“Alright, now that we are all here, we can finally go over the plan.”
Charlie stood at the corner of the room, watching the other members of the Animal Rescue Fellowship closely. Was everybody committed to this plan? They couldn’t have any weak links. Everybody was under suspicion, especially Lain, who had entered the room last, loudly slurping at a bowl of two minute noodles.
“Dennis, how did the search for 4×4 aluminium canopies go?” asked Tammy, the group’s leader. “Did you find one that will be comfortable enough for our furry little friends?”
Nodding, Dennis said, “With a little bit of work, we were able to get it ready. Don’t worry, they’ll be plenty comfortable while we transport them back home.”
Fortunately, back home wasn’t very far. The Animal Rescue Fellowship had recently gotten word that the fairy penguins of Phillip Island were being coerced into appearing on a specific beach every night, rather than their natural habitat a few kilometres away. It was their job to liberate the penguins and stop this terrible injustice.
“So,” Tammy continued, “Dennis and Ryan will drive the ute onto the beach while the rest of us create the distraction. They’ll load the little fellas onto the ute and hightail it out of there, then we will rendezvous at the meetup. Sound good?”
It did sound like a solid plan, especially with the distraction they were going to cause. There was no chance people would be watching the fairy penguins at the beach with a bunch of ice cream trucks driving around the island. Charlie just hoped that these supposed high-quality Melbourne ute canopies turned out to be as good as everybody claimed. The last thing they needed was the penguins breaking out of their liberation cage.
Other than that, the only real concern she had was that someone here was going to rat them out. She’d suspected they had a double agent in their midst for some time, but had never been able to figure out who it was. For now, she simply had to trust that everything would go according to plan.