Information


Scooter McGruder has a minion!

Sowmyatha the Banana Slug




Scooter McGruder
Legacy Name: Scooter McGruder


The Common Scootle
Owner: gatorgirl

Age: 5 years, 10 months, 1 week

Born: May 19th, 2018

Adopted: 5 years, 10 months, 1 week ago

Adopted: May 19th, 2018

Nominate Pet for Spotlight

Statistics


  • Level: 345
     
  • Strength: 579
     
  • Defense: 386
     
  • Speed: 412
     
  • Health: 698
     
  • HP: 685/698
     
  • Intelligence: 639
     
  • Books Read: 613
  • Food Eaten: 0
  • Job: Tribune Investigative Journalist


To the casual observer, it's just a flowerpot beside a rather weathered garden gate.

To Scooter McGruder, that flowerpot is the entire world.

He hatched in the warm earth underneath that hard-baked pottery shell. He did his first scoot into the patch of light where the sun shines through a hole in the roof. His cozy home provides all manner of tasty things to eat and rain or shine, he sleeps well every night knowing his life couldn't be any better.

His unexpected adventure only reinforced his personal motto: Home is the only place for me.

It started on a very rainy day at the end of April. It had been raining for nearly a week, in fact. The rich clay soil of the distant garden was a slippery soup that had send humans of all sized and even an overly excitable dog flying in all directions. Scooter was oblivious to these large creatures just beyond the gate. He cared only that his favorite mushrooms were growing in abundance, encouraged by the heavy moisture in the air and clinging to everything from the boards of the gate to the fronds of the newly emerging spring growth.

Scooter ate until he couldn't eat another bite. He was about to scoot back into his cozy cave when his sensitive antenna picked up a signal he simply couldn't ignore.

He could smell the yellow mushrooms he so dearly loved. He followed his senses right to the biggest patch he'd ever seen. They were just on the other side of the wooden board that made up the bottom half of the gate.

Scooter had never gone past the gate before but for yellow mushrooms, surely a few minutes in the mysterious garden would be worth it.

The rain increased as he was cautiously inching his way up the plank. He fell with a wet plop and slid through a tangle of pumpkin vines that hadn't been entirely cleared out from the prior growing season. He was lucky winter had defanged those spiny twirls.

He was also far from his goal. Those mushrooms were very far away. He was starting to question the wisdom of climbing that wall.

Determined not to let his efforts be wasted, Scooter launched himself forward, only to be spun in a series of dizzying circles by the pesky, clinging mud. Every time he would try to build any speed, he'd go flying in a new direction, his goal always seeming farther away no matter what distance he covered.

It was nearly evening by the time the rain let up. He had found his feast at last, a meal he had certainly earned, when the entire earth began to shake.

The dog seemed like a moving mountain to the little snail. He trotted the perimeter of the garden, sniffing here and there, pausing occasionally to scratch in the dirt or nibble at a clump of frozen corn. Scooter was paralyzed with fear as that enormous snout made his antenna stand on end. The dog was no foolish puppy. He'd had a taste of snail once at a very young age and learned a valuable lesson in leaving such creatures alone.

Scooter's heart was still racing long after the dog had vanished back into the human house. He HAD to get home!

Dreaming of his cozy cave was a lot easier than finding it. He'd gotten all turned around in the storm and wasn't used to being outside after dark. He began to creep over the damp soil, antenna straight up to sense any danger before it could strike.

His caution was what saved his life. The flashy blue jay that lived in a nearby pine tree had suffered through the winter more than usual. His mate had left him for another bird and a pesky squirrel had nearly destroyed the nest he's built so carefully for their former nestlings. To make matters worse, the elderly couple down the street had moved away and were no longer putting out birdseed.

The jay swooped with an excited cry; sure he was about to have a dinner of juicy snail.

He had to pull up at the last second to avoid being nabbed by the rosebush Scooter had found by sheer luck. The jay called out a few nasty bird comments and went back to his tree to sulk.

Shaken further by this second encounter with a predator, Scooter waited until well after dark to venture out again. The humans in the big house had set up cute glowing lights in the shape of fairy mushrooms so their girl would have something magical to look at when she had trouble sleeping. For Scooter, these lights proved to be a beacon lighting the way home.

Mushrooms truly were magic.

He was so thrilled to make it over the gate and crawl into the safety of his flowerpot that he spent the next two days relaxing in the mound of mossy dirt that was his bed. He swore to himself that he would never, ever let the temptation of mushrooms lure him from the safety of home again.

Story by Pureflower

Pet Treasure


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Cream Lifelike Scootle Doll

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Cherry Scootle Beanbag

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Mushroom

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Poisonous Mushroom

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