The Peak

When Aho reached the peak, and it took far less time than he feared, he was surprised to find that there were many other creatures waiting for him, including a tiny-headed squirrel, a giant mouse, and a frog with an onion in its ear.

In the middle of the clearing at the top of the mountain, there was a large stone. On the side of the stone, written with bold strokes of black, it said, “Fly.” Aho went directly to the stone and perched atop it. This caught the attention of the other animals and they gathered around Aho with unfriendly faces.
“So, you think you understand, huh?” said one.
“You don’t need to be up there, little donkey. It’s best not to even look at this stone until you are an old man,” said another.
“If you want to sit there, you might want to buy one of my birdhouses. They are not far from the stone and you can sleep there when you get tired.”
“What is this place? Who left this message? What does all of this mean?” asked Aho.
No one answered. “What does “fly” mean?” he asked again.
“It doesn’t mean anything, it’s just a joke. I have a much smaller stone that you can sit on if you come back tomorrow at 11,” said Jhah-rhan, the big mouse.
“Oh it has a meaning, it is all written down in the Secret Squirrel Scrolls,” said Naruf the tiny-headed squirrel.
“You’ll understand what it means after you put an onion in your ear and climb the rock ten times a day,” said Chewit the frog.
Aho thought for a minute, the many voices around him blurring into one loud noise of confusion.
What if I just did what the rock says to do? What would be wrong with that?”
The crowd around him roared in disagreement. None of them agreed with each other, though all of them disagreed with Aho’s suggestion. He began to flutter off the rock, higher and higher. The crowd below screamed and wailed.
“What are you doing!?!”
“You can’t fly! You don’t speak the language of the rock!”
“You must carry the rock on your back; it will take years to develop such powerful wings!”
“That is not flying! Flying means walking around and flapping your wings in a manner reminiscent of flight.”

Aho looked back down at the wailing crowd once, turned back towards the sky, and kept soaring higher and higher.