I Kid You Not!

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(Prompt: Imagine you're someone's shadow for a day. Who is it? What do you do?)

Bartholomew was irritated. And an irate echidna is NOT a pretty picture. Each and every hackle stood up so he looked like a small spinifex bush atop the solid-looking mound that cleverly hid a substantial ants' nest.

"NOT more tourists! Oh p-l-e-a-s-e! Gimme a break! When's a fellow meant to digest his dining experience with all this clicking of cameras? That's what I want to know!" Bartholomew didn't actually say the words out loud, mainly because he couldn't. Echidnas don't have vocal chords. So what he lacked in voice, Bartholomew made up for with serious heavy breathing - blowing massive streams of hot air from his tiny mouth. What he could do was make a serious whuff, whuff sound and once again, he found this frightened the tourists, especially when he began to waddle towards them. Between whuffing and raising his spines to their uprightest position, he presented a formidable picture. They were too busy scurrying back to their car to witness his diabolical grin. They would never ever know what a gentle soul hid beneath those ferocious prickles.

The trouble is, they had no idea how important today was, he thought as he flattened down his spines once again. Coming out of his extremely l-o-n-g winter hibernation this year, Bartholomew had revelled in the warming blossoming of the day, as if spring had sprung overnight. Mmmm... he thrummed contentedly... all those ants! His first meal in months had gone on and on when he lay down over the nest, letting the little treaties race mindlessly over his tongue, and then 'schloop' he went, and mobs of the little morsels were scooped up into his mouth.

What a feast this lot served me. He sighed contentedly. Didn't have to 'snout 'em out'. Didn't even have to dig for them this time. They just rushed in like traffic on a freeway disappearing into a tunnel... MY tunnel, this time! Y-U-U-U-U-M-M-Y! Boy! Does that sticky spit of mine come in handy, or what? And after that magnificent munch-out, there I was. Minding my own business I was. All but comatose with the welcome warmth seeping right through my quills, I was.

Finally the message had passed through the entire ant colony - Dire Danger Lurks Above and Time to Batten Down the Hatches. The colony held its collective breath in the hope that the sudden quiet meant the manic marauder would move on to a new stomping ground. Unfortunately for them, this was NOT the reason for the silence. All Bartholomew had been able to do for some hours was nana-nap. Ahh but that sun feels good when the tummy 'downunder' is full, he'd thought as he blew a last huge sigh, dislodging soil around his long nose before drifting off to Echidna Dreamland.

In dreams he was his Mummy's dear little baby again. He couldn't remember his own birth and his earliest days, of course. But someone older and wiser (an Uncle perhaps?) had told him the story of his kind. It wasn't a legend. No. This was the 'real stuff'. In dreams, Bartholomew heard the words as if for the first time. Haarr-humph! The important first thing to know about echidnas is that we are the oldest surviving mammals on Earth today. (Oh yes... that was definitely Uncle Winston, the oldest echidna in our family.) And even in sleep, Bartholomew nodded in agreement with himself. He'd discovered this to be the best practice, as arguing amongst yourself got boring. You always won... every single time.

And it was from Uncle Winston that he'd first learned about the non-voice stuff. He hadn't been able to help himself from interrupting to ask how come they were talking to each other, if they had no voices. "Ahh... easy peasy my young fellow. Although we say and hear the words we speak, it's the rest of the world that has the translation problem. To them, it sounds like we only huffle and whuffle as we shuffle along," and Uncle Winston had WHUFFED loudly to demonstrate this point.

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