The squirrel and the crow nodded in agreement.
“We just won’t have the worm, then.” He sat down
again and folded his arms.
My plan was working. I was just about to
offer to go and dig up some leeks, when Laurence
opened his great big beak.
“EXCUSE ME, EVERYBODY!” he said. “But I’m
NOT actually a chicken. I’m a FLAMINGO, thank
you very much. I shouldn’t be in this stew, either.
61
We all know that flamingo doesn’t go with leek.”
“You’re not a flamingo. Don’t tell me lies.
I hate lies,” said the mole, catching on to what
was happening.
“I’m not lying. I never have been and never
will be a chicken.”
“You are a chicken!” The mole
shook his head. “You two rascals
are making my head spin.”
“Who, ME too?” I asked
innocently.
“Yes, especially you, you sly
worm, trying to trick me so that I
won’t put you in the stew. I almost
believed you when you said that you have
an uncle who is a chef!”
I couldn’t look at the
mole. He was right. My
uncle isn’t really a chef;
he’s a waiter.
62
“Right,” the mole growled. “We’re going
back to the original plan. We’re going to have
CHICKEN-and-WORM stew.”
He composed himself
and continued talking in
a smooth voice. “We’ll
wait for the water to
get a little hotter. And
then you two will have
a nice hot bath.” The
squirrel dropped some fresh
vegetables into the pot. “You’ll like that, won’t you?”
“YES,” we both said, playing along with the
mole’s strange game of pretending that he was
nice.
“I really like a hot bath with onions, carrots,
and potatoes,” Laurence added.
We were back in the same terrible and
hopeless situation. What made things worse was
that the mole was sitting awfully close to me,
63
so close that I could smell
his breath through
my worm skin.
It smelled like he’d
eaten a whole raw onion
as if it were an apple. As each minute passed, the
smell became more and more unbearable. I had to
do something to get away from the stench.
“While we’re waiting for
the water to boil, let’s
all get up and dance!”
I suggested.
“That’s a
great idea,” said
Laurence, standing
up and wiggling his
hips awkwardly.
64
“Such a ridiculous idea,” said the mole, looking
at me. “How do you expect us to dance without
any music?”
“We can make our own music,” I said. The
mole was about to start complaining again, but I
talked over him. “Squirrel, you can lay a beat for
me, can’t you? I need an eight beat.”
“SIT down,” said the mole. “There’s no music,
you feathered imbecile.”
Laurence sat down and looked at the floor.
65
The squirrel shot a glance at the crow. She was
confused.
“What are you DOING?” whispered Laurence,
loudly enough for everyone to hear.
“It’s called beatboxing. It’s like this.” I pursed
and flapped my mouth to make drumbeat sounds.
As I did it, I had to take in deep breaths of onion
air. I could now taste the onion as well as smell it.
“Can anyone do that for me? Laurence?”
Laurence started trembling.
I made the sounds again and wriggled my
body to the beat, trying to ignore the onion smell.
No one responded at first, but I kept going.
66
It sounded like
he was blowing
a raspberry.
After a while, the crow began to nod his
head to the rhythm. The squirrel tried to make
hard to produce the pbt sound, and it came out
as a ts ts ts.
“That sounds like a snare drum,” I said,
trying to encourage her. I was very good at
being a beatboxing teacher. The squirrel smiled,
showing her awful teeth.
“Let me give it a try,” said
the mole, standing up.
“That, Mr. Mole,” I said, “sounds a lot like a
bass drum. Give us a pbbb on the first and second
beats. See if you can do it from over there,” I said,
pointing to the opposite side of the shack so that
we would all have a break from his onion breath.
The crow joined in and gave a caw on the
third and seventh beat.
“OK, so we’ll all come in now on a five, six,
seven, eight.” Everyone was making a pbt or
a ts or a pbbb noise, and we were all moving to
the beat.
“Now it’s time for us to do some dancing.”
If I managed to get everyone dancing, then
I might just be able to escape unnoticed.
“This move is called the Worm.” I threw myself
down to the ground and raised and dropped my
body across the floor. “Can anyone else do that?”
68
The mole, squirrel, and crow had fully
immersed themselves in the music. They were
tapping their feet and clapping their claws, paws,
and wings.
“I’m dancing!” said the crow, waving his wings
enthusiastically.
My plan was working.
Laurence stood up
to get a better
view. The
crow hopped
toward us,
and we
all moved
outward to
create a circle around
him. He paused momentarily and then began
hopping and shuffling his feet to the rhythm.
“Great moves, Crow. Can anyone else do that?”
I asked.
69
“Let me try,”
said the squirrel.
She danced her
way to the center of
the circle. The crow
hopped backward to
make space for her. She
wobbled around the
circle with her elbows
sticking out.
“My turn now,” said the
mole impatiently. He waddled
to the middle and then swung
his little arms from side to side while
hopping from one foot to the other. He didn’t have
a very good sense of rhythm.
Everyone was mesmerized by the music,
hopping and skipping around with their eyes
closed. Everyone except Laurence, who stood
stiffly in the corner.
A goose and
some ducks heard
us and came into
the hut. The dancing
had become more ambitious. The
squirrel leaped and did the splits in
midair. The ducks were quacking,
and the goose did a backflip that
a
ccidentally tore apart the whole shack.
We were now standing in an open field.
I just needed to get Laurence dancing with
his eyes shut too, and then I’d be able to
fully escape from everyone.
“Laurence, can you do a tap dance?”
I asked as I did the Worm
across the ground.
“You saw before, I’m
not very good at dancing,”
he said, folding his
wings together.
“TAP-DANCE NOW!”
I said loudly, while staring
into his eyes.
Laurence
hopped swiftly to
the middle of the circle.
He tapped and shuffled his
feet with great precision at an
incredible speed. Everyone stopped what
they were doing to look at him.
He was an amazing tap dancer. I felt proud
I couldn’t dwell on that now, though. It was
my moment to run away. The soil was soft and
perfect for digging. But as much as I wanted to
be free, there was something stopping me.
It’s true that Laurence had been a bad-luck
charm, but it felt funny now to leave without
him. I’d sort of agreed to be his friend, and maybe
being friends with him was a good idea. I started
to make a list in my mind of the pros and cons of
being friends with Laurence. I got as far as “he’s
really good at flying,” which was on my list of
pros, when I realized that the dance area was full
of worms!
They had burrowed their way up from
underground. They must have mistaken
Laurence’s tip-tappity footsteps for the sound of
rain. In worm society, when it rains, we all rise to
the surface. It’s just something that we do.
74
Laurence had no room to dance. The mole was
agitated. And I’d missed my moment to run away.
“STOP THE BEATBOXING MUSIC!” the mole
shouted, waving his claws about.
Everyone stopped their pbbtting and looked
at him.
The dance party was over, and the mole was
very, very angry.
“Stop the dancing. STOP THE MUSIC!” the mole
said again, waving his claws in big circles in the
air. “Something is going on here, and I don’t like
it.” He looked at all of us.
“Which one of you wigglers is Marcus?”
Chapter Six
76
“I am Marcus,” said a worm who
wasn’t me.
“All right, GET HIM,” said the mole.
“Throw him in the pot. The water must
have boiled by now.” The squirrel and
the crow pushed their way through the
throng of worms.
“I am Marcus,” said another
worm who wasn’t me either and
was standing on the opposite side
of the crowd. The squirrel and the
crow looked at the mole to see
what to do next.
The mole was standing
on tiptoe to see whose voice it was.
77
“You can’t both be Marcus!” he said
angrily. “Which one of you is the real
Marcus?”
One of the pretend Marcuses gave me
a friendly wink when the mole wasn’t looking.
I giggled and looked at Laurence to see if
he was finding this funny too.
Laurence’s eyes were bulging
out of his head again. He
looked really confused.
Another worm
spoke up. “I am Marcus.”
And then another! And then
all the worms pretended to be
me, one by one.
“All right, that’s
it,” said the mole.
“Put them ALL in
the stew pot!”
Everyone started screaming.
The crow hopped into the crowd and
tried to scoop everyone up with his wings.
The worms wriggled, wiggled, and burrowed
quickly into the earth. The goose and the ducks
flew away, quacking and honking. There were
wings and feathers everywhere.
Through the commotion I could see
Laurence picking up a worm in his beak.
He flew up into the sky.
The crow looked at me. I was the only
worm left.
80
Before he could reach
me with his feathery
grasp, I dived into the
soil, burrowing as quickly
as I could. I dug down
into the earth, deeper
and deeper — farther
down than I’d ever been
before. I only stopped
digging when I was
too exhausted to move
another millimeter.
“It’s very quiet down
here,” I said out loud,
even though there was no
one around to hear me.
I’d forgotten how quiet it
was underground. “It’s a
long way from home too.”
81
I felt anxious. Without Laurence I didn’t have
anyone to talk to or any idea how to get back
home. Even with Laurence I wasn’t sure how
I would get back. I was stuck here in France,
all on my own, forever.
I became angry.
How dare Laurence fly off with another worm!
We were supposed to be in this together. Surely
Laurence couldn’t have mistaken that other
worm for me? We looked nothing alike. I’d known
Laurence since yesterday. Did he think that all
worms looked the same or something? Or maybe
he didn’t mistake me for another worm. Maybe
he thought he’d try his luck finding a better
navigator. What kind of friend drops another
friend like that? How could he be so selfish?
I shouted the angriest
sentence I could think of.
“YOU STINKER!”
82
No one could hear my angry words. I was
totally by myself. I’d become used to Laurence’s
company and to his just being there. Even though
he could be trouble, mostly he was easy and fun to
be around. I missed him. I really, really missed him.
And it wasn’t just because he had those sandwiches
tucked away in his feathers and I was hungry.
Just then, there was a muffled shuffling noise
coming from above me.
“Gwenda?”
A head appeared from a freshly made hole in
the ceiling of my mud chamber. It was one
of the worms. She opened and closed her
eyes. “Is that you?” she asked, looking at
me with a big smile on her face.
She spoke excellent English.
Everybody in France seemed to.
“Non, it’s me,” I said, making an
effort to try to speak her language.
“I’m the real Marcus.”
83
“Oh,” said the worm, her smile disappearing.
She sighed heavily. “A fat bird who looked a
little like a chicken took Gwenda away. We
heard you shouting and thought that you
might have been her. We were hoping that he
had dropped her and that she’d come back.
”
“It’s only me, I’m afraid. I know that fat bird
that you’re talking about; that’s Laurence. He
wants to go to Lake Nakuru, and he probably
expects Gwenda to navigate. You won’t
see her again,” I said, snorting.
“We won’t see Gwenda
again?” the worm repeated
slowly. “We love Gwenda.”
I felt guilty for being
so flippant.
“Where is this Lake
Nakuru?” she asked. “We’ll have
to go there so that we can bring
her back home.”
84
I couldn’t bring myself to tell her where Lake
Nakuru was. The only way they’d be able to get
there was by making friends with some other
birds who wanted to travel with worms and not
be tempted to eat them for breakfast. That wasn’t
very likely.
“Where is Lake Nakuru?” the worm asked
again with a worried voice.
“It’s in Kenya, in Africa,” I whispered softly.
“Africa! But that’s miles away. She’s not going
to know the way to Africa.”
I couldn’t think of anything to say. We were
both silent for a while. I started thinking about
Robert the Bruce. We learned about him in
history at worm school. I don’t remember most of
the story, but the best part was when everything
was going wrong for Robert and he had to live in
a cave to get away from the bad guys. He was so
bored that he ended up watching a spider trying
to make a web. The spider kept falling down,
but each time it would climb up and try again.
Eventually, after a ton of tries, the spider finished
its web. This little spider inspired Robert the
Bruce to never give up. I think he went on to do
something important, but I can’t remember that
part of the story, I just remember the spider part.
“Robert the Bruce once said, ‘If at first you
don’t succeed, try, try again,’” I said to my
dangling worm friend. I wasn’t sure why I said
that to her, but it must have been just what she
needed to hear.
She looked at me with a sense of determination