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"Culture Shock" (Greenhill) Feather woke up from his nap in a very good mood. He knew where he had to go now...but if only he knew where 'Matilda forest' was...Oh well, Feather decided, I'll just have a look around this town. Maybe they've got maps around here somewhere! Cheered by the thought, Feather flapped down from his somewhat hidden rooftop perch and landed in the middle of town square. As he did so, every single one of the shoppers who had been milling around just moments before turned, and as one, fled screaming from the square. Feather couldn't figure it out. He sniffed the air, and smelled....meat!! Feather wiped away a bit of drool from his beak; that meat smelled so good! He bounded over to the food stand, and stared at the delectibles that stared him in the face. Great slabs of meat just covered the top of the cart, and Feather suddenly realized he was very hungry. He did remember, just barely in time, that the cart and meats probably belonged to a human. Feather looked behind the cart and saw a rather portly human shaking and cowering back there. How strange. Feather looked at him curiously, first with one eye, then with the other. The man reached up a shaking hand and picked up one of the steaks from his cart. Feather wondered, what in the world was this human up to? The human suddenly threw the steak at him, and Feather gladly snapped it out of the air before it hit the ground, and swallowed it in one gulp. Apparently the human was being kind and generous - how very nice! Feather picked up the man and hugged him, not noticing when the human fainted. Feather dropped the human and decided to try and see if he couldn't find a map to 'Matilda forest'. There had to be a map-selling cart around here somewhere, right? Humans, Feather knew, were rather obsessive about buying and selling things, and it would be ridiculous if there wasn't a single one in the city that sold maps. So, Feather thoroughly investigated every cart, ignoring the quaking humans as simply being strange humans. Finally, he found a map cart, and started looking through them for one that would guide him from here to Matilda forest. Feather picked out a likely one, and looked at it more closely. He couldn't read human very well, but he was pretty sure there was a spot labeled 'Greenhill' and a spot labeled 'Matilda' both on the map. That should do it, Feather thought. Then Feather realized that he should give something back to the map seller. He looked back behind the cart and really noticed the map seller this time, and how obviously afraid the man was. Was there some monster that had scared him? If there was a monster, Feather decided it would be his duty to find the thing and get rid of it. He pondered for a minute first, though. Few beasts would stick around if they thought a griffon was around, so Feather decided to scare the thing out of town. He took to the air, and, screaming at the top of his considerable voice, flew a circle around the square. Not satisfied with this, he decided to do a sweep of the entire city. Make absolutely certain the monster got the message and left. So Feather flew a bit above rooftop level, doing a patrol of the entire city, screaming, screeching, yelling and yelping the entire time. His flying form coupled with the huge noise scared the pants off most of the inhabitants of the city, but Feather didn't notice - he was looking for the monster. Feather passed inns, houses, shops - he even circled city hall, screaming his best battle-scream at the top of his voice - and everywhere he went, he looked for the monster. Nowhere to be found. Feather was a little annoyed, so he doubled back to a random inn, went up to a window, and screamed his frustration out at the glass. He failed to notice Meg, Chako and Kara inside, and instead decided that he was done here. The monster must have left by now. Feather went back for his map, and tried to decide how to carry it with him. He scrounged around and finally came up with a bit of twine that was helping hold up a sign. The sign didn't really need two pieces of twine, so Feather borrowed one. He tied the map to one of his legs and took off. He failed to notice that the sign, no longer held up by enough twine, crashed to the ground a moment after he left. Feather circled high, and set off in the direction the map had said Matilda was in.
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