Diligently as I put my mind to the task, I couldn't come up with an alternative to the "flaming puffan" method. I did, however, manage to amend it slightly, hopefully improving our survival chances a little.

However, my amendments were completely dependent on one problem, a problem I didn't know if we could solve. I wished they'd taught us this type of thing in school.

"Okay," I began explaining, as Tuck and I sat around a small fire at what he said would be our last campsite before we reached the prison. I knew Tuck would like my idea � it was his style � if it was doable. "What we have here isn't just an officers' prison, but an entire prison complex. Two prisons and a few living buildings for resident Barons, right?" I continued when Tuck nodded. "I'm guessing the general prison is probably two or three times the size of the officers'?" I hoped this guess was accurate.

"More like four or fives times, actually," Tuck confirmed.

"Great," I said, clapping my hands together. "Now, in this prison complex the Barons have all the weapons, all the power...but the Cols do have one advantage."

"What?" Tuck asked with a blank smile.

"Numbers," I said firmly.

"Numbers," Tuck repeated. "I guess that's true. There must be ten times as many Cols as Barons in the whole complex. But they're all behind bars."

"But what if they weren't?" I grinned.

Tuck put down the stick he'd been waving in the fire. "Explain," he said curtly.

"What if we could break down the walls of both prisons? Cause total chaos? They'd have the weapons, but we'd have the numbers. I think a lot of Cols would get away."

"And of course, you have a way to break down the walls of both prisons?"

I took a breath. "Well, that could be a problem..." Tuck rolled his eyes in exasperation. "It could also not be!" I continued before he could interrupt. "I don't know much about puffins. Could we get more?"

Tuck considered that for a minute, while I held my breath. Everything depended on his answer.

"I think we could," he finally said, and I threw my arms up in the air and shouted for joy as loudly as I dared. Tuck smiled at my antics. "I think we could. They're social animals, in the sense that they like to be around others, when they're not feeding. They'd probably come to Spike before to long, if we leave her alone. We'd have to tie her down so she won't follow us. Puffans hate to be alone. They'll answer her calls."

"So you think it'll work?" I asked excitedly.

"If we get lucky," Tuck said, grinning boyishly. "But first, let's find some puffins."

I could feel myself beaming as I opened my pack to remove my rope to tie Spike up.

Spike had found some mushrooms to bounce on, and protested as I gathered her tiny legs together. When I'd finished, she turned over and bounced on the legs that we still free. She was just as happy upside-down as rightside-up. Then I tied the other end of the rope securely around a nearby tree, and left Spike happily bouncing. Tuck had extinguished the fire by then, so we left. We walked far enough through the forest to be out of the range of puffan senses (which was no easy task, in the dark) and broke out what travel rations we had left. There we ate then went to sleep, making as little noise as possible. I wondered if Spike were crying out for company yet. Poor Spike. We were too far away to hear her quite chirping, but I knew other puffans would. Tuck had told me that puffan hearing was far better than human hearing. In Skye's dense forests it was a valuable sense. I fell asleep extremely pleased with myself for the plan I'd devised.

I woke with the sun the next morning and followed Tuck back to the tree and mushrooms where we'd left Spike. I was getting considerably better at picking out landmarks and remembering terrain, but still probably couldn't have made it back the short distance on my own.

We both cheered when we got back to the place and saw Spike surrounded by chirping, happy puffans bouncing on mushrooms. There were so many puffans that they actually seemed to be taking turns on the mushrooms, or shoving each other aside to get one whenever they could. They rolled right up to us, too, happily as ever. Spike must have informed them that we were safe, in whatever puffans have of communicating. They'd have heard us coming long ago.

A guilty feeling washed over me. "They think we're their friends and we're going to light them on fire," I said sadly.

Tuck shook his head. "We'll only have to flame one. Where one puffan changes, they all do. Otherwise the monster would eat the little balloons. That's why they're solitary animals, even though they're so social. And they'll fight each other when they're all big."

I laughed, picturing the scene at the prison that we were about to try to create. Then I frowned at the obscenity of laughing. Col lives were going to be lost. The scene might be funny, but the results would not be. I reminded myself not to laugh at battle ,ever.

Besides, we had another problem. "How do we shut them up?" I asked as I unwound my rope from Spike's legs. She rolled over and over, glad to have full use of her limbs again.

"I don't know," Tuck confessed, his eyes still surveying. "I've never seen this many puffans at once before. We have a signal for Spike to be quiet when we're hiding somewhere. I'll try to make Spike understand to tell them all."

I watched, fascinated, while Tuck knelt down next to Spike and pressed on the legs sticking out of the top of the sphere of her body, pushing her gently into the ground. Then he released her. I don't know what was supposed to happen, but the giant grin on her face diminished. It never completely disappeared, I noticed. I couldn't tell whether or not Spike had fallen silent, as the incessant chirping all around me remained as loud as ever.

Then Tuck waved his arm in some sort of signal, maybe indicating the rest of the mass of puffans. Normally I can only read humans by their expressions, but I was sure Spike was confused. In any event, the noise had not lessened.

Tuck tried a different approach. Holding Spike's attention, he calmly walked up to a wild puffan. He pushed it carefully into the ground, as he'd done to Spike. The puffan squealed and squirmed, not used to being handled. Spike rushed over, twittering at the puffan, and I was sure her tone was scolding. After Spike stopped chirping, I realized that both puffans had fallen silent.

Tuck had to repeat the procedure with four more puffans before Spike understood. Her voice grew loud as she chirped out orders. Then the entire field of puffans became silent.

"Problem number one solved," Tuck whispered to me. "Let's go before they start forgetting."

I was impressed, but at the same time disappointed, as we led our brigade of puffans toward the prison. Already we'd encountered a flaw in my plan that hadn't even occurred to me. How many others would we run into?"

"Whatever comes up, we'll deal with," Tuck answered when I voiced this worry. "That's why I never like to have one solid plan. Something always goes wrong. I think it's easiest just to have a basic idea of what we're doing and improvise with whatever comes along."

"You would," I said, rolling my eyes.

"What's that mean?" Tuck asked.

I shook my head slightly, smiling. "It just means I really hope we rescue Captain Quent, because you need someone to be be Captain over you."

"Aw, come on. Captain Shay will be duly impressed with this little jailbreak we're staging."

"More like duly exasperated."

Tuck just looked at me. "First, I'd like to point out that he'll be extremely happy to be out of prison. Second, you've never even met Shay. How could you know what his reaction will be?"

I grimaced. "I guess I couldn't. Sorry."

Tuck shook his head. "That's not what I meant. You're right. He'll be incredibly exasperated with me. How'd you know that?"

"I...well...you know how I am with people," I began, embarrassed at receiving one of Tuck's rare genuine compliments.

"I knew you were good at reading people's faces," Tuck broke in. " I didn't know you're psychic."

"I'm not psychic." I sighed. "I guess from the way you and old Harley have spoken about him I've formed a sort of mental picture of him."

"Pretty sharp mental picture," Tuck commented.

I grinned. "You just stick to figuring out the land, and I'll figure out the people. We can make a pretty good team."

"Yeah," Tuck nodded, smiling sadly. Then he brightened. "All we need is a Captain to design plans for us that could ever be acceptable to be taught to future missioneers."

"So you admit this plan is insane!" I said triumphantly.

"I didn't say 'insane'. I said 'unacceptable'. There's a big difference. A difference, anyway."

"So we won't become famous for masterminding this brilliant jailbreak?" I teased.

"Hey, if it works, who knows? They might promote us both to Captains."

We both laughed at that thought. "I think that would doom our whole cause right there," I said, gasping for breath from laughing so hard.

"Only if you were the one promoted.," Tuck retorted. "If I was the one promoted, well..."

"The entire mission program would be deemed pointless and useless?" I supplied.

"Yeah, probably," Tuck said, chuckling. "But I bet my team would have fun."

"We'd better stop this," I said, trying to ebb my laughter. "They're starting again." I looked back at the horde of puffans, who were tentatively beginning to chatter again.

"I'll get Spike to reinforce the order." Tuck dropped to a knee and grabbed the puffan rolling around his legs. He repeated the same drill as before, this time only having to force one other puffan into the dirt before Spike understood what he wanted. She really wasn't as stupid a creature as she looked.

Silence once again prevailed. I noticed that whenever I looked back we had fewer followers. I guess we'd bored them. We still had enough puffans behind us to destroy five prison complexes, though, so I didn't worry about their leaving.

We took only one short break all day long. I could see the cliffs that Tuck had said formed the valley around the prison, and I knew it could be coming up soon. Tuck confirmed this.

"We're almost there, Bryt," he whispered. "The officers' prison building will be closer than the general one. You and half the puffans will stop there, and I'll go through the complex to the other. Now, don't wait for me to start launching puffans. By now..."

"No," I said. "You take the officers' prison and I'll take the general."

Tuck looked belligerent. "The general one'll be harder to get to from this angle. I have more experience, I know the ground..."

"I can handle it," I broke in, with more confidence than I felt. "Besides, the officers' will be more heavily guarded, right?"

"You're making this harder," he complained. "You said you trust me."

"I don't think I actually did," I pointed out. "And now I'm just keeping things as simple as possible."

"You agreed to follow me."

"Tuck, you can't win if you force the issue. Don't you see that?" I said with a slight smile.

Tuck fell silent. Finally he growled, "Fine. Take a flaming stick and a bunch of puffans, and light one on fire. Just run up to the building in plain sight. They'll already be alerted because of me, so you'll have no element of surprise. Just get as many puffans as you can up on that roof before they get to you. Then run. Back this way, and get into the cliffs. We'll find each other there. I'll find Captain Shay and Mina and then we'll get into the cliffs and find you. Inside the caves of the cliff, just keep running. Find somewhere suitable to hide. It'll be totally dark, so they won't catch you. Ready?"

"Yeah," I said, though the plan sounded awfully shaky. "But how will you find me in the dark? Could we go the cliffs now and pick a place to regroup?"

"I don't know," Tuck drawled thoughtfully. "We could try, but we might be spotted. Then that's it for the whole plan. What do you think we should do?" He asked it at the same time as I said, "Think we should chance it?"

"You're the leader," I pointed out as we laughed nervously.

"So you say when it's convenient for you," Tuck mused.

I laughed, guilty. But, I realized, I already knew what Tuck would say. And, as much as it scared me, I had to agree with him. I sighed. "I guess it's better to carry out an attack without an escape plan than to plan an escape and risk losing the attack." I could speak the noble words, but my heart wasn't really in them. I was afraid.

Tuck nodded, satisfied. "And be prepared for anything. If I don't come back, stick with Shay and Mina. They'll find you."

"And why wouldn't you come back?" I asked darkly.

"What do you want me to do, promise you I won't get killed?"

I looked into his large, boyish, innocent-looking eyes. Eyes capable of far more than they seemed. Eyes that had finally stopped lying to me.

"You are a total jerk," I muttered as he smiled.