The Penultimate Chapter!🐹🦇 Story Whale 🐳
It’s time for Bruce and Ginny to tell their friends and family about the strawberry paradise…
The penultimate chapter is here!
Bruce and Ginny’s story is almost at a close (at least for now).
If you need to catch up at all, here’s the full series:
I’m going to try to get the final chapter out next week so there shouldn’t be too much of a wait for you.
Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy today’s penultimate chapter! 🐹🦇
Ginny and Bruce stayed among the strawberries for the next couple of days. They were like the emperors of the whole forest. More luxury would have been impossible.
The most important thing was that it gave Bruce a chance to heal up his wing. His recovery was quick — thanks in large part to having a perpetually full tummy of scrumptious strawberries.
They talked a lot about Bruce’s plan, working out the finer details. It was a big risk. It wasn’t going to be easy.
“What if they don’t want to come with us?” asked Bruce.
It was something that had been on Ginny’s mind too.
“We just need them to trust us,” she answered.
The morning of the big day eventually arrived and the time came for Bruce and Ginny to say goodbye to the strawberries (just for now).
Bruce was feeling springy and healed as they ate their last breakfast and finalised their route.
It was a beautiful, clear, blue sky day — perfect for an adventure.
Ginny and Bruce worked together to get into a comfortable position for take-off. They were more used to each other now. Flying together wasn’t the difficult clutch for dear life that it had been at first.
They set off but they kept low. They didn’t want a repeat of the eagle ordeal from earlier. This time they flew nice and close to the trees, with Ginny on sharp lookout so that they could easily duck under cover whenever they needed to.
They left the mountains and flew back towards the heart of the open forest where they had spent their whole lives. Bruce flew all morning without breaks, making excellent time. The gorging of strawberries had made him unstoppable.
Ginny didn’t have a clue how to navigate the world of the forest on this greater avian scale. She still couldn’t help but feel in awe.
Eventually, Bruce steered them towards a humungous oak tree that towered above the rest of the forest like a leaf-topped mountain.
“This is your home?” Ginny asked.
“It makes finding your way back a lot easier,” said Bruce. “Everyone will be asleep right now.”
Bruce ducked down under the canopy and into the shade of the giant oak tree. It was cool and dark beneath the massive tree. The branches were covered with sleeping bats, hanging like so many pieces of ripening fruit.
Bruce searched around the oak’s branches. There was a particular bat that he was looking for. Eventually, he found her, hanging upside down from her claws, fast asleep.
Bruce set Ginny down on the branch and then hung down beside the other fruit bat.
“Buffy,” he whispered, then a little louder: “Buffy!”
Buffy stirred awake.
“Bruce?” she said, waking up properly. “Where have you been?”
She then noticed the guinea pig standing nearby on the branch.
A look of befuddlement came over her face.
“Who are you?”