The Taken by Inbali Iserles

Author:Inbali Iserles [Iserles, Inbali]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2015-06-27T16:00:00+00:00

Manglers lurched along the deathway, snarling irritably at one another. I hardly noticed them anymore—they couldn’t climb their banks to attack us. Siffrin was more wary, his fur puffing up at their angry barks. Maybe he wasn’t used to seeing so many where he came from.

I tried to imagine what the Wildlands looked like. The days were longer there; the nights were darker. I knew that from Fa. He had talked of waterfalls, lakes, and streams, great fields of green and shadowy woods. But I struggled to picture them as my eyes trailed over images of furless faces that gazed down on the deathway from giant boards. Lights flickered and flashed everywhere in the Great Snarl, when the sun was high and in the middle of the night. The buildings shot into the clouds, breathlessly reaching for space and air.

What would the world look like with fewer furless in it?

Siffrin cowered away from a mangler as it sped along a bend in the deathway, even though it was nowhere near him. I followed his gaze. The mangler was large and white with a stubby snout. As it passed I saw that the spy hole at the back was edged with wire. Beyond loomed the face of a terrified fox, his mouth wide open in a scream that was drowned out by the noise of the Snarl.

Why was a fox trapped in a mangler?

My heart leaped. “The snatchers!” I hissed as I ducked down an alleyway. Siffrin sprang after me and we backed against a wall as the white mangler grumbled past.

Siffrin shook his fur. “That was too close …” He looked exhausted as he peered along the side of a building. “Let’s try down there.”

We lapped dew from the grass that sprang up by the graystone and drank from little puddles of dark water at the edge of the deathway. It tasted bitter, of manglers, but it quenched our thirst. We trailed around the back of a building. There was no noise coming from inside, no sign of life. One of the spy holes was open. Siffrin pushed up on his hind legs and peered inside.

“It’s quiet.” His head poked through the small flap. “I don’t think anyone’s around.” He dropped onto all fours.

“We’ll try it,” I agreed. There was a large pipe skirting the edge of the building. I propped myself up on it and sprang as high as I could, clasping at the open spy hole with my forepaws. Dangling over it, I could see inside. Right beneath the spy hole was a brown box. Beyond, there was open space and high white walls. My hind quarters swung on the outside of the building and my ears flipped back, thinking how clumsy I must look to Siffrin.

“Do you need help?” he yipped.

“No!” I barked proudly, dragging myself through the open spy hole. With my paws splayed, I launched myself onto the brown box. I landed with a soft thud and hopped onto the floor. It opened into a large, empty area.

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