Protecting You

Tense Walk

Frida, Diego and Sid sat around the fire with a smile. Manny and Ellie had been gone for a while, leaving the three of them. They looked up as they heard Manny's heavy footsteps approaching.

"So, how did it go?" Diego asked.

"Hmm, not bad", Manny answered.

Ellie came walking by looking as angry as everyone had seen her. Manny took a look and groaned frustrated. Apparently, it didn't go as good as he said if it made him react that way and made her angry. She stepped into a puddle of water, splashing it onto the fire, putting it out. Everyone looked at the fire confused and turned to Ellie.

"Okay, let's go", she said. "We followed you all day. Now you're coming with us at night."

"But, we can't see at night", Manny said.

"Then enjoy the flood."

The three of them watched as she led the way with the possums on her back. The two of them kept their arms crossed and their noses in the air. Something was obviously wrong, especially when the possums talked out loud about Manny.

"I can't even look at him", Eddie said.

"Pervert!" Crash yelled at Manny.

All of them looked very surprised and looked back at Manny.

"Whoa", Frida said. "What did you do?"

"The last time I ever take Sid's advice", he answered.

She looked at him with wide eyes and full of understanding. So he finally started showing affection to Ellie, then brought up the issue of the species going extinct. What a horrible move, and all on the same day they just met. Frida looked at Manny who looked incredibly angry and understandably so. She rushed ahead and walked by her.

"Hey, Ellie."

The female mammoth glanced at her before looking ahead.

"Look, I know Manny made a horrible move", Frida said. "But, you know... boys, right? What are you going to do about them?"

She watched as the mammoth sighed. She looked thoughtful as she didn't say a thing. Frida looked back at the boys who were having a hard time keeping up. The night had brought in the fog making it twice as hard for them to see. To top it all off, the possums were treating the boys just as bad as Manny.

"I thought we could walk together", Manny said walking close to Ellie.

"Crash, ask the mammoth why he thinks that", Ellie said not wanting to talk.

"She says she thinks you're a jerk and to go away!" Crash said.

Frida knew Ellie was mad, but this was crazy. She started to growl as the possums made things worse.

"Look", Manny said pushing the matter. "Maybe if we spend more time together-"

He was cut off when his foot ran into a stone hidden by the fog.

"Tell him I need a little personal space right now", Ellie said.

"She said go jump in a lake", Crash told Manny.

"And possums rule", Eddie added not helping.

"I can hear her, you know", Manny said.

"What do you want, a medal?"

The two possums walked ahead and unexpectedly fell beneath the fog, out of sight. Ellie gasped and rushed to the edge to find them. The ground suddenly shifted as the group found themselves on a pile of rocks moving in opposite directions. Manny and Ellie were stuck on the top with Diego hanging onto the edge. Sid was on the middle rock and Frida was stuck on the bottom with the possums.

"Stop moving!" Diego yelled trying to climb onto the edge.

The rocks stopped moving as all the animals stopped as well.

"Thank you", he sighed.