Nana Ana's Secret Hideout

Chapter 14 - The Island Bungalow

Tropical waters. Lustrous sands. A patch of palms and seaside grasses. The uninterrupted stone fence encircled bright blue waters and a tiny island which bore a quaint bungalow. 

Seeing this, Anders almost dropped the panda.  

"Yeah," said Eirik, swiftly swapping astonishment for humor, "because a beach themed bungalow would've seriously been way too mainstream." 

"Even so," said MacPherson. "I told Nana this was no place for such a thing but she insisted the locale's imperfection is what secured its perfection in her eyes. Such a woman was she. Well, go on. You'll be all right, no evil can trespass the water, and you'll find the inside fraught with artificially dyed green objects---I HAVE PROBLEMS, TOO, FUZZBALL---oh there's nothing there."

The manatee was temporarily distracted by thoughts of lurking squirrels.

He mumbled to himself, "Or maybe squirrels have been following me all along and I haven't seen them because they've become craftier. Good heavens! A world with craftier tree rats is a world in peril, AH!" 

Forgetting the absent squirrels as abruptly as he imagined their sinister chatter, MacPherson resumed his address to the young men. "Where was I? Inside you'll find answers to everything including."

"Everything?" said Eirik. 

Anders wondered. "When you say 'everything'..." 

"Think of a question. Literally any question at all."

"Okay..."

"The answer is inside." He expelled a voluminous sigh. "And now my work his is done. Young sirs, so long, fare well, and don't ask the squirrels for directions -- they'll put you off a cliff." 

MacPherson drifted back trough the trees like a great buoy, babbling nonstop, denying any opportunity at all for Anders and Eirik to express gratitude. 

Panda squirmed until Anders set him on the waist-high stone fence.

"MacPherson," the black-and-white guide explained, "Is voluntarily sciurophobic. That's a fear of squirrels. Add a touch of paranoia and he thinks he sees them everywhere. Well? C'mon!" 

The cub pounced onto the water's seemingly fluid surface which proved as tactile as solid ground, and scampered toward the island. 

Eirik's eyes lit up as he pointed. "AH! Jesus panda!" 

The friends scrambled onto the fence and, mildly uneasy on account that the water below looked quite real, they exchanged a pair of here-goes-nothin' glances, and jumped out. The visibly fluid surface on which they landed felt like any other half-frozen earth in the forest.  

Anders cried out in amazement. 

Eirik burst into laughter. 

"Today, boys!" called the panda from shore. 

Eirik ran toward the bungalow first, whooping and hollering, calling out a ridiculous retort about a connection between Jesus Christ, magicians and, quite possibly, trolls. Anders moved to follow when he noticed a pale figure in his peripheral vision. The egg-shell white parrot. It perched on the stone fence behind him, quietly. 

The herald. Standing on water, Anders faced it. This bird was Nana's friend and saved mine. "Thank you." 

The parrot's intense blue eyes had an unearthly quality, like being stared at by a cosmos. "Is used to be an honors students," it said with gravity. "I'm not sure what happened." 

"You what?" 

"If you can read this, turn me over." 

Oh, right. "Bumper stickers." Those aren't mine, though. Anders smiled, accepting he may not ever be able to hold a meaningful exchange of thoughts with the animal. 

"I love Wales!" the parrot asserted. 

A common car sticker in Anders' hometown. Dad's car has that one. Anders smiled and turned toward the island. 

One last whisper, queerly human. "Save a life." 

Anders shot a frown back over his shoulder but the herald had already averted its gaze.