The Lost Rainforest #2

by Eliot Schrefer

  “Then maybe we should send you,” Mez says.

  Gogi’s hands go over his mouth. “Mez!” he gasps.

  Sky’s feathers ruffle; then he cocks his head to one side, beak open as he rasps. He’s laughing, Gogi realizes. “That was actually pretty funny,” he clucks.

  “What about lyre sap?” Chumba asks.

  They turn to look at the young calico panther. Well, the boto doesn’t. She just closes her eyes and listens.

  “I’ve been thinking,” Chumba goes on. “We give lyre sap to panthers who are raving from fever. It cools the mind and makes them calm again. Remember, back when you were a sick cub, Mez? Maybe lyre sap could help protect us from the bog’s effects.”

  “I know nothing of this lyre sap,” the boto says. “But that does not mean it wouldn’t be useful. There is much knowledge to be gleaned from the folkways of Caldera’s animals. I wish we had more ways to share our information.”

  “I do too,” Mez says. “We shadowwalkers got tricked by Auriel the boa constrictor because we didn’t communicate better.”

  The boto dives, only to come up again with a sloppy reed draped over her nose. “If I don’t want to lose my chance to hunt today, I must go. Though it is hard to imagine the Ant Queen desiring an area like this one, I also know that if her plan is to take all of Caldera for her ants, she will not leave anywhere alone. I will hope for your success, slim though the chances are.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to come with us?” Gogi asks, only realizing the inevitable answer once the words are out of his mouth. “You have a reed on your face, by the way. Just thought you would want to know.”

  The boto lifts a flipper out of the water. “It would be . . . difficult for an aquatic creature to travel with you. Besides, the years have worn on me, and my energy is low these days. The only thing I have to offer is my knowledge, I’m afraid. I do wish you the best.”

  She shakes the limp reed free, and then turns to go.

  “Wait!” Rumi cries after her. “Please share more of your knowledge! Like what happened to the rest of the botos? How did you pass down what you’d learned over the generations? What is outside Caldera?”

  But the boto is gone.

  The clearing is full of the sounds of the insects around them, the hush of the falling mist, the burbles of fish and snakes slipping through the thick water. The darkening night sets Gogi to feeling even more light-headed, the outlines visible in his soft curtain of light blurring and merging. Wordlessly, the companions back away from the boto’s clearing, heading for the cover of the nearby forest.

  Once they’re nestled away, they huddle. “Priority number one has to be water,” Gogi says, running his hands through the fur on his face, sweat-soaked even at nighttime. Mez and Chumba seem to be suffering the most, with their dark fur completely soaked and salt-stained, sticking out in random directions.

  “No,” Sky says, seemingly unaffected by the heat. “Priority number one is to get the lens.”

  “Or to investigate the Dismal Bog,” Chumba says.

  “We have no information whatsoever about the Dismal Bog, except that the ants won’t go there, and that it gives creatures hallucinations,” Sky scoffs. “That’s next to nothing to go on.”

  “No animal has returned successfully from searching out the lens,” Mez growls. “So there’s also that.”

  “The odds might be long,” Gogi says, wringing his hands. He wants to cheer everyone up, but he isn’t sure how. “But that doesn’t mean we won’t succeed! We just have to choose the best path to take.” He wishes his words didn’t sound so hollow.

  “You’re assuming we take only one of these two courses,” Rumi says from his spot at the edge of a puddle. He’s got his arms out over the side, keeping his body deep within the recesses of a low-hanging frond. “Statistics would say that, when the odds are this long, we might be better off trying twice to make lightning strike, rather than only slightly increasing our odds of just one shot.”

  “Hmm, I’m sure that’s an interesting point, Rumi . . . ,” Gogi says, scratching behind his ear.

  “You didn’t follow any of that, did you?” Rumi asks.

  “Well, not precisely, no.”

  “He’s saying that it’s better to hedge our bets and split into two groups,” Mez says. “And I think I agree.”

  “We can’t all go to the same place anyway,” Lima says. “We have to fly to the lens. So that team has to be me and . . .” Her voice trails off as she realizes the implications of what she’s saying. “Sky.”

  Gogi’s not sure what he thinks. It would be a very unexpected pairing.

  Sky must feel the same way. “It strikes me that having a creature that could fly with you—and a bat, no less—would be more useful in a bog.”

  “Are you saying bats are creepy and spooky?” Lima says. “Because that’s a cliché I’m definitely ready to see put to rest.”

  “Sky’s got a good point,” Gogi says. “If anyone’s going to be able to resist a depressing bog, it’s you.”

  Lima smiles. “Oh. That’s a much better way of putting it!”

  “I should go and investigate the lens all by myself,” Sky says.

  “No!” Gogi, Mez, and Chumba say simultaneously.

  “It seems like my past will always haunt me,” Sky says, his voice low and unreadable. “I was foolish to expect you to ever forgive me.”

  “Sky,” Gogi says, placing a hesitant hand on the macaw’s wing, “it’s not like that.” But maybe it is, Gogi thinks. Maybe there are things that no good deed can make up for.

  “Even if you all don’t trust Sky yet, I do. Let me go with him,” Rumi offers.

  Sky looks at him, head cocked, then nods. “I would appreciate the company.”

  “Think about it,” Rumi says. “I know the most lore about the two-legs, and I’m good at riddles and puzzles. I’m really small, too, even lighter than Lima, so I could ride on Sky’s back no problem. Maybe I could use my wind powers to speed us along!”

  “A literal tailwind,” Sky says, a hint of humor in his voice.

  “It’s not a bad plan,” Mez says grudgingly.

  “I hate the idea of splitting up at all,” Lima says, hopping over to land beside Rumi.

  “Me too,” Rumi says, with a side eye toward Sky. “But I think this might be our best course.”

  Once again, Gogi feels like Sky and Rumi have something going on between them that he can’t figure out. But how to broach it? “Agreed,” Gogi says. “Will we meet back at the ruins once—ow!” He leaps to his feet, swatting at his behind. “The Ant Queen! She’s here! Or wait, no, that’s just a termite, false alert, sorry, guys.”

  “So,” Mez says, “once we’ve gotten the lens and figured out whatever we can from the Dismal Bog, how do we all meet back up?”

  “Don’t forget about my magical power, panther,” Sky says. “As Chumba knows from when I alerted her to Mez’s danger, I have the limited power to send visions. Though it may be only in dreams and thoughts, we can be in touch.”

  “Please send those strange dreams to the others,” Lima says. “I’m not interested in having you rummaging around in my head.”

  “Very well,” Sky says, beak clenched but with a glint of humor in his eyes. “I will do my best.”

  Twelve Nights Until the Eclipse

  MIDNIGHT DOES NOTHING to peel back the heat of the day, unfortunately—they are sweating and panting even in darkness. Lima goes off to scout out water. So it is Gogi, Mez, and Chumba who are left to say good-bye to Sky and Rumi.

  “Pay attention to the night sky,” Rumi says, pointing up at the stars. “The lunar eclipse will happen once the moon is full again. We have a dozen nights to get the lens.”

  The macaw stretches his wings out and closes them, stretches and closes, limbering up for the long flight ahead. Rumi, on Sky’s back, roots through the flight feathers until he can get a grip on the softer down beneath, and holds it tightly in his fingers. “It will be a long tri
p. Are you sure you can hold on to me without straining?” Sky asks.

  “I’ll be okay,” Rumi says. “I’ve got some pretty sticky fingers and toes.”

  “Sky,” Gogi says sternly. “You’ll keep checking on him, right? Don’t go charging off for too long at once. Take rests.”

  “Don’t worry,” Sky says. “I’ll look out for our friend Rumi.”

  “Thanks,” Gogi says. He doesn’t feel good about the group splitting up—monkey instinct is always to keep the tribe together—but he can see no better way forward. “I’ll miss you guys so much,” he says. Well, he’s not sure if he’ll miss Sky, but it would feel rude to point that out.

  “I know how much you’ll be worrying about Rumi,” Sky says. He turns so he’s facing away from Gogi. “Here, pluck out one of my tail feathers.”

  “Wait, what, are you serious?” Gogi asks, suddenly embarrassed. “You’re not going to fart or something, are you?”

  “Now’s not the time for pranks, Sky,” Mez says.

  “Do I seem like the type to make fart jokes?” Sky asks.

  “Not now that you mention it,” Gogi says.

  “So pull.” Sky scrunches his eyes shut. “Quickly. This will hurt.”

  Feeling sheepish, Gogi braces himself against a tree, selects a tail feather, grips it in both hands, and yanks. With a startled caw, Sky goes tumbling forward into the mud. He huffs to his feet and immediately begins preening. Tears stand in the corners of his eyes.

  Gogi holds up the crimson feather he managed to yank out. “I’m sorry. Did that hurt a lot?”

  Sky jerks his head. “No,” he says, his voice strained. “Not at all.”

  “It’s pretty,” Chumba says. “So many different reds.”

  “It’s a directive,” Sky says, “an item that channels my divination magic. When you need it most, hold my feather in your palm and remember this exact moment, every detail of where we are. Send your thoughts to me. If I’m in a receptive moment, I should hear them, no matter the distance.”

  “Your powers have grown,” Rumi admires, appearing from the feathers of Sky’s shoulder.

  “I haven’t worked out all the kinks yet,” Sky says. “But let’s hope that it works for us.”

  “Thank you for the feather,” Gogi says as he pulls the woven bag his mom made him to his front and gently tucks the feather inside. He stares around the area. “Witch’s tongue plant, check. A bunch of orb-weaver spiders, check. Tsetse flies, check. Bright tan puddle, check.”

  “What are you doing?” Chumba asks curiously.

  “Memorizing the scene—weren’t you listening?”

  “We’ll just have Lima record an echomap, silly.”

  “Huh,” Gogi says. “You learn something new about bats every day.”

  “Lima showed us some of her tricks over our year at home,” Mez explains. “Bats are pretty interesting.”

  “Are you ready to head out, Rumi?” Sky asks.

  “Here we go, off to learn new things!” Rumi says.

  With that, Sky reaches out his wings and, with a few powerful strokes, makes his way up into the air.

  “Rumi seemed in good spirits,” Chumba says, watching them rise out of view.

  “Learning things does that to him,” Mez says.

  “I’m going to miss them,” Gogi says. He pauses, considering. “Both of them, surprisingly.”

  “Yes, Sky has a certain unlikable charm,” Chumba says, nodding.

  A bat’s chirp makes its way through the sluggish air.

  “Finally,” Mez croaks. “Lima found water.”

  Rested and hydrated, the quartet of friends huddles beneath a fig tree. “Best I can figure it, we go get the lyre tree sap, then head to the Dismal Bog,” Gogi says.

  “And where do we get lyre tree sap?” Mez asks.

  “The lyre tree by our den?” Chumba asks.

  “Chumba,” Mez says, “our den is nights and nights of travel away from here.”

  “Right.” Chumba sighs.

  “Tell me about where this lyre tree grows near your den,” Gogi says, rubbing his hands together. “Figuring out where to find the best fruiting trees is a capuchin monkey specialty, and you’re in the company of a number twelve. Spare no detail.”

  “Okay,” Chumba says excitedly. “So you head out of the den, and go left right away.”

  “Isn’t it right?” Lima asks.

  “No,” Mez says. “It’s definitely left.”

  “Oh, right,” Lima says. “I’m usually flying out, which means I take a different exit. Sorry.”

  “So you go left,” Chumba continues, “and then you come to a creeper vine that’s covering the path, which we usually just climb over, although when we were cubs we had to go under it. So then there’s the three flat stones, which is the spot where we usually play whisker taunt—”

  “Are there pebbles alongside them, or are the stones on their own? And is this shaded all day? Trying to figure out if this is acidic soil.”

  “This is fun!” Chumba says. “I remember it always being shaded, but of course that’s at night. But Mez is nodding right now, so I guess even during the day it’s shaded. And there aren’t pebbles nearby. Just the three rocks and silky soil. Anyway, you go up a little incline, and there at the top is the lyre tree, which has these branches that fan out on either side, and from those are hanging these seedpods, which have the sap inside, all around the seeds.”

  “The spot around the lyre tree, is it wet?”

  “No!” Chumba says. “I never thought about that. It’s slightly higher ground. The water runs off it.”

  “I’ve got it!” Gogi says. “Fairly acidic soil, drier zone within a wetter climate, relatively little sunshine. Follow me!”

  Gogi bounds up the fig tree to get a good view of the surroundings. Mez and Chumba wait at the bottom, staring up at him. They can climb trees, but not as well as monkeys can. Lima’s right nearby, though, peering about. “Are we hot on the trail?” she asks excitedly.

  Gogi hops from branch to branch, looking in every direction. The broad jungles of Caldera stretch as far as the eye can see.

  “See that spot between those twin lagoons, with the row of trees? Based on what Chumba described, one of those is a lyre tree, I’m almost sure of it.”

  “Impressive!” Lima says.

  “Thanks,” Gogi says. “So, do you think you’re up for retrieving some sap?”

  “Me?” Lima squeaks.

  “Yes,” Gogi says. “It would take the rest of us days to get around the lagoon, and you could fly over in minutes.”

  “They’re small feet, but I’ll grab as much as I can with them,” Lima says.

  “See if you can get about a whole seedpod with your feet,” Gogi says. “Once it’s back here, we can figure out the best way to transport it to the Dismal Bog.”

  “I’m on it!” Lima says before zooming away.

  Gogi holds steady in the branches, looking out over Caldera. He pats the pouch his mother once wove him, making sure the feather is still in there. He wonders if, when she was taken by the harpy eagle, she realized that being an orphan would drop Gogi to the bottom of the capuchin rankings. I’ll do you proud, Mom, Gogi thinks. I’ll show you there was never anything to worry about. I’ll get this down to eleven pebbles before any of us even know it.

  A black spot appears on the horizon, growing larger and larger until Gogi can make out Lima’s familiar shape. She’s going slower than usual, and Gogi soon sees why—she’s got something heavy in her feet. She zags through the air, finally coming to rest at the base of Gogi’s tree. “Would you mind coming down here?” she calls up. “That was exhausting!”

  Gogi scampers down the tree, going as quickly as he can but still taking moments to enjoy the feel of branches under his hands, the trunk under his feet, to swing around a limb and backflip to the ground. Trees! The best!

  At the bottom, Gogi finds Mez and Chumba circling Lima, talking excitedly to her. “Lima got it! She found the se
edpod!” Mez calls.

  Lima lies back in the reeds, panting heavily. “You okay?” Gogi asks.

  Lima nods, an exhausted smile on her face. “Might have overdone it. I’ll be fine in a moment.”

  “Look at this!” Chumba says. She’s got a claw in the parted seedpod, and she lifts it to show Gogi the stringy, sticky substance inside. “It’s the most delicious thing you’ll ever taste, but it only works for a short while afterward. We’d better use it right after we’ve entered the Dismal Bog.”

  “That’s too bad,” Mez says, licking her chops. “It’s really delicious. I could go for some right now.”

  Gogi peers at the sappy fibers. “Would it be so bad if we, if we maybe . . . ?”

  “No!” Mez and Chumba say together.

  “Okay, fine, I’ll wait,” Gogi says.

  Mez peers at him, eyes narrowed. “Gogi . . .”

  “What?” he says, indignant. “You don’t know what I was going to say. Maybe I was about to propose that, that, um, Lima was the one who might eat it too early.”

  “Me?” Lima asks. “Why me? Where is that coming from?”

  “Nothing, never mind,” Gogi huffs. “You all know my monkey brain too well, I guess.”

  “Well, you don’t need to slander me about it.”

  “I know, I know, I’m sorry!” Gogi says.

  “It’s okay,” Mez says. “We know you wouldn’t actually eat the sap early.”

  Chumba yawns and looks toward the horizon, where the pale orb of the sun is glinting. “The Veil is about to lift, guys. I wish I could stay awake, but I’m going to be in daycoma pretty soon.”

  Just like that, the sun’s rays appear and Chumba’s asleep. There will be no waking her until the Veil has dropped again, at dusk.

  Mez looks around. “Oops. I guess we make camp here,” she says. “It’s not what I would have picked, but it’s still pretty defensible. What do you guys say we hide in those ferns over there and wait out the day? We could all use some rest.”

  “What do you say, Lima?” Gogi asks. But then he hears the gentle snores: the bat is fully asleep too.