Chapter 5…THE CONFLAGRATION

There was a rumble that I felt in the ground with my webbed feet and heard in the air with my ears and then there was a strange burnt aroma in the air.
At first I thought that it was a storm, but the sky was blue and since I’m an expert of sorts regarding storms I knew it wasn’t that.
Then all of a sudden the sound of an explosion and the sky turned reddish and Toucie yelled…”VOLCANO” everybody take cover!”
Then I heard it! A crackling sound getting louder and louder!
“Everybody into the water…or the air…CLEAR OUT…NOW!!!” Toucie was screaming as loudly as she could and everyone was scrambling for safety.
I could fly away of course but as the air started getting hotter and hotter I just started thinking about my new friends…like Cougie, Bandy, Oscar and Howie that couldn’t fly and couldn’t stay on ground that was soon to be engulfed in a fireball.
I had experienced a forest fire on migration one Autumn and remembered seing the animals running for their lives. It was scary but this was even scarier!
I saw Theodore slowly scrambling toward the beach and then watched Cougie and Howie jump into the surf but I was trying to find Bandy through the smoke which was getting thicker and thicker as the fire’s edge grew closer to our Jacaranda tree.
I knew Bandy couldn’t go into his burrow because the fire was started due to the volcano shooting out molten lava which then ran downhill across the ground and would surely find Bandy in his borrow.
Then…I saw him with his nose in the air wobbling around looking a bit lost. I flew down and landed almost on top of him.”Climb on my back and hold on!” I told him.
With great difficulty he tried to claw his way onto me and although I felt a few piercing claws go into my flesh I nudged him up with my beak. “HURRY…we are running out of time!”
Then just as the red hot firestorm swept into our beautiful Jacaranda tree I lifted off into the air above our snacking grounds and flew away from the path of the lava and fire with an armadillo on my back!
Then unexpectedly I felt a burning hot pain and when I looked my tail feathers were on fire. I swooped down and tried to time a perfect dive to the top of a small surf wave that was headed for shore.
“Hang on tightly Bandy!”
I swooped and dipped my burning feathers into the top of the surf and then I climbed back up into the sky flapping as hard as I ever have because of the extra weight and loss of a few of my controlling tail feathers. I was having a difficult time maintaining my altitude.
“We’ve got to look for a landing spot Bandy…I don’t think I can make it much farther!”
By this time the fire and lava were spilling over our wonderful beach and sizzling into the surf.
“THERE! OVER THERE… to the right. There’s a spot of high ground away from the lava flow.”
Bandy was yelling in my ear and as I turned I saw what he was describing and leaned to the right into the wind and circled lower and lower and as I was about to land I realized that I didn’t have control of the tail feathers that I always used to help to guide and slow my speed and as we were about to crash Bandy yelled “TUCK AND ROLL…TUCK AND ROLL!”
The last thing I remember was hitting the ground crashing, tumbling into the sand and rocks on the edge of the hard but safe high ground. Then everything went black!