To the editor from Bluey, fluffy reporter. Subject: Stowing away.
When we last left, I had ended up being kidnapped by a ring of fluffy smugglers. Though I feared the worst, the Captain had managed to infiltrate the ship and free me from my cage, along with two other fluffy ponies the smugglers had captured. But perhaps the Captain could have avoided opening the two other cages and made his getaway quicker, as one of the smugglers had entered the room, and caught us red-handed. Looking at her face, I recognized her as the dark-skinned woman who had never made a comment.
“Nala?”
As the Captain said that name, I then remember who this person was. The Captain had many people throughout his years working on both merchant and military fleets, and Nala was a contact he had in Africa. Neither the Captain nor I would ever suspect that she would be involved in something as sinister as this.
“What’s the meaning of this, Nala?” the Captain demanded.
Nala refused to answer.
Just then, the light from another torch shone into the room, as another gangster came in.
“Captain Nala, what’s going on,”
The man’s response was cut short, as he saw the interloper and his three fluffies beside him. With a deft motion, he grabs a pistol from his holster, and aims it at Captain Johann.
“Don’t you dare move,” he sneered, “I’ll shoot you down right here.”
“Stand down, Pedro. This is Captain Johann. Shooting him would have the police after us.”
Pedro let out a quick chuckle, as he realized, “Well, well – one of Sam Adam’s chumps. Who’d imagine he’d go this far just to get back a worthless fluffy pony?”
Though visibly angered at the statement, the Captain tried to maintain his composure. He demanded, “Why are you kidnapping these fluffies? Where are you taking them?”
“Johann, please, don’t make this situation any worse than it already is. I can let you take back Bluey, but you have to get off this ship.”
“Get off?!” asked Pedro in bewilderment. “I thought the boss paid us big money to get that fluffy “reporter” over there.” The way he said ‘reporter’ was so condescending, you could tell that he could scarcely believe I held this occupation.
“I’m disgusted with you, Nala. Fluffy smuggling? Off all things?!!”
The situation as tense. Pedro had the gun to the Captain’s head, while Nala held her arm up, trying her best to defuse the situation. The three of us were staying still, unsure of what to do. Frozen in my position, my eye veered to the right, and saw that Wind was, like me, frozen in fear. As I looked left, I saw the beige fluffy that the Captain had freed was walking back, perhaps planning to re-enter the cage he was freed from.
“OI DUMMEHS! GIT SMAWTY OUTTA HEWE”
Seems like the cocky smarty with the shades had got up. Pedro, slightly distracted, yelled out.
“Will you SHUT UP you shi-“
Before Pedro could finish his sentence, the Captain’s first flew right into his mouth. The resultant blow knocked the gangster out of his senses, and he lost his grip on his firearm. The Captain proceeded to pummel at Pedro, as he yelled out to the three of us.
“DON’T WAIT FOR ME! GET TO THE BOAT!!”
Unknown to the Captain, (and myself at the time), the Captain had dropped his key during the ensuing struggle. I did heard the sound of a key hitting the floor, but it did not seem apparent to me that the key belonged to the Captain. Realizing what the Captain meant, Wind yelled out, “Wun!!”
As the three of us ran away, I could see the Captain fighting with both Nala and Pedro. Rushing into the hallway, we then saw the other gangsters who were still awake. Judging from the sailor gear they all were wearing, my hunch was correct – we were on a ship, perhaps somewhere over the Atlantic Sea.
The three of us narrowly dodged the various men who chased us across the maze of corridors, but we had no idea where to go, or where to escape to. As we quickly ran, we manage to get ourselves into an otherwise deserted store room. However, the yelling of the men could be heard hot on our heels.
“Fwens! Hewe!”
Whisper pointed at a vent. These vents would be difficult for the humans to crawl through, but for more agile fluffies like Wind and myself, this was perfect. The three of us climbed into the vent, trying our best to be as stealthy as possible. It was a forever as we moved through to the vent, but we managed to reach what seemed like a safe enough position from the men to detect us.
The three of us were still trying to catch our breath as we convened in the vent.
“Fwuffy hab to save da Kapten.”
It was a dangerous idea, and the pinky fluffy pointed that out.
“It am bigges’ dangew! Hummeh fwen sed fwens hab to git to da boatie!”
I sighed, as I explained, “Fwuffy dunno whewe boat is. Fwuffy need da Kapten.”
Poor Captain Andersson. Perhaps the Captain, blinded by his brashness, had not realized that the three of us wouldn’t even know where his boat was. And did he even come with anyone in the first place?
“Fwuffy hab biggest scawedies,” said the pink fluffy.
“Mebbe, mebbe dewe am a wei,” said Wind, as a thought came to her mind. “But fwens wiww need a big toughie.”
I raised an eyebrow as I asked, “Toughie?”
“Big, BIG fwuffy. Fwuffy hab heard da gangsta hab tawkies abow putting a big fwuffy in anudda cage in anudda woom. Big fwuffy, wif big muscwe. Maybe wit’ dis fwuffy, fwens can save da Kapten.”
It seemed foolhardy. But it was either that, or stay in the vents and rot.
~
Navigating the vents wasn’t easy. We had to be careful not to go near those dangerous fans. As we kept walking, we noticed the vents were above a few brightly lit rooms. Over one of the rooms, we could see the sailors talking about the intended destination.
“So this is your first day on the job?”
“Yeah it is, but I heard that I could get to see fluffies die in some horrible and excruciating ways.”
“Oh, you’re in for a treat. The Boss has an island where he hosts the big battle royale event for fluffies. Almost no fluffies survive it, so he’s been looking for some smarter or unique fluffies to enter into this competition.”
So they were going to take us to some death game. Disgusting.
“Wut am a ‘battwe woyawe’”? asked Wind.
Tyring my best to explain it in fluffspeak, I said, “It am big twabbo.”
As we kept moving on, and perhaps by some rather ironic luck, we were directly above our target, Captain Andersson. The Captain, however, was bound and gagged. One good thing was that knowing the Captain was gave us a sense of direction as to where to head to. And we were about to conintue our way, until the metal door opened, and Nala entered.
“Meanie wowstest munstah,” said Wind.
“Shh!”
As we looked into the vent, we saw Nala approach the Captain with a bowl of rice and a glass of water. Taking a spoon of the rice, she places it into the Captain’s mouth. However Anderson, in a fit or rage, spits out the rice at her.
“Johann, I’m trying to be nice. These men would rather kill you.”
“Then why don’t they? You’re not going to get away with this.”
Nala did not seem to enjoy the situation she was in. Her face was not one of anger. Rather, it was one of shame, as she gritted her teeth.
“Do you think I want to do this? Do you think I want to get involved in this illegal trade?!”
“Then why the hell are you doing it?!!”
“They have my family hostage!”
The Captain’s mouth remained opened. Nala, not wanting to face Johann, looked to the ground, as she continued.
“I didn’t want to do this. I was just looking for work as per normal. I then heard about a lucrative offer to send cargo to a remote island. I didn’t think much about it at first, until I found out I was ferrying illegally sought fluffies. When I tried to cancel my contract, they took my family. They’re now being held hostage on that island, unless I finish this job.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
“It’s not that simple. There’s a reason why I wanted you to escape, and to take Bluey back with you. Maybe you can’t save all the fluffies, but you and I both know that Bluey is a lot more important than the other fluffies we’re ferrying.”
There was a brief moment of silence. After a few collections of seconds, the Captain then grimly said, “All fluffies are special, one way or the other.”
Nala sighed, as she said, “Well, you blew our chance. Now they want to ransom you. They know they can’t kill you without there being a huge scandal and the whole cover on the operation being blown.”
I wanted to hear more of the conversation, but Wind started tapping me.
“It bette’ we go.”
~
After what seemed like an endless amount of crawling, we managed to reach a room where two sailors were talking in front of a really large cage. In that cage was a mountain of a fluffy. I mean, he was a really big fluffy. One could confuse him with a fluffalo, if not for the fact that he didn’t have horns. What was distinct about him though, was he too was wearing a helmet. However, unlike the helmet Wind was wearing, this was a big helmet of iron, one that ancient human warriors fought in a distant time, unimaginable to us of the fluffykind.
As we watched, we overheard their discussion.
“So exactly who is this big guy?”
“Name’s Quesada. Apparently, he’s some rare Castillan breed fluffy. You’d think he’s a fluffalo, but he’s just a really big fluffy. Can think of one other fluffy that’s bigger than him, but this guy packs a wallop. We were told by Captain Nala to keep him away from the others and in this room, and to watch him at all times.”
“All times? What are they going to do? Fluffies are so stupid, and its not like this beast is going to bang its way out of this cage.”
As both men laughed, one of them said, “Come on, lets go get some smokes.”
It was the perfect opportunity. The three of us climbed into the room, and saw Quesada, place in his special cage. We located Quesada, but now came the big question – how were going to get him out?
“Howd on fwens. Fwuffy am gonna twy sumtin’”
As the pink fluffy said this, he inhaled, and tucked in his stomach. I could see his face turn a little green, as he started to vomit a small pool of bile onto the floor.
“EEEW!” yelled out Wind and I in disgust.
But as this happened, I noticed that a shiny object was residing in the pool of bile that the pink fluffy had regurgitated. It was the Captain’s skeleton key. As I gingerly picked up this priceless artifact from the disgusting bile, I slowly brought the key into the lock that held Quesada.
“Who am dewe?”
Looks like the beast woke up. And thankfully, I was able to unlock the lock in time to answer him.
“Fwens am hewe to wescue ‘ou.”
“Otay.”
Quesada cracked his neck to the left and right, as he stepped out of his cage.
“Whew tuu?”
“In da vents, fwen. We hab to save a hummeh fwen.”
As Wind and Quesada crawled into the vents, I noticed that the pink fluffy had gone to consume the skeleton key. Looks like he was going to hold on to it in case it was needed again.
“Fwen, thanks.”
“It am no twabbo. Fwuffy thinkies dat keysie am impowtan’.”
He was definitely right, I then realized that, all this time, I didn’t even know who he was.
“Wut am fwen name?”
The pink fluffy smile, as he said, “Zanda.”
And so there it was. Wind, Quesada, Zander and I. We were on our way to rescue the Captain.
And hopefully, get ourselves off this damn ship.
