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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