Toshty looked at Annie with love and pride. “You are a great lady, Annie!” Toshty replied. “I don’t know what we can do, but I don’t mind delaying our wedding long enough to try to help him...Especially if it will help you to be happy and at peace!” he added.
As they paddled back upstream towards the Bottoms, Toshty and Annie discussed what they could do. Exploring many possibilities, and discarding them one by one, they finally hit upon a plan that felt right. They would go to Toshty’s studio in the caves, through which they could secretly enter the WooPeace. Once there, they would try to locate Breister. Annie would give her genuine apology for the pain she had caused and they would offer to help him in any way they could. “Leaving the past behind does not mean leaving wounds unhealed,” Annie said. “I’m not going to start a new life with you while this sore I helped create still festers in Breister’s life.”
“We’ll do what we can,” Toshty agreed. “How much Breister is able to heal depends on a lot of things we can’t control,” he added. “But we’ll give it our best go...A family is an unbroken circle of friends, and Breister’s in our family now.”
They arrived in Toshty’s studio and rested there for a while before preparing to proceed further through the cave system to the WooPeace. Just as they were about to leave the studio, Toshty began to act very strangely. As if he had suddenly gone mad, he began to wildly flap his wings and throw himself at the walls of his studio, as if trying to fly through the stone wall!
“Toshty!” Annie screamed, “What are you doing? Have you gone mad? What’s the matter?”
Toshty did not respond, but simply threw himself more and more frantically against the walls. Feathers flew as Toshty wildly flapped his wings like a bird possessed by some wild spirit. “AWWK! OOOFFT! SQWAAAK! OOOFFPT! OOOO!” Toshty, battered and spent, covered with broken feathers, sank to the floor in dazed frustration. “Oooohh...” he groaned, rubbing his battered head. “What a terrible time for the ‘help bugle’ to sound!”
“The help bugle?” Annie asked.
Rubbing his head, Toshty got to his feet and prepared to throw himself at the rock walls once again. “It’s an irresistible call for help and all birds by nature respond. Whenever the bugle sounds, any bird that hears has got to go. It’s a sacred duty. It’s just like a switch is thrown in a bird’s brain...Ooops! I’m talking too much, gotta go!”
Zoom! Crash! “OOOFT!”
Annie turned her eyes away. The sight of her beloved Toshty battering himself against the solid rock walls was too painful to watch. Slumping down against the wall, she felt dejected and sad. “What a wedding party this has turned out to be!” she groaned. “Toshty will be lucky to walk away from this with his brains intact. I’ll have a husband capable of only vacant looks for the rest of his life. I’ve got to do something. Maybe I have some rope in my pack...I’ll tackle him and tie him up until this madness passes.” She rummaged frantically in her old, battered bandit’s pack looking for some rope.
“Where are things when you need them?” she muttered. “Moldy bandit’s mush, Grizzly Bear Army knife, clothes, maps, bits of biscuits, flash gourd, scissors...Flash gourd!” Annie howled with glee. “Yeowzer! I forgot I had this! This is just what the doctor ordered!” she exulted. “This is one time that knowing a little something about explosives will come in handy...I’ve gotta hurry though...That dazed and vacant look will be in Toshty’s eyes permanently if I don’t do something to get him where he wants to go!”
“Hmmm...,” she mused, surveying the studio. “Gotta be careful. Don’t want to blow up Toshty’s life work! Let’s see...there’s got to be a good place for this.” Looking around the studio quickly, Annie located a small, deep crevice leading in the direction Toshty apparently wanted to go. She carefully packed the flash gourd as deep in the crack as possible, letting the long fuse hang back out in the studio. Then she took rags that Toshty had for cleaning up his paint brushes and stuffed them in the crack behind the flash gourd, packing it in securely. “I want the main force of the blast to go the other direction,” she said to herself. “Please let the blast blow the other way!”
Lighting the fuse, Annie rushed at Toshty and hurtled him to the floor just as the flash gourd detonated. KA-BOOOOM! The studio shuddered and shook, dust and small pebbles showering down on them. Annie lifted her head and looked around. Toshty’s paintings were intact! There was a huge, jagged hole torn in the wall where the flash gourd had been lodged.