She found the place where a narrow, weed-choked guly had washed out underneath the trunk, creating a kind of dark cave underneath. She leaned her face in close, cupping her hands around her eyes to try and shield out the sun. She couldn’t see anything, but she heard the rattle again, longer and louder this time, from the darkness right in front of her nose. It was in there somewhere.

She reached her hand deep into the guly, pushing and tearing through thick weeds. The rattling grew louder. She touched something cool and muscular. It puled away from her fingers, and now the rattle went crazy. She her arm al the way into the narrow guly, up to her shoulder. Her fingers brushed the mysterious muscular thing again, and again it puled back. She pawed around in the dirt. She could hear it rattling, but she couldn’t find it again.

She wondered if it had moved al the way to the other side of the tree. Maybe she could find it over there. Jenny drew her hand out of the guly. She scrabbled up onto the trunk, which was nearly as high as she was, clawing her way to the top with her fingernails and toenails. She leaned out over the other side of the tree, looking among the weeds and brown bottles, her bare feet dangling in the air behind her.

She tilted forward until her head was almost upside down, her thick black hair hanging down like streamers. She watched it emerge from the guly. Triangular head, black eyes. Its head looked like her dinosaur toy. Its body looked like a living piece of rope, unspooling from underneath the trunk to slither off through high weeds and towards the woods, where Jenny wasn’t alowed to go.

Its long body kept coming out and out, and Jenny snickered. The creature was just so long, it was almost sily.

Its skin was olive, with pretty black diamonds al over its back. Jenny reached down and ran her fingers along it as it passed.

It writhed at her touch and gave another long rattle. She wrapped her fingers around its body and picked it up to play with it, thinking it would be a good friend for her dinosaur. And she liked that rattley sound, it was like whispering, like teling secrets.

Its head arched up and twisted around to face her. It opened his jaw and hissed, revealing huge fangs.

Jenny shrieked and tumbled backward off the falen tree.

One hand tightened its grip on the ropey creature, while her other hand grabbed uselessly at the air for something to stop her fal.

She landed hard on the dirt, flat on her back, dragging the long creature over the tree with her, and its long body landed across her stomach. It was thrashing hard and rattling faster, and she could see the rattle now, a fat cone of shel-like rings at the tail end.