Stuffed by Liz Braswell

Stuffed by Liz Braswell

Author:Liz Braswell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Disney Book Group
Published: 2019-11-04T16:00:00+00:00


Clark woke up with a cramp in his stomach. This would be the most illegal thing he had ever done in his entire life.

“Bye, Foon,” he whispered, tucking his Stuffy back under the covers. “Sorry, but you gotta stay here and keep watch and pretend that everything is normal until I’m back.”

From that moment time sped up and slowed down and stopped in fits and spurts.

Brushing his teeth seemed to take forever. He looked around nervously, but of course no one noticed anything. There wasn’t any thing to notice. Then suddenly he was most of the way to the mess hall with no memory of the walk. Pokémon Thief shot him a sour look. Did he know? Was he going to rat out Clark to the counselors?

No. He was being ridiculous. No one knew his secret plans except for Catherine-Lucille and her friends. No one could read his thoughts.

At breakfast he ate two helpings of cereal since he would be cutting out of lunch early. He was the last kid out, slurping the dregs from his bowl as he brought it to the dishwashing station.

Time crawled again as he waited at the cold foggy beach for his canoeing partner, Jaylynn, to arrive. A newt almost surfaced in the black water near him, hanging there for a moment before swishing its tail and lazily finding a better depth. Clark shivered in sympathy—how could the little amphibian endure such cold?

Time passed faster once he was on the lake and faster still in the Crafts Cabin. He kept sewing into his thumb, causing little fairy-tale pinpricks of bright blood. His Project was a special protector Stuffy for his dad. He would be half horse, like Winkum, and half owl, like Snowy—both of whom Clark missed terribly despite Foon’s comforting presence. James, who loved mythology, had suggested the word hippokoukou: the creature would be like a hippogryph but with an owl’s head and wings instead of an eagle’s. So Hedwig the Hippokoukou would have a big mane (no points), claws (one point), sharp beak (one point), and a scepter that could double as a spiked mace (one point). Clark thought about adding a manticore’s tail, but figured that would be mixing things up too much.

Catherine-Lucille shot him a warning look every time he opened his mouth. He gave her a thumbs-up, knowing not to discuss anything about the Plan.

He bolted down his lunch, which was hard, because it was some sort of hot beef stew best reserved for long meals.

Or possibly dogs.

Then, with map in hand, he walked to the edge of the camp, as if he were visiting the nurse, and slipped into the woods.

The sun shone hard and yellow; the fields and beach would already be getting hot. But at the edge of the hardwood forest everything was soft golden and white: the snowy trunks of birch trees, last autumn’s leftover yellow leaves dotting the ground. The bright lime leaves of this year made the air beneath the branches glow like his mom’s green tea.



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