(NOTE: I'm now going to update Berry's journal every two weeks on Friday! Woo-hoo! :D)
Strawberry bent back the bars wide enough for Happy to squeeze through, and then once everyone was out in the fresh night breeze we wasted no time and dashed to the forest so no one would see us. "Catch ya later!" called Alex and he ran away deeper into the forest. "I'm gonna go check up on the village!"
Once Alex was gone we were certain that no one would see us, I was the first to speak. "Strawberry, what do you mean by 'save us from ourselves'?"
The white lion quickly looked around for guards one more time, suddenly stern, and then turned back to say, "I've realized that we've been talking too much, so I'll keep it short: Long ago, when the phantoms came to Jamaa from who knows where, lions were the first to fall. Some lions. I was descended from the others who lived in the mountains, so I have always been free of the phantoms' control. But these ones?" she nodded her head toward the castle, "No freedom for them."
This was beginning to sound familiar. As if he had heard my thoughts, Happy nudged me.
The scroll...
"Strawberry!!!" Everyone flinched at the sudden loudness in Happy's voice. "I think me and Berry read about whatever you're talking about in this here scroll!!!" Happy enthusiastically rolled open the scroll with his trunk and waved it around to everyone.
Strawberry gave one look at the scroll and gasped. "The scroll... the story... How did you get this!? This was the very same scroll that was stolen from my group the day Pineapple and Coco went missing!"
Rainy looked up. "Pineapple? Coco? Somehow those names seem eerily familiar..."
"Were you the one who kidnapped them and stole the scroll, then!? Were YOU the one who–––"
"No one here stole your scroll!" Cherimoya said frustratedly. "I've only known these plushies for like 15 minutes but I'm pretty sure they'd never do anything like that. They're too pure for stealing and junk like that. I'm a great judge of character. We have to work together––– if a lion catches us once then it's all over for another hundred years!" the pale green rabbit plushie sighed, "Now, who wants to actually know what we should do?"
Strawberry looked to the ground embarrassed, pawing the dirt. "Okay, but first I just want to get a simple answer. Berry and Happy, where did you get the scroll? And Rainy, how do you know those names, Pineapple and Coconut?"
Cherimoya face-palmed when a threatening rustle startled everyone.
"Hey everyone! We heard our names and were wondering––– oh, hi Strawberry! Long time no see!"
*TO BE CONTINUED*
