The Wiggle-Waggle Tunnel

Jackfroot had tunnels everywhere.

Under the Berry Patch. Under the Old Bridge. A long winding one that came out near Kiwi's eucalyptus, and a short twisty one nobody used because it came out pointing the wrong way. He had dug every one of them himself, and he knew every single inch.

"This one," he said, holding open a little round door tucked into the hillside, "goes all the way to the stream. Want to see?"

Taro the purple sloth looked at the door. He looked at the dark inside it.

"Sure," he said.

So in they went. Jackfroot first, then Tang, then Kiwi, then Taro — who took three steps and stopped to look at a root growing through the tunnel wall.

"Keep going," said Kiwi, behind him.

"In a moment," said Taro.

"Taro."

"It's a very good root."

It was, actually, quite a good root. It curled in a perfect spiral and had little bumps along it like a staircase for ants. Taro reached out and touched it, gently.

The ground said grmmmmm.

Then a great deal of dirt came down behind them, all at once, in a soft heavy rush.

Everyone stood very still. The tunnel went completely, absolutely dark.

"...Was that the root?" said Tang.

"Possibly," said Taro.

"It was definitely the root," said Kiwi.

Taro considered this. "It was a very interesting root," he said.

Nobody was hurt. Nobody was even squashed. But the way they had come in was now a wall of soft dirt, and it was extremely dark, and somewhere above them the afternoon was going on without them.

"It's fine," said Jackfroot, and his voice was different — not scared, certain. "I built these. Left at every junction. That's how I dig them. Always left. So we go left and we come out at the stream."

"Okay," said Kiwi.

"Okay," said Tang.

Jackfroot went left. They followed.

Left at the first junction. Left at the second. Left at the long curving one that smelled like wet clay.

And then they came around a corner and Jackfroot's paw touched soft dirt and a very good root.

They were back where they started.

"That's — no," said Jackfroot. "No, that's not right."

He went again, faster. Left, left, left, quick and sure, with everybody trotting behind him.

Soft dirt. Root.

Jackfroot stood in the dark in front of the same fallen wall for the third time and understood something he did not enjoy understanding. He knew these tunnels perfectly. He knew them the way you know your own name. And the fall had shut one junction, and now left went in a circle, and knowing every inch of a tunnel that had changed was worth precisely nothing.

He could run all night. Running was the one thing that had never let him down, and it was going to take him around this same circle for as long as he wanted to keep doing it.

"Jackfroot," said Taro.

"Not now."

"Jackfroot." Taro did not hurry the word, because Taro does not hurry words. "The second junction. The one after the wet clay."

"What about it?"

"It smelled like rain."

Everyone stopped.

"It smelled like outside," said Taro. "I noticed it on the way in. I was behind."

Jackfroot turned around in the dark.

"You were behind," he said slowly, "because you were being slow."

"Yes," Taro agreed.

There was a pause.

"Climb on," said Jackfroot.

"I can walk."

"I know you can walk. You'll walk us there next spring. Climb on."

Taro climbed onto Jackfroot's back. He was, it turned out, surprisingly heavy for a sloth. Jackfroot did not say this. He just ran.

Past the wet clay. To the second junction.

"Left?" said Jackfroot.

"Right," said Taro.

Jackfroot went right, which he had never once done in his life, and ducked without thinking under a low ceiling — impressive, while carrying a sloth — and ahead of them a thin line of gold appeared and got wider and wider.

Jackfroot came out into the sunshine of Wan Hundred Woods going far too fast, ran several more steps because he could not help it, and set Taro down carefully in the grass.

Tang and Kiwi tumbled out behind them.

Everyone sat in the warm afternoon and breathed.

After a while Taro looked back at the little door, which had shut itself crookedly.

"The root really was very interesting," he said.

Jackfroot lay flat on his back and stared at the sky.

"You're heavy," he said. "You're really, really heavy."

"I know," said Taro. "Thank you."

And under the hill, in the dark, a very good root went on holding up the ceiling all by itself.