I was too busy trying not to trip over a particularly sneaky root to answer her. I managed it. Barely. I considered this a personal victory and did a small celebratory hop, which is when I tripped over a completely different root. Some victories are complicated.
“Watch your feet,” Biscuit said helpfully, about three seconds too late, as she adjusted the enormous backpack bouncing on her shoulders. She had packed it that morning while reading from a list titled Things To Pack, which was itself on a list titled Lists I Need Today. I had counted at least four separate bags of crackers going in. Biscuit believes crackers can solve most problems. She might be right.
We’d left Sproutville before sunrise, still thinking about those scorch marks near the fountain square and the faint smell of redstone machinery Biscuit had detected. Somebody had taken every map in the village, and that somebody had left a very specific kind of mess — the hot, sharp-edged kind. But the Wool Festival couldn’t wait for us to figure that out. Rainbow Meadows needed help now.
