EEe-Haw! EEe-Haw!
Kevin grimaced and put his hands over his ears. "Could you stop that? You're really loud, Jared."
Jared tried to rein in his rising sense of panic. He couldn't talk, which meant he couldn't tell Kevin, or anyone else for that matter, about the pawn shop and the amulet.
Kevin reached out a hand and stroked Jared's donkey mane. "Just stay calm."
Calm?!
Didn't Kevin understand? "I'm a donkey!" Jared brayed, unsuccessful at forming the words to convey his emotional state to his younger sibling.
Kevin continued to stroke the donkey's mane and pat the broad snout. "Are you still in there?" Kevin asked. "I mean, can you still think like Jared?"
"Yes," Jared brayed whole-heartedly.
Kevin frowned. "That didn't really help." He clapped his hands. "I know! Two brays for yes, one bray for no."
Jared groaned inwardly.
"So, are you still Jared?"
Jared produced two perfect brays in quick succession.
"Well, that's good," Kevin said.
Kevin knitted his brows together. "So, I guess you didn't want this to happen?"
Jared brayed once, followed by an irritated huff of air.
"Don't get upset," Kevin said.
Jared hung his head low.
"Let's get off the sidewalk and into the backyard," Kevin suggested. He led the way, swinging open the gate, which allowed, despite a tight fit, for Jared to squeeze into the grassy area between the carport and the patio.
"We don't need the whole neighborhood seeing you," Kevin reasoned aloud, to which Jared added a single and emphatic bray.
Kevin closed the gate and joined his brother in the grassy yard. "Do you need anything?"
Jared considered and brayed twice, but then changed his mind and brayed again.
"That was three," Kevin pointed out in his kid brother stickler of a way.
Jared felt thirsty. He walked over to the hose hooked to the tap and pawed at it with a front hoof.
Kevin watched. "You want water? You're thirsty?"
Jared brayed once.
"That's easy." Kevin grabbed a plastic bucket, turned on the hose, and filled the container with cold, fresh water. With Jared watching him with those dumb, big brown eyes, he placed the bucket on the ground in front of Jared.
Jared resisted, but the sun seemed to beat down on him, and it wasn't at all comfortable trapped inside a dingy fur-covered hide. He relented and lowered his snout into the bucket, sucking up the water as Kevin looked on approvingly.