The Hidden Kingdom. Tracey Hecht

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СКАЧАТЬ to help him!” They bolted to the edge of the quicksand pit where Bismark continued to wriggle and writhe.

      Dawn leaned over the swirling earth and stretched out a paw. “Grab on, Bismark!” she yelled. “Tobin, hold me tight.”

      Tobin quickly dug his back claws into the dirt, pressing them into the earth to make sure they wouldn’t move. Then he grabbed onto Dawn’s tail. “I’ve got you,” he told her.

      With Tobin’s grip keeping her safe, Dawn reached farther out over the dangerous quicksand. But Bismark still couldn’t grasp her paw.

      “I’m a…glug…goner!” he shouted. The sand whirled around him like a tornado, drowning his voice and pulling him lower and lower. Bismark was now covered up to his chest.

      “Tobin, we need to get closer!” yelled Dawn.

      The pangolin looked down at his claws buried deep in the ground. He needed to yank them forward to get them out and move toward Bismark. But he needed to keep leaning backward if he was going to keep Dawn from falling into the quicksand. The pangolin took a deep breath. Then, very carefully, he wriggled his hind legs until they were free from the earth. “Oof!” Tobin ________

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      THE NOCTURNALS

      allowed himself to fall on his rear so he could keep a firm hold on Dawn. Then, scooting on his scaled backside, Tobin inched his way closer to the strange, swirling sand.

      “Hurry!” yelled Dawn.

      Bismark kept sinking down into the goop. Now, only his eyes peeked over it as it twisted and twirled in thousands of flecks all around him.

      “Almost ready!” huffed Tobin. “Just let me dig my claws back in….”

      “I’m choking!” Bismark used all his strength to reach out to Dawn. With a mighty jerk, he grabbed onto her. But Tobin had not yet dug his feet into their new position—and the pangolin and the fox went tumbling forward into the quicksand with Bismark!

      “Tobin!” cried Cora.

      “Oy!” The armadillo buried his face in the tree bark—he could not bear to watch.

      “Helllllp!” Bismark sputtered, managing to lift his head for a moment. But as quickly as it had surfaced over the sand, it sunk back beneath it.

      “What do we do?” yelped Tobin. He struggled to rise above the swirling earth, but he couldn’t move. He tried to curl his body into a ball—the position he took whenever he was frightened—but even that was impossible. He was totally stuck.

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      Quicksand

      “Try to…try to….” Dawn’s mind raced, but nothing she thought of—floating, swimming, steering, jumping—seemed possible. All around her, the earth churned and roiled in a violent sea of sand. It was as though millions of tiny fingers were grabbing hold of her fur and pulling her lower and lower.

      The fox looked around frantically, struggling to peer through the spinning sand. She could no longer see Bismark. And all she could see of Tobin was the tip of his long, narrow snout. Helpless, she closed her eyes, shielding them from the sand whipping against her face. In moments, she would be fully buried beneath it.

      But, all of a sudden, the sand stopped stinging her cheeks. The fox slowly opened her eyes. The quicksand’s thrashing tornado had slowed into gentle waves. It was no longer trapping her. Dawn wriggled her paws—she could move! For a moment, she seemed to float, suspended in the strange sand. And then— ________

      Thud.

      Her body hit something hard. She was on the ground…and Bismark and Tobin were sprawled out beside her.

      Tobin rubbed his sore scales. Then, slowly, he rose to his feet. “I can stand!” he exclaimed.

      Bismark, too, managed to stand. “Mon dieu! I…I ________

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      THE NOCTURNALS

      did it!” he gasped. The sugar glider spat out a mouthful of sand. “I won! I defeated the dirt! I out-quicked the quicksand!”

      “But…where did it go?” Tobin asked. He spun in a circle, searching for the swirling sand.

      “It dissolved! Disappeared! Vanished!” Bismark exclaimed, poking the earth with his stick.

      “No, it didn’t,” said Dawn. She pointed a paw overhead. “Look!”

      The quicksand had lifted…and now drifted in the air. For a few moments, the flecks flurried in circles. Then they fluttered away with the breeze.

      The trio stared at the flying quicksand in silence.

      “Oy!” The armadillo finally opened his eyes and let go of his tree. “Are you three erright?” he asked. He trundled toward the Brigade. “I tried to warn yer—that there’s a quagmire!”

      The animal lowered his snout toward the ground to inspect it. “Or at least it was. I tell yer—that there slip-sand stuff keeps hap-nin’ everywhere an armadillo turns… movin’ this way and that. Comin’ and goin’.” He shuddered then pivoted back toward his tree. “The earth—she’s comin’ alive, I tell yer!” he shouted, scurrying away at full-speed. “She’s tryin’ to ________

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      Quicksand

      eat us dead!” Then, before the Brigade could ask any questions, he ran off into the woods.

      “Did…did you hear that?” Cora reached for Tobin’s paw. “Is he right? Is…is the earth really coming alive?”

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      Chapter Five

      WHERES’ THE WATER?

      “The earth can’t come alive. It’s not possible… right?” Tobin asked his friends.

      “Of course it’s possible!” Bismark declared, waving his stick in the air. “It’s the only explanation for this madness. The earth is trying to swallow us!”

      Tobin gulped. “But—”

      “But yes, good point, muchacho. Perhaps it’s only trying to swallow moi. I am the biggest threat after all—the most powerful, the most terrifying, the most intelligent…and the most devastatingly handsome. It makes perfect sense that the earth went after me first.” Bismark let out a sigh. “My greatness has put me in danger. That’s all there is to it.”

      Dawn’s stern expression silenced Bismark, but she had barely heard him to begin with. She was absorbed in her own thoughts. The strange, sandy ________

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      THE NOCTURNALS

      earth they’d been trapped in had to be quicksand, she reasoned. But quicksand is wet, and they were in the middle of a drought. And quicksand wouldn’t whip and thrash СКАЧАТЬ