The Poison Jungle Read online

  “Yeah, you will probably get eaten,” Sundew said with a shrug. “They always get the loud flappy ones. And that HiveWing dragonet is cobra lily food for sure.”

  “ZAMEE!” Bumblebee shouted from behind them.

  “I am not enjoying this conversation,” Swordtail observed.

  “Do we have to go to the place with the certain death?” Blue asked.

  “Yes, because it’s my home,” Sundew said. “And also the only place you’ll be safe from Queen Wasp after burning down her greenhouse of mind-control plants.” And also because there’s a dragon there who I’m definitely not thinking about and certainly do not think about all the time.

  “We’d be safe across the ocean, wouldn’t we?” Cricket offered, flying back into Sundew’s line of sight. “In the Distant Kingdoms?”

  Sundew laughed. “If you would all like to fly out to sea in search of an imaginary continent, go for it.” She thought, but did not add: Except for you, Blue. You belong to the LeafWings now.

  The group fell silent as they drew closer to the edge of the Poison Jungle. The Snarling River, dark and swift-flowing, marked the boundary, but the jungle was always prowling across the line. Pitcher plants and cobra lilies grew thick along the shores on both sides, and every time Sundew flew this way, she saw more plants extending their tendrils across the water, more twisted little thorn trees starting to muscle their way up on the wrong side.

  If we set it free, the Poison Jungle could devour the continent for us, and all the HiveWings, too.

  If I set it free. I could unleash the jungle and send it forth to strangle our enemies.

  I won’t, though. I don’t want a Pantala covered in poisonous, dragon-eating plants. I want the Pantala of the old stories: the giant forests that stretched from shore to shore.

  She closed her talons into fists.

  But if I can’t have that, feeding all the HiveWings to overgrown bladderworts is a solid plan B.

  Sundew was over the river when she realized the others had stopped, hovering in midair to stare at the trees. She swung around and flew back to them.

  “They’re so big,” Cricket said in an awestruck voice. Her gold-orange wings hummed like a cloud of dragonflies. The late-afternoon sunlight caught in her glasses, reflecting the rippling water below. “I didn’t know trees grew so enormous. Some of them look as tall as the Hives! How old are they? Can you tell? Would they all get that big if they lived that long? Are they all dangerous? Oh, please tell me you have books about all these plants!”

  “I want to know how you can fly in there when everything’s so close together,” Swordtail declared, squinting at the tangles of vines, fallen trees, giant spiderwebs, and thickets of plants that wove impassable barriers between the trees.

  “It feels like one vast creature with a million eyes,” Blue added softly. “I can almost hear it breathing … like it’s waiting for us.”

  The others stared at him, and even Sundew, who was used to the creepy aura of the Poison Jungle, felt a trickle of ice run through her veins.

  “Arglerarrrgh flort,” Bumblebee announced, jabbing Cricket’s chin with one of her claws and breaking the spell. “Eeeepow? Snudoo?” She reached hopefully toward Sundew.

  “I think ‘eeeepow’ means ‘eat now,’ ” Cricket explained with a sigh. “She’s been yelling it for the last half a continent.”

  “EeeeeeeeeeeeePOW!” Bumblebee demonstrated with expansive arm gestures, trying to wiggle out of her sling. “EEEEEEEEEEpow!”

  “You can wait until we get to the village,” Sundew said sternly. “Don’t make that face at me. No whining, or you can wait until tomorrow morning.”

  Bumblebee flopped slowly over backward so her head and wings drooped toward the river below. “Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeenever,” she said, mournfully and distinctly.

  “Awww,” Cricket said, tucking the dragonet back into place and patting her head. “She’s such a quick learner.” Bumblebee snuggled into her chest and gave a loud, dramatic sigh.

  Sundew turned to Swordtail. “We keep the outer layers of the jungle as wild and impenetrable as possible,” she said. “For obvious reasons.”

  “Obv — oh, she means you,” he said to Cricket. “The obvious reasons are your murdery tribe and your evil queen.”

  “Swordtail, come on,” Blue said, drawing closer to Cricket.

  “Your tribe isn’t exactly welcome here either, SilkWing,” Sundew pointed out. She had a feeling she was going to get a pretty strong reaction when they got to the LeafWing village. But it was Belladonna’s fault for leaving and setting a Hive on fire instead of waiting for Sundew to meet her, as she’d promised. If she didn’t want Sundew bringing strangers into the jungle, she should have stayed in one place till they came.

  Sundew looked up at the press of jostling tree trunks that rose before them. “Flying gets easier farther in,” she explained. “But for now, we climb. Follow me, stay close — and don’t touch anything I haven’t touched first.”

  She arced her wings and caught an air current that smelled faintly of salt and distant whales. It lifted her up and up, toward the swaying tops of the trees.

  Up here, the branches were like thousands of long spider monkey arms. They reached and caught one another, bending back and looping around, fuzzy with pale green moss or marked with the scratches of dragon, jaguar, and tamarin claws.

  The spot where the makahiyas grew was well camouflaged; other plants with similar leaves had been planted all around it up and down and along the wall of foliage. But Sundew never had any trouble finding it. She could have flown to it with her eyes closed. She could sense the vibrations of the makahiya leaves like quiet music in her head; they were higher and trembled more than the vibrations of other plants.

  Sundew slowed down and brushed her tail lightly across the center of the makahiya cluster. At once the long, oval, fern-like leaves began folding together, pair after pair along the stems like butterfly wings closing up. As they closed, they revealed a gap in the branches behind them, just large enough for a dragon to fit through.

  “Whoa,” Blue whispered. “I’ve never seen a plant do that before.”

  “Oh, I think … they’re called ‘touch-me-nots,’ aren’t they?” Cricket asked Sundew.

  “That’s one name for them,” Sundew answered.

  “Oooooo,” said Swordtail. “That sounds super dangerous! Touch me not — or you will DIE!”

  Sundew snickered, and Cricket covered her snout to hide her smile. “Actually,” Sundew said to Swordtail, “this is probably the only plant up here that won’t kill you.”

  “Hmm,” he said skeptically, squinting at the folded leaves as he followed Sundew through the hole.

  Stepping into the jungle always felt like plunging underwater, if that water was actually thick green soup, in a cauldron, boiling, and full of insects. Sundew hissed at a mosquito the size of her ear, and it veered away in search of more docile prey. Behind her, Cricket let out a yelp and lifted one talon to reveal a crushed mess of yellowy-orange ooze that had probably been a tree slug.

  “Oooom-yum?” Bumblebee inquired, reaching for it. “Eeee?”

  “No,” Cricket said. “GROSS, Bumblebee!”

  “GWOSE!” Bumblebee cried, waking up an anaconda as thick as Sundew’s tail in the next tree over. The snake raised its head slowly and narrowed its eyes at the little dragonet.

  “Shhh. Let’s move,” Sundew whispered. She ran lightly along the branch and leaped to another, then scrambled up to one that crisscrossed above them. The trees shook as the other dragons tried clumsily to follow her.

  Sundew could sense the message spreading through the trees. Something new. Leaves whispered to leaves; roots and networks of underground filaments flickered the news along like twigs in a current. Watch listen be safe caution stand guard. She didn’t have time to dig her talons into the dirt and shape the story. She had to hope she could get her dragons to the village quickly, and then she could take a moment to talk to the trees.
r />   “You’re like a monkey,” Swordtail panted, catching up to her when she stopped to wait for them. “I mean — in a good way — like a — very fast — jumps — good jumps — not foodishly — I mean, not in a dinner way — just, so fast.” He wheezed to a stop.

  Cricket balanced along the branch to a spot behind him, digging in her claws in a way that made Sundew wince. The trees wouldn’t like that. But Bumblebee kept lunging sideways, nearly out of her sling, reaching for bright flowers or shining beetles, so Sundew could see why Cricket needed to hold on tight.

  Bringing up the rear behind her was Blue, who looked as if he was trying to swallow the jungle with his eyes.

  “It’s scary, like being high up in the webs,” he said thoughtfully, “but loud, like the inside of the Hives, except the buzzing isn’t in a language you can understand.”

  “And the smell is way worse,” Swordtail observed.

  Sundew bristled. “No, it isn’t! The smell of hundreds of dragons trapped in one structure is much worse! This is what plants and fresh air and freedom smell like!”

  “Isn’t it also what rotting plants smell like?” he asked. “And dead animals? And … I don’t know what else … swamp gas?”

  “You smell like swamp gas!” she said furiously.

  “I’m sorry,” Blue interjected. “I only meant it’s interesting. I’m trying to map it onto something I’ve felt before, but it’s so different from anywhere I’ve been.”

  “Yeah, sorry,” Swordtail agreed, giving Sundew an abashed look. “It’s not that bad. Some of it is kind of cool. Like that flower right below us — look, Blue, it’s like an enormous wild pink open book. I mean, SO pink! And it actually smells kind of —”

  “DO NOT —” Sundew shouted as he leaned toward it, sniffing.

  But it was too late. Swordtail’s nose brushed the pink surface, and the plant’s jaws snapped shut around him, yanking him off the branch and swallowing him whole.

  In an instant, Swordtail was gone.

  “— touch the Venus dragon-trap,” Sundew finished with a sigh.

  Cricket shrieked, and eight more dragon-traps snapped shut all around them, excited by the noise. The HiveWing jumped back and crashed into Blue, nearly knocking them both off the branch.

  “Swordtail!” Blue shouted. “Swordtail!”

  “I was about to point those out,” Sundew said. “One of the most dangerous plants in here. Never touch those. Never never.” She gave Bumblebee a very stern look. “Never, small dragon, do you hear me?”

  “Snabble poof,” Bumblebee said in an awestruck tone, staring at the spot where Swordtail had been.

  Blue scrambled around Cricket. “Swordtail! Can you hear me?” He reached toward the overstuffed plant below them, where Swordtail’s long blue-and-orange tail dangled, flailing, from between the trap’s jaws.

  Sundew smacked Blue’s knuckles. “What did I just say?” she barked. “NEVER TOUCH THEM!”

  “How do we get him out?” Cricket asked frantically.

  Muffled yells were coming from inside the plant. The sides bulged as Swordtail thrashed and struggled, but Sundew knew that there was no way for a dragon to escape on his own once he was inside.

  “SWORDTAIL!” she shouted. “STOP MOVING!”

  Of course, he was yelling too loud to hear her.

  “Basic carnivorous plant safety lesson number one,” Sundew said to the others, but mostly to Bumblebee’s wide-eyed face. “If you fall into a dragon-trap, go as still as you can. If the plant thinks you’re just a rock or tree branch that fell in by accident, it’ll open back up and drop you. But if you FLAIL AROUND LIKE AN IDIOT,” she shouted at Swordtail, “then it will KNOW YOU’RE A DELICIOUS SNACK FOR SURE.”

  “And then what?” Cricket asked, wide-eyed.

  “Then it releases its digestive juices and eats you,” Sundew said. “Obviously.” She swatted at Blue as he tried reaching for Swordtail again.

  “SWORDTAIL!” Cricket and Blue yelled in unison.

  “It’s pretty definitely figured out he’s alive by now,” Sundew said. She pointed to the long hairs along the edges of the plant’s mouth, which were starting to lock firmly together. “It won’t drop him even if he does shut up long enough to hear us. But it’s a slow process — it’ll take at least half a day before it kills him.”

  “Can’t we slice it open and cut him out?” Cricket asked, raising one of her talons to flex her claws.

  Sundew shook her head. “They’ve adapted for that. It takes forever to saw through the shell of a dragon-trap. Plus they grow in clusters like this on purpose, so if you try, another one will get you.” She pointed to the gaping pink jaws hanging from the trees all around them, particularly the one leaning over Swordtail’s plant, ready to swallow any dragon who tried to help him.

  Blue paced up and down the branch. “Swordtail!” he called again. “We’ll get you out, I promise!”

  “So what do you normally do?” Cricket asked Sundew. “Your tribe must have found a way to rescue dragons from being eaten.”

  Sort of. If having me counts as “finding a way.” Sundew had been studying the nearest plants as they talked. There was a promising kudzu vine choking one of the trees below them, or a thorny greenbrier vine system tangled through the branches just behind the dragon-trap cluster. The sharp-dark stems prickled in the corners of her mind, coiled and dangerous. If she could get to one of them … but then she’d have to reveal her secret abilities to Blue and Cricket.

  They’re going to find out pretty soon anyway. And it’s the only way to save Swordtail.

  “I can —” she started.

  There was a flash of bright orange light and heat beside her. A long thread of flamesilk flew out of Blue’s wrist and slithered around the dragon-trap’s leaves and stem.

  “Stop!” Sundew yelled. She lunged across Cricket and grabbed Blue’s arm, slamming it down to the branch. “WHY ARE YOU ALL IMPOSSIBLE?” She whirled and saw the fire already beginning to catch and spread down the length of the dragon-trap stem, toward the tree where its roots were. As the stem burned through, the squirming bulb of the dragon-trap drooped and lolled sideways, setting off three more plants as it knocked into them.

  Sundew leaped up to a higher branch and seized a cluster of giant bromeliads. A small blue tree frog jumped out of one of them and gave her a reproachful look as she ripped the flowers free. Inside each cluster of leaves was a pool of water, some the size of her cupped talons, some much bigger. She swooped down and poured them over the fire.

  It sizzled and hissed at her. Half the flames went out, but one end began sprinting faster toward the tree. The smoke was already thick and curling into her eyes, making them water. All the nearest dragon-traps had drawn back as far as their stems would allow. Leaves all around her curled away from the fire; she could feel the tree screaming deep in her nerves.

  I need a fire-resistant plant — something full of water or sap — or giant leaves I can use to smother the flames. Sundew glanced desperately around and spotted a chokecherry tree on the jungle floor, far below her. She leaped through the smoke to the trunk of the burning tree and pressed her talons against the bark, sending her power down through the wood, through the roots, through the mycelium threads under the soil, into the chokecherry tree.

  The chokecherry tree burst upward, growing at the speed of an erupting volcano. Its branches smacked other plants aside; its roots burrowed deep and fast to keep it steady. In a matter of heartbeats, the top of the tree was level with Sundew’s head and the berries on it were enormous, the size of her fists.

  She grabbed talonfuls of berries and smashed them onto the branch below the fire, smearing the juice around and around. The flames reached the wet barrier and slowed, prodding the goop in a disgruntled manner.

  More water splashed down on the fire from above. Sundew looked up and saw Cricket with her claws full of bromeliads. Bumblebee was buried deep in her sling, her snout covered by the striped fabric. Cricket poured out the stored
rainwater in the flowers, methodically covering all the flames until, at last, they were extinguished.

  Sundew rested her forehead against the tree, checking it for damage. Apart from the one burnt limb and the smoke clogging its leaves, the rest of it was shaken but unharmed. The dragon-trap, however, was definitely dead.

  She turned toward it and realized that Blue was holding up the head and trying to pry open the jaws at the same time, mostly unsuccessfully. Cricket hovered beside him, supporting the weight of the plant and Swordtail. The other dragon-traps, which had been scared back by the fire, were slowly inching toward them again.

  Sundew flew over to Blue. She could hear Swordtail coughing inside the plant.

  “That was incredibly stupid!” She snapped her tail back and forth. Her insides felt as though they were boiling with anger, as though the flamesilk had gone straight into her veins as well. “You could have set this whole jungle on fire!”

  “I’m sorry!” Blue said, and at least he looked like he meant it, unless the tears in his eyes came from the smoke in the air. “I panicked! I only wanted to save Swordtail — I had no idea it would spread like that.”

  “You should have thought about it! You just saw Wasp’s greenhouse go up in flames!”

  A fellow LeafWing would have roared back at Sundew. A dragon from her tribe would have bristled, defended himself, argued, stormed around, pointed out all the ways she was wrong. Most conversations in her village ended in fights, or started with a fight, or at least involved some shouting.

  But Blue nodded and wiped his eyes and apologized again. “You’re right. I’m really, really sorry, Sundew.”

  Which made it kind of impossible to keep yelling at him. The ball of Sundew’s anger bounced back inside her and started mutating into something useless and distracting, like guilt or pity or something. She scowled down at the dragon-trap, which was starting to crack open where Blue was pulling on it.

  “I bet your flamesilk is hard to control, isn’t it?” Cricket asked breathlessly, trying to hold up the still-smoking plant.

  “Yeah,” Blue said. “So it was extra stupid of me.”