(Next Morning)

  I wake up to the sound of birds chirping. I slowly open my eyes, closing them again so I'm not blinded by the sunlight, before letting out a groan. Suddenly remembering the two on my chest, I look down. They don't seem to have stirred at all.
I carefully sit up, cupping my hand under Dart and Scratch, letting them slump into it before setting them on my pillow, then get up and walk out of the tent.
  I stretch my arms over my head, feeling the satisfying pops from my back, before walking into the tree line and behind a tree. (Is a dude not allowed a bit of privacy when he goes to the bathroom?! Geez!) After relieving myself, I walk back to my tent to get dressed. When I crawl back into the tent, Dart and Scratch have moved from the pillow.

"Hey guys, where are you?" I whispered,

"over here Rob." I hear Scratch say somewhere to my left,

  I look to where I heard his voice and see them standing next to my duffle. "Oh there you are, just let me get dressed then we can get something to eat and pack up before we go meet Charlie and Buckle," I say, moving to get dressed.

"Alright," Dart says.

  I grab some clothes out of my bag and start to undress. Once dressed, I put my hand next to Dart and Scratch for them to climb on. I put them in my pocket and walk out of the tent with my small bag full of our needed supplies. My mom is up, cooking breakfast over the fire pit.

"Oh good morning Robert, how did you sleep?" She asks,

"it was fine. How about you?" I ask, sitting down in a chair next to her.

"A bit restless, with the way your father snores, but other than that it was fine."

"well, that's good. Hey, do we have anything planned?" I ask,

"well, we're most likely going to go for a hike up to the big pond for a picnic around noon," Mom says, after thinking for a moment.

"Oh, ok. Well after breakfast, I'll be heading out for a bit, so I'll try to be back before then." I say, grabbing the plate she was handing me.

"Ok, just be careful, and try to be back around 11:30. If you're not back by 11:40, we'll go look for you." My mom says,

"Ok. I should be somewhere by the stream that's nearby," I say.

  I finish my breakfast, sneaking a few pieces in my pocket, and grab my bag to go meet the two forest borrowers. I give my mom a quick hug, then I walk towards the tree line. After walking a bit, I help Scratch out of the pocket and onto my shoulder.

"So where are we meeting these guys?" I ask.

"Ummm, we said just in the tree line. 2 hours after sunrise," Scratch says unsurely.

"Well, let's just hang around here till they find us," I suggest.

"No arguments here," Dart called up from the pocket.

"Ok then. Now, what to do while we wait?"

"I don't know. Guess we could sit and wait for them to get here." I suggest, moving to sit down against a nearby tree.

"No need!" different voice calls from somewhere, "we're right here!"

  The voice came from above so I tilt my head back and look above my head, in the tree's canopy. Just above me, two small men are sitting on hummingbirds. 

"Hey Charlie, Buckle, it's good to see you!" Scratch says from my shoulder.

"You as well. After we left last night, we went back to the village and told them that we were getting help from you so they wouldn't panic this morning." Charlie explained,

"So gi-Robert, you are going to follow us and we will lead you to the source of our problem." Buckle directed.

"Aye, aye!" I reply, saluting with my hand.

"Pardon me?"

"It means 'I'll do it'. Humans sometimes say it," Scratch explains.

"Oh, I see. Well, we better get going, the sooner we can get that rock moved, the better." Charlie says, turning around and flying off.

"Follow me," Buckle instructs.

I do so and he leads me further into the forest.

Time Skip

After a few minutes, we reach the outskirts of the forest borrower village.

"Well, here we are. This is our village. Now if you'll follow us a bit further, we will reach the cause of our problem." Buckle says, flying to the right.

I continue following him, watching where I were stepping the whole way. After a while, we reach the giant rock blocking the forest borrowers food supply trail. It about as tall as my legs, coming up to my hip.

"You guys weren't kidding when you said this was big. It's big even by human standards," I say.

Buckle and Charlie land beside my feet and I kneel down and place Dart and Scratch beside them. I side step around the stone, minding where my feet land, getting an idea of what I'm dealing with. I look around for a strong stick to lift it out of the way, but there aren't any around. I guess I'll have to push it out of the way myself.

"Hey guys, gonna need you to move out of the way. Don't want anyone getting hurt," I say looking down to the four at my feet.

"Will do dude. Come on guys, we need to make sure no one is anywhere nearby. If it starts rolling, it'll be hard to stop." Scratch says to Charlie and Buckle, walking back towards the village.

  "Yes that would be a good idea. Come on Buckle, we must evacuate people from this area." Charlie says, whistling for the birds. "We shall be back when everyone is out of the facility. Until then, you might want to figure out where we could put the rock so it will not cause problems anymore." With that, he and Buckle fly off.

I look down to Dart, "you gonna come with me or go with them?" I ask, kneeling down next to him.

"Um, I think I'll go with you. Don't need you getting attacked by some wild animal without someone to go for help," he said. Dart walks over to my foot and tugs on the leg of my pants, then starts hauling himself up my leg.

"Dart, what are you doing?" I ask him, raising a brow at his silliness.

"Well you didn't lower your hand so I'm improvising." He replied, continuing to climb my leg.

I don't say anything else and just watch him climb. Once he reached my knee, I lowered my hand for him to climb on. He immediately climbed on and crouched down as I stood up. I set him on my shoulder and head towards the near by clearing to make a spot to put the bolder.

(Time Skip)

It took a while, but I eventually managed to clear a decent sized spot for the boulder. I'm walking back over to the it, Dart sitting on my shoulder, when I see Charlie and Scratch sitting on top of the boulder.
"Hey guys, everyone out of the way?" I ask, leaning against the large rock.

"Yup, everyone's in the underground safety bunkers. You ready to move the boulder?" Scratch asks, standing up and walking closer to me.

"You bet buddy. Now let's get this rock rollin'," I say.

"Don't start making rock puns, please!" Dart pleads from my shoulder.

I laugh, glancing through the corner of my eye at him. "Oh come on Dart, you know you like them." I look back down at Scratch, who is standing beside my foot, looking ready to start climbing up my leg. "Want a hand buddy?" I ask shifting to kneel down.

"Ya that'd be nice," he replied.

I lower my hand to him, palm up, and wait for him to climb on. Once he's on, I raise my hand to place him on my shoulder with Dart. "So, I'm good to try and move this thing now?" I ask, double checking that no one will be out and about.

"You bet, everyone is safe and secure, away from the area. So how are you planning on moving this bloody thing?' Scratch asks me,

"Mainly by pushing it, but I may have to come up with something else if that doesn't work. It's not staying here either way," I reply.

  I stand up and walk over to the rock. I brace my hands against the boulder and start to push in the direction of the clearing. It doesn't budge! I take a step back before trying again, this time having a bit of momentum behind me. It slowly starts to move but still doesn't move from the trail. I decide to get a running start, so I take several steps back and then run at the rock with my hands out stretched to try and push the rock out of the way. This time it works, the rock slowly rolls of the path and down the little hill to the clearing. I jog lightly to keep up with the rock but not enough to knock Scratch and Dart from my shoulder.
  Soon enough, I direct the rock to the small pot hole I made.

"Well that was fun. Hey Charlie, Buckle, you can tell everyone it's safe to come out. Dart, Scratch and I need to head back to camp before my parents come looking for me. We'll see you guys later,"

"Ok, we shall inform everyone that it's safe. And you are always welcome here, please come back any time. Actually, how would you like to come back later? We're having our coming of age ceremony for some of our young ones tonight an hour after sun down," Charlie offers us.

"Well it sounds like fun, we would love to attend. I'll see if I can sneak us out after dark," I say.

"We hope to see you there, have a safe trip back." Buckle says, seeming to appear out of nowhere.

"We will," Scratch say as I begin to walk away.

  We slowly make our way back to camp, joking and laughing the whole way.

To be continued. . .

Squirt out 🤠