The Hidden Kingdom. Tracey Hecht

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СКАЧАТЬ to her once-lustrous self.”

      Tobin glanced at the wombat trudging slowly beside him. The group hadn’t been walking for long, but she was already gasping and her legs were wobbly and weak.

      “I’m…I’m going as fast as I can.…” Tobin called, pretending to sound out of breath. He knew that he could move quicker, but he refused to leave Cora’s side. “How much farther?” he asked. He paused so the wombat could rest.

      Dawn raised her snout toward the night sky. The moon was hanging at its peak, high above the trees. That meant they had already been traveling for quite ________

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      some time. But the watering hole was still a long way off.

      “We’ll get there by daybreak,” said Dawn.

      “Mon dieu, this journey is endless, I tell you! We might as well be traveling to the stars!” The sugar glider slouched, raised a flap to his forehead, and groaned. Then, noticing Dawn’s raised brow, he quickly straightened. “Not that this is tough for moi, of course, ma chérie. And after all,” he added, sidling up next to the fox, “I’d go to the ends of the earth for you, my lady.”

      “We’ll be there soon enough,” said Dawn.

      “And there will be plenty to eat and drink once we get there!” added Tobin. He gave Cora an encouraging grin.

      “That’s right,” said Dawn, nodding and smiling weakly. “Let’s keep going.”

      “Indeed, mi bella,” agreed Bismark. “And I’ll tell stories to pass the time!”

      Ignoring his friends’ rolling eyes, the sugar glider eagerly started to ramble.

      “Shall I start with the time I defeated a snake with my own two paws?” he began. “It was no match for me, amigos. No match at all. Or how about that time I led us to victory against those crazy crocodiles? Or when I trapped a giant beast?” Bismark hopped and leaped through the dry grass and brown reeds, energized by his ________

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      own, mostly made-up feats. “Oh, so many glorious tales to tell.” He sighed. “It’s hard to choose where to start!”

      For a while, Tobin, Cora, and Dawn endured the sugar glider’s stories in silence. They were too hot and thirsty to chime in, ask him to stop, or challenge his exaggerated versions of his heroic deeds.

      But soon enough, even Bismark’s voice began to crack, fade, and finally cease. As they continued to walk, the air grew hotter, the land became drier and rougher, and more of the strange tumbleweeds came rolling in.

      “Oof!” Tobin winced as a strand of it poked the skin between his claws. He stopped to pluck it free.

      “Shouldn’t we be close by now?” Cora asked, trying to catch her breath.

      The pangolin gazed up. The sky was starting to brighten. Cora was right. The watering hole should have been in sight by now. But when Tobin looked across the land, all he saw were the dull browns and grays of dead shrubs. There was no sparkling water anywhere.

      “Dawn?” Tobin called. “Are we…are we almost there?”

      The fox paused. She had been wondering the same thing. “I thought it was closer than this,” she said.

      As she scanned the horizon looking for any familiar sight, she spotted something in the distance. It

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      was a figure hanging from a tree.

      Tobin narrowed his beady eyes and saw it, too. “Maybe that animal can tell us how much farther we need to go.”

      The group began to walk toward the stranger. As they drew closer, the creature lowered itself to the ground. It was a nine-banded armadillo—a fellow nocturnal with a long snout and rabbit-like ears.

      “Oh goodness.” Tobin gasped when he could

      see the armadillo clearly. Its eyes were wide and filled

      with fear. And its round, scaly body was

      pressed as tightly as possible against the

      trunk of the tree.

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      Dawn, too, saw the animal’s strange behavior. Was it sick? Was there a predator nearby? “Everyone, stay back,” she warned.

      But Bismark, unaware of the armadillo’s distress, jovially leaped toward it, determined to make a big entrance.

      “Ahoy there, Señor Scale-Tail!” he shouted. “Come meet our scaly compañero.” He nodded over his shoulder to Tobin then looked back and forth between the pangolin and the armadillo, noting their similar, oblong shapes, short limbs, and taloned paws. “Hey, you two have a lot in common! Can you release a terrible stink from your rear end, too?” Warily, Bismark eyed the armadillo’s backside. He plugged his nose before continuing to move closer.

      “Oy!” The armadillo suddenly let out a shout. “Hold it right there, little feller—don’t take another step! That there ground is a quagmire!” He pointed urgently toward a patch of sand just beyond Bismark’s feet.

      Bismark didn’t know what a quagmire was, but he wasn’t about to admit it… or seem afraid of it. So, with a confident grin, the sugar glider took a giant step forward.

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      The armadillo yelped and frantically waved his arms.

      But Bismark dismissed him with a wave of his flap. “Don’t be such a worrywart!” he cried. “This quigglemoo is no match for—” Suddenly, Bismark felt something under his paws. He looked down.

      “AHHH!” The glider’s already-bulbous eyes bulged even more. The earth was moving! The sand that was flat and still just moments ago was now churning around Bismark’s feet…and sucking him under!

      As the ground spiraled and swirled, the armadillo clutched his tree even tighter. “Get outer there!” he yelled. “Before yer a goner!”

      Bismark urgently pumped his flaps, trying to lift himself out of the strange substance. But the more he moved, the more it pulled him in. “Sacre bleu!” he cried. “I can’t move!”

      Dawn’s eyes widened. “It’s quicksand!” she cried. “Bismark—stay still! It will get worse if you try to fight it!”

      But the panicked sugar glider kept flapping and flailing. And sure enough, the more he did, the more the strange sand spun and sucked at his feet.

      “Oh no!” Cora gulped. “He’s sinking!”

      “Hurry!” СКАЧАТЬ