CHAPTER 50

WordSmithing

Everyone gathered around to see what the youngest member of the group had figured out. He read off the first letter of every entry and had Milton copy them down in his field journal. When they finished, the letters read:

“Tierp Tam U Esby,” Fig read aloud. “You really think this is a clue, Gabe?”

“I do, I do!” Gabe sang out. “I know an anagram when I see one.”

“What’s an anagram?” Milton asked, squinting at the letters, which looked like gibberish to him.

“A jumble!” Gabe replied. “Letters all mixety-mixed. So I’m gonna unmix them.”

“What can we do to help?” Fig asked.

“You keep schwabbin’ the decks, me mateys,” Gabe replied, “while I do my WordSmithing.”

He took the field journal from Milton, plopped right down onto the jungle floor, and stuck his eyeballs about one inch from the letters.

“What exactly is WordSmithing?” Fig asked.

“The WordSmiths are a very prestigious society for the verbally gifted,” Rafi explained. “Gabe’s been a member since he was three. He had to take a test and everything. My dad gets about fifty newspapers in the monthly supply shipment, and he gives Gabe the word-game pages—crossword puzzles, cryptograms, jumbles.”

They were quiet as Gabe studied the journal page with TIERPTAMUESBY written on it. His face was screwed up, making him look more Rafi-like than usual, and he was opening and closing his mouth like a fish. Milton thought it must help him concentrate (which was fine for folks who didn’t have glasses to adjust or peacock feathers to smooth).

It took almost five minutes (which doesn’t seem like a long time, but when you’re staring at someone who’s staring at a piece of paper … it’s a long time), but finally Gabe shouted, “Got one!” He held out his hand, and Rafi put a pencil in it.

Trees, he wrote under the letters.

“What about trees?” Fig asked.

“SHHH!” Gabe shushed. He studied his paper again. His face grew even scrunchier. He fished his lips. He cocked his head left, then right, then left again.

“It’s three words,” he mumbled. He held the pencil poised above the letters. Everyone else held their breath. Then he wrote:

UP AMITY TREES B

“You did it!” Rafi cried. He hugged his brother, who beamed, then flipped into a handstand.

“Toldja I was a WordSmith,” he said.

“But what’s the extra letter stand for?” Fig asked, eyeing Gabe’s solution. “The B?”

“S’not extra,” upside-down Gabe said. “It’s what’s at the top of the Enmity-Amity Trees. The entry that starts with B.”

Milton took the field guide and flipped to the table of contents. “The B stands for Beautimous Lemallaby,” he said, and with this new bit of information, it was like the pieces of Dr. Paradis’s puzzle came together. “And it makes perfect sense! Remember—the field guide says the lemallabies eat SunBurst Blossoms. The SunBurst Blossoms grow as high up as possible. The tallest trees are the Enmity-Amity Trees. So Little SmooshieFace and the rest of his lemallaby friends are probably at the top of these trees this very minute. We just have to climb up there!”

He let out a caw of joy. Fig grinned. Gabe (still upside down) yahooed. They knew what to do! They knew where to go!

“So we’re going to climb up the three-hundred-foot-tall trees that shoot poison thorns?” Rafi asked. “Like, immediate-death-type poison thorns?”

The cawing, grinning, and yahooing stopped.