The Poison Jungle

by Tui T. Sutherland

  “I like that you want to fix the bad things,” Willow said softly, touching one of Sundew’s talons with her own. “But are you only mad at the bad things? Or are you mad at everybody, all the time?”

  Sundew bit back a snappy retort. That wasn’t fair! She wasn’t mad all the time. And when she was mad, the other dragon clearly deserved it.

  “She made it!” Mandrake shouted. He jumped up and down, flapping his wings. “We can do this!”

  “Do you want to go next?” Cricket asked him.

  “I’d rather watch someone else one more time,” he said. “If that’s all right.”

  “I’ll go,” Willow said. She brushed Sundew’s wing lightly, with an expression that might have meant Sorry, don’t be mad or We’ll be all right or I’m totally falling out of love with you right now. Sundew wasn’t sure, but she wished she had something to stab to make herself feel a little better.

  Willow’s crossing was smoother and more graceful than Nettle’s (objectively true, not at all Sundew’s biased opinion). Mandrake went after her, swerving wildly around a Roridula and swooping low enough that he nearly fell in the lake a couple of times, but at last he made it safely to the other side.

  “All right,” Cricket said, taking a deep breath. “I can do this.”

  “Let me take Bumblebee,” Sundew said. “I’m more used to this kind of flying than you are, and she might throw you off.”

  “Snudoo!” Bumblebee cheered. She lifted her little talons up and did a very good impression of something cute. Something more like a tamarin and definitely not like a HiveWing.

  “Are you sure?” Cricket asked. “I thought you didn’t want her getting attached to you.”

  “Well, I’m not planning to glue her to me,” Sundew said. “I just figured I’d marginally increase both your odds for survival.”

  “I do like that goal,” Cricket said, smiling as she untied the sling. She passed Bumblebee into Sundew’s arms and started rewrapping the scarves around Sundew’s shoulders, readjusting her pouches as she did.

  Bumblebee was lighter than Sundew had expected, a warm little ball of scales with lots of spiky bits. Her elbows and wings and horns and tail all seemed to poke Sundew at once as the dragonet wriggled around, burbling with joy. But after a moment, she settled with her wings tucked in and nudged her nose under Sundew’s chin. One of her tiny talons wrapped around the pouch with the jade frog in it.

  It felt weirdly comfortable and mildly alarming at the same time. This was definitely a small living thing that might die if Sundew did anything wrong. But it was also a small living thing that apparently completely trusted her. Plants did that, sometimes, but plants weren’t exactly cuddly.

  “We’re fine,” Sundew said to Cricket. “Stop fussing and get flying.”

  She watched Cricket dart and hover through the obstacles, pausing now and then to peer at a plant she didn’t recognize. One of them turned out to be an iridescent pink beetle instead of a flower, and it shot a blast of acid at her that she just managed to duck before heading down to land on the opposite shore.

  Sundew tugged the scarf a little higher up Bumblebee’s neck. “Our turn, little bug. Stay very still and do NOT distract me, understand?”

  “Ooobeegoo,” Bumblebee said sternly. She patted Sundew’s face. “Do NOBBY splamflamp.”

  “I wasn’t planning on being splamflamp,” Sundew retorted, “whatever that is.”

  She lifted off, wobbling a little as she adjusted to Bumblebee’s weight. Her claws skimmed the lake’s surface as she flew under a crisscrossing tangle of vines, and below her she saw blurry waterwheels snapping shut on the ripples. A knobbly reptilian head rose from the depths to stare at her with yellow eyes, but she didn’t stop to figure out what it was.

  Up a little higher, over a knot of dragon-traps, wings tucked to fit between a loop of dangling snakes and a glittering web of poisonous sap. Now she had a straight line of sight to the four dragons waiting on the far side. Nettle was twitching her tail impatiently; Willow looked anxious.

  “Not much farther,” she said to Bumblebee.

  She beat her wings once and turned into a dive.

  And then suddenly Bumblebee shrieked, “BEEBUF!” and flung herself upward, grabbing Sundew’s horns, pulling them down, and smacking her little body over Sundew’s entire face.

  Sundew yelped and fell, momentarily blinded. Her wings flailed to catch the air.

  And instead she felt one of them catch on something else.

  Something sticky and prickling that caught and held her wing fast, slamming her to a stop. Her momentum spun her toward the caught wing. She flung out a talon to stop herself and felt it smack straight into the same gluey ooze.

  She was trapped, and so was Bumblebee, and she could already feel the other tendrils closing in.

  Mmmmmine, whispered the plant. Sssso delicious mine …

  “Sundew!” Willow screamed.

  Sundew couldn’t see around the black and yellow scales draped over her snout. She didn’t even know exactly which kind of sticky plant had caught them.

  “Bumblebee,” she said, trying to keep the panic out of her voice. “Are you all right?”

  “Yim,” Bumblebee said in a small voice.

  “Good,” said Sundew. “Then WHAT IN THE NAME OF ALL THE TREES WAS THAT?”

  “Eep,” Bumblebee said in an even smaller voice. “Beebuf?”

  “Get off my face,” Sundew snapped. “CAREFULLY. I am REALLY MAD AT YOU.”

  “Beebeebeebeebeebuf,” Bumblebee protested, wiggling down until she was hanging from Sundew’s snout with her tail around Sundew’s neck. She managed to scoot herself back into the sling and leaned into Sundew’s chest, patting her heart under the jade frog. “Meesnugoo.”

  “Goo is right,” Sundew said, studying their abductor. She was stuck on one of the towering leaves of a plant that sprawled across a small island in the lake below her. The leaf was bright lime green, with hundreds of thin red stalks poking out of it that made the entire plant look fuzzily scarlet from afar. At the tip of each stalk was a glistening drop, like a translucent murder pearl.

  “Oh no,” Sundew muttered.

  “Isn’t this amazing?” Nettle called, with an undeniable note of triumph in her voice. “The great and wonderful Sundew trapped by an actual sundew?”

  “That’s a sundew?” Cricket said. “Huh. I thought they’d be prettier. That thing looks like a giant spider got turned into a plant and sprouted weird red hairs all over it. But you can get away from it, right, Sundew?”

  “Sundew!” Willow cried. “Don’t move!”

  That was an unhelpfully obvious piece of advice. Sundew knew that struggling would only trap her worse. But she didn’t exactly have many options at the moment. Three of the sticky dewdrops had snagged Sundew’s left wingtip; her right front talon was caught on another two, and her back talons were snared in still more below her, as she tried to brace the rest of her body away from the plant.

  Huddled in her sling, Bumblebee was trapped between Sundew and the sundew, but she hadn’t touched the sticky substance yet. She peeked at it with wide eyes, more still than Sundew had ever seen her, as though she understood the danger of moving.

  The other tentacles on the leaf were creeping toward them, leaning, drooping, closer and closer. In a few moments, new beads would reach her scales, latching on with gummy ferocity. Soon after that, the tentacles would wrap tighter, drawing her inescapably into their embrace, until they held her and Bumblebee as close as they could … until they suffocated and died and were consumed by the plant.

  She summoned all the power of her leafspeak. STOP! she screamed at the tentacles.

  The sundew froze. Each red stalk tentacle paused where it was, as though the plant was staring at her with a hundred glistening beady eyes.

  Let us go, she ordered it.

  A long pause as confused messages fired up and down the sundew’s synapses.

  Can’t, it finally whispered back, not so mu
ch a response as an observation echoing through the leaves. Hungry.

  Want this.

  Mine.

  One of the tentacles reached for her face and she roared STOP! again.

  It froze once more, but it was so close to her eye now that she couldn’t stop the panic thundering through her heart. The plant sensed it and flickered something curious and malevolent back at her. Her fear tasted delicious to it.

  “I’m not scared,” she snarled out loud. “I want to rip you out by your roots and burn you to ashes.”

  Malevolent flicker. Mmmore.

  It liked the taste of her anger, too. She shuddered despite herself and felt a tentacle snag on her tail.

  She had to stay calm. Especially for Bumblebee. The rotten little bug face had gotten her into this mess, but she didn’t have to die for it.

  You do not want this prey, she thought forcefully in leafspeak. It will sicken you.

  Hmmmshhhh, the sundew responded with skepticism.

  “Sundew, I’m coming to get you!” Willow called.

  “No!” Sundew shouted back. “You’ll only get stuck, too! I can get out of this! Stay there!”

  “Maffib?” Bumblebee asked, wiggling her head up closer to Sundew’s. She poked the jade frog pouch with one of her claws. “Smeebuf?”

  “Smeebuf?” Sundew echoed. “Are you trying to annoy me to death before the plant eats me, you wretched little lizard?”

  “Buf!” Bumblebee insisted indignantly. She leaned under Sundew’s left arm and jabbed another pouch. “Buf! Buf! Buf!”

  Sundew was about to yell at her to shut up, when a realization hit her like a falling tree. “Wait,” she said. “Are you trying to say bug?”

  “Dazameezacco!” Bumblebee shouted, as though she couldn’t believe how thick Sundew’s head was. “BUF!”

  “I do have a couple of bugs in there,” Sundew said. “That might … shush and let me think.”

  “Smusha mee smush,” Bumblebee grumbled. She draped herself around Sundew’s free arm and glared at the tentacles. Most of them were still hovering as the plant decided what to do, but a few were stealing closer at a snail’s pace as if hoping no one would notice until too late.

  Bugs.

  Buf … wait … beebuf … what if that actually meant something?

  “Willow,” Sundew called. “Did you see why Bumblebee freaked out? Did she see something?”

  “Yes!” Willow called back. “Didn’t you see it, too?”

  “Obviously not! What was it?”

  “It was the biggest tsetse fly I’ve ever seen!” Cricket exclaimed. “It was like three times the size of Bumblebee!”

  “All the insects are oversized here,” Mandrake said. “At least, that’s what my father says.”

  Now Sundew had a vague memory of something buzzing nearby, right before Bumblebee grabbed her face. She hated tsetse flies. One of her favorite teachers had been killed by a tsetse fly bite. After that, she’d made it her personal mission to tell every carnivorous plant near the village to eat as many tsetse flies as possible, and they hadn’t been seen in her part of the jungle ever since.

  But this wasn’t her part of the jungle.

  “Willow! Where did it go? Can you still see it?”

  “No,” Willow said. “Nothing …”

  “Maybe there?” Mandrake’s voice said nervously.

  “Oh! Yes — I think so! Sundew, to your right and above you, on the vine!”

  Sundew carefully inched her head around and looked up. She glimpsed the shimmer of wings and a huge blackish-brown body, nearly hidden by leaves.

  She tried to think, but it had been a long time since she’d studied them. “What attracts tsetse flies?” she yelled to her friends.

  “Attracts them?” Nettle shouted. “Why would you want to do that?”

  “Maybe the smell of blood?” Willow guessed.

  “Bright colors!” Cricket shouted. “Especially blue!”

  “Really?” Mandrake said. “How do you know that?”

  “I read a study,” Cricket said. “From a while ago, way before the Tree Wars. I kind of … like reading studies.”

  “Worth a try,” Sundew said, thinking quickly through the items in her pouches. The only problem was that she couldn’t reach most of them with her only free talon — at least, not without probably getting more stuck.

  She took a breath. “Bumblebee,” she said. “Are you listening? Can you do something important for me?”

  “Yim,” Bumblebee said in her most solemn voice. Patches of black scales circled her yellow-gold eyes, making her look a little like a tragic panda as she gazed up into Sundew’s face.

  “I need you to climb onto my back,” Sundew said. “Really carefully. Hold on tight and find the leaf pouch under my left wing that’s a darker green than the others. Do not open it yet.”

  “Beemish,” Bumblebee said grandly. She crawled up onto Sundew’s shoulder and started inching her way down Sundew’s back, clinging to the pouch straps and the other side of the sling as she went. Sundew could hear her singing softly to herself: “Beemish Snudoo, Bumpbump snableday, beemish Snudoo, Bumpbump snableday …”

  The dragonet tugged at the fiber ropes wound around Sundew’s left wing, and one of the tentacles above them curled forward and glommed on to Sundew’s wing scales next to the others.

  Yuck dragon, Sundew thought frantically at the plant. Dragon so very yuck. Sick the plant that eats the dragons.

  Shhhhhhh … the sundew thought, but then, shivering along its leaves from the central core: Sick … sick?

  Poisonous yuck dragons, Sundew tried. Maybe kill the sundew.

  Mine the meal, the plant whispered to itself. Danger … but hunger … but danger … but hunger …

  “Zob,” Bumblebee announced, holding up the dark green pouch.

  “In the inner fold you’ll find butterfly wings,” Sundew said. “Pick out the blue ones and throw them at the tentacles right above us.”

  The dragonet hesitated, and Sundew realized that was too many instructions at once.

  “Do you know the color blue?” Sundew asked.

  Bumblebee glanced around nervously, then pointed up with a “maybe?” expression. Except up could be the sky, which was in fact blue, or the tree canopy that mostly hid it from view, which was not, or any of the various bright flowers and curious monkey faces watching them.

  “Find a blue wing in there and show it to me,” Sundew ordered. Her arms and back ached from the strain of pressing herself away from the sundew, and her mind was getting very tired from trying to keep the leafspeak orders going at the same time.

  The little HiveWing dug into the pouch for what felt like an age, and finally emerged with a talonful of bright blue morpho wings.

  “That’s right!” Sundew said, twitching more than she meant to in her excitement. Another tentacle latched itself to her tail. “Now —”

  But Bumblebee wasn’t waiting for more directions. She threw the morpho wings up at the stalk of the sundew that was slowly curving down toward them. The blue stuck where it landed, covering the scarlet and green with a small window of bright azure beauty, like Blue’s wings.

  Bumblebee squeaked with delight at herself and immediately pulled out another talonful. This one, when she threw it, turned out to have a few other colors mixed in, but it still looked like a shining mosaic, most of it a blue that shone in the dark green jungle. The plant twitched around the scattered wings, bewildered by the new sensation that didn’t match the others.

  Bzzzz. Bzzzz.

  The tsetse fly was moving. Only a little at first, hopping to a closer leaf, turning in a circle, flaring its wings and zipping them closed again.

  “Bumblebee,” Sundew whispered. “Get back in the sling.”

  Bumblebee clambered rapidly over Sundew’s shoulder again, no singing or burbling this time. She crawled into the sling and wrapped it around herself with a little shiver.

  Bzzzzzzzzzz.

  The tsetse zoomed pas
t, close enough for Sundew to feel the wind of its passing against her free wing. She held still as it circled and dove again. It was studying the blue shapes with its huge, horrible eyes.

  Come on, Sundew prayed. Please let this work.

  With a final, decisive buzz, the tsetse fly swooped down and landed squarely on top of the blue wings, just above Sundew’s head.

  She lunged forward and slammed her free talon into its back, smashing the fly into the sticky tentacles. It jerked and spasmed, but the sundew held it tight. More tentacles closed in, faster the more the fly fought.

  Yesssss, the sundew’s leaves hissed.

  Take the fly, Sundew commanded, matching her leafspeak to the sundew’s sly, curling tone. Delicious yes. Dragons yuck.

  Two of the stalks touching her wing pulled away and reached for the fly instead. Then another … then the ones trapping her talon let go … and gradually she felt the sundew releasing her, choosing the simpler, less argumentative prey instead.

  As soon as she could, she threw herself back into the air, to freedom. She dove toward the lakeshore, where Willow was waiting with outstretched arms, and landed with a crash.

  “Ha HA!” Bumblebee declared triumphantly. She rolled herself out of the sling and did a little shimmy dance in the mud. Her wings whisked around her, iridescent and sparkling like a dragonfly’s. “Beebuf! I sabladay! Mee mish! Yim yim yim!”

  “You wouldn’t have had to save the day if you hadn’t gotten us stuck in the first place,” Sundew pointed out. She stretched her cramped wings and tail and neck and arms and tried to shake the feeling back into her toes. Her muscles were so confused. She decided to lie down in the mud for a moment and let them recover.

  “Good work, Bumblebee,” Cricket cooed. “You helped so much! You’re such a smart dragon! What a good listener!”

  “For trees’ sake, Cricket,” Sundew said. Belladonna had never given her that many compliments in her life, let alone all at once. “If my mother talked to me like that, I’d be —”

  “Well-adjusted?” Willow guessed, with a crinkly-eyed smile that made it very hard to scowl at her.