(A tale of the Valbasca Band)
Lina doesn't run.
Lina flies.
And when it lands, there's usually a faint fainting deer or a fainting squirrel.
He has a GPS around his neck because his family, after the third time he jogged with a wild boar, thought it was best to know where the day ends.
But something strange happened that day.
No footprints.
On the usual mule track, nothing: no paws, no hooves, no fluttering tails.
A suspicious silence, like when Frida locks herself in the bathroom with the packet of biscuits.
Lina sniffed, observed, scrutinized.
She had left at seven and by five past nine she had already dived into two fountains, a watering hole and a puddle.
Then he had a meeting.
It was there, at the end of the path: a hare, as big as a scooter.
“And who are you?” thought Lina, lowering herself like an arrow.
But the hare did not run away.
Instead, he looked straight at her and said:
“Everyone is hiding this morning. There was a noise. A loud beep, like an alarm.”
Lina pricked up her ears.
The beep…
Of course! It was his GPS.
He had accidentally activated the “auto return” function.
Every 30 seconds it emitted a space-like sound that made even rocks run away.
She gave a half smile (the one she gets when she's understood everything), turned around and pressed the orange button with her muzzle.
The beeping stopped.
Within ten minutes, a procession of animals reappeared in the woods as if at the end of a storm:
two roe deer, three squirrels, a badger and a wild boar wearing sunglasses.
Lina greeted them, one by one.
Then she took another dip in the big fountain and returned home, soaked but proud.
The Valbasca Band welcomed him with the usual celebrations.
Skye snorted, Frida scolded her (“You look like a salad!”), and Marduk chased after her with a feather he found somewhere.
Lina lay down in the shade and thought that even in the woods, sometimes, all it takes is to turn off a beep to set the world moving again.
