A Day in the Life of Perry the Prickler by Perry the Prickler

Originally posted on Sporadic Reads.

Some of you might be wondering who the scorch Perry the Prickler is, but I hope most of you are screaming, “I love you, Perry!” By the end, I hope I can add all of you to my growing list of fans across the world.

Before I get into a typical day in my life, I’ll explain who and what I am to those of you who are a bit slow and haven’t yet read Fire Country by David Estes. A prickler, which is what I am, is what most of you twenty-first century humans call a cactus. So yeah, I’m a cactus. Before you yell out “BORING!” and close this webpage, give me a chance to show you just how awesome I really am. (And if that’s not enough incentive to keep reading, if you don’t read the whole way through I’ll jab you with my prickly barbs. And your friends, too!)

More specifically, I’m a cactus in a place called FireCountry, a rough land of desert sands and barren cliffs, where the few survivors are either built for the hot-as-scorch climate (like me!) or learn to survive over the course of many years, like a few of the human tribes that live here.

You’re probably still thinking that my life as a cactus in the desert would be boring, right? I mean, I’ve got no way of moving around because my legs are stuck in the sand, I have no one to talk to except the buzzards and crows—who like to use me for bathroom target practice—and I have very few friends. Trust me, my life is anything but boring. So let me tell you the story of what happened today…

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…wait, wrong story, let me try that again. Once upon a time…no, no, no, stupid, Perry! Bad, Perry! Maybe I haven’t given David Estes enough credit for how hard it is to write stories. But I can’t let him show me up or I’ll never hear the end of it. I’ll tell this story if it kills me. So here we go:

I didn’t wake up when the Sun Goddess peeked over the horizon because I was already awake. In fact, I’m always awake, because most pricklers are notorious insomniacs. There’s just too much to see in the world and I’d hate to miss something because of a long nap! In any case, the night had been cool and calm. A burrow mouse or two had crept past me, sniffling at my skin, but I’d jabbed them with my prickly barbs and they’d scurried away. Don’t let the sandstorm hit you on the way out, suckers! I’d yelled.

As the sun rose higher across the red sky, I leaned back, basking in its warmth on my face. The gentle breeze swayed my arms from side to side and I felt my juice production increase inside my thick skin. (Side note: if anyone wants to come by for a visit, I’ll give you a sip of my fire juice in exchange for a back scratch.)

That’s when it happened. A strange-looking (aren’t all humans strange-looking?) girl ran toward me carrying something bulky in her arms, screaming bloody murder, as if she had a pack of Cotees after her. Now, for those of you who don’t know, Cotees are the mangiest mutts around, the lowliest of low canines, too small and weak to be dangerous on their own, but absolutely deadly in a pack. As it turns out, this particular human did have a pack of Cotees on her tail. There were five of them and they were drooling something fierce, just itching to sink their teeth into her sun-browned flesh.

“Perry!” she shouted, which is when I realized I knew this particular human. I didn’t like her that much, but I would call her a friend. Siena. A skinny girl who always seemed to get herself into plenty of trouble. Like now, for instance. She’d run into me—to her detriment—on more than one occasion, but now it was clear she was scorch-bent on using me as a barrier between her and the Cotees.

Heya, Skinny, I said in her head. What can I do ya for?

“Shut yer searin’ mouth, Perry, and git outta the way!” she shouted, her long strides carrying her closer. Her knees knocked together and she almost went down, but just managed to keep her balance while clutching the large, awkward object to her chest.

I didn’t respond, because she knows searin’ well that I couldn’t “git outta the way,” as she put it, even if I’d wanted to, which I didn’t. So I said nothing, just did my best to look menacing as I chanted, Die Cotees, DIE!

Those stupid Cotees pulled up sharply, their filthy claws skidding in the dust, giving Siena enough time to duck behind me and drop what she was carrying. It was long and odd-shaped and wrapped in a thick tug-skin blanket.

What the scorch are you doing, Siena? I asked, and then shouted over to the mutts, COTEES! You’re trespassing on private property! Get going before I bury your butts in a fire ant hole!

“Ya think that’ll work, Perry?” Siena said, her hand touching my skin in between my prickly barbs.

Not a chance, I said, watching the Cotees look at each other, their tongues lolling out the side of their mouths. One of them seemed to shrug as if to say, It’s just a regular old prickler, even if it’s talking to us.

And then they charged.

Siena might do a lot of wooloo things—like trip over her own feet and run into sharp-barbed pricklers—but she can shoot her pointers like no other. As the Cotee pack came at us, she withdrew her bow and grabbed a pointer, nocking it like a pro. She shot the first pointer from a position just above my right arm, and it flew straight and true and slammed into the head of the lead Cotee, right between its eyes.

He yelped and flew back, crashing into one of the others while the remaining three kept a-comin’. Siena whipped out another pointer and strung it up and ziiiiiip! She nailed one in the chest, dropping it like a sack of ’zard meat.

The remaining two dogs were so close I could smell their foul breath, see the half-starved desperation in their blood-shot yellow eyes. Siena ducked around one way; they went the other, with me caught in the middle. They circled me two or three times, a game of Cotees and burrow mice, until the Cotees finally wised up and realized that splitting up was the best course of action. So one went one way and one the other, with Siena trapped between them.

So she shot one in the eye with her next pointer, jumped over its dead, bleeding corpse, and kept on hustling around me. By this point I was getting so dizzy from trying to watch all the action at once that I felt like lying down—but of course I couldn’t do that ’cause I was stuck firmly in the sand. I just wanted it to be over, because I was itching to know what was in that tug-skin blanket Siena hauled all the way across the desert.

Siena fumbled around, trying to get her next pointer out, but it was stuck in her satchel and that Cotee was picking up speed, determined to catch her, snarling and snapping its jaws. And, of course, Siena tripped.

She went down hard, all knees and elbows, reaching for me as if I could reach out and help her. The Cotees eyes grew huge and hungry and she was dead tugmeat—my only human friend was going to die.

No! I shouted, catching a bit of wind and leaning into it, forcing my sway as far as I’d ever let it go, to the point where my main trunk felt like it was cracking, like I might break in half and topple over—but I kept stretching even further, until I was so close to the Cotee I could feel his matted fur brushing up against my skin…

ARGH! I yelled, leaning even further, smashing myself into him, stabbing him with a hundred prickly barbs and knocking him off balance. He yelped and twisted to the side, missing Siena by the slightest of margins, his coat blooming with red spots of blood.

As I sprung back to my normal position I was praying to the Sun Goddess that I didn’t have any internal damage. Siena rolled away from the sprawled out Cotee and then leapt to her feet, finally managing to extract her pointer. The Cotee, looking more haggard by the second, scrambled to its feet and charged, its mouth open wide. Siena calmly strung her pointer, aimed it, and shot it.

Right into the Cotee’s mouth. The beast’s head snapped back and it did a full backflip, landing hard in the dust, which quickly formed a cloud around it.

And I let out a deep breath even though I don’t have lungs and don’t need to breathe. Do you always have to make a big entrance? I asked.

Siena, breathing heavily, laughed and said, “Only for you, Perry.”

That’s when I saw it—the last Cotee. Not the one she’d just shot, but the only one she didn’t—the one that had got knocked back by the first one she killed. It seemed we’d both completely forgotten about it, and now it was racing toward Siena from behind, while she was turned away from it.

Siena! I shouted. Somehow, someway, she seemed to understand exactly what was happening and ducked just as the Cotee sprung at her. The surprised mutt blew past her, its claws outstretched, just missing her…

…and flew right toward me.

In an act that Siena would later described as “Heroic” and “So like Perry,” I didn’t move even the tiniest bit. I stood there, stalwart and prepared to do what I had to do to save my friend, even if it would hurt me.

As it turned out, it didn’t hurt me in the least. The Cotee crashed into me, a thousand prickly barbs stabbing into its skin, its eyes widening, its jaws clamping shut, its body going limp. The Cotee got stuck to me, which was both exhilarating and disgusting in equal measure, its dead body hanging from my barbs.

“Yuck,” Siena said, and I hoped she was referring to the dead Cotee.

Carefully, so as to not break any of my barbs, she eased the Cotee carcass from my skin and placed it aside with the others. “We make a good team, Perry,” she said.

At least one of us does, I said, and she rolled her eyes because she thought I meant me. When really I meant her. It was my little secret and I laughed inwardly.

“I’ve got a surprise for you, old friend,” she said, returning to where her tug-skin blanket sat covered in dust.

For mwah? I said, genuinely surprised. No one’s ever given yours truly a gift. What is it?

She pulled out a shovel, which I thought was an odd gift, but then she started digging a hole next to me. What are you doing? I asked. She ignored me and kept digging.

I was about to check to make sure she wasn’t planning on burying the Cotees in that hole, when she said, “That’s plenty deep enough,” and threw down the shovel.

And then she did the most unbelievable thing.

Siena lifted that tug-skin blanket and gently picked up the most beautiful lady-prickler I’ve ever laid eyes on. She was a mesmerizing light-green color with delicate white flowers springing from the tips of each of her limbs. Tiny red-tipped barbs sprouted at evenly spaced intervals. And you know what?

Siena stuck the lady-prickler in that hole and filled in the gaps around her base.

Hi, Perry, the lady-prickler said, her voice as soothing as honeysuckle.

Uh…hi…uh…hiya, I said. Hiya? Really, Perry, that was the best you could come up with?

“Perry, meet Layla,” Siena said. “I met her a few weeks back and told her all ’bout you and she agreed to move so she could get to know you. Surprise.”

If I had a heart it’d have been hammering in my skin. Hi, Layla,” I said, loving the way her name rolled out of my consciousness, like it belonged there.

Hi, Perry, Layla said again. It’s so nice to meet you.

Uh, yeah…uh, you too. And Siena laughed because she’d never seen me so tongue-tied. I glared at her and she got the hint.

“I’ll leave you two to git to know each other,” she said. “Sorry ’bout the mess,” she added. “The buzzards’ll be ’ere soon to git it all cleaned up.”

As she turned to walk away, I said, Siena, and she stopped to look back. Thank you.

She smiled and winked and walked away, leaving me alone with Layla. I like your flowers, I said.

I like your smile, she said.

I hadn’t even realized I was smiling.

And as the Sun Goddess said her final goodbyes, casting beautiful shades of pink, orange and red across the sky, Layla and I talked and talked and talked, staying up all night, as most pricklers do.

So now, my friends, maybe you can appreciate a day in the life of a prickler in Fire Country. It’s not as boring as it sounds. Every day is a struggle of life versus death; but at the same time, every day is worth the struggle. We suffer, we fight, we laugh, and we love. But most of all, we live.