[CHAPTER SEVENTEEN]
Teachers Can't Play Hookey
It was now an hour after the Earth rocket had blasted off on its way back to Earth. Johnny Watson lay on his stomach with his chin cupped in his hands and looked down from the top of New Plymouth Rock. Beside him, twisted into the same position, was his friend Baba, his blue nails glowing in Venus' pearly light. Near the two friends, perched on a boulder, were two of the large Venus eagles, watching every move they made.
How changed it all was down in the settlement! People were streaming back from the rocket field on foot and without armor. Beside the Jenkins family strode Mona, the leopardess, carrying a basket in her mouth. In the basket the Jenkins' baby slept. Mona just loved babies. Down in the marshberry fields three rhinosaurs peacefully browsed. There were so many berries available now in the sea marshes that no one had to worry about the few in the fields. The marva had left these three rhinosaurs to carry people wherever they might want to go.
High in the sky was a faint dot. Baba nudged Johnny and pointed.
"Here comes Keetack," he said in his clicking language. "We'll have to go down pretty soon."
"I suppose so," Johnny said wearily.
It had been fun for a while being the only person who understood the marva language. When Dad and the other colonists had gone into the jungle to talk with the council of all the marva groves, Johnny and Baba had been there too—the center of attention. When the men spoke, Baba told the marva what they meant. When the marva spoke, Johnny had to tell the men what the bears meant. It had been fun being so important. It had been fun being treated like heroes, but they were already tired of it. With their new freedom to travel, there was a whole continent to explore, and hundreds of new friends to make.
Idly, Johnny watched the dot, that Baba said was Keetack, grow into a bird with a twenty-foot wing spread flying through the sky. In its claws was a small black-muzzled bouncing bear. Baba's eyes were magically good. The bird was a Venus eagle—the marva's airplane. Before men had come and made it dangerous for them, the marva had flown anywhere they wanted to go in the talons of these great birds. Johnny knew that the earliest hunters thought the eagles were preying upon the bears. It was just one more surprising thing about the little bears. Johnny remembered what Rick had said when he had arrived home, his wound all healed. He had really grown to respect the marva.
"They have learned to live with other creatures, and have taught all their friends, as they call the animals, to live in peace together. The meat eaters have their meat trees so they don't need to attack other animals—it's amazing," Rick reported.