Chapter Text
Minutes passed by, a great many minutes. Dot and Lotta stayed mostly still as they slept, but Audrey was tossing and turning every few hours. She also groaned and whimpered a few times in fear. There was no doubt that she was seeing the Big Bad Wolf in her dreams - she was that terrified of him. Her friends were lucky that she didn't wake up screaming, nor did she scream at all, for that matter. Finally, the sun began to rise, turning the color of the sky from dark blue to a much lighter shade.
When it was about seven o'clock in the morning, Dot and Lotta opened their eyes, almost in unison. They sat up in their sleeping bags, with Lotta stretching her arms up over her head and Dot yawning quietly into her hand. It wasn't until after they were done doing these that they noticed Audrey hadn't woken up yet. Dot turned to her and placed her hand on her shoulder, moving it gently to wake her up.
"Audrey?" Hearing her voice made Audrey open her eyes very slightly. Her vision was blurry at first, but it quickly cleared to reveal Dot, looking at her with a friendly greeting smile. "Good morning."
Audrey sat up, her eyes having bags underneath them but now halfway open. "Morning, guys..." She gave a big yawn into her hand, and then rubbed her heavy eyes with both of her fists.
"Are you alright? You look like you've had a rough night," Lotta said, "not that we didn't have a rough night, too."
"Yeah," Audrey muttered in agreement. She gave another yawn and rubbed her eyes some more. "For once, I don't feel like doing much today..."
"I can tell," said Dot. "But I'm afraid there's not much time to get any more sleep. We have work to do."
Audrey nodded in understanding, and then all three of the Harvey Girls stepped out of their sleeping bags. They changed from their pajamas to the clothes they wore the morning before, and then made their way out of their tent. Then they went over to the lake to wash up: Audrey rubbed some fresh water into her eyes to help them feel less tired, while Dot and Lotta washed their faces and brushed their teeth. At least they had brought their toothbrushes with them on this camping trip.
"Last night, I had the worst dream," Audrey mentioned. "I dreamed that we saw the Big Bad Wolf again, and this time, he was about to eat me right up!"
"Oh, Audrey, I'm so sorry!" Lotta said in sympathy. "What could be worse than a nightmare about being eaten?"
"I'd say, having that nightmare come true right before our eyes like it did yesterday," Dot commented.
"You couldn't be righter," said Lotta. "We can't let ourselves get eaten by that Big Bad Wolf!"
"No kidding, we can't!" Audrey agreed. "What's Harvey Street gonna do without us?"
"Let's not worry about that just yet," Dot advised. "What we need is a way to outsmart that Big Bad Wolf while we're still safe."
Audrey and Lotta nodded in agreement. Soon they were done washing up, and then they made their way back to the campsite to cook their breakfast. Today they were going to have some sausages that Audrey had brought the day before. As Dot held a handled iron pan over the flames of the campfire, she and her friends discussed what to do.
"I think we should fight that Big Bad Wolf," Audrey suggested. "It'll be like in the action movies where the hero fights the bad guys!"
"I don't think so," Dot disagreed. She was flipping each one of the browning sausages to this side and that with a plastic spatula she'd brought, holding the handle of the pan in her other hand. "He's clearly stronger than the three of us put together - no offense, Lotta."
"It's alright, I was thinking the same thing," Lotta mentioned. Then she said, "We could ask him politely, but I don't think there's any way that could work."
"Yeah," said Audrey. "He'd probably be like, 'So you have good manners, so what? You can't tell me what to do!'"
Lotta looked a bit worried. "Why do I feel like that's exactly what he'd say?"
"Well, if we can't fight him, and we can't be nice to him," Dot stated, "perhaps there's a way we can incapacitate him for as long as possible. Perhaps we could play music when he tries to eat us and see if he starts dancing, or we could leave out something sharp for him to step on."
"Are you sure about that?" Lotta didn't sound like she approved of the latter idea. "He doesn't deserve to be hurt..."
"Maybe he wouldn't if he hadn't been so mean, let alone tried to eat us!" Audrey snapped. Lotta could see the point she made, so she stopped talking.
"And that reminds me," Dot went on as she moved the pan ever so slightly, "we got away from him the first time by making him sneeze."
"You think we should start making him sneeze?" Lotta asked.
"Well, I don't. When was the last time we solved a problem just by making someone sneeze?" Audrey asked, rhetorically, "and besides, his one sneeze was really scary!"
"Yes, but in the time it took him to build up and explode, we were able to make our escape," explained Dot. "And if dust was able to make him sneeze incredibly loudly, perhaps other irritants, like pollen, can make him sneeze almost as hard or even harder."
Audrey thought about this for a long moment. "Well, I guess maybe we could try it..."
Finally, the sausages were ready. Four of them had been cooked altogether, and they each went on a plate - two for Audrey, one for Dot, and one for Lotta. They began to eat, with Audrey using the side of her fork to slice off a small piece of her first sausage and biting into it before chewing. It tasted good, but it was missing two things: salt, and pepper.
Audrey picked up the salt shaker and sprinkled four shakes of the grainy white condiment onto her sausages. Then she put it down and picked up the pepper shaker, sprinkling three shakes of pepper onto her sausages. But as she did so, some of the black pepper particles floated up into her nostrils, causing her eyes to widen and her pupils to shrink. Her nose froze for a moment, but then began to twitch wildly as her nostrils flared.
As this was happening, Dot and Lotta turned to look at her in curiosity. But as soon as they saw the look on her face, their curiosity quickly turned to worry.
"A-Audrey?" Lotta asked.
"Oh, no..." Dot whimpered in fear.
"Aaaaah..." Audrey inhaled, lowering her eyelids as she tilted her neck back. "Haaaaaah..." She inhaled again, tilting her upper body back even more. Her eyes fell shut. She was going to sneeze, she just knew it... "AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH--!"
When she heard that final breath, Lotta turned away from Audrey as she put both of her hands to her ears. On the other hand, Dot reached over and placed her forefinger underneath Audrey's nose. She was hoping that would stop the sneeze, but the expression on Audrey's face told her it wasn't a good idea.
"D-Dot..." Audrey tried to say. "I, I'm going to...!"
"I figured you are!" Dot pulled her forefinger away from Audrey's nose, then turned away from her as she plugged her ears with her forefingers. A final inhale later, Audrey exploded with a loud and powerful sneeze - that was somehow still not as big as the Big Bad Wolf's sneeze from the night before.
"HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-TTTTTTCCCCCCHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!"
Large amounts of spray and mucus came rushing out of Audrey's mouth and nose as she released the sneeze, shooting her upper body forward as she did so. Thankfully, neither of her friends were sprayed, nor was any of their food. That being said, it had been quite a forceful sneeze; Audrey sulked as she brought her forefinger up to rub her nose.
Dot and Lotta opened their eyes and removed their hands from their ears, both of their eyes wide with disbelief.
"Gesundheit, Audrey!" said Dot.
"Yeah. Gesundheit!" Lotta wasn't sure if she was saying it right, but that wasn't the point.
"Thanks..." Audrey sniffled and continued to rub her nose. "Man, pepper really knows how to make me sneeze."
"Indeed, it does," Dot replied with agreement. Just then, however, she looked over at the pepper shaker that had caused Audrey to sneeze. She had gotten an idea, one that she quickly began to think over.
"Hmm... You don't suppose the Big Bad Wolf is capable of sneezing from pepper, do you?"
"Well, if it makes me sneeze, and the Big Bad Wolf can already sneeze..." Audrey pulled her forefinger away from her nose as she said that. She was now beginning to see the point Dot was making. Lotta could see it, too.
"Then maybe," Lotta finished, "this can make the Wolf sneeze, too..."
The Harvey Girls nodded at their conclusion as they continued to enjoy their breakfast. At least Audrey's sausages tasted better now that she had applied salt and pepper to them, even though the pepper had caused her to sneeze.
Once they were finished with their breakfast, Audrey, Dot and Lotta cleaned up their dishes, put them away, and then began to walk around the forest for supplies. They found all sorts of things; sticks, leaves, rocks, and pine cones. They picked up whatever they could find and placed it in their backpacks, but steered clear of things that looked dangerous or poisonous. If their pepper wouldn't work, at least they had a good amount of materials needed to set up a trap for the Big Bad Wolf.
That being said, they also collected a few sneeze-causing irritants that they'd found. Lotta picked a few flowers, with Dot storing the pollen from them in a spare glass bottle that she'd brought along with her, and Audrey found a couple of feathers that were quite soft to the touch. She couldn’t help but wonder if the Big Bad Wolf was ticklish as well, but it was an idea she kept from either of her friends so they wouldn’t find it bizarre.
"Alright, we have every resource we need for when the Big Bad Wolf comes back tonight," Dot stated. "But do you girls have any other suggestions on how we should distract him?"
"Well, I did bring my harmonica," Audrey reached into her backpack and pulled out the little instrument, "and I haven't gotten any better at it."
She blew into it once, causing some discordant notes to emerge. Hearing it causes Dot and Lotta to wince; those notes sounded terrible together.
"Did I mention I haven't tuned it?" Audrey then mentioned, pulling her mouth away from her instrument.
"Still?!" Dot sounded like she could believe it, but she then saw the point Audrey was making. "Well, if it still sounds grating to the human ears, perhaps the Big Bad Wolf won't be happy to hear it, either."
"Yeah," Lotta said with a nod of agreement.
"In that case, I'll try it out when he gets here." Audrey tossed the harmonica back into her backpack, without even paying attention to where she was putting it. "But don't blame me if it doesn't work..."
"Oh, we won't," Lotta replied. "Or at least, we'll try..."
"Indeed," Dot agreed, "even though that won't be easy, either. Now, about our sneeze-causing substances..."
"I found some feathers for that." Audrey reached into her pocket and pulled out some of the feathers she'd found. "See? I mean, I've sneezed from them tickling my nose before."
"Indeed, you have," Dot replied. "And aside from that and our supply of pepper, we also have some pollen." She reached behind her back and pulled out a bottle of pollen. Thankfully, the top of the bottle was sealed shut with a plastic cork, preventing any of the powdery yellow substance from coming out.
"You think the wolf is allergic to pollen?" Lotta asked.
"Honestly, it wouldn't surprise me if he was," said Dot. "Pollen does cause sneezing, after all, especially when it finds its way into one's nostrils or nasal passages."
"You're telling me," replied Audrey. "I'm just glad I haven't sneezed from that stuff in a while. Heck, I can't even afford to - it could make me sneeze like the whale from Pinocchio!"
Lotta couldn't help but cringe once Audrey had stated that, but she pushed her fear of that scene aside for now. She and her friends had a serious situation to take care of, and they were going to take care of it, one way or another.
To be continued, someday...