EPISODE 46: SCAT'S HONEYFRUIT HOARD

CHARACTERS

Dink

Amber

Shyler

Flapper

Scat

Tyrannor

Scat the Compsognathus loved leaves and melonberries and all sorts of fruit. But what he really liked most of all, what he loved about all others, was honeyfruit. He would even go into the dangerous Hunter's Grove to get it.

Right now, however, he didn't have to go get any from Hunter's Grove because there was plenty nearby in Green Meadow. He grabbed all of the low-hanging fruit that he could find. After spending two hours gathering these, he had made quite a pile. Still, he wanted more. It couldn't hurt to have extra in case something happened that led to a honeyfruit shortage.

"That's quite a pile you've got there." Flapper remarked.

"Scat saving honeyfruit for future."

"It looks like you have enough to last a while already."

"Scat can't be too careful. Always could use more."

"Well, I'm going to be practicing my water landings."

Scat continued to gather honeyfruit. Suddenly, the ground began to shake. "Oh no, Earthshaker!" he cried. The ground began to open up underneath him and he was forced to flee, leaving his honeyfruit to fall into the chasm that the earthquake had opened up. "All of Scat's honeyfruit gone!" he moaned.

Flapper came flying by a few seconds later. "Scat, Scat, are you all right?" he cried, searching for his friend.

"Scat down here. Scat fine but Earthshaker destroy all of Scat's honeyfruit!"

"That's too bad, Scat. But you can always get new honeyfruit."

"Scat spent hours gathering all of that honeyfruit!"

"Well, there's plenty of honeyfruit around so it shouldn't be hard to find more."

A few hours later, Dink approached Scat, who had been trying his best to replenish his lost hoard as quickly as he could. "Scat, I think it's time you took a break. Let's play a game of hide-and-seek."

"Scat need to replenish honeyfruit supply!"

"Can't you take a break for a bit?"

"Ok, Scat guess so."

A few minutes later, they had begun playing a game of hide-and-seek; Scat had been chosen to be it. Scat had just tagged Shyler and was looking for Dink, Amber, and Flapper. He decided to try and find Flapper next. While looking upward for the Bigwing, he noticed a cluster of honeyfruit. "Honeyfruit!" he cried excitedly. Forgetting about his game of hide-and-seek, he began to climb up a tree toward the honeyfruit. He grabbed onto the honeyfruit and pulled it down to the ground. He spotted other bunches of honeyfruit nearby and began trying to capture them as well.

Meanwhile, Dink, Amber, and Flapper had begun to wonder where Scat was. "I'm worried about Scat. He hasn't come anywhere near our hiding spots yet." Dink said to the others.

"Maybe we've found some really good ones." Flapper chuckled, clearly not too concerned.

"I don't know. It's been over 10 minutes and no sigh of him. Scat found Shyler right away." Amber remarked.

"Have you guys seen Scat?" It was Shyler.

"No, we haven't." Dink replied

"Where could he have gone to?" Amber asked.

"I think I know." Dink sighed.

Meanwhile, Scat had gathered several clusters of honeyfruit. He was pulling down another cluster when Amber called to him "Hey Scat, aren't you forgetting something?"

"You're right." Scat turned around and picked up a cluster of honeyfruit that he'd missed. He nearly dropped all of the honeyfruit that he was carrying, as he was already had his hands quite full.

"No, I mean about our game." Amber replied.

"What game?"

"Our game of hide-and-seek."

"Oops, Scat become distracted."

"You were supposed to be taking a break from gathering honeyfruit." Dink scolded him.

"Oh yeah."

"Well come on. I'll be it." Dink said.

"Ok." Scat replied, not even looking at him but instead trying to tug honeyfruit off of a vine.

"Scat! Pay attention!"

Scat stopped tugging on the honeyfruit and turned around. "Sorry Dink."

They resumed their game of hide-and-seek. Scat went off to go hide. As he found what he thought was a good hiding spot behind some bushes, he spotted more honeyfruit. He pulled it from the vine and walked off with it.

Two minutes later, Dink said "Ready or not, here I come." He found Amber first. Her hiding spot, in a big pile of leaves, had been a good one. However, what she hadn't counted on was a big gust of wind coming by and blowing a bunch of the leaves away, blowing her cover as Dink approached. "Found you Amber."

"Stupid wind!" Amber grumbled.

Sometime later, the two of them found Shyler, who had hidden behind a large boulder. "Aw gee, you found me!" he sighed.

Sometime later, they found Flapper, who, thinking they would never find him in a tree, had started to giggle as they walked past. "Scat must have found a really good hiding spot." Flapper remarked.

Ten minutes later, they still could not find him. "Scat, you can come out now! We've found everyone else!" Dink called.

"Hey Scat, come here, we have plenty of honeyfruit!" Flapper shouted.

"We don't have any honeyfruit, Flap; why are you lying?" Shyler scolded him.

"If Scat thinks there is honeyfruit, he'll come to get it, even if he's caught in quicksand."

"Honeyfruit!" Amber gasped.

"Of course, why didn't we think of it before?" Dink groaned.

"Think of what?" Shyler asked.

"Come on!" Dink said.

Sometime later, Scat was carrying a big cluster of honeyfruit when Flapper landed beside him. "Hello Flapper, want to help Scat with this honeyfruit?"

"No, I'm here about our game of hide-and-seek."

"What game Flapper talking about? Scat busy gathering honeyfruit."

"The game we were playing." Dink said.

"Oh hi Dink. Scat can't play your hide-and-seek game right now. Scat too busy gathering honeyfruit."

Dink, irate at Scat's behavior, stomped on a cluster of honeyfruit that Scat had been dragging. "Enough Scat!"

"Hey, you crushed Scat's honeyfruit!"

"Scat we were playing a game and once more you were distracted by honeyfruit!" Amber scolded him.

"Scat sorry."

"Scat, I think you need to lay off the honeyfruit for a while. You're spending too much time gathering it." Shyler said.

"No, Scat not!"

"This is the second time you've wandered off from playing games with us to go gather honeyfruit." Amber said.

"What wrong with honeyfruit?"

"Nothing is wrong with honeyfruit, but….." Dink began.

"Then Scat not sure what problem is."

Flapper facepalmed. "As I was saying, " Dink continued, "there is nothing wrong with honeyfruit itself, but your obsession with it has become a real problem."

"But Scat like honeyfruit!"

"You can like something and not be obsessed with it!" Dink snapped.

"Scat not obsessed!"

"Yes you are!" Amber yelled.

"Scat, I think it's time you took a break from honeyfruit." Dink said.

"Take a break from honeyfruit?"

"Yes, for at least three days."

"Three days! That forever!"

"Don't worry Scat, you can do it." Shyler said.

"Scat guess so." the Compsognathus sighed mournfully.

Several minutes later, the group was going on a hike across Green Meadow. So far, Scat had done his best not to think about honeyfruit. However, it took a conscious effort, so much so, in fact, that he absentmindedly began to walk up a Longneck as thought it were a hill and then fell several feet to the ground after walking off of the creature's head.

"Scat, are you ok?" Amber asked in concern.

"Scat fine. Scat just had big fall." Scat said, stumbling around, dazed from the fall.

"Glad that you're ok Scat." Shyler said.

"Scat would be better with some honeyfruit." he replied absentmindedly. "Oops, Scat not mean to say that."

"But you did." Dink sighed.

"Has it been three days yet?"

"No Scat, it's not even been three hours yet." Amber replied.

"Oh, it hopeless!"

"Don't say that Scat. I'm sure you can do it." Shyler said.

"Scat hope so."

They finished the rest of their hike and then played several games. Scat had not mentioned honeyfruit in several hours and it seemed to his friends that he had finally ended his strong obsession over it. "Well done Scat on stopping your obsession with honeyfruit." Amber said.

"I told you that you could do it Scat." Shyler said.

"Oh, it nothing." Scat said modestly.

The group headed to go to bed.

"Goodnight Scat." Flapper said.

"Goodnight Flap." Scat yawned, beginning to close his eyes. However, as soon as Flapper and the others had left and he was sure they were gone, his eyes flew open like the door to a Walmart at midnight on Black Friday and he got up and bolted away like Donald Trump and Joe Biden confronted by Shannon Joy as a debate moderator. "Honeyfruit, here I come!" he cried excitedly, giggling like a child who had discovered a secret freezer, packed full of ice cream, that his parents didn't know about. Upon reaching a cluster of honeyfruit, he greedily grabbed it, crying "Mine, mine, mine!" He stuffed several in his mouth and devoured them. "Oh, Scat missed you!" he sighed.

After eating several bunches of honeyfruit, he began to gather it into a large pile. After he had completed one large pile, he made another one next to it and continuing adding to it until it was the size of the one next to it. Eventually, these blended together to make one giant pile. Not satisfied with just one giant pile, Scat kept gathering more and more, which eventually blended together to form a pile nearly 10 feet high by the time the sun came over the horizon in the morning.

Half an hour later, Dink awoke. He up, stretched, and yawned; he then walked about for about a minute, when he encountered Amber, who had also woken up. "Morning Amber."

"Good morning Dink."

The two of them walked together and soon encounter Flapper. "Morning Flap, " Amber said.

"Good morning Dink and Amber. Lovely day, isn't it?"

"Sure is. Let's go find Shyler and Scat," Dink said.

They found Shyler, but when they went to the place where Scat had been sleeping, he was gone. "Guess he's already up," Shyer remarked.

However, after searching for several minutes, they still couldn't find him. "Where could he be?" Amber asked Dink.

"I fear I know the answer to that," Dink sighed.

Meanwhile, Scat continued to add to his huge pile of honeyfruit. He hummed to himself absentmindedly while carrying cluster after cluster to his huge hoard. "Hey Scat, what are you doing?" came Dink's voice.

"Oh hi Dink," Scat replied, still carrying his honeyfruit.

"You lied to us!"

Scat didn't know what to say. "What you talking about Dink?" he finally said, trying to play dumb.

"You know exactly what I'm talking about, Scat!"

Scat stood in front of the huge pile of honeyfruit, which was many times wider and taller than himself, in a vain attempt to block it from view. "Nope, Scat not know."

"Stop lying Scat! You've gone back to honeyfruit again after promising not to!" Amber scolded him angrily.

"Scat like honeyfruit! Scat not going to stop!" the Compsognathus defiantly declared.

"Fine, then you can stay with your honeyfruit instead of us! We're not going to be your friends anymore!" Dink snapped. The others left with Dink, leaving Scat alone with the honeyfruit.

"Fine, Scat not need any of you!" the Compsognathus bellowed.

Meanwhile, the T-rex Hunter Tyrannor had snuck into Green Meadow; he caught a whiff of the scents of Flapper, Dink, Amber, and Shyler and took off in their direction. The children were unaware that Tyrannor was after them. "I can't believe Scat is so obsessed with honeyfruit," Dink sighed.

"Me either. But until he can come to his senses and comes back to us and apologize, I don't want to see him anymore," Amber said.

"Gosh Amber, that seems a bit harsh," Shyler remarked.

"Not really Shyler. Scat's obsessed with honeyfruit. He's spent all night gathering it after promising to forget about it for a few days." Flapper said. He chuckled. "And I've had to go into Hunter's Grove after Scat many times because he went there to get honeyfruit, oblivious to the danger of Hunters, particularly….."

ROAR!

"Tyrannor!" They all cried.

Scat, meanwhile, unaware that his friends were being chased by Tyrannor, continued to gather honeyfruit. "Scat not need Dink, Amber, Shyler, or Flapper. Scat have honeyfruit."

"Help, it's Tyrannor!" came Dink's voice.

"Sound like Dink in trouble." Scat said to himself. He wanted to help. However, he was the smallest of the group and Tyrannor was a huge and fierce Hunter. What could he possibly do to stop him? If only he were bigger or had something big to fight him with. As he thought, he realized that he did in fact having something big that could be used against Tyrannor: his large collection of honeyfruit.

Dink and the others, meanwhile, had run up against a dead end, an unclimbable canyon wall ahead of them. "We're trapped!" Dink moaned.

Scat whistled, diverting Tyrannor's attention. "Over here! Scat have present for you!"

Tyrannor turned away from the others to stare at Scat. KERSPLAT! Scat hit Tyrannor with a honeyfruit right between the eyes, splattering him with the goo. This greatly angered the Hunter, and he took off after Scat.

"What's Scat doing? He can't take on Tyrannor all by himself!" Amber cried in concern.

Scat, however, did have a plan. "Scat hope this work." he said to himself.

As Tyrannor neared, he pushed against his pile of honeyfruit, which was precariously balanced from all the fruit he had added to it. The honeyfruit toppled and knocked Tyrannor over. Some of it even landed in the shocked Hunter's mouth. PTTTTH! PTUUUH! Tyrannor spat out the honeyfruit and snarled. However, before he could fully stand up again and advance toward Scat, the Compsognathus pushed over several other piles of honeyfruit, which collided with him. They cascading pile of honeyfruit knocked the Tyrannosaurid over and carried him off a cliff. Luckily for him, it was not a steep cliff, so he only was bruised when he hit bottom. The Hunter got back up and stormed off in disgust.

"Oh, all of Scat's honeyfruit ruined!" Scat lamented.

"Scat, you saved us!" Flapper cried.

"You're a hero!" Amber exclaimed.

"Thank you Scat!" Shyler said.

"Scat, you did it; you sacrificed your honeyfruit to save us!" Dink said.

"Scat's friends more important than honeyfruit." Scat declared.

"We're glad to have the old Scat back." Amber said.

"Scat promise never to hoard honeyfruit again."

"So what are you going to do now Scat?" Flapper asked.

"Scat hungry from all this action. Scat going to go eat some honeyfruit." All of his friends laughed.