For quite a while, the four stood silent and still in the clearing, watching the flight of the golden insects (the least gross bugs Milton had ever seen by far) and gazing up at the collage of leaf-light above.
Then Lord Snarlsy broke the spell with a string of chattered Lemallabese.
He was perched on the branch of a tree in the center of the clearing. The tree had a black trunk and dozens of black branches. The branches were crowded with leaves that were rectangular and cream colored and very familiar, and seedpods that were long, thin, and pointed.
It was, of course, the Yes-No-Maybe-So Tree.
From his branch, Lord Snarlsy nodded at Milton, Fig, Rafi, and Gabe. He nodded, and then he shook his head. He pointed at the trunk. He jumped up and down on the branches so that the leaves waved around.
It was very clear that the lemallaby wanted them to do something. But what?
“Are we climbing this tree too?” Gabe asked. “I can climb it!”
“I don’t think so,” Milton said. “The Yes-No-Maybe-So Tree is the final entry in the field guide. What do we know about it, Fig?”
Fig took the field guide out and turned to the last page. “I think this is the most important part,” she said after a moment. “The Yes-No-Maybe-So Tree will also answer any question—although it can only respond (you guessed it) Yes, No, or Maybe So. By now, I’m sure you can think of a few questions to ask, can’t you?”
“Let’s ask it about the treasure,” Rafi said. He marched up to the tree, cupped his hands around his mouth, and yelled, “Hey, tree, we have some questions for you! Are you ready?”
The tree didn’t answer. Crouched above them, Lord Snarlsy gave a snort of laughter, then covered his mouth in apology.
“Yes-No-Maybe-So Tree,” Fig tried, “would you be willing to speak with us, please?”
The tree still didn’t answer. Shhh went the insect wings.
Fig studied the entry again, while Milton peered over her shoulder. If there was one thing he had learned over and over, it was the value of consulting the field guide (even when he didn’t want to). Dr. Paradis hadn’t made this expedition easy. She hadn’t handed them answers or shortcuts, but so far, she had always given them just enough. There had to be another clue here.
But no matter how many times he read or reread the entry, he couldn’t find one in the words, and the illustration showed the tree exactly the same as it appeared in front of them.
Exactly the same, Milton noticed suddenly, except that on its leaves were black scribbles.
“Mighty moles and voles!” Milton cried. “Trees can’t speak!”
“Seriously, Sea Hawk?” Fig said. “I think we’ve definitely figured out that anything on the Lone Island can do—well, anything.”
Rafi understood what Milton really meant. “The tree doesn’t have a mouth or ears,” he said. “It has pages and pens.”
“You gotta write a letter,” Gabe said. He skipped over to the tree and tugged down a leaf-page, then unwound a seedpod stem from one of the black branches. “Here!”
Fig gave Milton the field guide and hurried over to take the seedpod pen and the leaf-page. “Okay,” she said. “What should we write?”
“Ask where the treasure is,” Milton suggested.
Fig read aloud as she wrote on the leaf-page:
“Do you know where Dr. Paradis’s treasure is hidden?”
Right away, the sap-ink question began to shift and new letters formed. They were flowy, curlicue letters. The tree had very nice penmanship. It wrote:
YES.
“It knows!” Fig cried. She tilted the leaf so everyone could see the reply. “What should I ask now?”
“Ask where it is!” Gabe shouted.
“Yes or no questions only,” Fig reminded them. “How about, Is the treasure nearby?” She wrote, waited a moment, then held up the leaf: MAYBE SO.
“Come on, you kooky tree.” Fig sighed. “What do we do now?”
Holding the field guide between them, Rafi and Milton both read the entry yet again. “What’s this part?” Rafi asked, pointing to the last line. “Food Source: Mostly sunshine but the tree may ingest—and possibly regurgitate—the occasional stacks of paper-leaves and more. What’s that supposed to mean?”
Milton shuddered. Having been regurgitated in the not-so-distant past, he preferred not to dwell on this section of the entry. “I guess it can eat itself,” he said. “Blergh.”
Fig was tapping her chin thoughtfully with the seedpod pen. “I think Rafi’s onto something,” she said. “It says stacks of leaf-pages. Leaves don’t fall in stacks. What if someone stacked them and put them in the tree?”
“Maybe Dr. Paradis fed the tree a treasure map!” Gabe cried. He held up a leaf on which he had drawn a winding line ending in an X. “What say you, me mateys?”
“Could be, Gabe,” Rafi said, then turned to Fig. “Can I try something?”
Fig held out the leaf-page and seedpod.
Rafi took them and scrawled a new question, reading it out loud:
“Could you spit out those leaf-pages?”
The tree did not answer. No letters appeared on any of its leaves. Milton wondered if it had run out of ink. Or maybe it wasn’t in the mood to chat. Lord Snarlsy watched, his arms and tail now wrapped tightly around the branch he was perched on.
Suddenly, the tree began to move.
Roots shifted, sending Fig and Rafi stumbling backward. Limbs began to wriggle and shake. The tree was like someone trying to get change out of the pockets of too-tight pants. It twisted and shivered and stretched, and then there was a creaky-groany sound and—
A hole opened up at the tree’s base.
Milton raced forward and, after a moment of hesitation, shoved his hand in. He felt the rough edges of the hole and a few spiderwebs (which almost made him yank his hand back out, but he persevered!), and then his fingers brushed something thick and papery and something scratchy and bulky. Straining forward as far as he could, he reached in with both hands, grabbed, and pulled.
And there it was, the treasure of the Lone Island, out in the sunlight at last.