Johnny waited for about ten minutes. All this time the loudspeaker in the tower was shouting for Johnny to come back in. Finally the voice changed. It was Johnny's father's voice.
"Johnny," his father said over the speaker. "Come on in here! Please! I'm here now. Johnny!"
Johnny heard a tank starting up inside. He didn't want any tanks coming after him.
"Come on, friends," he clicked to the animals. He climbed back up on the rhinosaur's back. The leopard came running up with her cubs. The arrow-bird and the monkey, taking no chances, followed behind them, leaped to its usual perch—the top of Johnny's head.
"Let's go!" Johnny clicked to the rhinosaur. "Walk very slowly out toward the big black place."
Johnny clicked to one of the cubs to jump up on the rhinosaur's back beside him. Johnny crawled to the broad head of the rhinosaur between two of its horns. The leopard cub sat on its haunches beside him. The mother leopard and the other cub ran alongside them. The rhinosaur's hooves made muffled thunder as he walked.
A big grin on his face, and waving his hand, Johnny emerged from the jungle into full sight of his father, Jeb, and many others inside the guard tower.
"Stop when we get a little way from the door," Johnny said to the rhinosaur. The big beast grunted its understanding.
Johnny and his friends came to a halt close enough to the tower so that Johnny's voice could be heard.
"Open the gate, please," Johnny shouted. "We want to come inside." He saw his father's startled face above him. "Hello, Dad. How's Mom? Did she worry too much?"