Boots and the Seven Leaguers by Jane Yolen

Author:Jane Yolen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media

Witch-hunt, witch haunt,

Cauldrons boiling.

Newt eyes, fruit flies.

Troubled foiling.

—“Witch-Hunt,” from BRIDGE BOUND

CHAPTER TWELVE

PIT

What I needed was a ladder.

Or a rope.

I had neither.

I looked around carefully.

Tried to think like Magog. Couldn’t.

So I thought like me.

What I had was forest.

Then I remembered a book I’d once read. A book I’d found floating in the river. A book from the Out. In the book a boy lives in the jungle and swings from rope vines.

Here I was in a jungle. Well, a wood, anyway. Surely I could make a vine rope. It had sounded dead easy in the book. Of course, I’d never actually tried doing any such thing. Not a lot of vines grow around our bridge.

So, I grabbed a green vine that was hanging from a nearby tree and stripped it. The thing was greasy, like Grandma’s soap. And the vine itself didn’t seem thick enough to hold a troll. Not even a half-grown troll.

Troll. Terribly. Thick, I thought.

Or at least, Troll needs Terribly Thick rope to work.

I grabbed a second vine. Then a third. By the time I had stripped them and braided them together into one long greasy strand, many minutes had passed.

I glanced over the rim of the pit. Pook still lay unmoving at the bottom.

Tying one end of the vine rope around a branch of the downed oak, I wound the other around my waist, tying it off with a strong knot. There was a little tail—like an exclamation mark—left hanging down behind me.

I looked again over the side of the pit.

Bad move.

There’s a reason why trolls live under bridges! We really don’t do well with heights. As I looked down, things began to swim around me and I got very dizzy.

“I’m coming, Pook!” I cried, closing my eyes. “I’m coming.”

Below in the pit, Pook now was whimpering like a whipped dog.

I turned and put my back to the pit. Then slowly I began to lower myself.

Above me the top of the pit wall got farther and farther away. I guided myself by staring at the pit’s side and didn’t turn to look down again. I hung on with straining muscles, afraid to drop too quickly in case I should land on top of Pook.

As I worked my way down, I noticed that the side of the pit bore clear signs of a digging tool. Roots had been hacked off haphazardly; some were short, some long. I remembered the carefully looped-up roots in the Weed King’s underground house. Whoever had dug here had cared little for the forest.

Pook’s whimpering grew closer.

“I’m coming, buddy!” I called.

And then my feet—hurrah!—touched the pit floor.

Glad to be on solid ground again, I turned around. There was Pook, sitting up and in human form, cradling his right arm in his left.

“Oh, Pook!” I cried, going over to envelop him in a big hug. A best friend is family, too.

“Don’t do that,” he said. “I hurt everywhere.”

I stepped back. “Don’t worry,” I told him, “I’m here to get you out. Can you hold on?”

He looked up at me, his eyes muzzy and glazed with pain.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.