Nogg looked at his plate of straw with a strange expression on his face. Hugo worried that he could tell it came from a pillow, so he said, “We usually have better straw. I don’t think it’s in season now.”
“I’m sure it’s fine,” Nogg said. But he picked up a hazelnut and nibbled on that instead.
Maybe Squatchicorns don’t eat hay after all, thought Hugo.
Yama, however, didn’t even eat the hazelnuts. She just sat on the floor beside her brother, looking very glum.
“She’s upset that we had to leave our cavern,” Nogg explained. “Our whole clan left yesterday. We all slept in the woods last night.”
Hugo knew that sometimes Sasquatches had to abandon their caverns. Usually it was because a Human had found out where they lived, so it wasn’t safe to stay there anymore.
Hugo couldn’t imagine ever leaving Widdershins Cavern. He loved his room with its little stream running through it. He loved helping his grandpa make snarfles on Sunday mornings at the Everything-You-Need General Store and Bakery. He even loved his school. It would be awful to have to leave all that behind. And what if he had to move to a cavern far, far away from the North Woods and Ripple Worm River? What if he had to move far, far away from Boone?
“All my things are back in Craggy Cavern,” Yama said miserably. “All my stuffed animals, all my drawings.”
“You’ll make new drawings,” her brother told her.
“They won’t be as good!” she insisted. “And I had to leave the fairy house I made in school, which was the biggest, most beautifulest one I ever made.”
“Why didn’t you take them with you?” asked Gigi.
“There was no time to pack.” Yama’s eyes grew wide and frightened. “We had to leave right away because of the—” But before she could say anything else, Nogg gave her a sharp, warning nudge with his elbow.
“Shh, you’ll scare them,” Nogg said under his breath.
Hugo and Gigi exchanged looks.
One thing was clear—the Squatchicorns had a secret.
