“Chickens,” Apollo continued, “have a long and noble history of being fierce warriors...”

“And chicken nuggets” interrupted Dash.

“And…” Apollo said loudly, flashing Dash a warning look, “our reputations have obviously reached the farthest sections of the world, including Siberia. No, what we have here is a tiger who can obviously sense that I carry in my chicken heart the untamed soul of a mighty warrior”.

Mr. Sea and Dash could not help themselves at this point and let out a torrent of laughter. Apollo was not amused.

“Listen,” Mr. Sea began, “we still need to think about what exactly we are going to do here? Obviously Vlad, for whatever reason, is deeply uncomfortable with the thought of having a chicken as a roommate. I mean did you see the look of intense fear in his eyes?”

Dash and Apollo shook their heads in agreement.

Mr. Sea continued “We can’t just ask Apollo to stay with you Dash. Right? That would be inconsiderate to Apollo. Right?” 

Apollo, sensing that his old friend was actually contemplating asking Dash to house him temporarily, agreed, rather fiercely, with the idea that  it would be terribly inconsiderate to ask him to leave. 

“But we can’t exactly ask Vlad to leave either. That too would be terribly inconsiderate.” Dash added. 

“Oh this is a bunch of nonsense!” Apollo cried out. “What’s wrong with a chicken roommate? I am a perfectly wonderful roommate and this big bad cat is just going to have to get used to it.” Apollo said definitely.

“Wait, where are you going?” asked Dash but Apollo had stormed out of the kitchen, fully intending to work things out with Vladimier. 

“Oh boy, I have a bad feeling…” Mr. Sea began but was cut short by the thunderous ruckus in the living room. Crash, bang, it sounded like a war was raging in the adjoining room. Both Dash and Mr. Sea raced out to see what was happening.

They were both stopped in their tracks by this incredible sight. Vladimir, in an attempt to keep Apollo at bay, was frantically grabbing books from the walls and hurling them at Apollo.

“Stay back!” shouted Vladimir as he hurled another chunky first edition at the chicken’s head, nearly missing him. “Back!”

 

Apollo was jumping over these literary missiles, ducking under others, the whole time trying to reason with the tiger.

“But Mr. Vladimir…” Apollo began but quickly ducked a Spanish dictionary which was launched at his head.

“Listen to me Vlad! Swoosh, he had to jump out of the way of The Wizard of Oz.

“If you would simply just…” A copy of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer nearly decapitated him. 

Vladimir, in sheer terror, was plucking bricks of books from the walls of the house and launching them at Apollo as the poor and confused chicken followed him around the room trying to impress upon the tiger how nice he was.

 

“Vlad, listen Vlad those books are rather important to the structural integrity of the house. I wouldn't do that if I were you.” Mr. Sea called out. Both he and Dash recognized the danger of removing large chunks of wall from the house. Just as Mr. Sea had said that the Old Book House began to wobble like an enormous mold of Jello. 

 

“Apollo!” cried Mr. Sea “Leave him be you infernal bird!”. Unfortunately, it was too late. With a great big wobble, the Old Book House shifted left, then swayed to the right and then back again. Left and right the Old Book House wiggled and jiggled until the inevitable happened and with a big loud crash-bang-boom the entire house collapsed on the four individuals inside. 

 

After some time, from underneath a pile of novels, emerged a hand followed by a groan.

“I told you the books were integral to the structure of the house, but nobody ever listens to me.” Mr. Sea said, trying to pull himself out of a heavy heap.

A yellow beak was next to emerge, followed by a wagging tail. 

“Help. A little help!” came a muffled cry as Dash was trying to emerge from the rubble tail first. Mr. Sea reached over and grabbed Dash by his hind legs and pulled him free. Mr. Sea also reached down to help Apollo, but Apollo insisted he could manage. With a mighty flutter of wings he managed to set himself free. The three friends sat atop of their once beautiful and much envied Old Book House. Over towards the horizon, the sun could be seen embarking on its daily descent.

“Where is Vladimir?” Dash asked. “Has anyone seen him?” Apollo and Dash began to frantically call out for him. 

“Look,” Apollo clucked. “over there.”

Dash and Mr. Sea looked to where Apollo was pointing his wing. In the distance they saw the figure of an imposing Siberian tiger running towards the horizon, framed by the glowing circle of the setting sun. 

“Huh.” said Mr. Sea. “Well, I suppose you can’t always judge a tiger by its stripes”.