THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WELL

Chapter 5 – page 4

The Big Tortilla growled and shot a glance towards the Chips, who were getting all the attention now. "Welcome to Timbuktoo and Mangoes End," he said. And here he bowed with sweeping arms until he fell forward which put him in a creepy, tarantula crawling position, which no one noticed but G.

Well at least they aren’t poisonous, thought G. Little did she know: they were actually deadly, when need be: pouncing, dropping, and jumping upon their enemies and sucking their blood til they shriveled up. Their little stingers on their butts jabbed their victims, causing instant coma and death.

J heard the horses stamping around and asked if he could go get them and bring them up to eat. Muff had been down sleeping with them. When Julio brought them all up, this caused quite a ruckus with the Tortilla & Chips, as they had never been so close to beasts of this size before. The Chips scattered this way and that, spilling several platters of bananas on the ground. But then since bananas have peelings, they were none the worse for the spill.

G decided to have a little fun and spread her arms for silence. "Oh great Tortilla and lovely Chips, thank you for your hospitality and for keeping us warm last nite. We are in your debt." she said. And she bowed as low as her 129 years would allow. Then she thought, I hope they won’t take us up on it .. being in their debt and all. But seems they did have something in mind after all.

"Well now that you mention it," sputtered the Big T. "I am getting on in age myself, but we have some youngins’ here that are seeking an adventure and a way to get to the Peppermint Mountains. Seems we have some relatives there at the base of the mountains and they want to go populate the place with our kind and take care of the trees there. You know, conquer .. inhabit …adventure ... become tree dwellers and keepers of a younger, newer land. I say younger, newer land, because the volcano of "ought 9" stirred up the land. Turned some under, it did, and brought new land to the surface. Our baby chips want to go explore this new land and they are looking for a way to get there."