Page 48 of Alice & Meg: Summer Vacation
Everyone’s heads whipped around.
There she was.In the middle of a group of deer, maybe five or six, completely surrounded.One particularly aggressive doe was standing on her hind legs, trying to get to the bag of pellets Adley had foolishly held above her head.
“Help!”she shouted and danced in a panicked circle.“They’re mugging me!”
“They’re just hungry!Don’t hurt them!”Greta yelled, clearly more concerned about the animals’ welfare than Adley’s.
“They’re gonna trample me for this corn!”Adley cried.
Wrecker started toward her, but before he could get there, Slayer darted past him.He launched himself over the short wooden gate like a damn action movie hero.
He sprinted toward Adley, dodged a deer, and grabbed her around the waist like she weighed nothing.
“I got you,” he barked as one of the deer nipped at her jacket.
“Let the corn go!”Greta shouted.“Let it goooo!”
“It’s in my sleeve!”Adley shrieked.“They think I’m made of snacks!”
Slayer charged with her carried bridal style, with one deer still chasing them to the very edge.When they were safely outside, he set her down.
Adley clutched her heart.“I saw my life flash before my eyes.It was just deer.Endless deer.”
Raven clapped her hands and doubled over laughing.“You almost got taken out by Bambi’s mom.”
Greta, of course, was unbothered.“That doe had spirit.I like her.”
“That doe was feral,” Adley muttered.
Slayer handed her his bag of animal feed.“You can have mine.”
She stared at it like it was cursed.“Burn it.”
We all gathered around her, laughing, teasing, patting her on the back like she’d just survived something life-threatening.
“You can say you are a total snack now,” Cyn teased.
“That’s a compliment, right?”Adley asked.
“Absolutely,” Meg grinned.
We moved on after that, visiting the aviary where birds landed on your arm for seeds, and then the reptile house, where Slayer made the mistake of tapping on the glass of a sleeping iguana.
“You do realize he just challenged that lizard to a fight,” Greta said and crossed her arms.
Bear grunted.“Whoever blinks first loses.”
Slayer focused on the iguana for fifteen seconds and then triumphantly raised his arms over his head with a shout.“Hell yeah, I win!”
“Dear god,” Adley muttered.
Eventually, we wandered to the gift shop, where Greta bought a stuffed fox she claimed looked exactly like the one that winked at her earlier.
“You’re making that up,” I told her.
“Prove I’m not,” she said smugly and held up her new stuffed friend like it was a trophy.
King found a tiny turtle figurine and handed it to Meg.“For the collection.”
