The Badlings

Chapter 4. The Petulant Donkey

A good book waits for you to feel comfortable with the story to surprise you with an unforeseen twist. Not Mad Tome. Being a bad book, it liked to rudely catapult its readers from page to page without so much as a pause to catch their breath or to take a bite of a doughnut (not that it offered any).

And so it was that instead of munching on something sweet, Grand found himself chewing sand. He energetically spit it out. Close by, Peacock and Rusty did the same. There was no sign of Bells, but plenty of windswept barren land. Bleached knolls rippled into infinity, bright sky held a blinding sun, and the air was so hot and dry, it made them cough.

"What is this place?" said Peacock, wiping his mouth. His hands tingled, and his nose burned from the heat.

"Where is Bells?" said Grand with alarm.

"Bells?" picked up Rusty.

"Bells!" they called in a chorus.

"Here!" came a feeble voice.

A moment later Bells slid down the slope of a hill. She descended in a cloud of dust and, caught by inertia, failed to veer aside and rammed straight into the boys. They yelped. Bells squealed. It took them a while to unscramble. Finally they lay sprawled on their backs, breathless, gradually sinking into the warmth.

"Ahhh," said Bells.

"Ahhh," echoed Peacock.

"Ahhh," breathed Grand and Rusty.

They looked at each other and giggled.

The buzzing sensation of heat was so enjoyable that for a while none of them spoke. All they did was feel their skin hum and their minds melt and their bodies relax.

Bells started sweating. She sat up and redid her ponytail.

Peacock yawned.

"Stop it," she said crossly, suppressing her own yawn.

"I can't," he protested. "I can't control nature. I feel sleepy and I yawn and that's that."

"Well, you should control it. Otherwise we're never getting out of here."

"Do we need to?" said Peacock sarcastically. "I feel comfortable. Don't you?"

Bells pressed her lips into a line.

"I don't feel comfortable at all." Grand mopped his face. "It's too hot."

"Is this a desert? Are we in a desert?" Rusty's eyes shone with the fervor of exploration.

"It's not a desert," Bells corrected him. "A desert is made of sand, endless sand dunes, and this is dry land. See? There are clumps of grass growing. I know they look dead and brown, but they are growing, that means there is water here, so, scientifically speaking, it's more of a steppe or a prairie."

Rusty knotted his brows. "What's a steppe?"

"An arid grassland devoid of any trees," said Bells slowly. "Do I have to explain everything to you?"

"Either way, it's bad," said Grand with a dejected sigh. "There must be scorpions here, or snakes. They will bite us, and the venom will spread and make the bite marks look like red blisters oozing pus, and in our deathly convulsions we wouldn't even—"

"If you don't stop, I will bite you instead of a snake," said Bells with feeling. "My venom is worse than that of a cobra, did you know that?"

Peacock snorted. "I have no doubt."

"Snakes? Where?" Rusty scrambled up the hill, sending down clouds of dust.

Bells clasped her forehead. "He'll get us in trouble, I have a feeling he will."