Trouble in Paradise

Vinnie has embarked on a scientific plant study on the tropical island they are stranded on in hopes of finding the next important miracle drug for saving lives. He has two trusty assistants, Merry the chipmunk and tropifly, who will be scout the island for exotic plant samples. Vinnie in the mean time is getting his laboratory setup.

Merry and Tropifly had grown bored with hanging out at the beach week after week, and have imagined themselves on a dangerous and hair-raising adventure in the jungle just like they have seen in the movies. Collecting plants was not quite what they had in mind, but it was something constructive to do. They were a bit surprised by how much paperwork was involved with doing science. All the samples had to be bagged, cataloged and labeled. Vinnie was pleased with their first few days work but really wanted some exotic plants no one had ever seen before. He sent them deep into the tropical vegetation.

Merry and Tropifly spotted a promising specimen. It was a cactus like plant growing in the middle of a rainforest. It was a dark part of the forest that didn’t get much sunlight. That seemed rather odd, a plant from a hot sunny dry desert environment in such a dark wet one. It must have evolved to do so. What sort of adaptions did it come up with to survive? They figured Vinnie would be really excited by this one, and might even reward them with some sunflower seeds from his secret stash! Eagerly Merry ran up to the cactus and dug out his clippers from the backpack. Tropifly broke out the notebook to write down the all the important details. Tropifly’s attention on the notebook was shattered with an air piercing scream!

Long tentacles shots out from the cactus and grabbed Merry!

 

Tropifly rushed in to save his friend from an omnivorous critter eating plant!

 

Merry escaped but Tropifly wasn’t so lucky.
The cactus took a long lick of tropifly and cried “Yuck, wood and paint!” and spit him out.

 Merry and tropifly had always envied their fellow Woodpilers for being flesh and blood  critters but discovered the value their uniqueness, that being wooden, could be a life saving asset.