Akiko in the Sprubly Islands Read Online Free PDF

warned. “If we hit one of them boulders, there’s a good chance of gettin’ knocked right outta the raft!”
    I crouched low and braced myself as best I could, covering my head with my arms and drawing my legs under my body. Water sprayed over the edges of the raft and soaked us, just like on one of those water rides in an amusement park. The roar of the waves grew louder and louder as the raft rocketed past one black boulder and then another, until finally an enormous wave tossed the raft onto the beach, sending all of us sprawling headfirst onto the sand.
    The water quickly receded into the sea, and we scrambled across the sand to avoid the next wave already sweeping in behind us. Spuckler picked both Gax and the raft up in his arms and carried them to a dry, sandy area far from the tide line. Mr. Beeba, his face covered in sand, stumbled after them and finally collapsed in exhaustion. Poog floated along to join them, and I walked unsteadily after Poog, my feet somehow unused to the feel of dry land.
    We all sat down on the beach to catch our breath for a moment. Gax clicked and buzzed as he deflated the raft, carefully folded it up, and placed it in a compartment somewhere deep inside his body. Poog was humming quietly a few feet away from me, gazing out at the sea. I sat there on the sand, my elbows on my knees, watching the waves roll in one after the other. The late afternoon sun lit the beach from a very low angle, casting long thin shadows from every stone and seashell. A bunch of tiny crablike creatures skittered along a few yards from where I was sitting and a warm, soothing wind blew across my back. I could have sat that way for
the rest of the day, except for one thing: My stomach was almost completely empty.

    “I’m hungry,” I said to no one in particular.
    “You ain’t the only one,” Spuckler said, turning his head toward the forest behind us. “I wonder if there’s anything eatable around here.”
    “
Edible
, Spuckler,” Mr. Beeba instructed. “Edible.”
    “All right,” I said decisively. “We’ve already achieved one of our goals: We’ve arrived safely in the Sprubly Islands. The next thing we have to do is find Queen Pwip.”
    “Agreed,” Mr. Beeba said, as if he were checking things off a list in his head.
    “But we’re not going to find Queen Pwip tonight,” I continued. “It’s almost sundown, and besides, we’re all half starved.”
    “So what’s your plan, ’Kiko?” Spuckler asked, knocking his head with an open hand to dislodge some water from his ear.
    “I say we go into this forest and see if we can find anything eatable,” I answered. “I mean,
edible
.”
    “Good thinking, Akiko,” Mr. Beeba said. “But we’d better get moving. We only have a few minutes of sun light left.”
    So we got to our feet and made our way up the beach and through the tall grasses that grew at the edge of the forest. The sun had nearly set, and the light gave the trunks of the trees a red-and-orange glow. Spuckler took the lead and we all followed obediently behind him. The forest was strangely quiet, apart from the occasional call of a bird high above.
    As we went along, Mr. Beeba pointed out a number of plants he recognized from his studies in botany. He kept trying to make us memorize the names, like some overenthusiastic schoolteacher. Unfortunately, Spuckler and I were way too hungry to be appreciative students.
    “Can anyone spot the coniferous twump?” Mr. Beeba asked as we lumbered farther into the increasingly dark woods. “Come on, now. I’ve pointed it out several times already.”
    “Beeba,” Spuckler answered, “we don’t want to hear about no more of your highfalutin plants. Not unless it’s somethin’ we can
eat
.”
    “Well, you wouldn’t want to eat a coniferous twump,” Mr. Beeba answered, a troubled expression coming over his face. “It’s been known to make people’s intestines explode!”
    “We sure are hungry, Mr. Beeba,” I said, trying not