Mud Play

With the help of our unbelievable Kruger, the construction of my little forest cottage is progressing at a great rate. After just one afternoon, we have built the overall housing framework, and the wattles crossed with stems and branches well formed the bones of the wall.

The next step is to go to the creek and carry some sticky mud, and then mix the mud with dead leaves and weeds. After daubing the mixture on the wall, we can just wait for them to dry out.

However, I met the first problem at the beginning of the mud collecting: I only have one plastic collapsible bucket and I have planned to use it as a container to wash my clothes, so how to transport the mud with a high efficiency became a problem.

Playing with the stems we left before, I came up with a good idea, "Kruger, I think you will have time to hunt with others today after helping me send those mud to the hut."

In order to finish building the hut in double-quick time, Kruger even ditched to lead beasts to go hunting yesterday — he asked someone else to do his job. As an alpha, Kruger sure has his own duties, I don't want to get in the way because of my personal needs.

I weaved four big baskets with those stems and padded them with large palm leaves in case Kruger's fur would get dirty, and then I asked him to shift into the animal form. After arranging the basket in pairs, in the end, I used two nylon ropes to tie them together and hung those baskets on Kruger's back.

Rolling over to ride on his back myself, I bent down my body and held his neck tightly, "Don't jerk me up again this time, Kruger. We got things on your back now, so pay attention, please."

"Ow Ow!"

While rubbing the giant wolf's fluffy neck and chin, I kept nagging about my future plans. With his occasional "Ow" as a response, we chatted all the way to the creek bank.

After curling up the legs of my trousers, I was about to take off my shoes and step into the water to dig the mud with Kruger, he held me from behind and carried me to the tree near the creek. Pushing me to sit down, this beast smiled at me and spoke:

"The water is freezing to you, right? To prevent you from getting a cold, I think you'd better just sit down under the tree and wait for us."

Aww, he is such a considerate gentleman...Wait, what?

Us?

It seems that only Kruger and me were here, why did he say "us"? Where is the third one?

No sooner than I had brought up my doubt, Kruger raised his voice and yelled to the other side of the stream:

"Kangaroo over here! Come out! LuLu needs help now!"

"I reluctantly agree to let you enter our domain until LuLu finishes her project."

...

It turns out that Duncan has never left.

During the past two days, he just sneaked around the thylacine tribe, wandering and looking for opportunities to see me, and waiting for the chance that he can offer some help.

The lusty and brawny Duncan strolled across the creek, nodded at me with his shy face, and then turned his head to look at Kruger — his red ears appeared in front of my eyes:

"What should I do?"

"Come and dig these mud near the stream bank, and then put them in these baskets. When I change to the beast form, you can hang the ropes on my back."

Kruger replied to Duncan and then took a good look at him, seemed like he has more plans, "LuLu, can you please weave one more basket? I think Duncan can bring one back as well after our digging."

That sounds good, in this way, maybe we can transport all the mud we need at one time.

Thinking of mixing a lot of crushed leaves and weeds in the mud, I decided to make two more baskets — one for the mud and one for the leaves. The next time in this afternoon, Duncan and Kruger were squatting down to dig mud near the creek, and I was collecting the leaves under the trees.

...

I totally didn't expect that picking up leaves is one kind of manual labour. Just about one hour later, my waist and back started to feel sore, but I only collected less than half of the basket! It seems like bending the waist up and down to look around made me feel sick.

Holding my lower back and standing up straight, I pounded my back with my fist and decided to do some stretching.

Kirra, Bindi and Marlee were coming to say hi. After a length of time studying the beast language, I have been able to communicate with them simply one week ago. And I didn't know until then that they were all from different tribes, and of course they didn't speak each other's language, so the beast language is the only way to talk freely for all of us.

The leaves have been collected so much quicker when there're four people working together. As long as we filled up the basket, Duncan and Kruger over there also finished packing five piles of dirt.

Instead of sitting on Kruger's back and letting him take me to the hut, I told him to run back ahead and catch up with his friends in the tribe — it's close to the time they usually hunt. As for me, I can hold the basket and stroll along the route, chatting with the other three females while walking back.

They showed some interest when heard about me building my own shelter and purposed to join the constructors' team. So all the females went back to the yard Kruger cleaned before, together with Duncan, we circled around the basket of leaves. After sitting down, all the others are curiously gazing at me, watching the process of kneading the mud and adding weeds and leaves to it — this process gives the mixture a tensile strength, and the daub will form a relatively steady and durable wall.

Chatting and playing with the mud together, we couldn't notice the time passing.

"LULU!!! I am back, I miss you SOOO much!"

Before actually seeing Kruger's body, his voice showed up far away from the hut. Kruger ran fast towards us with his arms open, "guess what did we hunt today!"

...

Before reaching my side, Kruger suddenly stopped, and his voice became nervous:

"LuLu! What are you guys doing now?"

"Eww..."

"Are you playing with the elephants' poops?" 

Hit the brakes and stopped a few steps away, Kruger stared at us, eyes became goggly and his lower jaw fell down to the ground.

???

What?

No!!!