Grace and Phoebe! Book 5: Phoebe and Cooper!

Stranded

       Phoebe's face was drooping, her eyes red.  She was sad, alone, afraid, lost, and hungry.  She wished that Cooper would drive here and pick her up, but she knew that wasn't possible because he had no idea where she was and was probably more heartbroken than she was.  She sighed in anguish as she enviously watched Shep STILL gulping down Blue Diamond Premium Dog Food.  There was an electric fence that surrounded the house and it was turned on for the night.  She had to go to the whole other side of the farm.  She found an old book titled: "Everything About Farming/Farmers...Even the Deep and Dark."  There was EVERYTHING about farms, farming, farmers, and farmwork.  Just then, Phoebe noticed it wasn't what its title claimed for it to be.  It was about the history of THIS farm!

       Phoebe found maps, old currency, and pictures/diagrams.  It was farm heaven!  It was like one of the "For Dummies" books, "Farming for Dummies".  It had EVERYTHING she needed to survive for at least that night.

       Phoebe opened up the guide and began to read.  There were all sorts of great tips, maps, secrets, and routes to sources of food, Phoebe was overwhelmed.  She decided to follow one of the maps, it was pirate-style, with an X marks the spot and dotted lines showing which way to go.  She noticed that the lines started at the spot she was, which made sense because it was the place where she found the book.  She began heading in the opposite direction of the farmhouse.  She noticed after a while of travel that she was heading towards the animal pens.

       The lines led THROUGH the animal pens, so Phoebe was confused.  How would she get inside the pens?  They were all securely closed, and there were no holes or weak spots for her to get through.  She decided she would try to mount the fence and climb her way over.  She placed her one of her hind paws on a foothold of the short fence, then the other.  She pulled herself up by her front paws.  She struggled to get another foothold, and the scene flashed before her very eyes.  The fence couldn't support her weight.  One of the boards beneath her snapped, and she tumbled to the ground.  The sprained her paw but was able to go through the gap in the fence that she created by accident.

       Phoebe kept going.  She was inside the limitations of the fence that guarded the chicken coop.  She looked inside and all the chickens were asleep.  She looked at the map and this was the X marks the spot.  What could she possibly find here that could even be of little use, eggs?  Feathers?  Old hens and roosters?  She decided it was worth it to look inside anyway, but she needed something to distract the chickens while she stormed their coop.  She found the chicken food.  It was a mix of milled corn, grain, and poppy seeds.  She grabbed the bag that was about as big and as heavy as a sack of flour and poured a trail of corn, wheat, and poppy seeds leading to the hole in the fence.  She would apologize to Shep for letting the chickens, that took so long for him to herd out of their pen, but, for now, she had work to do.

       The chickens drowsily awoke, their senses fogged from their sleepiness.  They were alert in split seconds when they spotted the corn trail.  They began toppling over each other to exit the coop.  Hens even abandoned their eggs to get a healthy and nutritious meal.  Phoebe was hiding behind the coop, hoping she was out of the chickens' line of detection.  Once the chickens were out of the pen, far out of the pen, Phoebe began to stick to the shadows and enter their pen.  It was a tight fit, but she was able to get into the tiny hole that was about the size of a smaller-sized chicken.  Once she was inside, though, there was plenty of room.  She walked around and noticed that the chicken coop was at least decades old.  There were dust and cobwebs hanging from the roof of the coop, the floorboards of the coop creaked at even the slightest movement, and some of the wood had been damaged to the point of being able to splinter.

       Phoebe found that one of the floorboards was actually loose, unlike all the others.  She clawed at the board as if she was digging, and it detached from the rest of the floorboards.  This is like that movie I never watched, The Goonies, she thought.  She stuck her snout inside the opening that was left by the detached board and noticed that there was a hole big enough for her to squeeze inside, she would have to detach more floorboards to be able to get to the hole, though.  Phoebe figured this was just the beginning of the adventure of a lifetime!  Although, all of her other adventures were accompanied by a friend, she had never went on an adventure solo...