"Ok, I'll bite." Daria said. "There's no boat, so how are we going to get to the other side?"
"With great difficulty?" Zac suggested cheekily.
Daria gave him a look.
"A raft!" Taylor suggested excitedly. "We should build a raft!"
"Great idea." Isaac approved. "I'll get to work on it right now."
It was a few hours before the raft was finished, but when it was, they pushed it halfway into the water, got on, and then pushed it off completely.
The plan had been to go straight across to the other side using a couple of poles. Unfortunately, they hadn't counted on the strength of the river, or that the river might get too deep for the poles to touch the bottom.
As a result, they found themselves floating down the river, as opposed to across it.
Fortunately, the river began to flow less strongly and the raft finally began to edge to the other bank. Zac got an idea. He slipped off the side of the raft, but held onto the edge of it with his huge paws. Then, kicking his back legs, he managed to give the raft the extra it needed to make it to the other bank.
"Phew!" Zac gasped, lying down on the grass. "I'm exhausterpated."
"Exhausterpated?" Daria repeated. "Is that even a word?"
"Yes."
And Zac sounded so sure of himself and full of authority that Daria didn't dispute the matter.
"And now we have to find the yellow brick road again." Isaac sighed.
"That'll be easy." Taylor said. "We'll just follow the river back where we came."
So when Zac had dried himself out, they started on their way to find the yellow brick road again.
**********
After a while, they came across a large field of brilliant red flowers - poppies. Had our travelers known that the scent of poppies in such a large quantity can make people sleep until such time as they are removed from the area, they would have attempted to walk around the poppies.
But they didn't know, so of course, they walked through them. And it wasn't long before Daria, with a sleepy Toby in her arms, started feeling very tired and wanted to lie down and sleep for a while.
"Yeah... me too." Zac agreed.
"No." Isaac insisted. "We have to get to the yellow brick road - preferably before dark. "C'mon Daria, Zac, lets go."
But despite Daria and Zac's struggle to stay awake, it wasn't long before they both fell to the ground, fast asleep.
"This sucks." Isaac commented. "I mean, I think I can get Daria out, and you could probably carry Toby, but even if we work together, we'll never get Zac out."
"Let's get Daria and Toby out first. Maybe when Daria is awake she can help us figure out how to get Zac out." Taylor suggested. "She does, after all, have a brain."
"Right."
And on that, Taylor picked up Toby, and Isaac picked up Daria, and they carried them out of the poppy field. They had, of course, figured out by now that it was the poppies that was making their friends sleepy.