Welcome to the Jungle (7 page)

“What's that awful racket?” Sprout asked, covering his ears.

“Someone's following us.” Rick pushed Evie out of the way and grabbed the controls. “Sprout, get to the observation deck. See if you can acquire a visual on whoever's behind us.”

“Yes, sir. I'll lasso them instigators. That'll put them right in their place.”

“Evie, where's the super root?”

“I've got it,” Evie said, touching the small chest in the pocket of her hoodie.

“Leave it with me,” Rick said. “It'll be safer.”

“
I've got it!
” Evie insisted. “Sheesh!”

Sick of her brother's nagging, Evie followed Sprout to the back of the
Roost
. They reached the door to the observation deck, breathless.

“Do you think it'll be hard to spot them varmints chasing us?”

“We'll find out soon enough.” Evie unlocked the safety latch and opened the door. A dozen pink robo-birds were perched on the guardrail. They chirped and flapped their wings and tilted their heads and whirred their gears. The tiny TV screens in their breasts displayed video of their cursed owner, Vesuvia Piffle. The little blond monster on the screen kept squawking “I hate you! I hate you!” Very articulate.

“How does she keep finding us?” Evie shouted at the birds. “She's supposed to be in prison!”

“Who's she?” asked Sprout, sounding quite confused.

Evie pointed at the mad face on one of the screens. “That crazy pink-obsessed jerk, Vesuvia Piffle.”

At that, the birds shrieked and attacked Evie.

Evie flailed wildly. The birds ripped at her arms and legs. One tried to nest in her hair.

“Gah! I hate these things!” She swatted at the birds. Sprout rushed to pull them off.

The fluttering robots pinched Evie by the hood of her sweatshirt and hoisted her into the air. “Evie!” Sprout cried. He reached out to grab her. His fingers brushed against Evie's, but they couldn't get a good grip, and soon Evie was yanked even farther from the
Roost
.

Sprout unhooked his lasso from his belt and took careful aim. “I've got you!” He flung the loop of rope. Evie reached, fighting hard against her captors, and grabbed hold of Sprout's lasso. He began to reel Evie in with an impressive display of strength.

But the birds were not about to give up their prey so easily. Their little mechanical wings flapped wildly, their sharp plastic beaks pecking at Evie until her grip began to slip.

“Don't you dare let go, missy!” Sprout called.

Evie felt something shifting in the pocket of her hoodie. It was the box with the super root. It hung halfway out of her pocket, about to fall. She grabbed it, but the bird pinching her wrist pecked her hand. She recoiled in pain, dropping the box. It tumbled through the open air and shattered upon hitting the crashing waves. The bulb and the broken pieces of box sank beneath the surface.

“Oh no! The super root!” Evie cried out, tears hot on her face. She broke the grip of the pink robo-birds and swung away on Sprout's lasso. The birds must have seen she was going to smash them flat as tin foil. They retreated from the
Roost
, the videos of Vesuvia still shrieking, “I hate you! I hate you!”

Soon the birds had flown out of sight. Evie hung mournfully from the lasso while Sprout pulled her back up to the observation balcony.

Evie threw the end of the lasso to Sprout and stormed back inside of the
Roost
. No part of her wanted to tell her brother what happened, but there was no time to be coy.

She entered the bridge. “Rick . . . Rick!”

“What?” He was focused on the controls.

“I lost the super root.”

“Ha ha. Very funny.”

“No, um . . . Rick . . .”

He spun around in his seat, and when he saw her face his mouth fell open. Turning back around, Rick pushed the
Roost
into a dive. They nearly smashed into the surface of the ocean, pulling up at the last second to ensure a more delicate landing. They parked on the water where Evie had seen the root go under, but all traces of the root were gone.

They booted up the
Roost
's deep-water sensors, but as they searched the ocean floor, they received disheartening news. The root had fallen from Evie's pocket over a section of the ocean floor lined with hydrothermal vents called the East Pacific Rise. These vents were fissures—cracks in the earth's crust—through which superheated water escaped. Not a trace of the super root was found. Rick's best guess was that the root bulb fell too close to the boiling water and disintegrated.

At first Rick didn't lecture her for losing the super root. He didn't yell or get mad. But Evie could see that crease in his forehead, and how he gritted his teeth so hard that his jaw pushed out his cheeks. He was furious. He blamed her for losing the root.

Evie blamed herself too. She couldn't believe she had been so clumsy. One second she was holding the root in her hand and the next it was gone.
Those darn robo-birds from Condo Corp.
It didn't matter that their owner was locked up in the Prison at the Pole; Vesuvia Piffle was still making trouble for Rick and Evie.

What a catastrophe. Evie had convinced Rick to break their promise to Mom and gone to Texas without her. Now Mom was in danger. Evie and Rick weren't safe. And no one had heard from Dad. Worst of all, Rick's Continent Collision Counter showed only thirty hours remaining until the eighth continent smashed into Australia. They'd already used up so much time, and they were no closer to achieving their goals. How could they root the continent without a root?

“We should go back to Professor Doran's lab,” Rick suggested. “And pick up another super-root bulb.”

Sprout sucked air through his teeth. “I'm afraid that won't be possible, Rick. I know for a fact that this here was the only super root the Prof had. We might be able to look for a new one in the jungle where the root grows, but the Amazon is far away and it would take a long while.”

Evie punched one of the pilot chairs. “Dang it! So what can we do?”

“Gimme some time to think about it. Maybe I can come up with a plan.” Sprout smiled. “Don't worry, Evie. I'll fix this here problem.”

They fired up the
Roost
's engines and continued on to the eighth continent, figuring when they found Dad he would have some ideas. As the continent appeared in their sights, Evie felt some of the tension ease from her neck and shoulders.

“It's nice to be back home,” she said. “I could really use some good news for a change.”

But as they flew past the Lanes' encampment, they saw that the place was ransacked. Chairs were overturned. Supplies had been dumped all over the ground.

The Lane kids exchanged worried looks. “Now, let's not get all riled up,” said Sprout. “Maybe there's a good explanation for everything.”

Evie desperately wanted to believe her new friend. She could tell that her brother did as well. He gritted his teeth in determination as he flew the
Roost
over the camp and continued inland, searching for their missing father.

But as they landed the
Roost
on a hilltop overlooking the encampment, Evie's heart sank so deep she felt like it might fall into one of those hydrothermal vents.

Dad and 2-Tor were nowhere to be seen.

SPROUT TIPPED BACK HIS COWBOY HAT AND SCRATCHED HIS BROW. “SO THIS AIN'T HOW YOUR
camp is supposed to look, I reckon?”

“Not at all,” Rick replied, pacing back and forth across the
Roost
's bridge. “The encampment should be clean and organized.”

“And Dad and 2-Tor should be here, trying to figure out how to solve the continent-collision problem,” Evie added.

Rick turned on his heel. “Let's not forget that that particular problem had
already been solved
before someone
had to go and drop the super root in the ocean.”

“Come on, Rick. That's not fair.”

“Fair?! What's not fair is that I warned you. I warned you, Evie. And you mocked me.” Rick wanted to throw his sister in the ocean. “All I hope is that when the time comes to build the eighth continent's permanent settlement, you'll trust my judgment.”

For once, Evie didn't have a response. Rick could tell that she felt truly horrible about what she'd done. Pangs of guilt began to creep into his chest—he probably shouldn't have yelled at her so intensely. But after all that had happened, was it wrong of him to feel like she just didn't take the whole situation seriously enough? Being in control of the eighth continent was the only way Rick was ever going to fit in anywhere. Evie had no idea how much it meant to him.

“We should at least go outside and look, right y'all?” Sprout suggested in an obvious effort to diffuse the tension. Rick nodded in response; and he, Sprout, and Evie promptly exited the
Roost
.

Their throats tightened as they took stock of the area surrounding the hilltop. To the south lay the abandoned settlement. The embers in the campfire were cold; it was unclear how long the fire had been out. A few of the wooden huts the family had built to live and work in had been smashed. Doors hung off their hinges. There were holes punched in the grassy roofs.

“What's that?” said Evie, motioning east. Rick's stomach dropped as he saw what had attracted Evie's attention.

“That ain't nothing but some buildings,” volunteered Sprout.

“Yes, but we haven't constructed any other buildings on the continent,” said Rick, his voice hushed.

“Maybe Dad moved his workshop to a different location,” Evie wondered aloud.

“No way,” Rick said. “He didn't have the time or resources to accomplish something like that.”

“So are you saying what I think you're saying?” asked Evie.

“I'm saying that there's someone else on this continent.”

Rick led the way across the spongy terrain. Sprout followed along at his side. “Aw, Rick, if y'all got rustlers trespassing on your continent, then they're gonna be in for a rude surprise when I acquaint them with my lasso.”

The problem was that Rick didn't think a lasso would be enough to handle whoever had built these other buildings. On the kids' past adventures they had Dad or Mom, or at least 2-Tor, to protect them. Now they were on their own. Mom had been right all along. It was stupid and dangerous to go off without supervision.

“Everyone be quiet,” Rick cautioned the others. “We don't know what we're dealing with yet.”

Evie walked behind Sprout, shoulders back, hands at the ready. “I'm not afraid of any trespassers. Whoever's on our continent is going to regret bumping into me.”

“This is serious, Evie,” Rick snapped. He'd been trying to be a little less belligerent toward her ever since they'd headed off in the direction of the buildings, but then she had to go and be her usual bullheaded self. “Quit pretending to act tough. It's that kind of attitude that lost the super root and got us in this mess.” There were enough risks in creating a new continent. They couldn't afford to have Evie take unnecessary ones.

As they reached the top of the next hill, they looked into the valley below and saw that the buildings were more than just random structures—they were a new settlement. Men in dark suits patrolled the area, armed with icetinguishers and stern faces. Each building was labeled with a sign written in a blocky font: “Paperwork Depository”; “Regulation Station;” “Hovership Permit Parking:
Park your permits here!
”

“It's—it's Winterpole,” Evie stammered. “They're not supposed to be here! They don't have jurisdiction.”

Rick shrugged. “They must have found a way around that.”

Evie shifted on the rocky hilltop. “What do you think they did with Dad and 2-Tor?”

“Well I can answer at least part of that last one,” Sprout said. “2-Tor. He's y'all's big bird thing, I reckon. Yeah?”

“That's right,” Evie nodded. “How'd you know?”

Sprout pointed to an open plaza in the center of the settlement, where a big ice sculpture stood on a deactivated hoversled, guarded by two armed agents in suits. At first glance Rick had assumed it was a shrine to cold weather erected as a result of Winterpole's weird obsession with its namesake season, but on closer inspection, he could see something inside the ice. A beak. The tip of a black feather.

“2-Tor!” Rick gasped.

“What? Trapped in the ice?” Evie rushed toward the settlement. “We have to save him!”

“Evie, wait!” Rick tackled her before she could get too far ahead. They tumbled to the ground, sending Rick's glasses flying. Sprout laughed uproariously.

“Get off me!” Evie shoved Rick away. “2-Tor is in trouble!”

“That Winterpole camp is crawling with guards. Don't you get it? They'd freeze you in two seconds, and then Sprout and I would have to rescue you
and
2-Tor.”

“You don't know that,” Evie said.

Sprout tipped back his hat. “I think Rick is right, Evie. We gotta be cool as cucumbers if we want to save y'all's friend.”

“And how are we going to do that?” Evie asked.

With an encouraging smile, Sprout said, “Trust me. There's a plan growing in my head, and I'm ready to harvest it.”