls from above and crashes to Earth, it takes this form. I’ve heard that it is called a meteorite.” She began circling the stone.

      “Oh goodness, it still smells like it’s on fire!” Tobin noted, his nose twitching.

      “It burned scars into the earth,” Dawn noted. “And look, it also left these strange mounds of dirt.…” Her voice trailed off, and she frowned.

      The glider stepped back from the stone’s crevice and checked the ground beneath his feet. Dawn was right—the meteorite was surrounded by little clods of dirt, each one with a tiny hole in the middle.

      “Never fear, mon amour! Just a bit of stardust,” he said, poking at one of the mounds. It crumbled at his touch. “Blech! Kind of grimy, actually.”

      The fox inspected the piles around her paws. They appeared to be freshly dug. “Careful what you touch,” she said.

      While the sugar glider flicked bits of dirt from his claws, Tobin also took a closer look at the fallen star and the ground surrounding it. “What could have made all these mounds?” he murmured. The pangolin turned to Dawn.

      She shifted her jaw uneasily.

      “Not much could have survived the meteorite’s impact,” she mused. “Insects, perhaps. Or maybe some kind of—”

       Tap tap tap.

      The fox’s mouth snapped shut.

       Tap tap tap.

      The noise was coming from the stone.

       Tap tap tap.

      “Mon dieu!” Bismark gulped, backing away. “The fallen star is alive!”

       Chapter Five

       THE INVASION

       Tap tap tap.

       Tap tap tap.

      Dawn took a cautious step forward. As she approached, the mysterious tapping grew louder. More insistent.

      Tap tap tap!

      Tap tap tap!

      “My lady, look out! That hunk of rock is not to be trusted!” Bismark cried, hiding behind Tobin’s armored tail.

      Dawn peered at the stone. “Who’s there?” she called.

      “Dios mio! Something’s moving!” The sugar glider pointed to a figure emerging from behind the star.

      The Brigade stepped back in shock. A strange animal was slowly rising from the shadows. Tobin gasped as its two bony hands came into view, each one sporting a fourth finger that was nearly twice as long as all the others. Then he raised his eyes to take in the rest of the creature: two leathery ears, a pair of orange eyes, a wrinkled face, and a furry body with a thick, bushy tail. With its rodent-like fangs, grimy fur, and massive, fiery eyes, it looked like a small monkey crossed with a swamp rat.

      “Mon dieu! It’s the monster of the fallen star!” Bismark cried. “Stand back, foul beast! Stay away, filthy fiend! Oh heaven above, you have sent one miserable muchacha down to us!”

      “Um,