Read Online Puddlejumpers by Christopher Carlson Mark Jean - Free Book Online

loss of their Ancient Guide, the Puddlejumpers dove deep under the water and didn’t want to surface, but Cully pleaded, “Mataki, matak-lo.” They needed to keep going.
    Wiping his tears, Cully scrambled up the notched wall and swung upside-down to plant his Spiral Tattoo. He broke through a sheet of ice into the Up Above, where Buck, armed with a double-barreled cattail plunger carried in a birch-bark quiver on his back, was waiting with three sleds drawn by teams of harnessed raccoons. One sled was bigger than the others and had four raccoons instead of two. The other Jumpers jumped the puddle rat-a-tat-tat, landing softly in the snow between Buck and Cully. In their grief, the Puddlejumpers could see only one thing—the water symbols Greystone had carved on the sleds to protect them on their journey. If only they had been able to protect him.
    As snow began to flurry, the Jumpers bundled themselves in wool against the freezing cold, then packed the supplies. Buck lashed a hornet’s nest to Root’s sled, wrapping it in wheat straw while giving him urgent instructions to use it only as a last resort. Chop gave last sips of water to the raccoons and Cully bundled Shawn into the big sled, pretending it was all just another adventure. “Pay attention and remember everything you see,” he advised, then reached behind Shawn’s ear and produced a roasted chestnut, ready for eating. He tucked it into Shawn’s eager hands. “We’ll be home soon, and I’m expecting you to tell us a great story in the Well.”
    â€œKayko,” responded Shawn, munching the nut.
    When the loads were secured, Pav stood quietly beside Shawn’s sled. He seemed to know it was time to say good-bye. In the Puddlejumper way, Shawn touched his heart, then hers. Overcome by a feeling that she would never see him again, Pav pulled a sharp stone from her belt and cut off her beautiful white hair. The others watched stunned as she wove it into a bracelet around Shawn’s wrist.
    Her voice quavered as she said, “This will protect you on your journey.”
    Everyone pressed gently around her, touching her frayed hair, but Pav urged them on, “Tookla, tookla!”
    Runnel squeezed her hand and settled behind Shawn. Root, Buck, and Cully jumped on their sleds, snapped the reins and were off. Riding at the back of the last sled, Chop feathered the snow with a pine bough to cover their trail.
    Waving farewell, Pav watched them disappear into the snow as the sky threatened and the wind began to howl.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
    The Great Divide
    T HE SCOUTS TRAVERSED the crest of the plateau, a difficult windblown route that avoided the farms in the valley below. When the snow began to drift over their heads, Buck stopped the caravan to rest the raccoons in a grove of pines. While Shawn hungrily ate a wheat cake and sipped Pav’s tea, Cully climbed to the top of a towering pine to scan the horizon. He squinted into the snow as the treetop swayed in the icy wind. A shrill caw startled him. In the next tree, there was a big black crow staring right at him. He shivered. Crows were never a good omen. Scavengers, they often fed off the carnage left behind by Troggs. The bird dismissively flapped its wings and took to the air. Cully watched its flight into the valley with a feeling of dread. That’s when he saw them: four hulking brutes were slogging through the snow, with tails arched rigidly over their heads like riflescopes, scanning, searching for a scent. He could hear the muffled cries of three Puddlejumpers that a Trogg had stuffed into its fleshy stomach pouch. Like a Venus flytrap, once a Jumper was captive inside the pouch, with its spiky bristles, there was no way out.
    Cully tumbled out of the tree, snapping branches and jabbering all the way down, “Jo waba konibi wa!”
    The Jumpers scrambled aboard their sleds and frantically drove the raccoons hard along the ridge. Runnel bundled