Crouched down, Victor and Hank look across the wide, paved bicycle trail that runs along the Eastern edge of their home territory, the Javelina Squadron’s Chuk-son desert forest. Across the trail is a large purple prickly pear cactus and, beyond it, a shallow, sandy ravine filled with bushes and small trees.
“Can you smell pumpkin?” Victor says, sniffing the hot desert air.
“No, I don’t smell it,” replies Hank, squinting his eyes to help him see better.
“I think I smell it. I think there really is a pumpkin over there,” Victor says, his snout still wiggling. “A big ripe orange one.”
“You just wish there was a pumpkin, but wishing doesn’t make it real,” Hank snorts as he replies. “We have to keep searching. We have to find a whole pumpkin for Grandpa Javier’s birthday party.”
“Maybe we can find two,” says Victor. “Pumpkin is my favorite.”
“You love all food,” Hank says, shaking his head at his cousin. “All food. All the time.”
“It’s not far across the trail. I’m sure I can smell it. I could run over there and check it out.”
Still not smelling it, Hank nods his head slowly. “Well, okay. I’ll go with you.”
Holly, Hank’s twin sister, sneaks up behind them. “Hey, I heard that. You’re not supposed to go across this path. Grandpa Javier and Uncle Diego told us to never ever go there. You could get in big trouble.”
“No chance for trouble if I do it. You stay here. I’m the fastest,” says Victor as he stands up. “I can race over there and back faster than a flash of lightning. If I see a pumpkin, we can go across together to pick it up and bring it back. Watch me.”
With that, Victor leaps out onto the bicycle trail.
Suddenly a big blue wheelie thing swerves and skids to avoid him. Another wheelie thing slams to a halt beside it, skidding sideways. Hank and Holly start screaming and chattering their teeth, the way javelinas always do when they are frightened or angry. Victor is nowhere to be seen. Has he been squashed by the big blue wheelie thing? Knocked off the trail into a spiky thorny cactus?
“What was that?” asks the long-legged human still seated on his blue bicycle as he glances around. “A rabbit? A pack rat? Or…?”
The long-legged woman on the red bike beside him sees the javelinas and says: “Look over there. Those are young javelinas and if their mother is near she’ll attack us. They are very protective of their children. And they have very sharp teeth.”
“We better get out of here then.”
The woman agrees: “This trail ends soon so let’s go back”.
As the two cyclists turn around and ride away, Hank hears a little tinkle, a little clinking sound. Something made of metal just fell off that blue wheelie thing, he thinks, but he is more worried about Victor.
“Vic? Where are you?” shouts Hank as he looks both ways before he begins to cross the wide path.
“Victor,” Holly calls out. “Are you okay? Did you get hurt?”
Then Victor’s head pokes around from behind the purple prickly pear cactus. “I’m okay,” he mumbles, his mouth stuffed with ripe prickly pear fruit. “No pumpkin for Grandpa, but I found this. It’s deeelish.”
I can’t believe it…” Holly says, shaking her head.” You almost get hit by a wheelie thing—”
“Hit by a wheelie thing? What? I didn’t see one,” says Victor, as he takes another juicy bite.
“There wasn’t one, there were two and…oh, never mind,” Holly says. “You never see things. You don’t even look. All you think about is running fast and food. You’re such a pig.”
“I’m not a pig,” Victor says, raising his snout in the air. “I’m a peccary, a javelina, and so are you. And I’m doing what comes naturally.”
Holly shrugs her shoulders. She has had this argument with her cousin before, and Victor is right. They are peccaries, not pigs. But he never pays attention to dangerous things around him. And he always seems to escape. Just luck, she thinks. And very fast feet.
Hank has begun to search for the cause of that tinkling, clinking noise. It has to be metal, he thinks, but there is nothing shiny on the path. Nothing with bright metal sparkling in the desert sunlight.
What are you looking for?” asks Lulu as she twirls and dances up the sandy slope to the edge of the bike path. She is Victor’s sister, but unlike her speedy, fast brother, she often tags along slowly behind them. Today she is wearing a pink tutu and, as usual, is too late for all the excitement.
“I just heard something fall off a wheelie thing that almost hit your brother. It sounded like metal and I’m sure it’s around here somewhere.”
Lulu twirls around, then looks down and shuffles her feet in the sand.
Great, thinks Hank. All she wants to do is dance. No help at all.
Another twirl and few steps later Lulu looks down at the sand again then asks: “Is this it?”
Hank comes over and lowers his head until his eyes are close to the round metal object. Like most javelinas, except Holly, his eyesight is poor. “I think so. It’s metal so it would have made that sound, and, it’s round, so it rolled off the path.”
What is it?” Victor asks as he joins them, wiping the prickly pear juice off his face.
“I don’t know.”
“I know,” says Holly, proudly. “When I was looking into that new human’s house last week I saw one on their TV. It’s a compass. See that pointy thing turning around in the middle. It tells you which way is north, so you know where to go.”
“But the case is cracked,” Hank says. “And the pointy thing, too. It probably won’t work.”
“Let’s see. Is it pointing north toward the river?”
Hank squints at the compass. “Yes.”
Then it works,” pronounces Holly with a big grin on her face. Her time peeking into the human home window has paid off with the helpful information she has.
“It would be great if it pointed toward a big orange pumpkin,” Victor says. “We still have to get something for Grandpa’s birthday. Can the compass tell us where to go now?”
“On the TV it showed the pirates where the treasure was, but they said it was magic. I don’t think this one is magic. It just fell off that wheelie thing and I doubt it will point to a big pumpkin. Besides, it’s getting hot. I think we should go home. Maybe someone else found a pumpkin for Grandpa.”
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