They Didn't Teach THIS in Worm School! Page 4

  and said,

  Follow

  me.

  86

  Some time later, I stood with her

  among a circle of worms in a field.

  We were wearing stylish hats that

  had been decorated with twigs and

  dangly things. One of the worms

  was arranging sticks in the middle

  of the circle. “This will help us get

  Gwenda back,” he explained in

  a serious voice.

  I looked at the sticks on

  the ground.

  “Without further ado, let the

  ceremony BEGIN!” he announced.

  All of the worms started

  wriggling in a circle around the

  twigs. I didn’t have time to think

  about what I was doing, I just

  joined in. We were all chanting,

  “Come back, Gwenda. Come back,

  Gwenda. Come back, Gwenda.”

  88

  As we went around and around in circles,

  I wondered if I would be wearing a twig hat on

  my head while chanting if I were back at home.

  I thought to myself that I would have laughed at

  these guys and said that they were all off their

  rockers. But here in France I didn’t have much

  choice but to try to blend in with the locals, even

  if they happened to be total weirdos.

  I don’t know how long we’d been chanting.

  It might have been thirty seconds, or it could

  have been three hours, but I came out of my

  trancelike state when a worm wearing a

  fashionably dainty hat tilted

  her head back and said loudly,

  “HERE SHE COMES!”

  We all looked up.

  A plump worm was falling

  from the sky. We watched

  as the worm grew bigger

  and bigger as she got

  closer and closer, until she finally

  whumped on the ground before us.

  “It’s Gwenda,” said one of the

  older worms.

  I couldn’t believe it! I’d never seen

  anything like it.

  No one else seemed surprised.

  Everyone gathered around her.

  “Now we will give thanks,” a big

  worm said.

  We began circling again. This

  time we had to chant, “Thank you,

  thank you, thank you.”

  Gwenda opened her eyes and sat

  up. She was shaking. We all

  wriggled in closer.

  “Are you all right, Gwenda?”

  asked a worm with so many

  twigs on her hat that you

  could barely see her eyes.

  90

  “Yes,” said Gwenda.

  “A scary chicken-bird

  thing picked me up

  in his beak. I thought

  that he was going to

  eat me. He flipped me up in

  the air, and I landed on his back. I was terrified.

  He was talking to me as

  if we were old friends,

  saying all sorts of

  nonsense. He was going

  on about how he didn’t

  want the crow to put

  me in the stew pot and

  that he was sorry for being

  selfish about going to Africa. He said he was

  going to help me get back home to my worm life

  of digging holes in the mud. I thought to myself,

  If you were that worried about me, why did you

  take me away in the first place?”

  me

  91

  Listening to Gwenda speak,

  I realized that Laurence thought

  that she was me, and he was

  being kind in offering to take me home. I wanted

  to take back all of the horrible thoughts that I’d

  had about him. I wished that I hadn’t called him a

  stinker. I suddenly really liked Laurence again

  and wished that he were here. He was

  kind. I wanted to try to be like him. If

  he were here, I thought, I wouldn’t let

  him take me home. I’d really navigate us to

  Lake Nakuru. That’s where he really wanted to be,

  after all.

  Gwenda was still talking. “And then he was

  saying, ‘Marcus, Marcus,

  can you hear me? Marcus,

  have you fainted?’

  And then I said,

  ‘I’m not Marcus,

  I’m Gwenda.’”

  92

  “That’s when I

  lost my balance and fell

  out of the sky. I saw your pile of

  ‘Come back, Gwenda’ twigs

  and somehow managed

  to fall toward them.

  That was probably

  the best part of

  this terrifying

  experience, and

  I’ll be honest

  with you,

  I wouldn’t mind doing that part again.

  “As I was falling, he was still going on!

  He apologized first for stealing me

  and then dropping me. He said

  that if I see Marcus, I should

  tell him that Laurence

  is looking for him.”

  Everyone looked at me.

  93

  “YOU’VE GOT TO FIND LAURENCE!”

  they said in one voice.

  I sighed. “How can I find him? Look

  up at the sky. It’s huge. The world is

  big, and I’m just a small and lowly

  worm. There’s no point in even

  trying.” I sighed again, a much

  bigger one this time.

  “I’ve got one word to say to you,”

  said my underground, upside-down

  dangling worm friend. “Robert the Bruce.”

  I didn’t want to correct her by saying that

  that was three words. I knew what she meant.

  I couldn’t give up.

  “You’re not on your own in this big world.

  You’ve got us, and we will help you.”

  I was really glad to have met these French

  worms.

  They were kind and helpful.

  I liked them, even though they were weirdos.

  I was at the top of an unusual tower.

  My French worm friends had come up with a

  plan to help Laurence find me. I would not have

  been doing something as strange as this if I’d been

  back at home, but there was something about

  these guys and their firm belief that anything was

  possible that made me believe that this was going

  to work.

  One of the worms had placed a crown of twigs

  on my head. I wondered if Laurence would like

  my fancy new hat.

  Chapter Seven

  96

  Just as I was thinking that

  thought, I heard a loud swoosh, and

  I was suddenly swept up into the

  air in a bird’s beak. I used all my

  strength to twist around to see who

  it was. It was Laurence!

  It was a perfect way to say good-bye to my

  lovely and unusual friends.

  The worms hopped and beamed big smiles

  up at me.

  Hanging

  upside down,

  my twiggy crown

  fell from my head.

  The twigs detached

  themselves from the hat,

  and one by one they tumbled

  and landed on the ground.

  Laurence glided and landed in a nearby field.

  He was out of breath, and his feathers were

&nbs
p; ruffled.

  “I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” he

  wheezed. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes! Thank you very, very much for coming

  to get me.”

  “I took the wrong worm by accident, and

  then I was worried that the crow

  might have thrown you into

  the pot.”

  Laurence took a

  cheese sandwich from

  his feathers. He was

  leaning against

  a log, trying to

  catch his breath

  while eating his

  sandwich at

  the same time.

  99

  “Would you like to share

  this?” he asked.

  “Yes, please,” I said.

  We ate in silence.

  The sandwich had pickled onions in it.

  I love pickled onions.

  “I really ought to take you back home,” said

  Laurence, standing up. “I’m sorry for making you

  map-read and be the navigator for me. I don’t

  exactly know the way back, but I’ll make sure

  that you get safely home. It’s the sensible and

  right thing to do.”

  “No,” I said, squinting as I looked

  at Laurence. He was standing in

  front of the sun. “I want to do

  something for you. You’ve been so

  good to me. I’ve thought about it, and I know how

  much it means to you to travel to Lake Nakuru

  and be with the flamingos. I’d like us to continue

  traveling there, together.”

  100

  “No,” said Laurence.

  “I really need to take

  you home. It would

  be very silly of us to

  continue with our

  journey when neither

  of us knows the way.

  I’ve caused you too

  much trouble already.”

  I couldn’t believe it. Laurence was thwarting

  my attempts to be kind. How dare he try to

  stop me from being nice! Did he not realize how

  difficult this was for me? It was really rude of him

  to say no when I was offering something as big as

  this. I wasn’t going to let him stop me.

  I INSIST

  that we go

  to Africa.

  101

  “Oh,” said Laurence. He looked at his stomach.

  “I can’t believe that you’re saying this. I don’t

  know what to say. Do you really think that we

  will be able to find our way to Lake Nakuru?

  Is that even possible?”

  I hadn’t actually thought about whether it

  was possible.

  I started panicking. I was so desperate to

  try to be kind that I’d forgotten that I didn’t

  actually know the way. Getting to

  Paris was just a fluke. There was

  no way that we’d ever find Lake

  Nakuru. Of course it wasn’t possible.

  This whole trip had been one disaster

  after another.

  I was just about to suggest that we do do

  the sensible and right thing and go back home,

  when Laurence said, “I accept your kind offer

  of traveling with me to Lake Nakuru. We didn’t

  know the way to France, but together we made it.

  102

  Marcus, you are an amazingly

  kind friend. I’m so glad that

  I met you. It might just be

  the best thing that’s

  ever happened to

  me.” He gave

  me a warm

  smile.

  I tried

  to smile back at Laurence, but it took a LOT of

  effort. I felt as though my face were covered in

  mud that had been baked by the sun.

  Laurence didn’t seem to notice; he was hopping

  around with excitement. “We’ll go to bed now,

  and we’ll get up very early to fly to Africa,” he

  said, while bouncing in the air.

  “Hooray!” I said in a monotone voice with my

  baked-mud smile. I was too exhausted to think

  about what to do next. My worm brain had been

  through too much in one day.

  Laurence lay down on the long grass, ready to

  sleep. He offered me his feathery armpit to nestle

  my weary head in.

  I took him up on his offer, and he covered us

  both with the itchy blanket. Although the sun

  was still high in the sky, as it was only early

  afternoon, and although I had tons of fresh

  problems for my brain to solve, I fell into a deep

  and heavy uninterrupted sleep.

  When I woke up early the next morning, it was

  still dark. Laurence was talking to himself and

  hopping about, getting his things together. I

  remembered that I’d agreed to navigate our way

  to Lake Nakuru. I wanted to go back to sleep and

  pretend that this day wasn’t happening.

  “Do you think that it is the morning yet?” I

  asked. “Because apart from the moon, which is big

  Chapter Eight

  105

  and bright, the sky is as black as burnt sausages,

  and all of the other birds are still asleep. I can

  hear them snoring.”

  “It must be the morning,” he said. “We slept

  for ages and ages. Are you trying to sleep in,

  Marcus?”

  “Heh-heh, no!” I said, lying.

  Laurence yawned and lowered his head for me

  to crawl up onto the back of his neck. Reluctantly,

  I climbed on.

  He flew up into the burnt-sausage sky. The

  darkness made it easier for me to see; it was like

  being underground.

  The air was

  cool on my

  worm skin.

  106

  I scanned the darkened countryside, looking

  for things that I recognized. I could see a big tree.

  I definitely remembered flying over a tree on

  the way here. “FLY TO THAT TREE ON YOUR

  LEFT, LAURENCE,” I shouted out.

  Maybe, I thought, I can pretend that I am

  navigating to Africa, but instead I’ ll just lead us

  back home and then act surprised when we get

  there. That should be doable. It didn’t take us that

  long to get to Paris. I’m sure that I’ ll remember the

  way back if I see a few familiar landmarks.

  107

  Immediately after the tree, there was a field

  with a horse sleeping in it. I was a hundred per-

  cent sure that I’d seen a horse on the way here.

  “Keep flying straight ahead, over the field.”

  We flew for a bit, and then Laurence started

  to drop quite unexpectedly. “Are we landing?”

  I asked.

  “No — er, no,” he

  answered. He must have

  been a bit sleepy, like me.

  This was going to be

  so easy. I could probably

  navigate with my eyes

  closed. I closed my eyes and yawned loudly.

  “Are you still sleepy?” asked Laurence.

  “Yes,” I said. “Are you?”

  “A little bit.”

  “I’m going to take a nap,” I said, forgetting that

  I was supposed to stay awake.

  “That’s a good idea. Night, night,” said Laurence.

  I should have known that something was

  up. One minute I was
flying with Laurence in

  the burnt-sausage sky, and the next moment

  we were both lying on some dusty red soil in

  the heat of the sun. Laurence was sleeping

  and making whistling noises from his beak.

  A zebra was sniffing around his head.

  “WAKE UP, LAURENCE!” I whispered loudly.

  110

  Laurence opened his eyes and rubbed them

  with his wings. He saw the zebra, made a high-

  pitched scream, picked me up in his beak, and

  flew up into a tall tree.

  The zebra looked up at us. She swished her

  tail and then turned and nibbled on a piece of

  dry grass.

  “That horse looks just like a zebra!” Laurence

  squeaked.

  “Yes, and that giraffe looks just like a giraffe!”

  I said, pointing at a giraffe who was tearing at

  the leaves of the branch that we were sitting on.

  “Where are we?” Laurence said with a gasp.

  m

  u

  n

  ch

  m

  u

  n

  ch

  112

  I looked around. There were four giraffes

  loitering around our tree. It was unlikely that we

  were back home. The only place where I’d seen

  these kinds of animals was in Laurence’s Africa

  book. Maybe we were in Africa. Maybe I had

  directed Laurence to Africa in my sleep. That

  must be what happened! We’d actually made it

  to Africa!

  A surge of excitement rushed through my

  worm body. Not because we were in Africa,

  but because I had discovered that I could sleep-

  navigate. What else could I do? Perhaps I was also

  a virtuoso sleep-trumpet-player, or the world’s

  greatest sleep-bricklayer. . . .

  113

  Laurence interrupted

  my daydreaming.

  “Marcus, I think that

  I flew us to Africa

  in my sleep! I can

  sleep-fly!”

  “Really?” I asked,

  marveling that we

  had both discovered

  sleeping talents at the same time.

  “Yes, you told me to fly over a tree and then

  over a field. After that you didn’t say anything