The jump felt like it went by in slo-mo for Fiona. She had to do a flip in the air to avoid a crackle of fire, an ability that she was quite clueless of. She just realized when she landed on her back that she had dropped something. "Quigley" she shouted. "I'm good" she heard as Quigley had been caught by Lemony. "Run everyone" Charles told them. Fiona listened immediately as they ran far away from the fire and eventually saw all the workers and her friends staring at the horrible sight in front of them.
Everyone awoke at the same time in the Zappy Zoo bakery. Fernald, Phil, Jacquelyn, Duncan, Isadora, Klaus, Julia, Sunny and finally Beatrice the baby. They were still waiting for the other six people they knew should have arrived by then from the car. "Should we do something about them not being here" Isadora asked. "Let's wait a bit" Klaus answered. We should give them a couple of hours and if they're not here we can do something. "For now we can just call the lumber mill" Fernald said. "Right, that's smart" Isadora said.
They called 5 times. Each time the call did not go through. "So the lumber mill isn't picking up and they're not here" Julia said. "Sounds a bit sketchy to me" Isadora agreed. "The newspaper is coming in 2 hours so we can investigate more if they don't arrive by that time" Jacquelyn decided. "That's good" Sunny said, pretending she knew what was going on.
Lemony had seen many fires in his life. He had seen people die and huge buildings torn down. This one was just another one to add to his list. But for the others he could see how afraid they were on their face. He attempted to comfort Charles who had seen his whole lumber mill he worked so hard for burned down to nothing.
The Daily Punctilio had just arrived in front of the Zappy Zoo and nobody had heard a word from the lumber mill. Sunny picked up the newspaper and handed it to Jacquelyn. Jacquelyn stopped dead in her tracks as everyone crowded around her to see the front page.
