Up In A Heaval Read Online Free PDF Page B

“You help us find the letter trail, and we'll help you find Werewolf Island.” He glanced at Sesame to make sure she agreed.
    Sammy agreed to the deal. Then he headed downstream.
    “We were going the wrong way!” Umlaut said ruefully. But of course their choices had been upstream or downstream; they had been as likely to go wrong as right.
    They followed the cat as he plunged through the jungle. Sesame had no problem, but Umlaut found it hard to squeeze through cat or serpent-diameter holes in the thick foliage. “Urn, could you find a path that I can follow?” he called.
    Sammy reappeared. He was sorry. When he searched for something, he just tended to go for it. Jenny Elf had always been crying, “Wait for me!” but he still tended to do it without thinking. But he would try.
    Thereafter, the route was easier to follow. Unfortunately it soon led to a tangle tree. “This isn't safe!” Umlaut cried.
    But it turned out that it was safe: The tangle tree had fed recently and was quiescent. They followed its nice path in, skirted the deadly trunk, and followed another path out. The one out was not nearly as nice as the one in. Umlaut appreciated that the tree wanted creatures to come in, not go out, but wasn't sure how it managed to make the paths that way. There were many things about the Land of Xanth he didn't properly understand.
    Progress downstream was much quicker than it had been upstream, perhaps because it was downhill. Reasonably soon they reached the sea. Sammy stopped.
    “You mean the path never does cross the river?” Umlaut asked, dismayed. “It goes straight on into the sea?”
    That was the case.
    “But we wanted to see who was delivering the letters.”
    Sammy made a stiff-backed circle. That wasn't what Umlaut had said. He had asked for the trail, not the carrier.
    “I guess I wasn't very clear,” Umlaut admitted. “You're right. Now we'd better go find Werewolf Island. It must be somewhere along the coast here.”
    But then Sammy changed his mind. Home could wait. Would it be all right if he stayed with them for a while, sharing their adventure? One reason he had changed his mind before was the danger; it had seemed as if every predator had a taste for fat cat. But with Sesame along, the danger was much less.
    Umlaut exchanged another glance with Sesame. They had come to understand each other pretty well, so that a glance could convey a lot. “Sure. We could use your talent to find interesting things.”
    In that case, Sammy indicated, he would show them the letter carrier.
    “You can do that? Why didn't you say so before?”
    Sammy gave him a look of patient tolerance. Umlaut hadn't asked, of course.
    They crossed the river. First Sesame swam, with Sammy perched on her head, glaring the colored loan sharks away. Then she swam back to accompany Umlaut as he swam. The sharks looked eager to take one of his arms or legs, but Sesame wouldn't let them. They were clearly disgusted. Umlaut had come to think of the big serpent as harmless but realized that that was because she was his friend. She remained a formidable predator, probably equivalent to a dragon, only without fire, smoke, or steam.
    They followed the river back upstream to the place they had first come to it. Then Sammy settled down for a catnap.
    “I guess it's not time yet,” Umlaut said. “Why don't we forage for food while we wait? We're not partial to each other's food, so maybe we should do it separately, then meet here in an hour or so.”
    Sesame agreed and slithered off. Umlaut spied a very nice looking pie tree and picked a pie. He bit into it and almost choked—it was a sweetie pie, revoltingly sweet. He looked at the others and saw that they were similar; this was a sweetie pie tree. So he suppressed his objection and ate it. He had been taught to eat any food he picked rather than waste it. Next time he would be more careful.
    In an hour or so Sesame Serpent returned. She was a little thicker in the middle and looked