“That will do the trick all right,” Kendra said with a laugh, as she and the rest of the company boarded.
Once everyone was settled, Ratchet pushed off from shore, and they started down the river. Uncle Griffinskitch, Captain Jinx, and Professor Bumblebean chatted quietly about the task ahead. Kendra and Oki leaned over the edge of the pumpkin and watched the water go by. Ratchet concentrated on steering the boat.
They floated for over an hour in the darkness. Then, just as the sun was beginning to peek its amber face over the horizon, they heard the roar of the mighty Wishing Falls, which spilled over a cliff at the very edge of Een. As the falls came into sight, Ratchet steered the boat ashore and brought it to rest on the bank.
“Well, here we are,” Ratchet told his passengers. “Nothing between us and the outside world except the magic curtain.”
Kendra found herself trembling, but she wasn’t sure if it was from fear or excitement. She had never imagined she would go beyond the borders of Een, and now, here she was, only eleven years old and beginning a grand adventure.
“This is where we take leave of you, Ratchet,” Uncle Griffinskitch announced, turning to the raccoon.
“I know, I know,” Ratchet said.
“Good-bye, Ratchet,” Kendra said, hugging the raccoon. “I wish you were coming.”
“Now don’t you worry—I’ll be closer than you think,” Ratchet told her with a wink. He patted Oki on the head, gave a nod to the others, and was soon on his way back down the river.
“Well, let’s get going,” Jinx said, pacing eagerly before the magic curtain.
Kendra nervously approached the curtain. She couldn’t hear or see it, but she could certainly feel it. It was like a sheet of energy suspended in the air.
“Come on,” Jinx said. “What’s the holdup?”
“There’s no way I’m going through that thing!” Oki declared. “I’ll get zapped!”
“No, you won’t,” Jinx told the mouse. “Now march on.”
But Oki wouldn’t budge.
“If Oki’s not going through, neither am I,” Kendra announced.
“Maybe Elder Griffinskitch could put a spell on us,” Oki suggested.
“What’s that?” Uncle Griffinskitch asked.
“You know, to protect us . . . kind of,” Oki stammered.
“Humph,” Uncle Griffinskitch muttered, stroking his long white beard.
“I tell you what, Elder Griffinskitch,” Jinx said. “I’ll just throw each of these little twerps over a shoulder and carry them through myself.”
“Humph,” Uncle Griffinskitch grunted again. “Now listen, Kendra and Oki. The curtain is safe, I assure you. But it is still a magic thing. So you must concentrate very hard as you go through it.”
“How do you mean?” Kendra asked.
“It’s simple,” her uncle replied. “Whatever you do as you cross through, don’t think of onions.”
“Onions!” Oki cried. “That doesn’t make any sense at all.”
Uncle Griffinskitch turned and glared down at the mouse. The old wizard’s ears poked out from his white hair, burning red with anger.
“But I’m sure it’ll work,” the tiny mouse gulped.
“Now get on through,” Uncle Griffinskitch commanded in his deep voice. “And remember: whatever you do . . . DON’T THINK OF ONIONS!”
Oki and Kendra turned and faced the curtain.
“Well, here goes nothing,” Kendra said.
She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and stepped through the curtain. She could feel her long braids buzzing with a crackle of energy, but it didn’t hurt. Indeed, it felt as if the curtain were alive and tickling her. Then, just as suddenly, it was over, and she was standing safely on the other side. She turned and found Oki following close behind her.
“Don’t think of onions, don’t think of onions,” the small mouse was murmuring, as if in some sort of trance.
“We made it through!” Kendra told Oki, shaking him to alertness.
“What a strange feeling,” Oki remarked. “My whiskers are tingly.”
“It’s my braids that are feeling it,” Kendra said, giving them a good tug.
The rest of the company was soon standing with them on the other side of the curtain.
“I don’t get it,” Oki said. “I know I wasn’t supposed to think about onions, but in fact, that’s the only thing I could think of!”
“You’ve been fooled,” Jinx told him. “Old Griffinskitch just said that business about onions so you’d forget about how frightened you were.”
“Is that true?” Kendra asked, turning to her uncle. The old wizard didn’t reply, but Kendra couldn’t help to notice a slight twinkle in his blue eyes. She had never known her uncle to play a trick of any sort before. She didn’t even know he had a sense of humor. “How strange,” she said to Oki.
“You know what’s even stranger?” the mouse said. “Look back . . . I can’t see Een anymore.”
Kendra turned around and, sure enough, she could see nothing of the River Wink or anything else from home. The landscape seemed to just continue on as if Een didn’t even exist.
“It’s an illusion of course,” Professor Bumblebean explained. “You see, the land of Een is invisible from the outside. Now you or I could march directly through the magic curtain and find ourselves home. But if a Goojun or some other monster were to blunder into the curtain, he’d just appear on the other side of Een without even knowing what had occurred.”
“But if we can’t see Een and we can’t see the curtain, how will we find our way back?” Oki asked worriedly.
“You just have to know where you started from, of course,” Professor Bumblebean replied. “Take a good look about you, Honest Oki, and mark the spot in your mind.”
Neither Oki nor Kendra wanted to be stuck in the outside world. While the other members of the company consulted the professor’s maps and did one last check of their supplies, the two young friends set about trying to memorize the landmarks around the curtain.
“We proceed due north,” Professor Bumblebean declared shortly, pushing at his glasses. “We shall embark on a straight course towards those mountains. In those rocky pinnacles we will find our castle and—hopefully—the Box of Whispers.”
THE BAND OF WOULD-BE HEROES was now on its way. Captain Jinx took the lead, followed by Kendra and Oki, then Professor Bumblebean, and lastly, Uncle Griffinskitch, who shuffled along with the help of his gnarled staff.
To Kendra, the world outside the curtain seemed no different than the one inside, though both she and Oki expected to find Goojuns and Ungers around every corner. Now, I’m sure you’d be excited to read about a Goojun or an Unger, but Kendra knew that even the thought of such creatures was enough to send a shiver down Oki’s spine. Indeed, every time a leaf or branch brushed against his long tail, he jumped in the air and cried, “Eek!”
“Enough already!” Jinx snarled after Oki had jumped for the fourth time in less than an hour. “Why don’t you just wave a flag and tell every monster from here to Krodos that we’re on our way?”
“Oh, dear,” Oki murmured. “Do you think they heard me?”
“Who?” Jinx asked crossly.
“Every monster from here to Krodos,” Oki whispered.
“How should I know?” Jinx retorted. “Just try and keep quiet.”
“Have you ever seen a monster?” Kendra asked the grasshopper.
“You sure are a talkative bunch,” Jinx grumbled.
“Well, it helps pass the time, don’t you think?” Kendra asked.
“Go talk to Bumblebore then,” Jinx said, pointing to the professor, who was plodding a short distance behind them. “He likes to talk better than anyone I know.”
“We’d much rather talk to you,” Kendra told the captain.
“That’s for sure,” Oki agreed. “What do you think is in the Box of Whispers?”
“That’s hardly my concern, or yours for that matter,” Jinx replied. “Our job is to
find it—and that’s all.”
“It must be important,” Kendra said. “I mean, Elder Woodsong even called the orb to help find it.”
“I think there are voices inside the box,” Oki said.
“But whose voices?” Kendra wondered.
“Probably those of the ancient Eens,” Oki replied. “That makes the most sense to me. But I don’t know why they call it the Box of Whispers.”
“Maybe the box isn’t big enough to hold loud voices,” Kendra suggested. “Maybe it can only fit quiet whispering ones.”
“That’s the silliest thing I’ve ever heard,” Jinx declared.
“Well, what do you think then?” Kendra asked.
“I try not to think any more than I have to,” Jinx retorted as they came upon a long branch lying across their path. If you had been the size of a grasshopper, the branch would have seemed like an enormous fallen tree. Still, Jinx was no ordinary grasshopper, and she threw the branch aside as if it had been no heavier than a feather.
Kendra and Oki looked at Jinx with amazement.
“How did you become so strong, Captain Jinx?” Kendra asked the grasshopper.
Jinx glared hard at the two young friends. “You are a pair of pestering twerps, you know that? Why should I tell you anything?”
“Please, Jinx?” Oki asked. “Tell us how you got so strong. I heard you drank a magic potion.”
“I don’t know how that’s any of your business,” Jinx scowled.
“Then tell us about the monsters you’ve seen,” Kendra said.
“Who’s said I’ve seen any?” Jinx demanded.
“Well, have you?” Kendra asked.
Jinx rolled her eyes. “Yes, of course,” she said. “If you must know, I saw my first Goojun on the same day I got my strength.”
“Really?” Oki asked. “Oh, do tell us about it.”
“I’m no storyteller,” Jinx grumbled.
“Please?” Kendra begged.
“I’ll tell you what,” Jinx said. “I’ll cut you a deal. I’ll tell you the story as long as Oki stops ‘eeking.’ And another thing! Don’t go blabbing this to all of Eendom. That’s all I need.”
“Oh, we swear we won’t tell,” Kendra said.
“Double-swear,” Oki added.
“You don’t have to get dramatic about it,” Jinx groaned, rolling her eyes at them. “Well, it happened long ago, when I was just a nymph. Don’t ask me what that is, Kendra. That’s what a young grasshopper is called. Anyway, I lived in the Hills of Wight, which are a good day’s hop north of Faun’s End. My parents had sent me there to apprentice with my Uncle Jasper, who was a great sorcerer.”
“Greater than Uncle Griffinskitch?” Kendra asked.
“Well, I didn’t say that,” Jinx said, sounding annoyed. She took a deep breath and continued. “But he was a great wizard nonetheless. Sometimes Uncle Jasper would go outside the magic curtain to look for plants that he needed for all his powders and potions. He was a potion specialist, and Eens and animals came from every corner because he could heal all types of sicknesses.”
“Oooh,” Oki said. “Could your uncle cure Goojun pox? How about the squeezles?”
“Of course!” Jinx replied, though in truth she sounded somewhat uncertain. “Now stop interrupting, and let me continue! One day I went with Uncle Jasper to collect his plants. We went deep into the Forests of Wretch, for we were looking for this special kind of moss that only grows in pitch darkness. If any light touches this moss, it shrivels up and dies. But there’s more than moss that lives in those woods.”
“Like what?” Kendra asked, tugging nervously on her braids.
“Goojuns actually,” Jinx said. “And that day we ran into a whole herd of them.”
At the mention of Goojuns, Kendra looked at Oki and noticed a particularly strong “eek” welling up in him. But Jinx cast him a threatening glance, and at once, the mouse seemed to gulp down his terror.
“Uncle Jasper and I hopped for our lives,” the grasshopper continued. “As I said, it was dark in the Forests of Wretch, and we got separated. Those Goojuns were everywhere. I couldn’t yell for Uncle Jasper because I knew they’d hear me. So I made my way as best I could. I hadn’t gone far when I stumbled upon Uncle Jasper’s pouch. He kept all his potions in it.”
“But where was your uncle?” Kendra asked.
“I don’t know,” Jinx replied with a grimace. “Since that day, he’s never been seen.”
“Oh,” Kendra said sadly. “It sounds like what happened to my family.”
“Well, I don’t know much about that,” Jinx said with some discomfort in her voice. “But the disappearances did happen in the same year. It wasn’t long afterwards that Eens and we animals stopped going outside the curtain altogether.”
“But how did you escape the Goojuns?” Oki asked.
“Like I said, I found Uncle Jasper’s pouch,” Jinx said. “And in it were all his potions. I could hear the Goojuns thrashing about in the forest. They were close to me, and I knew it would only be a matter of seconds before they caught me.”
“Were you scared?” Oki asked intently.
“Well, the worst thing about Goojuns is that they don’t eat you whole,” Jinx said. “They like to eat you in little bits. They start with your legs, and then—”
“I do say,” came a voice, and they looked up to see Professor Bumblebean. Having caught up to them, the large-eared Een had overheard the last part of Jinx’s story. “Do you really think you should be describing such horrific scenes to these youths?”
“No less horrific then your giant swelled head, Boogerbrain,” Jinx snarled.
“There’s no need to be rude, Captain Jinx,” Professor Bumblebean remarked. “And I do believe you have misspoken my name. It’s Bumblebean, you know.”
Jinx groaned.
“I should think you would recall the name Bumblebean,” the professor continued. “After all, I descend from a long line of famous scholars.”
“Oh, please finish your story, Captain Jinx,” Kendra begged, interrupting the professor in her eagerness. She gave him an apologetic smile, then turned back to Jinx.
“I was just about to,” Jinx told her, casting another sneer at the professor. “Anyway, as I was saying, I could hear the Goojuns getting closer. I began ripping through Uncle Jasper’s pouch, for I knew he had a potion that would turn me invisible. But I was in such a hurry that I accidentally grabbed the wrong flask. Instead of an invisibility potion, I grabbed a healing potion, and I drank it down whole. Of course, I wasn’t injured and didn’t need to be healed. And because of that, the potion gave me super strength. To this day, it has never gone away.”
“And the Goojuns?” Oki asked.
“They weren’t much match for me after I took that potion,” Jinx boasted. “I thumped them rather well, and sent them scampering back into the shadows of the forest. I looked for two days and nights for Uncle Jasper, but there was no sign of him. Finally, I went back home. But I never became a sorcerer. I was never that good at it to begin with, and once Uncle Jasper disappeared, I had no teacher. So instead, I studied the art of weapons.”
“My word,” Professor Bumblebean said. “Your story doesn’t calculate, Captain. How on earth could you possibly select the wrong potion?”
“What do you mean?” Jinx growled.
“Well, I knew your Uncle Jasper,” he declared. “He had an impeccable habit of labeling all his potions. Why didn’t you just read the label?”
Jinx looked like she was about to explode in anger. “I told you,” she roared. “I was in a hurry.”
“Well, I do say, that’s hardly an excuse not to stop and read,” Professor Bumblebean said.
“You pompous, bungle-brained buffoon!” Jinx screeched. “Why don’t you just mind your own business?”
“Well, I never!” the professor declared. “You don’t have to lose your temper!”
With a furious scream, Jinx withdrew her sword and began slashing at the bushes and b
ranches along the path. She was soon far ahead.
“Humph,” Uncle Griffinskitch grumbled, hobbling up from behind. “What seems to be the problem, Professor?”
“I’m afraid I’ve provoked some agitation in the captain,” Professor Bumblebean replied. “I’m not sure how, really. Nonetheless, it seems she’s discovered a certain zeal for clearing the path.”
“We don’t exactly need the path cleared,” Kendra said.
“Humph,” Uncle Griffinskitch grunted in agreement, as he watched the grasshopper viciously swing her sword. “Just let her clear it all the same.”
THE TINY BAND OF ADVENTURERS traveled so late into the day that by the time they stopped to make camp, they were all quite tuckered out. Professor Bumblebean, who was not accustomed to exercise of any sort, seemed particularly exhausted. Kendra herself felt as if she had been in gym class all day without even stopping for recess.
Jinx would allow no fire, knowing that Ungers or Goojuns might see it in the night, so they had no warm meal. Instead, they nibbled on dried vegetables and fruit. Afterward, Jinx found some wild berries, so at least they were able to have what Oki called a “tolerable” dessert.
When the meal was finished, Professor Bumblebean promptly pulled out one of his books and began squinting at it through the moonlight.
“I do believe we are in the Hills of Horm,” he remarked a short time later.
“Humph,” Uncle Griffinskitch grunted. “Then we must be extra careful.”
“Why?” Kendra asked. “What’s in the Hills of Horm?”
“Oh, all varieties of monsters live here,” Professor Bumblebean replied, too cheerfully for Kendra’s liking. “More than I could enumerate. But this book states that, in particular, this is Unger territory.”
“Oh, great,” Oki fretted, looking about with worried eyes.
“You sure don’t seem to be afraid, Professor,” Kendra remarked.
“Oh, me?” Professor Bumblebean asked. “Well, fear is usually all just in our heads, I suppose. I choose to believe in facts over fiction. If only my fellow Eens would read more about these monsters, then I’m sure they’d be less afraid of them.”
Kendra Kandlestar and the Box of Whispers Page 5