by The Tale of Aang; Azula; Toph; Sokka; Zuko; Katara (retail) (epub)
We were completely taken aback. Every time Aang tried to point out how good she is, she kicked him with an Earthbending shot under the table. Weird.
Later that night Toph came to our room. Aang thought she wanted to fight.
“Relax,” she said. “Look, I’m sorry about dinner. Let’s call a truce, okay?”
“What’s the catch?” Aang asked suspiciously.
“I just want to talk.” The two of them headed outside.
Fine by me. I settled down in my cushy bed for a good night’s sleep.
But not for long. Someone burst into the room to tell Katara and me that Aang and Toph had been captured. We rushed outside, where I found a piece of paper.
“Whoever took Aang and Toph left this,” I said.
“A ransom note!” Katara said. “It says, ‘If you want to see your daughter again bring five hundred gold pieces to the arena.’ It’s signed by Xin Fu and the Boulder.”
Hurrying back to the Earthbending arena with Toph’s father, we found Aang and Toph trapped in cages! They were surrounded by Xin Fu and a bunch of Earthbenders.
“Here’s your money,” I said furiously, tossing the sack of gold to the ground. “Now let them go.”
Xin Fu let Toph go, but he decided to keep Aang. “The Fire Nation will pay a hefty price for the Avatar. Now get out of my ring.”
I was not about to let him get away with that. Still, I didn’t know if Katara and I could take all these Earthbenders by ourselves. We needed Toph, but she was standing with her dad. What was she going to do? Would she let them take Aang to protect her precious little secret, or would she help us with some white-hot Earthbending moves?
“Toph, we need you,” Katara pleaded.
“My daughter is blind and helpless,” said Toph’s father. “She cannot help you.”
“Yes, I can!” Toph said. And boy, did she help. All right … she did it all herself.
Toph put on an amazing demonstration of Earthbending. She knocked all the other Earthbenders, including Xin Fu himself, right out of the ring.
I still don’t know how she does all that without seeing.
After we freed Aang, he explained that Toph sees using Earthbending. She uses her feet to feel the vibrations caused by any movement. I was impressed.
Now things should be great for Toph because her father knows what an awesome Earthbender she really is. But instead of being proud of her, he was angry!
“I’ve let you have far too much freedom,” Toph’s father told her when we were back at his house. “From now on you will be cared for and guarded twenty-four hours a day!”
What was his problem? He has a daughter who’s an amazing Earthbender, and he just wants to keep her locked up? I don’t get it. He should want to show off her gift.
“Toph needs freedom to see the world and experience new things,” Aang said.
Toph’s father didn’t even bother responding to Aang. He told his guards sternly, “Please escort the Avatar and his friends out. They are no longer welcome here.”
I couldn’t believe he was kicking us out! Oh, well. Good-bye, cushy bed.
“I’m sorry, Toph,” Aang said.
“Good-bye, Aang,” she replied sadly.
But a short while later, as we were preparing to leave on Appa, Toph came running up to us.
“My dad changed his mind,” she said. “He said I was free to see the world.”
Mr. Beifong didn’t seem like the kind of guy who would change his mind so quickly, but I wasn’t about to ask any questions. I was glad she was coming with us. Now Aang could learn Earthbending.
“We’d better leave before your dad changes his mind again,” I said.
Chapter 4
It was late afternoon when we landed in a small clearing in a wooded area. We began unloading our supplies to set up camp.
“Hey, you guys picked a great campsite,” Toph said. “The grass is so soft.”
“That’s not grass,” I pointed out. “Appa’s shedding.” His fur was all over the place.
That night Toph suddenly rushed out of her tent. “There’s something coming toward us!”
We couldn’t see anything, but we trusted Toph. We packed up all our stuff and climbed onto Appa’s back before flying away just in time.
Sure enough, from above, we spotted a strange-looking metal tank chugging beneath us. We found another clearing and landed. And once again we unloaded our supplies and set up camp.
All this work, and I was so tired. Then Katara and Toph started arguing. Toph didn’t want to unload or set up camp.
“Ever since you joined us you’ve been nothing but selfish and unhelpful!” Katara shouted.
“What?” Toph screamed. “Look here, sugar queen, I gave up everything to teach Aang Earthbending, so don’t talk to me about being selfish.”
“Sugar queen?” Katara repeated, shocked at what Toph had called her.
I laughed. Sugar queen. I have to give Toph credit for that one!
“Should we do something?” Aang asked me, a little concerned.
“Hey, I’m just enjoying the show,” I said. It’s better not to get involved with two angry girls.
But the arguing continued. “Hey, how’s a guy supposed to sleep with all this yelling and earthquaking?” I said.
And wouldn’t you know it, that tank thing came back, so we had to pack up and leave AGAIN. I didn’t know when I would get to sleep—if ever!
Our next campsite was on the side of a tall mountain. Now I was officially exhausted. The bags under my eyes had bags. I had no plans to set up camp. All I wanted to do was stretch out on the softest pile of dirt I could find and go to sleep. I thought I could finally relax without worrying about that tank following us.
Then Toph jumped up.
“Oh, no! Don’t tell me,” I whined.
“Let’s get out of here,” Katara said, but Aang had a different plan this time.
“Maybe we should face them,” he said. “Who knows, maybe they’re friendly.”
I sighed. “You’re always the optimist, Aang.” Nobody would go to all that trouble in a big scary-looking machine just to say, “Hi, how ya doing? Why don’t we be friends?”
And a couple of minutes later I was proven right. The tank appeared and from its belly came those three crazy girls who fought us in Omashu, charging toward us on their mongoose-dragons. It was clear they weren’t coming to bring us a housewarming gift for our new campsite!
“We can take them,” Toph announced, setting herself in a battle stance. “Three on three!”
Uh, I know she’s blind and everything, but … I had to correct her. “Actually Toph, there’s four of us.”
“Oh, sorry,” she said, not sounding sorry at all. “I didn’t count you. You know, no bending and all.”
And I was actually starting to like having her around! “I can still fight!” I snapped.
“Okay,” she relented. “Three on three—plus Sokka.”
Now I understood why Katara was arguing with her all the time! She knows how to make people mad.
The crazy girls continued to charge toward us. Toph created a wall of rock to stop them, but that didn’t pose a problem. The Firebending girl just blasted the rock away and kept on coming. I have to say that she was one scary-looking Firebender! I had seen enough—I didn’t need a closer look.
“Let’s get out of here!” I yelled.
We got back on Appa and returned to the sky.
“I can’t believe those girls followed us all the way from Omashu!” Katara said. “The crazy blue Firebending and the flying daggers are bad enough, but the last time we saw them, one of those girls did something that took my bending away. That’s scary!”
I was exhausted. We were all exhausted, even Appa. And then, as if to prove the point, Appa fell asleep in midair, and we started to plunge toward the ground. We screamed. This was not the time to fall asleep!
“Appa’s exhausted,” Aang said. “We have to land.” And so we set down ne
ar a river.
“Okay, we’ve put a lot of distance between us and them,” I said when we landed. “The plan right now is to get some sleep!”
That’s when Katara and Toph started up again. “Of course we could’ve gotten some sleep earlier if Toph didn’t have such issues about helping,” Katara said.
“What?” Toph cried. “You’re blaming ME for this? If there’s anyone to blame, it’s Sheddy over there.”
She pointed at Appa. “You want to know how they keep finding us? He’s leaving a trail of fur everywhere we go!”
“How dare you blame Appa!” Aang shouted. “He saved your life three times today!”
Okay … I see there’s not going to be any sleep for me anytime soon.
“Appa never had a problem flying when it was just the three us,” Aang added harshly.
And all of a sudden it got really quiet. No one said anything and no one did anything—until Toph picked up her bags. “See ya,” she said, as she headed toward the woods.
This was not good. We needed her. Aang needed her. I had to stop her.
“Wait!” I called out. But Toph pushed me away as she disappeared into the forest. I shot a look at Aang and Katara.
Nice going, guys. You blew off your Earthbending teacher and our early warning system for those psycho girls following us in their nasty tank.
“What did I just do?” Aang cried. “I yelled at my Earthbending teacher … and now she’s gone.”
“I was so mean to her,” Katara added.
“Yeah, you two were pretty much jerks,” I said.
“We need to find Toph and apologize,” Katara said. I agreed, but I also had a question: “What are we going to do about the tank full of dangerous ladies chasing us?”
Aang came up with a plan. “You guys take Momo and Appa and go find Toph,” he said. “I’m going to use some of Appa’s fur to make a fake trail and lead the tank off course.”
It was a good idea, but the crazy girls figured out the plan. Plus, Appa was just too tired to fly fast enough or high enough to avoid being spotted. So we soon saw two of the girls riding their mongoose-dragons, hot on our trail.
The girl from Omashu started throwing her flying daggers at me, but I was able to defend myself with my boomerang and club. Katara faced off with the girl who had blocked her chi before. We both fought hard, but in the end, it was Appa who saved us with an awesome Airbending move. Then we got out of there quick!
We caught up with Aang in a deserted town. He was being attacked by the Firebending girl. Zuko and his uncle were there too. We quickly landed and joined the battle.
Then, just when the Firebending girl was about to unleash one of her powerful blue lightning attacks, Toph showed up and knocked her to the ground with an Earthbending move.
“I thought you guys could use a little help,” Toph said. I don’t know what made her change her mind, but I was so happy she came back. We all surrounded the Firebender, who turned out to be Zuko’s sister, Princess Azula! Great.
“Well, look at this,” Azula cackled. “Enemies and traitors all working together. I’m done. I know when I’m beaten. A princess surrenders with honor.”
It looked like she was going to surrender. She bowed her head, then all of a sudden, she blasted her uncle! This prompted everyone to immediately unleash attacks at her. But when the smoke cleared, she was gone.
Zuko ran to his uncle’s side. The man was badly hurt, but it looked like he was going to make it.
“Zuko, I can help,” Katara said, ready to use her healing ability.
“Get away from me!” Zuko shouted, before unleashing a fire blast just above our heads. “Leave!”
He didn’t have to tell us twice. I was ready to go. And there was only one way to end this crazy long day. Appa flew us to a mountain ledge where we all stretched out and finally fell into a wonderful, deep sleep.
Chapter 5
After many days of traveling, we stopped for a rest on an open prairie.
Everyone felt like we needed a break. Aang had been training hard, practicing both Earthbending and Waterbending. So everyone chose a vacation spot. Everyone except me, that is.
“There’s no time for vacations, Aang,” I said. “Even if you do master all of the elements, then what? It’s not like we have a map of the Fire Nation. We need information. We need intelligence. And we’re not going to get that taking vacations.”
I was voted down, of course. What a shock. I was the only one who wasn’t either teaching or learning. Mr. Not-A-Bender here.
Next, for Katara’s vacation, we traveled to some place called Misty Palms Oasis.
Well, the “oasis” was actually a dump—a rundown cantina with some lowlife Sandbenders hanging around like annoying bugs. Good choice, Katara. This was way more important than planning our strategy against the Fire Nation.
But it was in that flea trap that we met Professor Zei, an anthropologist and professor from Ba Sing Se University. He was searching for a lost library run by some spirit called Wan Shi Tong. The place was supposed to have books from all over the world, which meant that they might have some useful information or maps of the Fire Nation.
“For my vacation, I choose finding that library,” I said eagerly.
Off we went, flying on Appa, with the professor guiding the way. We flew over the desert, which was one vast sea of brown. There was nothing but sand for miles. … Then I spotted something sticking out of the sand. “Down there. What’s that?”
We landed and found a tower jutting out from the sand. I looked at Professor Zei’s picture of the enormous library and realized that the thing we were looking at was the top spire of the building! “This is the library,” I announced. “But it’s completely buried in the sand!”
Toph used Earthbending to determine that the inside of the library was still completely intact, then we climbed up the spire and slipped in through a window. We left Toph to wait outside with Appa.
The place was huge! I had a really good feeling that we were going to find what we needed on the Fire Nation.
And then an enormous owl showed up.
“Are you the spirit who brought this library into the physical world?” I asked.
“Indeed. I am Wan Shi Tong, and you are obviously humans, who, by the way, are no longer permitted in the library.”
“What do you have against humans?” Aang asked.
“Humans only bother learning things to get the edge on other humans. So who are you trying to destroy?”
Uh … how did he know? Was it written on our faces? I had to fake him out. “No, no destroying. We have come here to seek knowledge for knowledge’s sake.” Yes, that’s a pretty good answer.
But the owl wasn’t so easily fooled. “If you are going to lie to an all-knowing spirit being, you should at least put a little effort into it,” he said.
I had to cover fast. “I’m not lying,” I said. “I’m here with the Avatar, and he’s the bridge between our worlds. He’ll vouch for me.”
“We will not abuse your library, good spirit. You have my word,” Aang assured him.
I held my breath as we all waited for his response.
“Very well,” the spirit said.
Whew! Now we just had to find something that would help us defeat the Fire Nation.
What I found was even more than I could have hoped for. First I discovered a burned scrap of paper with a date and the words “The Darkest Day in Fire Nation History.” Then one of the owl’s assistants, a fox, led us to a mechanical planetarium that showed the position of the sun, moon, and stars on any given day. Using this amazing machine we figured out that the date on the paper was the date of a solar eclipse—a day when the moon blocks out the sun. And during a solar eclipse, Firebenders lose their bending abilities.
This was it! This was the way to beat the Fire Nation!
“We just have to figure out when the next solar eclipse is happening,” I told the others. “Then we’ve got to get that information to Ba Sing S
e so the Earth King can plan to invade the Fire Nation on that day. The Fire Lord is going down!”
Just then there was an uncomfortable silence and I felt someone behind me. When I spun around, I saw the owl towering over us.
“Mortals are so predictable,” the owl said. “And such terrible liars. You betrayed my trust.”
“We’re just trying to protect the people we love,” I replied.
“And I’m going to protect what I love. I’m taking my knowledge back. No one will ever abuse it again.”
The owl began flapping his wings and the library started sinking into the desert.
Oh, no! He’s destroying the library. And he’s going to take us along with it!
We ran from the planetarium. But then I realized that we needed one more important piece of information: the date of the next eclipse.
“Sokka, let’s go!” Katara called.
“If we leave this place we’ll never get the information we need,” I said. “Aang, come with me!”
While Katara and Momo tried to distract the owl, Aang and I hurried back to the planetarium. There we checked every day between now and the time that Sozin’s Comet—the comet that will give the Fire Nation unlimited power—returns. In a few minutes we had the date. “That’s it! The solar eclipse. It’s just a few months away. Now let’s get this info to Ba Sing Se!”
Aang and I met up with Katara and Professor Zei, who decided to stay and sink with the library. I think he’s crazy for wanting to stay, but I guess he really loves to read. We, on the other hand, had to get out. Aang flew us back up the spire and out the window.
Toph had been holding up the building with Earthbending! Once she saw that we were safe, she let it go and the entire library disappeared into the sand.
“We did it!” I yelled. “We got the information we need to stop the Fire Nation, and … where’s Appa?”
That’s when Toph told us that he was missing. Gone. Taken by a group of Sandbenders. And here we were in the middle of a desert, with no way out.