Page 27 of By the Orchid and the Owl
Emelle gazed upward, awe-struck. “I think they actually like it, the banter. Listen. They thought it was funny.”
She was right. I never thought I’d hear so many monkeys snickering in a tree before, but here we were, traipsing beneath a wholelayerof snickering, chortling shrieks. Even Mr. Conine glanced upward to shake his head at them, amused.
He stopped us right before the ground became too mushy to hold our weight. Before us, a swamp swathed the ground between crooked, moss-cloaked trees, several films of algae patching it with murky green.
Mr. Conine turned to address us, the tan, leathery skin of his face and graying circle beard completely at ease.
“Your first task, ladies and gentlemen, will be to wade through this marsh without getting eaten alive.”
A couple people chuckled nervously. Mr. Conine raised a bushy eyebrow.
“You think I’m joking? Well, perhaps you will think differently when the crocodiles emerge. They are always hungry, and to them it doesn’t matter if their food can talk back or not.”
Even Jenia snapped her mouth shut at this. For some reason, I had assumed that befriending predators would require little more than saying hi. Apparently, my instant connection with Jagaros had been a rare case.
I should have suspected so when he’d hissed so viciously at the others.
“Lesson number one, then,” Mr. Conine said. “Crocodiles love praise.” Without further ado, he began wading out into the swamp, and when everyone stood rooted to the spongy ground, he called over his shoulder, “Now, please!”
We jolted forward after him.
The algae-caked water rose to my knees, then my waist. Rodhi mumbled something about unsanitary conditions, which I had to agree with, and Emelle… poor Emelle had the marsh clear up to her chest. She took quick, shuddering gasps, her arms roving in circles to propel herself forward.
To our right, someone screamed.
And then I felt it, a rush of muck swirling around my ankles and a great swooping pressure as a scaled, grayish-green snout broke the surface before me, followed by a pair of piercing yellow eyes with slitted pupils.
Around me, I could sense other crocodiles rising on either side of Rodhi and Emelle as well, but I kept my eyes firmly locked on the one in front of me.
“A midday snack?” the crocodile grunted, gliding nearer.
“Oh,” I said, “you deserve much better than me.”
The words came out as near-squeaks, but the crocodile paused.
“Why do you say that, Wild Whisperer?”
So he was aware of the nature of what I was—what weallwere—and had still ascended to snack on me. I blocked out the pleading of those around me and said, “Surely, someone as handsome as yourself would want something tastier thanme.” I dropped my voice as if telling a secret. “I’m afraid I had turnips for breakfast.”
God, I hoped crocs couldn’t pick up on lies.
“Handsome?” the crocodile asked, cocking his head.
“So handsome,” I repeated, nodding, “what with your scales and your… your teeth. You’ve got to have the biggest teeth in this entire marsh!”
“I do,” the crocodile said importantly.
“And,” I pressed on, “you could probably protect me from all the other crocodiles here. If any one of them so much as snapped at me,you, my friend, could tear them apart in an instant. That’s how strong you are.”
“Well, of course.”
“Let us stroll together, then, and talk about better snacks for you than myself.”
My heart pounding in my throat, I began wading forward again, this time with the crocodile gliding alongside me. All around us, several other classmates were plunging forward, too, while others still gave desperate compliments in a standstill.
Halfway there, I chanced a glance behind me and held in my sigh of relief at the sight of Emelle and Rodhi among those pushing forward. Ahead of us, Mr. Conine was already clambering up a slippery slope.
By the time my crocodile and I got to the other side, we had agreed that a nice, fresh crab from the seaside would suffice… which I promised to bring him within the next week.
