In the Jungle Page 2

  Ha! Ha! Ha! Hee! Hee! Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! came a sound like a wild party from the treetops.

  meep … “Laughing kookaburra bird!” said Thudd, pointing way above.

  A bird the size of a seagull landed on a branch nearby.

  “Jumping gerbils!” said Andrew. “It looks as big as a pterodactyl!”

  Then another kookaburra flew down, and then another.

  “I’ll bet they’re looking for bugs,” said Judy.

  The peppermint-stick insect scuttled onto a branch and was scurrying around a mountain of brown fur.

  Ha! Ha! Ha! Hee! Hee! Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!

  Andrew turned to see the kookaburras swooping toward them.

  Hope this bug has a lot of peppermint spray left, thought Andrew.

  The fur mountain next to them shook. In an instant, it unfolded itself into a black-faced, sharp-clawed creature that towered over them like King Kong!

  “Yaaaaah!” hollered Judy.

  “Uh-oh,” Andrew gulped.

  meep … “Tree kangaroo!” squeaked Thudd. “Kinda kangaroo that always live in trees. Tree kangaroo leap far, far, far! Leap from tree to tree.”

  The tree kangaroo crouched down, then sprang through the leaves.

  Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!

  The kookaburras scattered.

  The tree kangaroo’s jump made the branch dip low, then spring up high and hard.

  It’s like I’m on a bucking bronco! thought Andrew, trying to hang on to the bug.

  But the branch bounced into a dangling vine that scraped Andrew and Judy off the stick insect. They were falling through the branches of the tree!

  “Yaaaargh!” hollered Andrew.

  “Yiiiiiikes!” screamed Judy.

  “Oof!” shouted Andrew, landing on a leaf lower down in the tree.

  “Uuuuuck!” came a muffled screech from below. It was Judy. It sounded like she was inside a bottle. “Get me outta here!”

  Andrew peered over the edge of the leaf, but he couldn’t see Judy.

  “Where are you?” hollered Andrew.

  “Here!” shouted Judy. A hand shot out of a hole in a giant white lump on a tree branch below. The lump was covered with long, sharp thorns taller than Andrew.

  “Erk!” yelled Judy. “Hurry up, Bug-Brain! A monster ant is trying to bite off my leg!”

  WE JUST ATE WHAT?

  “Here I come, Judy!” yelled Andrew.

  Grabbing on to ferns and mosses, he lowered himself down the tree trunk.

  “Umf! Ack! Ugh!” came the sounds of Judy’s struggle.

  meep … “Oody fall into ant-house plant!” squeaked Thudd. “Ant-house plant got big, fat thorny stem. Ants live inside. Make lotsa tunnels inside stem. Make tunnels for baby ants. Make tunnels for garbage.

  “Ants get place to live. Plant get food from ant garbage. Ants happy. Plant happy.”

  “Judy’s sure not happy,” said Andrew.

  By the time Andrew made his way through the tall thorns of the ant-house plant, Judy was just pulling herself out of the hole.

  “Whew!” she sighed, mopping strands of frizzy hair away from her face.

  meep … “Drewd and Oody go rest on branch for little bit,” said Thudd. “Thudd get treat.”

  “Treat?” asked Judy. “Everything here is nasty.”

  She and Andrew stepped carefully through the sword-like spines and crept toward the tree trunk.

  meep … “Put Thudd down, please, Drewd,” said Thudd. “Drewd and Oody close eyes.”

  “Oh, all right,” said Judy, finding a velvety patch of moss to stretch out on.

  Before long, Thudd came back. He was dragging two leaf pieces. In the middle of each piece was a spot of wetness.

  meep … “Treat ready!” said Thudd. He handed a piece of leaf to Andrew and a piece to Judy. “Lick leaf!”

  Andrew held the wet spot up to his nose. “Hmmmm …,” he mused. “This reminds me of something. Candy. Some kind of candy.”

  He licked the leaf.

  “Super-duper pooper-scooper!” Andrew cheered. “This stuff is delicious! Tastes like fizzy lime!”

  “What is this stuff?” asked Judy, sniffing her leaf.

  meep … “Oody taste,” said Thudd.

  “Humph,” said Judy. She touched the wet spot with the tip of her tongue.

  “YUM!” she said, beaming Thudd a big smile. “Now you have to tell us what it is.”

  Thudd pinched his way up Andrew’s shirt and crept back into his pocket. Then he pointed to a shiny green insect skittering along the branch.

  meep … “Green ant,” said Thudd. “Butt of green ant got powerful lime taste. People in rain forest lick butt of green ant cuz it taste good, good, good!”

  Judy’s face went white. “Blurgh!” She spit out what was in her mouth, then she kept spitting.

  Andrew grinned. “Aw, come on, Judy,” he said. “It tasted great, even if it did come from an ant’s butt.”

  Judy wiped her mouth with her sleeve. “If you ever do anything like that again, Thudd, I’m going to take out your batteries and throw them away!”

  Suddenly Thudd’s purple button started to blink again. It popped open and the hologram of Uncle Al appeared. He was wearing a T-shirt with a picture of an iguana on it.

  “Hey there!” said Uncle Al with a big smile. “Sorry it took so long to get your message.”

  “Hey, Uncle Al!” said Andrew.

  “Hiya, Unkie!” said Thudd.

  “We’re up a stupid tree, Uncle Al,” said Judy. “You’ve got to get us out of here!”

  Uncle Al’s eyebrows went up. “You guys are great climbers,” he said. “I’m surprised you can’t get down by yourselves. But I’ll be right over. Where are you?”

  When Uncle Al visited Andrew and Judy by using his Hologram Helper, he could hear them but not see them.

  “In the Australian rain forest,” said Judy.

  “Good golly, Miss Molly!” exclaimed Uncle Al. His eyebrows came together. “How did that happen?”

  “It’s a long story,” said Andrew. “But—”

  “It doesn’t matter how we got here,” Judy interrupted. “All that matters is getting out before we get eaten by beetles or birds or something.”

  “The Australian rain forest is a dangerous place,” said Uncle Al, “but you don’t have to worry about beetles and birds.”

  “Um, that’s not exactly true,” said Andrew. “We, uh, got ourselves shrunk by the Goa Constrictor I built to shrink garbage. Now we’re the size of small beetles.”

  “Albert Einstein on an egg sandwich!” exclaimed Uncle Al. “You shrunk yourselves again?” He shook his head. “I’ll get the whole story later,” he said. “But I need to leave right away so I can get to Australia tonight. Do you have any idea where you are?”

  meep … “Northeast part of Australia,” said Thudd.

  “Ah!” said Uncle Al. “The Daintree Rain Forest. Let me think.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “I have an idea,” he said.

  TRAPPED!

  Uncle Al rubbed his chin. “It would be very hard to find you in the middle of the rain forest,” he said. “But a river runs through it. If you can find a way to travel down the river, it will carry you to a place where I can find you.”

  “Wowzers!” said Andrew. He pushed a hand into one of his pants pockets. “I have some Umbubble,” he said. “We can use it to float down the river!”

  Umbubble was a special bubble gum that Andrew had invented. You could blow it up so big that you could get inside it.

  Judy frowned. “We’re surrounded by trees in this stupid jungle,” she said. “We’ll never be able to see where the river is.”

  “What kind of a tree are you in?” asked Uncle Al.

  meep … “Strangler fig,” said Thudd.

  “Great!” said Uncle Al. “They’re usually very tall. Climb to the top of the tree. You’ll probably be able to see the river from there. Note the direction, climb down the tree, and hike to the river.”

  Judy groaned. “Climb up the tree! Climb down the tree! Hike to the river! There’s dangerous stuff in these trees. And who knows what awful things are on the ground and in the river.”

  Uncle Al wasn’t smiling now. “You guys have done things that no one else has ever done,” he said. “You can do this. Keep your eyes open and be very careful.”

  “How will you find us on the river, Uncle Al?” asked Andrew.

  “I have to talk fast,” said Uncle Al. “The batteries on my Hologram Helper are running out. Listen closely.

  “On the edge of the rain forest, there’s a village,” said Uncle Al. “You’ll see the lights. The river is very narrow there. I’ll string a fine net across the river and catch you.”

  “But how will you even know you caught us?” asked Judy. “We’re so small, and it will be dark by then. You’ll never find us.”

  meep … “Got idea, Unkie!” squeaked Thudd.

  “What is it, Thudd?” asked Uncle Al.

  meep … “Lotsa rain-forest stuff glow in dark,” said Thudd. “Bugs, caterpillars, worms, mushrooms got bioluminescence. Mean ‘living light.’”

  A smile stretched across Uncle Al’s face. “Brilliant, Thudd!” he said. His voice was beginning to sound far away. “Ghost mushrooms! They glow so brightly, you can read by their light. They’re easy to find on the forest floor.”

  Uncle Al’s voice was so soft that Andrew and Judy could barely hear him. His hologram was fading.

  “Uncle Al, you’re disappearing!” said Judy.

  Uncle Al raised his eyebrows. His lips moved faster, but it sounded as though he were mumbling underwater.

  “Uncle Al!” shouted Judy. “Come back!”

  But with a pop and wiggle, he disappeared.

  Andrew loo
ked at Judy and shrugged. “Guess we’d better get climbing,” he said.

  Judy glanced up and shook her head. “The top of the tree is so high, we can’t even see it,” she said.

  “It’ll be easy to climb up,” said Andrew. “The bark is rough. And we can grab on to the ferns and mosses.”

  Judy cocked her head. “And what about the weird things that want to eat us?” she said.

  meep … “Peppermint smell keep some animals away … maybe,” said Thudd.

  Judy rolled her eyes. “Thank you, Thudd.”

  Andrew grabbed the stem of a fern frond, got a foothold in the tree bark, and began climbing.

  “Come on!” he called down to Judy. “It’s getting darker. It must be way past noon by now. We’ve got to meet Uncle Al tonight.”

  “Humph,” Judy grumbled. But she grabbed a long gray strand of moss and started up.

  Climbing was hard. Soon Andrew and Judy were huffing and puffing. Sweat dripped down their foreheads and into their eyes. Their arms and legs got scraped by the tree bark. They were too out of breath to talk.

  A stream of green ants trickled down the tree. Andrew would have liked more of that fizzy, limy stuff, but there was no time for that.

  meep … “Look!” squeaked Thudd, pointing up. “Top of the tree close, close, close!”

  “Wowzers schnauzers!” cheered Andrew. “We can get there in half an hour!”

  Judy stopped and pushed strands of hair away from her sweaty face. “I need a break,” she said.

  She crept from the tree trunk to a branch and flopped down on an orange fungus.

  “Just for a couple of minutes,” said Andrew, sitting down beside her.

  Suddenly something dropped over them. A net!

  EAT THIS!

  “YAAAAAH!” hollered Judy.

  “Holy moly!” said Andrew.

  He tried to pull the net off. But the more he struggled, the more tangled he got.

  Eek! squeaked Thudd. “Net-throwing spider! Spider weave net from spider silk. Watch for prey. Throw net on top of prey. Then spider bite prey with poison fangs! Gotta get out fast, fast, fast!”

  “I’m trying!” said Judy, pulling at the spider silk. It stretched like chewing gum. The more they pulled, the more net there was to trap them.

  “Noop! Noop! Noop!” squeaked Thudd. “Not pull web. Gotta eat web! Saliva in mouth break web!”

  Judy’s mouth dropped open and her eyes grew wide.

  meep … “EAT! EAT! EAT!” screeched Thudd.

  Andrew heard a rustle behind him. He spun around.

  A leaf quivered. In the shadow under the leaf, Andrew spied a hairy head. Below its two enormous, round black eyes were two gigantic, hairy fangs.

  “YAAARGH!” cried Andrew. His legs felt like pudding.

  Andrew turned and began stuffing globs of spider net into his mouth. Tastes kind of like milk, he thought.

  Judy was eating frantically, too. Her cheeks bulged with spiderweb.

  Suddenly Andrew felt something brush his back. The hairy brown fangs of the spider were rising up behind him!

  Andrew froze. Judy grabbed his arm and shoved him through the hole they’d eaten in the net.

  Broken strands of silk caught on their clothes, but they ripped themselves away. They were free!

  But the spider tore through its net. It was scuttling after them!

  “Ack!” screamed Judy as a claw scratched her scalp.

  They stumbled as fast as they could over the rough bark of the tree branch. Andrew looked frantically for a place to hide from the spider.

  meep … “Look, Drewd!” Thudd squeaked. He was pointing to a group of tall, thick green towers sticking up from the branch.

  Hanging down from one of the towers was a star-shaped, red-and-white-striped flower. It was as big as a person’s foot.

  Andrew and Judy ducked under ferns and mosses as they scrambled toward the strange-looking thing.

  “Ugh!” said Judy breathlessly. “Something stinks!”

  “Woofers!” said Andrew. “It’s worse than when we got lost in the garbage! What is that thing?”

  The closer they got to the strange plant, the worse the smell grew. The giant flower was covered with fuzzy red hairs—and lots of flies.

  meep … “Called dead-horse plant,” said Thudd. “Cuz flower stink like dead thing.

  “Smell of dead-horse flower bring flies. Pollen from flower stick to flies. Flies carry pollen to other dead-horse flowers. Then flowers make seeds. Seeds make more baby dead-horse plants.”

  meep … “Hide under dead-horse plant,” said Thudd.

  One of the spider’s clawed feet pricked Andrew’s leg.

  “YEOW!” hollered Andrew.

  With a burst of energy, he flung himself between the green cactus-like columns of the dead-horse plant.

  Suddenly the spider stopped. It scuttled to the monster flower. In a blur of speed, the fangs snatched a fly.

  Judy shivered. “That could have been you—or me!” she whispered.

  meep … “Spider busy eating fly,” said Thudd. “Drewd and Oody gotta get out now. Gotta go up tree. Gotta find river.”

  Slowly, quietly, Andrew and Judy crawled out from the green columns and away from the spider.

  They reached the tree trunk and began climbing again.

  Thudd pointed out the birds that flashed through the trees—screaming orange-and-green king parrots, black riflebirds that made a sound like a gunshot, and green catbirds that meowed.

  These sounds were all part of the whistling, buzzing, cackling, screaming, screeching music of the rain forest.

  meep … “Drewd and Oody near treetops now,” Thudd said. “Called canopy of rain forest. Lotsa animals live in canopy. Lotsa light up here. Lotsa water from lotsa, lotsa rain. Canopy make shade for stuff that live underneath. Keep rain forest cool.”

  Andrew kept climbing. “We’re higher than most of the other trees now,” he said.

  “So where’s that stupid river?” said Judy.

  Just then, Andrew thought he saw a sparkle of light through the leaves. He climbed quickly to get a clear view.

  And then he saw it—a sliver of silvery river.

  “Super-duper pooper-scooper!” Andrew yelled, creeping from the trunk to a branch. “The river! It’s close!” he shouted to Judy, who was inches behind him.

  As he looked down, Andrew glimpsed something that made the back of his neck prickle.

  A few branches below, a coil of yellow-and-black stripes was beginning to unwind.

  FASTEN YOUR SEAT BELTS …

  Eek! squeaked Thudd. “Python snake!”

  Judy’s face went white.

  “S-s-s-snake?” she stuttered.

  “Get up here, Judy!” yelled Andrew. “There’s a hole in the trunk. We can hide in it!”

  In an instant, Judy scrambled up to where Andrew was.

  Andrew pushed away strands of moss that covered the hole and crept inside. Judy followed him. At first it was too dark to see.

  “We should be safe here,” said Andrew.

  “Wait a minute,” said Judy. “You’re the one who told me that a snake’s tongue can smell prey. And that they’ve got these little pits near their jaws that feel the heat from warm-blooded animals—like us! So just because it’s dark in here doesn’t mean a snake can’t find us.”

  meep … “Oody and Drewd got peppermint smell,” said Thudd. “Hide animal smell. Oody and Drewd small, small, small. Not got lotsa heat. Hard for snake to find, maybe.”

  Andrew thought he heard a soft grumble. He remembered the strange noises he had heard deep inside the tree trunk.

  “There’s something in here,” he whispered to Judy.

  As his eyes got used to the darkness, Andrew made out a shape. It was a creature the size of a chipmunk. It seemed to be asleep. Its ears were as big as bats’ ears. Its eyes were closed. But Andrew could tell by its bulging lids that its eyes were enormous.

  “It’s so cute!” said Judy.

  “But it would, uh, probably eat us if it were awake,” said Andrew.

  “Yoop! Yoop! Yoop!” said Thudd. “Called sugar glider. Live in treetops of rain forest. Eat bugs.

  “Got flap of skin between front and back legs. When sugar glider jump from trees, stretch legs. Skin flap stretch like sail. Sugar glider glide from tree to tree.