“I would like everybody to be clear,” the porcupine said, “that I have approximately thirty thousand quills on my body. They’re mostly for defense, but believe me, they can be lethal.”
The other animals looked at one another.
“I don’t know about all of you, but I’m very frightened.” The fishing cat rolled onto her back on the couch, paws in the air, and stretched exactly like a house cat would. She didn’t look very frightened.
“Me too,” the snake said. “I would shut my eyes in terror, but I don’t have any eyelids.”
“Really?” Kate said. “How is that possible?”
“I have a transparent scale over each eye. Much more elegant than eyelids.”
“But don’t you ever want to close your eyes?”
“Not really,” the snake said. “I do like licking them, though.”
“I don’t want to brag,” the heron said, “but I have three eyelids.”
“Wait, what?!” Kate said.
“It’s true! Upper eyelid, lower eyelid, plus a nictitating membrane.”
“I’m not even listening,” said the snake. “Because I also don’t have any ears. Or a nose. I smell with my tongue.”
Animals were a lot weirder than Kate had realized.
“I am very much wishing that I had never evolved ears right now,” the porcupine said.
“Maybe you could read a book,” Kate said brightly. “Lots of good books here in the library car!”
“That would be nice,” the cat said, “but we can’t read.”
Click-bing.
SORRY TO INTERRUPT THIS FASCINATING CONVERSATION
BUT DUTY CALLS
The train was slowing down again. They were coming to another station.
“I’d better go.” Kate stood up, kind of relieved. “It was nice meeting you all.”
She slipped out. Though honestly she was worried that they would all kill one another if they weren’t supervised.
As an afterthought, she wondered who would win if they did all have a fight. She thought it would probably be the porcupine.
11
The Baby That Looked Like a Pine Cone
THE LANDSCAPE OUTSIDE WAS CHANGING. THEY’D LEFT the winter forest behind and entered what looked more like a tropical jungle. When Kate opened a door and looked out—which was kind of awesome all on its own, sticking your head out the open door of a moving train without getting yelled at by the conductor because the conductor was you—the air was warm and humid and smelled like an incredible wealth of green life.
The station platform was overgrown with vines and ferns and littered with giant leaves. Palm trees crowded around it, and green shoots pushed up between the railroad ties. Waiting on the platform were an iguana, two large snakes, a couple of amazing golden-haired monkeys that looked like they’d had their faces spray-painted pink, and something like a small hippo with a big nose that she thought might be a tapir. Plus some colorful glossy frogs that looked like pieces of candy.