Chapter Sixteen (part c)

"It's strange," she said. "But I feel kind of funny, like the time before when the rabbits ran us over."

"Hey, you're right!" said Rachael. "I feel that way too! "

"Look!" exclaimed Jamie. "Everything's changing!"

And everything was. The buffaloes were suddenly galloping across the field. They seemed to be chasing a small fat gopher who was running just a few feet in front of the charging herd. The zebra who was grazing between the two nearby trees looked up as the buffaloes approached. He whinneyed loudly and then all at once he stood up on his hind legs. Or did he? And was he really a zebra? It was hard to tell, he looked a little bit more like something else. So did the buffaloes. They looked a lot like... soccer players?

Soccer players! That's just what they were and the gopher, he wasn't a gopher at all, he was a soccer ball!

"Look out!" someone shouted. "Get out of the way!"

The zebra was calling, but he didn't look like a zebra anymore, he looked more like a goalie in a striped shirt, which in fact was just what he was!

"Get out of the way you jerk!" he yelled at them.

He definitely had a point. They were all back in the ravine again and they'd arrived right in the middle of a soccer game! There were goal posts where the birch trees had been just a moment before and the herd of wild buffaloes had become a pack of soccer players, equally as wild but in quite a different way. They had nothing left to kick anymore.

Jennifer had thrown herself down on the poor gopher to keep him from getting trampled. Even though he was just a soccer ball, she wasn't quite sure she should let it go. While she was deciding the soccer players came running up, but luckily Rachael knew just what to do. She grabbed the soccer ball and waved it up over her head.

"Corner kick!" she yelled. "Corner kick!"

"No way,!" yelled one of the soccer players. "It's a save and that means a goalie kick!"

"She's not the goalie, he is!" argued another.

"And she's not even on your team!" shouted a third.

It was all a little too hard to explain, so they didn't. Rachael placed the soccer ball on the corner spot and whistled loudly between two fingers. The players responded and the game resumed. Thump! The soccer ball was kicked into play. Jennifer winced.

"Don't worry," said Jamie. "It's not a gopher anymore."

"I know," said Jennifer and she smiled. "It's just that it's hard to see things the same way as I did before."

The soccer game was going full tilt again and the teams went running back towards the goal at the other end.

"They do look a lot like buffaloes," said Rachael.

Everyone laughed. It was true.

"Makes you wonder what a buffalo sees when he looks at us," said Jennifer thoughtfully.

On the way home they took a short-cut over a pedestrian bridge that spanned the ravine. They stopped for a moment in the middle and looked out at the parkland below. Slowly and carefully they traced the path they had taken just a short time ago. The game was still going on at the soccer field. A big tractor mower was cutting the grass in a large open field nearby. A stream meandered past a small marsh and on under a bridge, then off through a grove of trees. They could even see the jogging path that went back up the ravine towards Moffat's house.

"Everything looks the same, only different," said Jamie.

"Yeah," said Rachael. "I can still see it, sort of."

"It's all still right there!" said Jennifer.

"Yes, it is," said Jamie. "But shhh! Don't tell...

"It's a secret!" finished Rachael and she laughed.

"It's a very good secret," said Jennifer. "I like it!"

"Me too," said Jamie.

"Me three," said Rachael. "Even so if you ask me, it was all pretty weird, I mean now I've seen everything!"

But actually Rachael was wrong about that. All at once someone very familiar came flying by high in the sky overhead. When they realized who it was they could hardly believe their eyes.

"Great-grandfather Moffat!" cried out Jennifer in surprise. "Is that really you?"