The Adventure of Taffy
Book One
Lost in the Woods
My name is Ava, and I am seven years
old. I live in Cary, North Carolina. But this story is not about me, it
is about my dog Taffy. Taffy loves to sleep in my closet while I am telling
stories to him. You may think it is crazy but sometimes tells me stories too!
The following story is one of his.
Even though Taffy is only a puppy, he
has already fully grown, and he weighs more than 35 pounds. Dad said Taffy is
all muscle and no fat, but mom said he is nothing but skin and bones. One thing
we all agree on is that he is the fluffiest creature of all!
I have not decided what I want to do
when I grow up, but Taffy knows what he wants to be - a Sherriff! I think that
is because his listening and smelling are the best in all of us, and he is the
fastest dog I have ever seen! Unfortunately, dad gives him nothing important to
do in the house, so he naps under Dad’s desk all day long.
But whenever the doorbell rings, Taffy
jumps up from his nap and rushes to the door screaming “Ruff, Ruff” to check if
it is a stranger.
He also considers himself the king
of the front yard, every morning he marks his territory by peeing on the corner
of it.
When dad is pulling weeds in the
front yard, Taffy will monitor everything there. If the robins from the apple tree
land on the lawn and try to nibble some summer grass seed, Taffy will be barking
at the birds. If the rabbits sneak in the yard from the other side of the creek
and try to taste the cool morning dew on the grass blades, Taffy will dart to
the rabbit like an arrow and chase him off.
When dad walks him on the trail, Taffy
will bark at the deer who adventures to the trail. When a squirrel stops at the
trail to retrieve his lost pinecones, Taffy will hunt him down until the squirrel
climbs back to the top of the pine tree.
O |
ne summer evening, it was hot and
humid, mom and I were walking Taffy on the trail. Taffy spots a deer in the
woods, right away, he figured this deer does not belong to this part of the woods,
so he darted away to chase off the deer, I was not strong enough to hold back
Taffy, so the leash slipped away from my hand and Taffy disappeared into the
woods!
At
the beginning I was mad at Taffy because he dragged me down to the ground and
my knees got bad bruises and scratches. Mom and I kept calling Taffy’s name,
but nothing came back.
Then I was afraid that Taffy would
be lost forever, so I prayed very hard “Dear God, please give Taffy back to us,
I promise that I will never be mean to him”.
I don’t know how long we had waited
or how many tears I had shed, but when there was no tear coming out, I realized
that Taffy was lost forever.
Mom and I went back home
heartbroken.
Inside the vast woods, Taffy was doing
a high-speed chase after the white-tail deer. He is a fast runner (dad said he
can get to 25 miles per hour), but no match for the deer who can go between 30
to 35 miles per hour.
Pretty soon, he lost track of the
white tail and found himself alone in the big woods, surrounded by stately pine
trees. When he stopped running, it was so quiet and the only sound he could
hear was his own panting,
Taffy was scared and wanted to go
home.
A loud squawking broke his trance.
Following the sound, he found two red-tailored robins close to the white oak
church creek. Upon closer look, there was a black water snake trying to steal
bird eggs from a Robin nest.
The wind must have swept the nest
off from the pine tree and the snake leapt out of the creek trying to get the
eggs inside. Dad and mom robins were determined to protect their precious eggs.
It looks like the snake already
gobbled up one egg and ready to snatch the rest two eggs. He opened his mouth wide;
Taffy could see it was pure white inside his mouth. (Hence the name cottonmouth!).
Sherriff Taffy hated thieves and he
rushed to help the robins. He pounced on the snake and bite it as hard as he
can. The snake coiled and bit Taffy on the left front leg!
Taffy collapsed when sudden cold and
pain overpowered him while the snake quickly slithers back into the creek.
Nobody knew how much time had passed
before Taffy felt the pain in his leg gradually dissolved and his body started
to warm up. He thought he must be in dog heaven but when he opened his eyes, he
found a deer licking on the wound in his leg! It is the same deer that he was chasing!
The
deer and the two robins were so happy to see that Taffy woke up, they said that
most animals bitten by the cottonmouth snake will not make it. It looked like
the white-tail deer’s licking has some magical healing power.
Taffy was embarrassed knowing THE
deer who saved his life was the same deer he was chasing. But the deer was very
forgiving, and she said her name is Juno and she used to live with his family
in the forecast across the highway 540.
A year ago, there was a large condo
development project and they cut down all the trees and that left Juno’s family
and a lot of animals homeless. Juno’s family kept going back to that piece of
land because that was their home. The landlord said the animals were trespassing
and he set the ground grass on fire to “smoke the animals out!”.
Juno was separated from her family
when they were fleeing from the fire. She took the chance and crossed the
highway to arrive at this new neighborhood. She said he was lucky because one
of his friends was struck by an SUV when he tried to cross the highway.
Juno and the two robins invited
Taffy to join them for the annual Animal Festival. Taffy hesitated because he
wanted to go back home but at the same time, he thought it was rude to refuse Juno
(who had just saved his life!).
The two robins sensed his hesitancy,
“This party only happens once a
year. Do you know the animals who live as far as Durham will come here just for
the party!”
R |
ight at this moment, a swarm of fireflies
showed up from the darkness of the night, and they formed 3 giant shining arrows
which guided them to the party!
So went Taffy, Juno, and the
Robins.
Those are the kinds of animals showed
up in the party: birds like bluebird, Mockingbird, Nuthatch, Cardinal, Crow,
Carolina Wren, Blue Jay, Carolina Chickadee, American Goldfinch, mammals like
beaver, black bear, Bobcat, Wild horse, Donkey, Bog Lemming, Carolina
Short-tailed shrew, Cotton mouse, Coyote, Eastern Chipmunk, Eastern Cottontail,
Eastern Mole, Wild Boar, Gray Fox, Long-tailed Weasel, Indiana Bat, etc. They are
all gathered in a lush area in the middle of the woods, and a mirror lake was
just next to it.
Out of all these animals, Taffy
noticed there was a monkey who wore a pair of scuffled cowboy boots. Legend had
it that the monkey was happily living an urban life with his owner in Upper East
Manhattan, then the pandemic came, and his owner abandoned him and left for
Florida. He hitched hiked all the way south trying to find his owner but somehow,
he ended up in North Carolina.
He called everybody here a hillbilly,
and he found no purpose in life here: animals lived in scorching heat in the
summer only to feed mosquitos and ticks. Back in New York City, he said he could
enjoy the air conditioning in apartment or go to baseball games.
When things get normal, he said, I
am heading back to New York city.
Because of his worldly experience,
animals trusted him to be the director of the festival.
The party started with a light show
presented by fireflies. On the backdrop of the dark woods, millions of fireflies
formed different shapes and forms to tell the story of the woods, it went like
this:
A Seed,
Sprouts,
Grows,
Small Tree,
Big Tree
Many Trees
Woods
A Dog chases a few butterflies
A Skunk farts over a dandelion
Suddenly,
Trees down,
Woods in fire,
Animals flee
Finally,
A person coughs
COVID
Jab!
Human leaves
Animals back to woods
T |
he light show was followed by an
animals’ chorus, in which all the animals needed to participate. The lyrics
went like this:
COVID is awesome,
Everybody stays at home!
COVID is awesome,
It solves all the problems!
The woods have no more tourism,
Humans are not welcome!
Animals loved COVID because it made
people stay at home so animals could have the woods all to themselves. The
rumor has it that the bats were the heroes who passed COVID to humans. All
animals were so grateful, and they wanted to present a big award to the bats,
but the bats refused to accept the award saying that is fake news and they
never got COVID.
Taffy’s favorites were the animal’s
sports competition. The first game was soccer, team donkey had been the winner
for many years and their powerful kicks made the toughest animals shudder.
This year they met their match, a
visiting team of wild horses from the Carolina beaches. The game was so
intense, the referee, an owl, was almost hurt. After ninety minutes of kicking
and screaming, the wild hose team beat the donkey team 20 to 15.
The next game was wrestling. Animals
wrestled in pairs close to a large patch of muddy water, whoever can push the
other into the muddy water wins. Juno was pretty good at butting heads, but she
did not sign up being afraid her beautiful fur my get dirty. Pigs seemed to
enjoy the game the most and they will pretend to lose and get every chance to
have a muddy bath.
“Cowboy” the monkey could not wait
to get the tree climbing competition started. The participant must climb the
highest tree in the woods and then jump or swing to another tall tree and then
get back to the ground. “Cowboy” the monkey set the animal record last year
with only 1 minute and 20 seconds. Squirrels had been training every day for
this event and he was so ready to beat the monkey this year.
Unfortunately, when he was about to
jump over to another tree a gust of wind knocked him off the tree and he fell
to the ground! If not for his furry tail which serves as a parachute, he must
have been a dead squirrel by now.
A |
few black clouds merged overheads and Taffy
saw a flash and then loud thunder like the deep noise made by an angry lion. A
few big raindrops fell on Taffy’s head, he caught a few drops with his tongue
and knew this storm would be a big one.
“Cowboy”
the monkey asked the fireflies to do traffic control. All animals must follow
the three big shiny arrows made by fireflies to a secret cave. Just after the
last animal, which happened to be tortoise Sam, entered the cave, hail stones
as large as baseballs shot down from the sky.
The cave is an underground bunker
built by the confederate army during Civil war. Rumor has it that general
Robert Lee stayed in the bunker to hide from General Sherman’s cannon shells.
They found crates of crackers as
hard as rock (Taffy loves it), boxes of canned fruit and canned beef, big
wheels of cheese, large quantity of wine and whisky. There are also treasure
chests on the corner which are full of gold coins.
Animals paid no attention to the
gold coins. With the help of “Cowboy” the monkey, the animals started to enjoy
the canned food, cheese. Taffy cannot believe the canned beef taste so good; he
was wondering why Mr. Z keeps feeding him those boring dry dog kibbles.
Cowboy monkey warned animals to
stay away from chocolate because it is harmful, also whisky is evil and nobody
can drink it, most importantly he emphasized: “You shall not smoke cigar!”
Animals continued their party in
the cave. The next program was the celebration of the 100th birthday
of Sam the Tortoise.
Whenever animals asked him the
secret of his longevity, he simply mumbled “Slow ……. Down……..”. Taffy knew
exactly what he meant, one time he saw Sam the Tortoise crossing the creek, it
took him the whole afternoon to cross it.
Taffy whispered to Juno “I don’t
want to live that long if it means that I need to be as slow as a turtle.” Juno
cannot agree more with Taffy.
Jack the rabbit who lives on the
other side of the creek, was Tortoise Sam’s best friend.He gave Sam a huge honeycomb as a birthday
gift. “Cowboy” the Monkey lighted a candle, and everybody is chanting “Happy
birthday” to Sam, after they finished the song, they noticed Tortoise Sam had
already fallen asleep!
They
found many bottles of drink as well, on the bottle, it printed red “Coco Cola”.
“Cowboy” the monkey opened the bottles for animals to drink. At the beginning,
nobody wanted to try but Taffy was thirsty, so he slurped a few drops, wow, it
is like nothing he had ever tasted, one drop in, he felt he was in dog heaven
again!
“Cowboy” monkey also found a box of
cigars and he mimicked his previous owner who smokes a lot. He lit up one cigar
but after one draft, he coughed and threw the cigar away, yelling “that tastes
terrible!”
The innocent cigar landed on a
wooden box with “Explosives” printed on it.
Ka-Boom! The explosion shook the
cave and the entrance just collapsed.
All the animals were trapped
inside! What made it worse was that a huge pile of wood caught fire and smoke
started to fill up the cave.
T |
affy and Juno led the animals to
retreat to the other side of the cave, hoping to find an exit. They quickly
found that there is water in the cave and the further they walk, the deeper the
water got, being partially a poodle, Taffy was a natural swimmer, so he starts
to swim when the water is submerging Juno’s leg.
After about half a mile, even Juno can
barely keep her head out of the water. There is a thick layer of oil on the water,
and it makes Taffy’s fur very sticky, and he hated it when his fur got messy.
There are many junctions in the cave
tunnel, Taffy and Juno tried a long time, but they are seriously lost in the
maze. They were exhausted swimming/wading in the dirty water, and they were
getting desperate.
The other animals were way behind
them, and the smoke was getting so thick and if they don’t find the exit
quickly, all the animals will die!
Right at this moment, both Taffy
and Juno felt something was following them, when they turned around, it was THE
black water snake!
With his beady eyes half open half
closed, the water snake claimed that he knew exactly the way to go,
“Follow me, I KNOW this cave
because I live here” He spoke with authority.
Taffy did not trust him, but Juno
pulled Taffy aside
“Maybe we should give him another
chance? It looks like the snake is sincere”
At the time of uncertainty, people tend
to trust so-called experts and Taffy reluctantly agreed.
So, the water snake led the way in
front.
Just after they made a sharp turn,
a door behind them dropped off from the ceiling and now they had no way back.
Taffy and Juno had a bad feeling about this.
“Come, we are getting close”. The
snake encouraged them.
At last, they found a dip into a
large pit, in the middle of the pit, there was a huge hollowed-out tree stump.
The snake guaranteed them,
“Come and hop in. if you go through
the hole in the tree stump, you will get out of this cave.”
Juno and Taffy followed the snake
and got into the pit, they investigated the black hole in the tree stump, but
they could not see anything.
T |
he moment they were hesitating, five
snakes came out of the hole, two copperhead, two cottonmouth and one pygmy
rattlesnake!
They started to attack Juno and
Taffy. Juno was using her powerful hooves to protect Taffy and asked Taffy to
retreat.
However, the pit is too deep, it was
easy to get in but hard to get out! Both Juno and Taffy were trapped!
The water snake was taking his revenge.
At this critical moment, Juno asked
Taffy to jump on her back and then jump out of the pit, she said it is the only
way.
Taffy did not want to abandon Juno,
but the snakes were getting more and more aggressive, Juno said she could not fight
them off for much longer.
“Taffy, hop on my back!” She
yelled.
Taffy had no choice but to hop on
Juno’s back and then jumped out of the pit.
W |
hen he got to safety, he heard a
loud cry from Juno, one of the copperheads nibbed at Juno’s leg, Juno’s kick
was also getting slow and weak, the snakes surrounded her and attacked from
every angle!
Taffy saw Juno tumble to the ground!
The moment when Juno was dead, Taffy saw there was no panic in her eyes, only
peace and love. Taffy kept barking but he could not help his friend, he is
furious at the snakes but also mad at himself.
He heard footsteps behind him, and
it was “Cowboy” the monkey. He declared to Taffy, “I hate snakes and I have a
solution for you”. It turned out he had a box of explosives; he used matches to
ignite the explosive and asked Taffy to stay back and then he threw the
explosive into the pit where the snakes were sizzling.
Boom! It is so loud when the
explosion went off, Taffy’s ears were super sensitive to noise, and he almost
thought he is going deaf.
After the smoke cleared off, Taffy
and monkey could not believe their eyes, an exit just appeared in front of
them!
All the animals follow Taffy and
monkey and get to safety.
Taffy became the hero of
Copperleaf, animals thought Taffy was a super dog. Taffy knows Juno was the
true hero. He had known Juno for only one day, but he felt he had known her for
a long, long time.
When
Taffy said goodbye to the other animals it was almost 6AM. He ran back home
quickly and found dad was about to take his morning walk. Dad was so happy to
see him, and he scratched Taffy’s ear when he asked Taffy
“Where have you been?”
When Taffy told me this story, I can
hardly believe it until I saw the snake tooth marks on Taffy’s leather leash.
Now I have a super dog!
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