“What are you going to do about it?” Puck taunted. “Go ahead, raise your paw to me. I need a new rug.”
The tiger leaped forward with every talon extended. He slashed at the boy fairy, who barely had time to pull his wooden sword from his pants and block the mighty blow. Puck swung back but his tiny weapon was deflected by a vicious swat. The sword flew out of his hand and landed in some tall grass. Shere Khan’s razor-sharp claws caught the side of Puck’s hoodie and slashed it to ribbons. Puck yelped as his wings extended and he flew into the air.
“Puck!” Sabrina cried.
As he hovered above the tiger, Puck looked slightly rattled, but he gestured for the girls to stay where they were. “It’s OK. I shouldn’t have underestimated him. He may not be real, but his claws are.”
“Come down here, mosquito, so I can finish the job,” Shere Khan said.
Puck swooped down and snatched his sword from the grass. Then he flew directly over the tiger and swung his weapon into Shere Khan’s spine. The huge cat groaned in agony and fell to the ground.
“If I were you I’d slink back to your owner,” Puck said. “Perhaps you’ll get a bowl of milk.”
Shere Khan lumbered to his feet. His bright orange hide glowed in the firelight and his eyes smoldered like hot coals. He glared at Puck, and then in one sudden movement he leaped toward a tree and used it to launch himself at his enemy. Puck kicked him in the face, but not before the creature slashed at his chest. The deadly claws had only missed his skin by a fraction of an inch. Puck’s hoodie would never be the same.
Sabrina was shaken. Like Puck, she too had assumed they couldn’t be hurt in the stories. They weren’t actually the people they were pretending to be. They were more like actors playing the parts in the stories. She would never have suspected that they would ever really be attacked. She had once been in a school production of Stone Soup in the second grade and none of the pilgrims had attacked her. The risk of injury or death added another worry to her rapidly growing list of concerns.
Puck lunged at the beast again, but it smacked him backward with a well-timed punch. He fell from the sky and rolled into Sabrina, knocking the torch out of her grasp. It fell onto the flat, smooth rock and rolled into an outcrop of tall grass nearby. A moment later, the wild flora burst into hungry flames that threatened to spread to everything around it.
“What have you done?” the black panther cried.
“What have I done?” Sabrina repeated. “The tiger is the one causing the problems!”
An old wolf stepped forward to address the other wolves. “Flee, brothers. The red flower is blossoming.” The wolves howled and darted into the burning jungle. The black panther leaped down from his tree and followed them in a panic.
“What red flower?” Sabrina said.
“They’re talking about the fire,” Daphne said. “It’s part of the book, but this forest fire is not. The story wouldn’t have been very good if Mowgli torched the forest and killed everything for miles.”
“Speak for yourself,” Puck said, still fighting with the tiger. “That story would rule.”
“What should we do?” Sabrina asked.
“We need to get out of here!” Daphne shouted.
“Right behind you,” Puck said.
The girls started to follow the fleeing pack but were stopped in their tracks by Shere Khan. His eyes locked onto the children and his jaws filled with angry foam. Sabrina couldn’t tell whether the rising temperature she felt came from the fire or the rage wafting off the jungle cat.
“You have doomed us all. The Editor and his revisers will be here any moment,” Shere Khan said. “Perhaps he will spare me if I kill those responsible for the damage.”
Puck zipped down and snatched each of the girls by the back of their shirts. A moment later, they were rising skyward. “If Garfield the cat here won’t let us pass, I suppose we’ll have to take another route.”
Shere Khan leaped at them, swatting with his massive paws, but the children were already out of his reach and sailing over the fiery jungle.
“Thanks for the save,” Sabrina said.
“No problem, honey bunny,” Puck said. “I can’t exactly let my bride-to-be become cat food.”
“The second we’re on the ground, I’m going to put my fist into your mouth, you stinky, scummy sack of stupid,” Sabrina said.
Just then, a stone sailed into the air and slammed into Puck’s head. “Owww!” he cried, flapping awkwardly in the air and nearly dropping the girls. Sabrina looked down and saw hundreds of monkeys swinging from treetops and shaking angry fists at them.
“I think those are the monkey people we heard about,” Daphne said.
Puck did his best to avoid the flying rocks, zigging and zagging around each projectile, but there were too many of them. Their only defense was to fly higher.