Lost Places Read Online Free PDF Page B

again, and Tanger clutched the collar of Tim’s sweatshirt to hold himself steady.
    â€œWhat were you saying about Crimple?” Tim asked as he trotted across the meadow. They soon slipped into the overgrown, grassy section where they had last seen Molly and Crimple.
    â€œJust that he’d left the tree and the meadow.”
    â€œHe doesn’t do that often, then?”
    â€œNo. Not many narls do.”
    â€œBut aren’t you bored, staying in the same place all the time?”
    â€œOh yes, your Openership. Bored as trivets. It was never a very exciting meadow, once youstopped coming ’round. I’ve often wished we could leave it. Without dying, that is.”
    Tim stopped in midstep and gulped. “Dying?” he repeated. Had he heard Tanger correctly? Were the two narls in even greater danger than Molly?

Chapter Two
    â€œW HAT DO YOU MEAN? You die if you leave the tree?” Tim asked Tanger. The idea had never occurred to him. “How?”
    â€œI couldn’t say exactly, your Openership,” Tanger replied, shifting nervously on Tim’s shoulder. “I’ve never died before, you see, so I’m a bit vague on the details. But that’s enough of that. Let’s concentrate on finding Crimple and Molly.”
    â€œTanger, are you daft? If your life is in danger, you can’t come with me to find Molly.” He gripped Tanger’s ankles as tightly as he could without snapping them or getting splinters. “Hold on tight, I’m going to run you right back to the tree.”
    â€œGoing back isn’t going to change anything,” Tanger said. “I’ve left my place, and there’s no undoing that.”
    This was all too confusing to Tim. “Get down, Tanger. We need to talk about this.”
    â€œVery well, Opener, if you insist. But let’s not dawdle, eh? Our friends are lost enough as it is.”
    Tim knelt down. “Come on, hop off.” He winced as the twiglike creature poked and scratched him clambering back to the ground. “Now, what’s all this place business?”
    â€œDon’t they have places where you come from?” Tanger asked.
    â€œWhere I come from is a place, so far as I know. But you won’t catch me dying because I’ve left it.”
    â€œHmm. That sounds a bit implausible, if you’ll forgive my saying so. Perhaps your folk don’t call their places ‘places’?”
    â€œI’m trying to understand,” Tim said. “I really am. But this still doesn’t make sense to me.”
    â€œWhat do your folk call it when you have to do certain things to convince your world that you belong in it?”
    Tim’s eyebrows rose behind his glasses. “I don’t think there is such a word. Or such a thing, for that matter. Not where I live, anyway.”
    Tanger stared at Tim. “Don’t your people have rules?” he asked, clearly perplexed. “Rules you all know but never talk about? Keep them and you’re welcome as rain, anywhere. Break them, though, and decent folks wouldn’t mulch with you if their roots depended on it. Even water runs away from you.”
    â€œOhhh, I see.” Tim nodded as he began to understand. “We call that being snubbed. Listen, I can see how it might upset you to be ostracized like that—but aren’t you taking it a bit too hard? I mean, you’re not going to die of it, surely.”
    Tanger shook his head. “Well, if you’re not the most unfortunate Opener I’ve ever known, I’m a saucepan. Imagine having ears that size and not knowing how to use them!”
    Tim tried not to laugh. He knew Tanger was trying to explain something very important—life-threatening danger, in fact—but to see the little twiglike figure in such fury was, well, kind of cute.
    â€œOkay, let me try to figure this out,” he said to Tanger. “You’re saying, unless you do these