CHAPTER TWELVE

The tour continued. Professor Fauna led the class through a stand of cool white cedars, and then up a hill. The pine trees were very short here, and sunlight warmed and dried the rocky ground.

At the top of the hill stood a ramshackle wooden house. The white cedar logs that made the walls were rotting, and red paint peeled off the windowsills. Many of the windows were broken or boarded over. Elliot thought it looked like a set in a horror movie. Not that he’d ever seen a horror movie. But he imagined that’s where they took place.

Miss Vole hurried up to the professor. “Professor Fauna, we are not going in that house, are we? That was decidedly not on the permission slips!”

“Miss Vole! Must you question everything I do?” The teacher’s nerves were becoming frayed. “Of course we are going in that house.”

“But it doesn’t look safe!”

Professor Fauna smiled grimly and continued striding toward the run-down building. “Indeed. Danger is the greatest teacher.” Uchenna’s ears perked up. That was an interesting idea. Elliot, on the other hand, froze in place. Uchenna had to push him from behind to keep him moving forward.

Professor Fauna rapped with his big knuckles on the peeling red paint of the door.

A voice from inside called, “Hold on! Hold on! Hold on!”

Professor Fauna turned to the children. “In the Pine Barrens,” he said, “it is typical to repeat things three times.”

“Why?” someone asked.

“Because—” The professor raised his finger as if he were about to deliver a lecture. Then he let it fall. “Actually, I have no idea. People are different, all over the world. Also, they are the same. This is what makes the world such a wondrous and wonderful place. Wondrous, for the differences. Wonderful, for the sameness.”

Just then, the door to the ramshackle house swung open. A thin, tiny woman stood in the doorway. She had large brown eyes and skin like newspapers that have been crumpled into balls and then smoothed out again. Her cheekbones were high and strong, her nose was straight and wide, and her hair was reddish-brown, but appeared to have the texture of Uchenna’s. When she saw the professor, she smiled. “Oh, Dr. Fauna!” she cried, and she reached out her thin arms. The professor allowed himself to be hugged, though he didn’t look very happy about it. “How are you, how are you, how are you?”

“I am very well, Dr. Thomas,” the professor replied, trying to escape her embrace without pushing the tiny woman over. “It is . . . ahem . . . a pleasure, as always.” He slipped out from between her arms, straightened his tattered tweed suit, and then bowed to her. She laughed and bowed back. So he bowed again. She laughed some more and motioned the whole class inside.