Menolyrical Challenge – Marv’s Adventure

We are participating in NOVEMBER FINAL FRIDAY FICTION BLOG HOP  at My Take: Doses of Wild YAMS!

For this we are to Take a favourite book and go to page 87; take a section from lines 8, 12 and 16.

I chose the Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis. The lines are:

8-through which they had first come into the ruins turned out not to be a good place for
12-in the castle wall and stepped through it into a wood of darker and bigger trees where
16-fresh and deep when they had cleared these away.

Marvelous escaped out on to the deck when his human left the door open. He wanted to see the birds up close. When he jumped up onto the railing, he slipped and fell off the deck and onto the street below.

A car came barreling at him and he ran towards the trees. He did not stop running until he was across the cranberry field, right up to a wall of blackberry brambles. There was nowhere else for him to go. So he sat down and began to wash his paws.

He was cleaning toe number four when a brown face, wearing a black mask peaked out and a gravelly voice muttered, “Whatch doin ‘ere?”

Marv put his foot down and carefully flexed all of his claws. “I am cleaning my toes.” he said.

“All right then”, said the face and it disappeared.

Marv sat for a moment and then he moved to where the face had been. The smell of the animals was a little musky and fishy. Marv could see the path that went through the brambles and without another thought, he entered. In a couple of steps, he was walking through tumbled down concrete where a house had once stood. The animal who had spoken to Marv was washing his paws in the river.

“Yous lives with people, I can smell their stink all over ye”, said the animal. “What happened that yer over here?”

“I fell”, said Marv, “Then a car scared me and I ran! I’m Marv. Who are you? How did you get such a big tail? Why do you have hands?”

“Ravager — I’m a raccoon — you talk too much” said the animal that Marv now knew was a raccoon.

Marv then began to look around the ruin of a basement. There was a pile of rotting wood at one end, an old chimney stack, a dark cave like hole and the gap that Marv had followed Ravager through. As he was edging towards Ravager and the river, a large black crow cawed and landed on the chimney.

Ravager looked up and said, “That be Gassy. He’s telln’ me the Rats is moving…yous best come with me!”

The Raccoon disappeared into the other hole and Marv followed. And as he ran, Marv looked back over his shoulder. The path through which they had first come into the ruins turned out not to be a good place for them to exit…a dozen large rats with large yellow teeth came boiling into the ruined basement.  Close on Ravager’s heels, they ran around a corner of the wall and stepped through it into a wood of darker and bigger trees.

Ravager stopped dead. Marv was too busy watching behind and fell on top of him. From the ground, they looked up and saw a woman with a dog walking along the gravel bank of the river. Ravager extricated himself from Marv and bolted into the wood. Marv could not follow, the dog was in his way, Marv just sat there frozen staring back at the rats!

The woman came running with the dog leash as the dog lunged at the rats, Marv flattened himself into the ground, hoping he would not be noticed. But the woman saw him.

“Marvelous!” she said. Then she reached down and out of the fresh and deep leaves, picked him up.

Marv knew her smell. She was the Lady Next Door. He knew the dog too! It was the Dog Next Door! Perhaps they could take him home. Marv looked at the lady and said, “Can you take me home?”

The lady looked at him and said, “I think I better take you home, your Mommy will be worried. What are you doing way out here. You are a long way from home.”

After Marv got safely home it was three days before a crow landed on the railing and eyed Marv through the sliding door. Marv eyed the crow back, he was not sure, but he thought it was the crow that Ravager had called Gassy. With a “Kaw! Kaw!” and a head dip the crow spread its wings and took off. Marv watched him fly across the street and over the cranberry field towards the brambles.

“I wonder if Gassy will tell Ravager where I am and he will come and visit?” thought Marv and he sat on his cat tree and watched the birds at the feeder. “I sure hope so, I bet he’s got some great stories to tell…”

If you would like to read the poems and stories the others have written, please go to Aunty-Yam’s blog to see the link up.

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751 Words!