Trapped: A Tale of Friendship Bog Page 2

  Cheeco kept his eyes shut. “That fussy old mouse! Don’t listen to her.”

  He curled up on the sofa. “Why don’t you go check out the bridge and let me sleep?”

  Pibbin shrugged and slowly hopped outside.

  The Dike was a strip of land that stretched across the top end of Friendship Bog. He knew how to get there, but it was a long way. Would it be worth going that far to look for Duffy?

  Was Cheeco telling the truth?

  Maybe. For Zip’s sake, he hoped so.

  How strange she’d been, with her sad eyes and her talk about clues. He hopped faster. Someone must know something about Duffy.

  On his way, he stopped in at Sheera’s pool, but his turtle friend hadn’t seen Duffy, and of course she already had a cookie chip.

  Next, he turned back to the bog to look for Miss Green. He hopped as far as Woodpecker Log. Maybe the friendly green snake would be there, lying in the sun.

  He’d feel better if he could talk to her, but she didn’t seem to be around.

  He heard Chewink the Towhee singing, “Drink yer tea!” and asked him about Duffy.

  “I wish I could help,” Chewink said.

  “I’m going up to check at the Dike,” Pibbin said. “He might have gone to watch Uncle Dip.”

  “Good,” Chewink said. “I’ll look around, and if I see anything, I’ll find you.”

  All the way up Friendship Bog, Pibbin thought about Cheeco. What did that chipmunk know about Duffy—that he wasn’t telling?

  Maybe they’d been playing together and something terrible had happened.

  A soft breeze rippled across the water, and the sun felt warm. It would be a fine day to sit on a lily pad and watch for bugs. But he couldn’t forget the look on Zip’s face, and he didn’t slow down.

  Finally he reached the Dike and hopped quickly through the blueberry bushes.

  The little squirrel must have come this way, but where would he go?

  Soon he heard a loud voice giving directions. Uncle Dip!

  A minute later he could see Uncle Dip’s team at work. Six squirrels were pulling up bushes on the Dike, and two big beavers were pushing logs toward them.

  Maybe Duffy had climbed one of the skinny pine trees to watch. He checked each tree and looked under the bushes and even glanced at the dead trees floating on the swampy side of the Dike.

  He asked a tall rabbit if he’d seen Duffy, and spoke to a large brown lizard and the mice who had crept under a bush.

  They all shook their heads.

  A sleepy black turtle didn’t answer, but the chipmunks throwing sticks into the water stopped long enough to shake their heads at him.

  What about Uncle Dip? Pibbin hopped up close to the big squirrel. As soon as he turned around, Pibbin asked him about Duffy.

  “Not a whisker,” Uncle Dip said in his booming voice. “And my team could use some help. Tell his brothers to get up here.”

  He glanced at his workers and then back to Pibbin. “There’s one more thing,” he said.

  Now he sounded worried. “You come and get me if they can’t find him, okay? The Bog-Keepers will check on it. We want to protect our little ones.”

  Uncle Dip turned away and raised his voice. “Hey, you guys, let’s push those logs a little closer. Make it tight!”

  Five or six frogs stood farther down, and it looked as if they were part of Uncle Dip’s team. Carpenter Frog might be helping too.

  Pibbin hopped closer. There was Leeper with his red cap. Maybe . . .

  Chewink flew low over his head and circled to land in a bush. Pibbin turned around so fast he did a backflip. Had they found Duffy?

  “A message from Alix,” Chewink said. “He’s got something important to show you.”

  “Okay,” Pibbin said. “It doesn’t look like Duffy’s here, and no one’s seen him.”

  He hurried back along the Dike. That Cheeco! This had been a waste of time.

  But maybe it didn’t matter now.

  Maybe Alix had a good clue, and they’d find Duffy, and then he could finish handing out the cookie chips.

  Or . . . maybe not.

  Puzzles

  Alix stood on his porch waving at Pibbin. What was he holding? A box?

  As soon as Pibbin climbed up to the porch, Alix showed it to him.

  “Zip let you have her box?” Pibbin asked.

  “More like she said, ‘Do something!’ and pushed it toward me,” Alix said. “I finally got her to take a nap.”

  They sat down together, and Alix said, “There’s nothing much inside.”

  He emptied the box onto the porch.

  Pibbin leaned over to look. Four oak leaves. Each one had a word written on it in neat letters.

  “This is strange,” Pibbin said. “Are you sure Zip wrote these?”

  “I guess not,” Alix said. “She writes kind of messy.”

  Pibbin bent over the leaves. “Where’s the other one?”

  “Which other one?”

  “Remember the maple leaf she dropped?”

  “There must be another box,” Alix said. “I wonder where it got to.”

  “Maybe in that shed of hers? She kept running in and out of it.”

  Alix jumped to his feet. “I’ll go see!”

  He darted up the tree, into the storehouse, and came out with two more boxes.

  He set them down on the porch in front of Pibbin and flipped one of them open.

  “Here’s your koot leaf. And a couple more maple leaves,” he said.

  He frowned at the other box and dumped more leaves out onto the porch. “I don’t know what kind these are.”

  He poked at one of the star-shaped leaves.

  Alix shook his head and began to nibble on his paw. “I just don’t get it.”

  Pibbin picked up a leaf. “What does teg mean?”

  Alix shrugged, and Pibbin studied the leaves scattered in front of them. Three kinds of leaves. Strange words. Why?

  “Wait!” he said. “Wasn’t Zip talking about clues? Do you think these might be connected with what happened to Duffy?”

  “I don’t know.” Alix nibbled on his paw some more. “What are we going to do?”

  Pibbin turned a leaf over, but it had nothing on the back. These looked like plain old leaves with words written in plain old pokeberry juice.

  Why was Alix looking at him like that? He had to think of something!

  Pibbin pushed the leaves into a pile. “Uncle Dip said the Bog-Keepers would help.”

  “Yeah, they probably would,” Alix said. “But first they have to call everyone together for a meeting, and Duffy’s been gone for a long time. What if they find him too late?”

  Pibbin felt his mind going soft as mud—like it did with those puzzle pages in school. Leeper was the one who always got the puzzle prize.

  “I’m no good at puzzles,” he said.

  Alix started chewing on his other paw. It already had a small bare spot where the fur was falling out.

  Pibbin stacked up the leaves again. If only the Bog-Keepers could help. Soon! But Uncle Dip was busy with the bridge, and he would want to stay with his team.

  He picked up a leaf, frowned at it, and dropped it back into the box. He couldn’t do this alone. Just like Uncle Dip couldn’t build the bridge by himself.

  “That’s what we need,” Pibbin said.

  Alix stopped chewing. “What?”

  “A team! Leeper can do puzzles. You’re big and strong. We can find Duffy if we work together.”

  “But Mom—”

  “Get Ma Chipmunk to stay with her. She said she’d help.”

  “Mom will listen to her,” Alix said. He glanced at the next tree. “Did you notice who’s over there, watching us?”

  Pibbin looked. “Not Cheeco? I thought he’d still be asleep,” Pibbin said. “He told me he was so tired.”

  “Something’s up with that kid,” Alix said. “I’ve been keeping an eye on him. But at least we can send him over to get his mom.”
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  “Make sure he knows it’s important.”

  “Okay,” Alix said. “Where’s Leeper?”

  “At the Dike,” Pibbin said.

  He looked up into the sky. “I wish Chewink were around. He could take a message to Leeper and save us some time.”

  Alix bounded to his feet. “How about the peepers?”

  “Good idea,” Pibbin said. “I know where to find some smart ones.”

  He climbed down the tree and hopped along the shore of Friendship Bog.

  Singing Stream finally came into sight, and he followed it toward Fox Woods.

  He could hear peeper voices in the bushes all around him, and soon he found Marteena’s peeper friends.

  He jumped onto a branch beside them. “Could you please send a message to Leeper? He’s up at the Dike.”

  “Sure,” said Bo.

  “Can do,” said Mo.

  Slo grinned. “We’re fast!”

  Pibbin smiled back. “Tell Leeper to meet me and Alix at Zip’s house, okay?”

  He looked hopefully at the three peepers. “It’s really important.”

  Bo hopped to the top branch of the bush. “News flash! News flash! Pass it on! Pib to Leeper. Pass it on.”

  Mo hopped up to join him.

  “Pass it on,” said Mo. “Pib to Leeper: meet at Zip’s house. Pass it on!”

  They turned to watch Slo climb up beside them. He grinned. “Pib to Leeper: team meeting. It’s important! Pass it on!”

  Teamwork

  Ma Chipmunk finally arrived, carrying a jar of soup for Zip to eat after her nap.

  “I made it with acorns and mushrooms and plenty of mint,” she said. “Mint will help her feel better fast.”

  The plump chipmunk bustled around, asking questions and saying how sorry she was for Duffy and that she was afraid one of those big black rat snakes had caught him.

  Pibbin began to wish she’d take a nap too, but she started sweeping the porch instead. She picked up one of the boxes.

  “What are you saving these old leaves for?” she asked.

  Alix moved fast to take it from her.

  He snatched up the other boxes too. “C’mon, Pib. Let’s get to work.”

  He carried the boxes up to a long branch near Zip’s storehouse, and they set out the maple leaves in a row.

  Alix nudged koot. “That’s the one Mom was holding. But what’s a koot, anyway?”

  Pibbin closed his eyes to think, and Alix gave a yell of surprise.

  The breeze had picked up koot and sent it sailing down toward the bog.

  It landed in the water beside a tangle of logs, and Alix groaned. He could swim if he had to, but Pibbin knew he didn’t like to get his feet wet.

  Alix grabbed the other leaves, and Pibbin started climbing down the tree. “It’s okay. I can get it,” he said.

  “I’m packing up,” Alix called. “We need a better place to work.”

  Pibbin hopped from log to log until he was close to the leaf. Then he jumped into the water and swam the rest of the way.

  He pulled the leaf along by its stem and climbed back out onto a log.

  The letters had smeared a little, but he could still read koot, so he waved at Alix to say that it looked okay.

  By the time he reached the shore, Leeper was hopping along the path toward them.

  “What’s up?” he called.

  It didn’t take long for Pibbin to tell him about the boxes.

  Leeper grinned. “Leaves with words? I’ve heard of that. Let’s see!”

  The breeze had grown stronger, stirring through everything on the ground, and Alix shook his head. “Not here. Let’s go see Carpenter. Maybe he’ll let us spread them out on his workbench.”

  Pibbin nodded. Carpenter might give them some good advice too.

  Alix did the talking to Carpenter, and the big frog didn’t seem to mind.

  “Sure,” he said. “I’ll help look for Duffy too, in just a minute. I’m finishing up these beads. Uncle Dip wants them for decorating the bridge.”

  He nodded toward his workbench and turned back to where he’d been painting some wooden balls that looked like fat, brightly colored acorns.

  Pibbin took out the oak leaves and stared at the one that said: erehw.

  Alix sat down and began chewing on his paw while Leeper bent over the leaves.

  Pibbin glanced at his friend’s face.

  The strange words didn’t seem to worry Leeper at all. Maybe he even thought this was fun.

  Leeper picked up the leaf with ybab written on it and grinned.

  He reached for Carpenter’s thick pencil. “May I use this?”

  “Sure.” Carpenter dabbed at a red-painted acorn and put down his brush to watch.

  Leeper wrote something on the leaf under ybab.

  Pibbin read it: baby.

  Alix stood up to read it too. “Wow!” he said. “Backward spelling!”

  Leeper had started on the other words.

  Now they had: baby where your is.

  “It still doesn’t make sense,” Alix said.

  “They’re just mixed up.” Leeper moved the leaves into a different order:

  where is your baby

  “Where is your baby?” Leeper shook his head. “Someone’s worried about Duffy?”

  “Or . . .” Pibbin didn’t want to say what he was thinking, but he had to. “Or maybe someone took Duffy.”

  “But who?” Leeper wasn’t grinning any more. “Let’s see the rest of the leaves.”

  He pushed the empty box away, and it fell off the workbench.

  Alix picked it up. “Hey, what’s this?”

  On the bottom of the box, someone had put a small black letter:

  “Who is S?” Alix asked. “I don’t know anybody like that.”

  Pibbin turned the box around. “How about this?”

  Now the letter was:

  Even Leeper seemed puzzled.

  To Pibbin, the letter looked like an old friend.

  Finally he said, “I think that’s supposed to be an N.”

  Leeper frowned. “How come?”

  “I used to make my N’s that way too,” Pibbin said. “But who is it?”

  Carpenter sighed. “I’d have to say that Nisk made those boxes. That’s what he puts on everything he builds.”

  He looked at Alix. “Nisk moved into a tree in Fox Woods, not far from you. A big red squirrel. Do you know him?”

  “Not really,” Alix said. “We don’t see him around very much.”

  “That’s Nisk,” Carpenter said. “He’s quiet, and the way he talks is a little strange. But he likes to build things, so he comes over here a lot. He even borrowed one of my saws.”

  “We wondered about him,” Alix said. “Seems like he was always carrying sacks of stuff toward his house. But why would he . . . ?”

  Leeper had been working on the maple leaves. “Almost finished here,” he said.

  Pibbin watched him write on the koot leaf. Now it was took. Of course!

  After they put the words in order, the message said: you took my tree.

  “His tree?” Alix cried. “The one he’s got is bigger than ours!”

  “But now you’ve built that nice shed,” Pibbin said. “Maybe he’s collected a lot of stuff.”

  Alix shrugged. “What does it say on the other leaves?”

  Leeper dumped them out. “Sweet Gum leaves,” he said. “That old Nisk sure gets around.”

  He put the words together fast, and the message was easy to read:

  get out of my tree.

  Carpenter nodded. “I guess he wants your tree so he can have a safer place for his stuff. He kept talking about someone coming to steal it. I don’t know what to think about him. I hope he wouldn’t hurt Duffy.”

  Hurt Duffy? No! Pibbin felt as if thorns were scratching him on the inside.

  Alix flicked his tail up like a banner. “He’d better not! I’m going over there right now—and I’m going to get my brother back.”
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br />   He glanced at Pibbin and Leeper. “You coming too?”

  The shortest way from Carpenter’s shop to Fox Woods went past the tree where Alix lived, so they took it.

  Ma Chipmunk stood on the porch, talking to Cheeco, and Alix called up to her. “How’s Mom doing?”

  “She likes my soup,” Ma Chipmunk said. “Where are you youngsters going?”

  “To see Mr. Nisk.” Alix bit the words off short as if he didn’t want to waste time talking.

  Ma Chipmunk leaned over the railing. “Oh, Pibbin! Don’t forget about your cookie chips! The deadline’s tonight if you want that star.”

  “I know,” Pibbin said, and he kept hopping.

  Find Duffy,

  he told himself. It’s the only thing that matters now.

  Cheeco Knows

  Alix led the way to Nisk’s house on the edge of Fox Woods. He was moving fast, so Pibbin and Leeper hurried after him.

  By the time they caught up, Alix was standing in front of a large oak tree.

  He looked puzzled. “I thought Nisk lived here,” he said. Brambles curled around the tree and up its trunk. “This is nothing but thorns.”

  Pibbin ducked under a loop of thorns and hopped to the other side of the tree. More brambles here too.

  But what was this?

  A small door had been set into a hole at the bottom of the tree. “Look here,” he called.

  Leeper slipped under the thorns, but Alix was bigger, and he had to push through them. A thorn tore at his ear, making it bleed, and he looked angry as he shook it off.

  Leeper pointed to a ragged piece of wood by the door. “I don’t think Mr. Nisk wants visitors.”

  Pibbin read it: OUT STAY!!

  “No!” Alix shouted. “I will not stay out. Give me back my brother!”

  He pushed against the door. He kicked at it. He pounded on it. But the door didn’t move, and no one came to see who was there.

  Pibbin said to Alix, “Maybe he’s gone out somewhere. Didn’t you say he gets a lot of stuff?”

  Alix pounded on the door again, but Pibbin had started thinking about someone else who liked to collect things.