Cherry's Adventures of Rock-A-Doodle: chapter 5

"Excuse me," Cherry looked up to the animalized owner of the diner. "Could we use your phone book?"

The man shrugged, then gave it to them.

"Chamers... Chanta... Chantilly... Chapman...." Edmond kept reading, but didn't find the name they were all looking for. "He's not in here!"

Cherry sighed. "Well, we better get lookin'."

"Yeah." Patch said.

Edmond hopped down. "Let's go!"

And with that, they went searching all over the city for the rooster they needed. But everywhere they, went they couldn't find him. They talked with everyone, but nobody had heard of Chanticleer. Nobody... Funny thing is that he was there all along and he was under their nose. Or should I say he was under theirs? After a long time of searching, everyone decided to sit and rest, taking a break. Edmond saw Patou struggling with shoe-tying yet again and decided to help him out.

"Again?" Patch asked.

"You try it sometime." Cherry chuckled at the puppy.

Something crashed in the distance.

"What was that?" Peepers looked alarmed.

Patch sniffed the air, he looked angry as he smelled something he didn't like and tried to track it down. "I smell an owl." he said.

"Well, we rested long enough," Edmond told the others. "They're counting us back at the farm!"

"Well, if you ask me..." Cherry started.

"We didn't." Snipes said to her.

Cherry was about to scold him, until Peepers saw something that got their attention.

"Jumping Jehoshaphat!" Peepers pointed at the neon lighted stand behind them about a concert to find someone who resembled Chanticleer, only called The King and had a guitar, looking like Elvis Presley. "It's him! No wonder we didn't find him, he changed his name!"

"Chanticleer's the king?" Patou chuckled. "Well, let's go see his highness."

Cherry saw the doors were locked. "We'll have to wait... There's a concert going on now."

"Oh, great." Patch said.

"Well, looks like old Chanticleer stopped crowin' for us, but kept singin' for the others." Patou shrugged.

"Now what do we do?" Snipes whined.

"We wait until it's over, then we'll talk with him." Cherry suggested.

"Yeah and hopefully a certain owl will leave us alone." Patch said.

"Ah, I wouldn't worry about that Hunch fella... I could probably catch him, burn him, and serve him with natural herbs and spices for dinner." Cherry said rather darkly.

Edmond stuck his tongue out in disgust. "Yuck!"

"That's who Cherry is." Patch said.

"It must be a dark and cold world you live in..." Peepers said about Cherry.

"I would prefer it that way..." Cherry shrugged, she was a goth after all.

"She's a perky goth." Patch said.

"Does that hurt?" Peepers asked.

"Just living another day without actually dying..." Cherry shrugged it off.

"Yeah." Patch said.

'Ladies and gentlemen, the King is leaving the building!' an announcement was made.

The doors slammed open and a red carpet was rolling out.  Chanticleer with a dyed black comb to look like Elvis was glumly walking out as a bunch of his fans gathered to see him and there were toad and frog bodyguards to make sure no one would come near him.

"What in the world?" Patch asked.

Cherry and Edmond tried to get Chanticleer's attention, but he didn't even notice, hear, or see them as he kept following his bouncers.

There was also a fat fox going with them, then glared at the numerous fans. "GET AWAY FROM THE STAR!"

"Who is that?" Patch asked.

"I've never seen him before." Patou didn't know.

"He wasn't on the farm." Snipes added.

"Probably a manager or an agent... But I don't like him... He rubs me the wrong way..." Cherry commented. "And I brought a fox and a hound together, not a fox and a rooster."

Chanticleer and the fox took a helicopter out of the town square, probably to return to a mansion of some type.

Meanwhile, Cherry's cell phone was running out of light as the battery was dropping low.

"She's fadin' fast, how do you work this thing?" Stuie waved around Cherry's phone, since Atticus noticed this, he was looking for Cherry's phone charger to plug in the phone so they would still have light.

"Oh, come on, where is it?!" Atticus asked.

Edmond's home telephone started to ring and Stuie jumped over to answer it.

"We got an emergency here!" the pig sounded hysterical. "Edmond and Cherry? Anyone here named Edmond and Cherry?"

It was shown that the new cats were in a telephone booth.

"We're Cherry and Edmond!" the cats told him.

"The boy and girl who--I mean the kitties who... Who's this?" Edmond asked.

"Stuie," the pig snorted. "Stuie the pig, it's the kitties!" he yelled to the others.

"Oh, great, ask Cherry where her charger is." Atticus said.

"Yeah, the light's g-g-going out!" Mimi sounded frightened.

"Hey, Cherry, where's your phone charger?" Stuie asked, even if he didn't know what that is.

"Front zipper in my backpack." Cherry answered.

Atticus then went to get it from her backpack.

"Guys, look, we need Chanticleer here, we're runnin' out of time!" Stuie snorted quickly in fear.

"We'll be there as soon as we can!" Edmond said on the other line.

"Sorry, kitties, gotta go, we're runnin' out of time!" Stuie said before hanging up the phone as they tried to hook up the charger with the phone, though unfortunately, they needed Cherry's four digit passcode to unlock her phone and the pig already hung up the phone before they could find out what it was or ask about it.

Edmond and Cherry yelled on the phone as it was slowly being picked up by the sinister Grand Duke who was spying on the others.

"I got an idea what the code is." Atticus said, before opening it completely with his strength. He put in the four numbers and after a while of chances they finally got to where they were correct.

It took a lot of tries, but they finally did it.

"Hello, kitties?" the evil lead owl taunted as he had the phone cord from the other telephone. "It's the Duek... I have a message for you all: When the batteries expire... So will your friends!" he taunted, then bit on the cord.

'The number you reached, is no longer in service.' a different voice said on the payphone.

"Oh, no..." Edmond moaned, they were running out of time.

"I hate that owl." Patch said.

The Grand Duke decided to taunt with his minions as they all tried to get the charger to a full 100% and use the flashlight app on Cherry's phone. Once they did, a flash of the light came, but it wouldn't last that long, but when it did, it made the owls instantly disappear from the rooftop. There was a text message that came on the phone about it losing service for the month and it would be over in an hour or two.

"Oh, come on!" Atticus exclaimed.

"W-We have to hope the phone l-l-lasts until they come back with C-C-Chanticleer..." Mimi whimpered, she was deathly afraid of the owls more than anyone else.

"Don't worry, if they even try to eat any of us, I'll get them a knuckle sandwich." Atticus said.

"Good luck with that, kid..." a gray mouse with a deep voice said to Atticus.

Cherry was looking at the newspaper.

"Cherry, this is no time for newspaper comics!" Edmond said to her.

"I'm not reading newspaper comics, I'm looking for future shows for Chanticleer so we can go see him." Cherry said as she didn't take her eyes off the paper, really focused on what she was reading, she wasn't used to her new glasses yet. She continued on looking through the news paper until she found what she was looking for. "Aha!"

"You found one?" Patou asked.

"Yep," Cherry smiled, then looked a little startled. "Uhh... Problem..."

"What's wrong?" Peepers climbed over her shoulder.

"There's a new rule... I feel like the Duke is behind this somehow," Cherry said to them. "No cats, dogs, birds, or 'mouses'."

"Oh, how are we gonna get in?" Edmond moaned.

"Disguise time." Patch said.

"Where are we gonna get disguises?" Snipes scoffed.

Cherry looked around, she saw a few other dogs, cats, birds, and mice going into a costume shop. There were penguin suits for sale. "But penguins are--" she said, then facepalmed. "Whatever... Let's just get those... Maybe we'll blend in."

"Penguins!" Edmond chirped.

"I hope they have a size negative nine." Peepers muttered.

"Maybe, maybe not." Patch said.