In the Jungle: Chapter 15

Chapter 15
“Where do you think a panther would hide?” said Zoe.
“Use your brains, mortal,” said Bo. “If you haven’t learned about biomes and habitats yet, then, wow, you’ve got a problem.” Then he chuckled. “Besides, it’s not hiding. The bad guys trapped it somewhere.”
Zoe flared up.
“Calm down, kid,” said Tommy. “Let’s go look over there,” he said, pointing to a cave which was blocked by a tangle of vines. He walked over to the cave and yelled, “Hello? Is there anyone there?”
Then he stood back to wait for the answer. When he didn’t hear anything after three minutes, he turned up his supersonic hearing. “Hmm...” he muttered thoughtfully. He called again.
“Maybe there’s no one in there,” suggested Bo.
Tommy ignored him. Finally, he heard some feedback.
“MMMmmmffff!”
“Aha!” said Tommy. He looked triumphantly at Bo. “See? I told you there was someone in there!”
“Actually, you didn’t,” said Bo.
Tommy made half-eyes at him. “Welllll-uh,” he said in frustration, “let’s go in and see who it is.” Then he walked into the vines.
Bo looked at Zoe, who looked at Mahasyaf, who looked at Faysaham, who looked at Johnny Boy, who looked at Chitter. Then they all stared at Tommy, shaking their heads.
“Hehh,” said Tommy, backing away from the vines. “Let’s think of cutting next time, shall we?” He morphed his hand into a knife and started to cut. But just as he was about to make the first cut, he jerked crazily, rolling around on the ground.
“It’s...it’s...IT’S POISON IVY!!!” he cried.
Everyone gasped. They all started towards Tommy, then stopped.
“It will spread!’ said Faysaham.
“Obviously,” muttered Mahasyaf.
“Anyone got anti-itch lotion?” asked Johnny Boy.
Everyone said, “Nope.”
“Maybe there’s another entrance?” suggested Zoe hopefully.
“Nah.”
“And there’s no one else here with powers who can fix him up,” said Bo. Then, suddenly, he noticed a small sign next to the poison ivy entrance. It said, ‘DO NOT TOUCH. IF YOU DO, THE CURE IS ABOVE.’
Bo looked up. He saw a weird, rare-looking fruit. It was round and red, with blue and yellow spikes. “Wow. How odd,” he said.
“What’s odd?” said Zoe, who was hanging upside down by her legs on a tree.
Bo stared at her. “Look at that sign. I think it’s the cure for Tommy.”
Zoe stared at the sign. After reading it, her eyes went wide, so wide that the weight of her eyes made her fall from the tree. Everyone stared at her, except Tommy who was still tussling with himself. Zoe quickly got up and brushed off. “Bo, we’d better get that fruit quickly! Tommy’s hand is morphed as a knife; he might cut himself!”
Bo gasped. “I never thought of that!” he exclaimed. He sprinted over to the tree and clambered up it nimbly. He grabbed one of the fruits and descended down the tree. “Now all we need to know is this: How do we use it?”
Tommy saw what was going on and morphed his sword back into a hand, for he couldn’t stand the sight of blood, and if he cut himself, he would definitely faint. The itch on him was beginning to wear off, but not so much. “Hurry up, Bo! Aaaaghh!” he screamed.
Bo and Zoe stared at him. The rest, who kind of didn’t have any idea of what was going on, just stood there daftly.
Zoe looked around. She looked at the tree of the weird fruit. She squinted at something carved on the trunk. She walked up to see it closer. Bo watched her read it, and then come running back to him with an excited smile on her face.
“What did the trunk say?” asked Bo.
“Nothing. Trunks don’t talk, apparently. But the message on the trunk said...I don’t want to tell you.”
“And why is that?” Bo inquired of her.
“Because it’s too long to say. Come and read it.” Zoe scampered away.
The others thought they should help too, since Tommy had saved most of them, and they decided he needed some payback. Nice payback, of course. So they followed Zoe and Bo to the tree.
The scrawly message said,
Break the fruit to get the precious seed inside and scrub it all over the poison-ivied victim. But mind, bury the seed deep into the ground RIGHT after use. Danger will happen if you don’t. Good luck.
“I guess we should try it,” said Bo. He hurled the fruit on the ground and used his best monkey skills to break it open.
“Monkey skills?” said Zoe. “Joke, Narry, joke.”
Bo ignored the conversation. “I’ve got it!” he said, holding the seed up high. It was shaped as a cube, and it had orange, purple, and green swirls on it.
Now you might be wondering how Bo could hold the spiky fruit without saying an ‘ow’. Well, I don’t have the answer for that.
Bo quickly ran over to Tommy, followed by Zoe. While Zoe dug a very deep hole in the ground, Bo scrubbed Tommy. He scrubbed him on the shoulder, then grabbed him by his shoulder so he could get a good hold of him. Then he finished scrubbing Tommy all over his whole body.
“Phew! Thanks, Bo,” said Tommy. But Bo didn’t have time to answer. He tossed the seed into the hole Zoe had dug, and then he and Zoe quickly covered up the hole.
“Great! Now we can cut open this poison ivy properly,” said Bo. “Tommy, morph your hands into knives again, and then change yourself to metal, as metal doesn’t get itchy like skin.”
Zoe gave Tommy a thumbs-up. Tommy nodded curtly and morphed his hands into knives and changed himself to metal with his mind. Then he walked up to the poison ivy and started to chop. As he was doing this, he thought, It sure wasn’t clever of the bad guys to trap one of the animals in here, since there’s a cure for this poison ivy.
The ivy was soon all chopped down. It was in shreds on the ground below the entrance, like a wind blocker at the bottom of a door.
“C’mon, guys,” said Tommy, motioning to his friends. They all carefully stepped over the poison ivy on the ground as they entered.
The cave was lighted with torches, so the creatures could all easily find their way. Eventually, they found a dark lump in a corner of the cave. “There he is!” cried Zoe. “One of the trapped animals!” She grabbed one of the torches off the wall and ran up to the lump. She held up the torch to what seemed to be the lump’s face. It was the big black face of a panther! The panther frantically pointed to the gag at her mouth with her tail. Zoe untied the gag and the panther’s paws. The panther stood up and stretched.
“Phew! Thanks!” she said. “That was sooo totally uncomfortable. Who are you? My name’s Holly.”
“I’m Zoe, and these are my friends Bo, Tommy, Faysaham, Mahasyaf, Johnny Boy, and Chimpi,” said Zoe, pointing to each creature when their name was mentioned.
Holly studied them with her green eyes, then turned back to Zoe. “What are you doing with such a big group as this?” she asked.
Bo butted in. “We are on a mission, Zoe, Tommy, and me.”
“We are supposed to find four trapped animals in this jungle. We found three already, including you,” Tommy added. “The other two are Mahasyaf and Chimpi.”
Zoe rolled her eyes. “In complete answer to your question, me, Bo, and Tommy are on a mission, like Bo said. Faysaham is Mahasyaf’s brother, as you may guess, and Johnny Boy is a friend of ours that helped save us from death. So they’re just following us wherever we go.”
“Oh. Okay,” said Holly. She looked around. “Well, shall I join you too, in that case?”
“Sure,” said Zoe. She turned to the others. “C’mon, let’s get out of here, guys!”
“How ‘bout we go the other way?” said Bo. “I have no intention of going back to the ivy.”
“Why?” asked Tommy.
“You never know,” Bo replied. “Somebody could’ve stalked us and blocked the entrance, or something.”
“How CLEVER,” said Zoe sarcastically. She turned and led the way out of the cave. The eight creatures walked on for a long time, turning dark corners, climbing small rock walls, and crossing little glowing pools.
“I’m scared,” said Faysaham, after a while.
“Aww, chill out,” said his brother. “This isn’t a trifle scary.”
The cave got darker and darker, as there weren’t any torches in the area where the eight creatures were walking. Tommy turned his eyes to flashlight mode, so his friends could see a little bit.
Suddenly, there was a gasp from Zoe. “I can see light!” she cried, turning a corner and running away. The others followed. Zoe gasped again. At the exit of the cave, in a marble bowl on top of a small stone box, was a glowing white diamond!