****The Next Day****

"The wheels on the bus go 'round and 'round, 'round and 'round, 'round and 'round..." horrible off-tune notes came from Henrietta as she stood in the kitchen peeling potatoes.

Skippy was now inside the farmer's house, it was a horrid old-fashioned mix of avocado green and deep orange. Her carpet was bright red and smelled of mothballs. The air smelled of musk, and the mixture of mothballs had made Skippy feel queasy, but he had to move on if he wanted to save his friend in time. He darted from corner to corner through the matron's house, aiming for the door that led to where Maud told him Henrietta kept the lamb chop machine. He slid from one corner, and then darted behind the pantry door and yes! Victory! Skippy had made it to the door leading to the "death machine." Now all he had to do was get the door open, but how? He could not open it himself; Henrietta would notice the door opening and a big white ball of fur running through it. He had to distract her! That's when he remembered, Maud! She agreed to kick, whimper and run all over on Skippy's signal. He spotted Maud outside the window above the sink a gave her a hoof up, and immediately, she began to kick, whimper and run aimlessly all over her stable. Henrietta looked up and ran out the front door yelling after Maud to stop and calm down. Skippy took his first chance and quickly opened the door and ran into the connected barn where the horrid machine was sheltered.

Inside the barn it was dark and gloomy, and weird noises came from what seemed to be a cage right next to where Skippy was standing. He blindly reached for a light switch and clicked it on, and he saw the enormous machine. It was huge, metal, and looked as though it had teeth coming from a huge mouth. The gears and pulleys looked like eyes and the passageways from one side of the machine to the other looked like ears. When he got the whole machine in perspective it looked like a huge metal monster. He yelped and jumped back knocking over a pile of empty glass milk bottles, breaking almost every one.

"Skippy! Oh! I am so happy to see you!" exclaimed Egor from inside the metal cage next to where Skippy was. "Henrietta! Oh! It's horrible! She says she's going to kill all the sheep, and I am going to be the first! Oh please Skippy! Help me out of this cage!"

"I know, I know, Egor. Seymour told me everything. You just work on that lock with this," and Skippy handed him a nail he found lying on the ground.

He began walking toward the huge machine and picked up a nearby 2 by 4. He shoved the block of wood into the gears, breaking off at least 3 and bending all the rest so they were useless. He grabbed a nearby sledgehammer and hit that horrible machine until it didn't look like, well, anything--just a huge pile of bent up metal.