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  “Sleepy!” Blue’s yawn smelled extra fishy thanks to the recent anchovy lunch. He wiggled out of Lola’s arms.

  “You need a nap,” Lola told him, and he didn’t protest. It had already been a long day for all of them. While standing on his blue webbed feet, he tucked his beak under his wing and closed his eyes. But the gondola rocked from side to side as they descended, causing Blue to topple over.

  “Oh, make it stop,” Melvin complained, his paw covering his mouth.

  “Are you getting airsick, mate?” Bogart continued to deflate the balloon ever so slightly. “If yer gonna upchuck, do it over the side.”

  The rocking continued as the gondola swung from its ropes. “Sleepy,” Blue repeated, rubbing his eyes. Lola looked around. She no longer had her cape or backpack, so she couldn’t make a nest. But the wooden crate would make a snug bed. She walked toward it, and with the shifting of her weight, the gondola tipped.

  “Ahhhh!” Melvin cried as he slid across the floor, Blue tumbling after him.

  “Squwhaaaaat did I say about maintaining an even weight distribution?” Bogart shrieked as he fell off the rim and landed atop Melvin.

  “Sorry,” Lola said, darting back to her spot. The gondola swung a few times on its ropes, then settled. Melvin put his paw to his mouth again and moaned.

  “Again! Again!” Blue laughed and scampered to his webbed feet.

  “Don’t do it again,” Melvin pleaded. His pink nose had turned a slightly greenish hue.

  Despite Blue’s enthusiasm, he couldn’t hold back another yawn. He sat on Lola’s lap, his head nodding sleepily.

  Bogart seemed satisfied with the altitude and resumed his position as rudder. Lola wrapped her arms around Blue and stared at the passing sky. “Captain Bogart, is that a storm cloud over there?” she asked, pointing to a dark shadow that loomed on the horizon.

  “Storm?” Melvin asked, wrapping his arms tightly around his knees. “Are we heading into a storm?”

  “Now, now, don’t jump to conclusions. I’m the captain of this balloon and I’ll be the one to decide if it’s a storm or not. This young wallaby doesn’t know a storm cloud from a snow cloud.”

  “Wombat,” Lola corrected.

  “Bless you,” he said, as if she’d sneezed. He grabbed a strange black object and held it to his eyes. “Ah, just as I thought. That’s not a storm. That’s a coal cloud. They’ve been burning coal day and night in Dore.”

  “What’s coal?” Lola asked.

  “It’s a black rock, dug from the ground. It burns as good as wood but it stinks up the air.”

  “Why are they burning it?” Melvin asked through clenched teeth as he fought against his motion sickness.

  “I don’t know,” Bogart said. “But the coal is delivered by the wagonload. Actually, we’re passing over the Royal Coal Mine right now if you’d like to take a look.”

  Lola lifted Blue carefully, for he’d fallen asleep. She set him into the empty crate. It made a nice makeshift bed. Then she stood and peered over the gondola’s rim. The scenery had changed to a landscape of wooded hills, but ahead lay a large clearing. Several buildings were clustered at the edge of the clearing, near a dark hole that had been carved into a hillside. And outside this hole, two train cars sat on their train tracks. Lola squinted, then held her paw above her eyes, trying to get a better view.

  “These binoculars will help,” Bogart said, handing the strange black object to her. Lola looked at it quizzically. “Hold it up to your eyes,” he explained. And so she did.

  “Hooly dooly!” she exclaimed as the treetops rushed up to greet her. Everything was so close. She could see a stream of water running through a ravine. She could see the branches on the pine trees. She moved the binoculars. The hole in the hill wasn’t a cave; it was a critter-made tunnel. A strangled sound caught in Lola’s throat.

  “Lola, what’s the matter?” Melvin asked, pulling himself to his feet with great effort.

  “Tassie devils,” she said. Four sat on some rocks outside the tunnel’s entrance. They appeared to be talking and sharing a jug.

  “Night monsters?” Bogart said, his feathers rustling.

  “Yes,” Lola told him. “Some have left Mount Ossa.” She gripped the binoculars so tightly, her paws began to ache. A pair of critters had emerged from the tunnel.

  Lola gasped. “Wombats.” She could barely find her voice. “There are … there are … wombats down there.” She tried to hold the binoculars steady, but her arms began to tremble. The wombats moved awkwardly, for a metal chain ran between them, attached to metal leg bands. Each wombat carried a bucket up to the first train car, then turned the bucket upside down. Round, black lumps fell into the car. Then one of the wombats stumbled and fell. A Tassie devil leaped off his rock and brandished his whip through the air. The wombat struggled, then got to his feet.

  “Lola, what do you see?” Melvin asked.

  “Aye, tell us.”

  “It’s Mister Squat and Stout Junior. I’m sure it’s them. They’re my neighbors. Mister Squat!” Lola cried, leaning over the gondola’s edge. “They are forcing them to dig coal. Hellooo! Mister Squat!” Then she looked back through the binoculars to see if they’d noticed her.

  Mister Squat was looking up. But so were the devils. The one standing closest to Mister Squat pulled back her lips in a growl. Her gold tooth gleamed in the sunlight.

  “Why would anyone force wombats to dig coal?” Lola asked.

  Melvin pointed to Lola’s paw. “Because you are designed for digging.” He moved to Lola’s side, the gondola tipping with the shifting weight. “Let me take a look.” He took the binoculars with his shaky paws and surveyed the scene. “If I hadn’t seen this with my own eyes I never would have believed it. Queen Myra has imprisoned her loyal subjects.”

  “Squwhaaaaat?” Bogart bristled his feathers. “How can you say such a thing about our queen?”

  “We hope it’s untrue,” Melvin told him. “But we have reason to believe that Queen Myra is working with the Tassie devils.”

  “My mum and dad must be down there,” Lola realized. “Captain Bogart, stop the balloon!”

  Bogart shook his head. “I can’t just stop a balloon. It doesn’t work that way.”

  “Take us down. I have to get down there!” Lola was frantic. With every passing moment, the balloon was floating away from her family and neighbors. “Please!”

  “Lola, if you go down there, they’ll capture you, too,” Melvin told her.

  “I don’t care, I don’t care,” Lola said, bursting into tears. She missed them with all her heart. Her quest forgotten, all that mattered at that moment was to see her mum and dad. “Please take me down.”

  “Don’t do it,” Melvin told their captain. He tried to be the voice of reason. “Lola, you know I’m on your team, but we don’t know what those monsters would do to Blue. Or to Captain Bogart.”

  “I’m not keen on landing down there,” Bogart said.

  “So you’re not going to help?” Lola glared angrily at Bogart and Melvin. “You won’t take me down?”

  Bogart shook his head. “It’s not safe. A captain is responsible for the safety of his passengers. That’s what I’ve always said, and so say I.”

  Feeling totally helpless, Lola watched as the mine disappeared from view. Tears stung her eyes. “Mum. Dad,” she whimpered.

  Melvin set his paw on her shoulder, but she brushed it off. She knew he was right. This was not a safe place to land, but her disappointment was like fire on her skin. “We know where they are,” Melvin said gently. “That means we can rescue them.” His words were reassuring, but then he leaned over the edge of the gondola and gagged. When he’d finished emptying his stomach, he looked at the captain. “Do you have a moistened towel? Or a glass of water?”

  “No.”

  “No?” After a roll of his eyes, Melvin dabbed his mouth with the tip of his tail. “No napkin or kerchief. How humiliating.” He settled back onto the floor, wrapped his arms
around his knees, and groaned. “How much longer, Captain Bogart?”

  “We’ll be in Dore by morning,” the bird said. “If the wind stays in our favor.”

  Melvin groaned again. “I never thought I’d say this, but if I had to choose between going on another hot-air balloon ride or being covered in swamp slime for the rest of my life, I’d choose the slime.”

  “What are you complaining about?” Captain Bogart asked crossly. “You’re riding for free, aren’t ya? And we haven’t crashed, have we?”

  “Is that the standard you set? That we haven’t yet crashed?” Melvin asked, equally cross. “You might think about the comfort of your passengers and warn them, before liftoff, that they might get sick.”

  Bogart’s feathers ruffled so much that he momentarily doubled in size. “Why, you—”

  “Stop fighting!” Lola cried. She wiped another tear from her cheek. Both Bogart and Melvin settled down. But her outburst awoke Blue, who sat up and rubbed his eyes. “Story?”

  Lola ignored him.

  “Story!”

  “No.”

  “Lola! Story!”

  “No!” she hollered. “Go to sleep!”

  Blue’s eyes widened. With a little whimper, he curled into the crate and closed his eyes.

  For the first time in her life, Lola didn’t want to tell a story. She didn’t want an audience holding on to her every word. She was done with stories. Stories were for books and this was real life. And in real life, unlike in a story, sometimes the ending wasn’t happy.

  “Lola,” Melvin said gently.

  “Leave me alone.”

  While Bogart tended to the furnace, Lola turned her face upward. “Please, wind,” she whispered. “If you can hear me, please take us to Dore as quickly as possible.”

  As if listening, a sudden gust blew across her face, while another tucked itself beneath the gondola, lifting it and carrying it toward the golden city by the bay.

  18

  A PLATY’S CONFESSION

  The night passed fretfully for everyone except Blue, who woke for another meal, pooped over the side of the gondola, and then went back to sleep. But Melvin tossed and turned. Lola didn’t fare any better, for she couldn’t stop imagining her parents being forced to dig for coal. And thinking about the queen who’d made this all happen. The queen she’d once loved.

  These thoughts tormented Lola as the balloon floated through the night sky. Stars twinkled. Moonlight pooled on the gondola’s floor. But on the horizon, where the golden city of Dore waited, the coal cloud hovered.

  Since Melvin was still feeling the effects of air travel, he lay on the floor and curled into a ball. Lola and Captain Bogart had agreed to take turns keeping the furnace stoked. Bogart took his rest, settling onto the floor next to Melvin and tucking his sharp beak beneath his wing. For the first time in her life, Lola kept fire alive. She opened the furnace door and tossed in a piece of kindling. The hot air stung her face, but she swallowed her fear. Fire was a tool that would get her to Dore. Fire would deliver her to her uncle. Fire would help her rescue her parents.

  Each passing hour moved slower than the last, like a grandfather clock winding down. The gondola’s gentle rocking finally eased Lola into a state of relaxation. She stretched out her legs and the next thing she saw was Melvin standing over her, panic gripping his face. The sky behind him was tinged with the pinks and oranges of sunrise. “Lola, the fire’s out!” Melvin cried. “We’re falling!”

  She could feel it in her stomach. Lola scrambled to her feet. The furnace was cold. She’d meant to close her eyes for only a moment, but she’d fallen asleep. Both she and Melvin looked up. The balloon was losing air. She peered over the gondola’s rim. Water lay beneath them, the surface so smooth it caught the balloon’s reflection. “We’re going to crash,” Melvin said. “I knew it. I knew we’d crash!”

  “Squwhaaaaat?” Bogart wearily rubbed his eyes with his feathers. “I told you, I don’t—” His eyes popped open. “What’s happening? Why are we descending?”

  “I fell asleep,” Lola said. She grabbed three sticks and tossed them into the furnace. “Oh, hooly dooly, what have I done?”

  Down, down, down they moved, the gondola plummeting through the air, the water rushing up to meet them. Lola’s stomach felt strange, as if it had crawled into her throat.

  “We have to slow down or we’ll crash!” Bogart exclaimed. “Lighten the load! Lighten the load!” Melvin and Lola had to duck as Bogart leaped around the balloon and his wing swept overhead. He opened the gondola’s door and began to push things overboard—the binoculars, a blanket, a crate.

  “Blue!” Lola and Melvin cried, watching as the crate containing their little friend tumbled through the air, then splashed into the water.

  “Oops, didn’t mean to do that,” Bogart said, not really paying attention as he relit the fire. His words came in clipped snippets. “But no worries. It’s water. He’s a penguin. We’re not slowing down fast enough!”

  “He can’t swim,” Lola said. “He still has his baby feathers.” The lake was getting closer and closer, the water broken by patches of reeds. “I yelled at him,” she said. “All he wanted was a story and I yelled at him.” Where was the crate? Had it sunk to the bottom? There was only one way to know.

  Before she could come to her senses, Lola flung herself over the edge and into the air. And at that moment, just before she began to plunge, she thought, Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. I don’t have wings. Having swum most of her life, she wasn’t afraid of the water. But she was afraid of falling. She fumbled around in the air, her body turning end over end as she tried to gain control. The blue water rushed toward her, and just before she hit the surface she managed to turn so that her armored wombat posterior entered the water first, absorbing most of the impact. A colossal tower of water rose up behind her.

  Lola closed her eyes, swam a few strokes, and then popped her head out of the water. The sheer cold nearly took her breath away. The water tasted salty, and she spat out the mouthful quickly. She paddled in a circle, desperately looking for Blue. Something popped out of the water next to her. “Melvin?”

  “Crikey, it’s cold!” he said.

  “You jumped out?”

  “Of course I did. I’m not going to let Blue drown.”

  A voice called down from above. “Are you all right down there?” With most of the passenger weight now in the water, the balloon had stabilized. The sticks had finally caught fire and the balloon was starting to refill. Captain Bogart sat on the gondola’s rim. “I’d lend some help but the wind seems to have changed course…” The balloon began to float up and away. “Good luck finding … the little … fella.”

  * * *

  Lola pushed the hot-air balloon from her mind as she spun in circles. Where was the crate? A strand of seagrass wrapped around Lola’s leg. She kicked it free. Then she dipped beneath the surface and opened her eyes, but the water was murky and the salt stung. She popped back to the surface.

  “Blue!” she called. Melvin joined her. “Blue!”

  “Oi! Ya lookin’ for this baby penguin?”

  “Not a baby!”

  A platypus stood at the water’s edge, a baby penguin bouncing beside him. With a groan of relief, Lola and Melvin swam to the shore, then collapsed as they tried to catch their breath. Blue waddled over and pecked Lola’s face, his version of a kiss. Then he pecked Melvin’s face. Melvin frowned. “You are a pest, do you know that?”

  “Pest!” Blue clapped his flippers.

  “But I do feel I should thank you for getting us out of that contraption,” Melvin added. “I’ve never been happier to feel the ground beneath my feet.”

  Lola couldn’t get angry at Blue for wandering, for this time it hadn’t been his fault. And she’d been the one who’d set him in the crate. “I’m sorry I yelled at you,” she said. Then she kissed him back.

  Lola turned her attention to the platypus, who wore a pair of swimming goggles, and gasped a
s she recognized him. “Bale Blackwater?” she asked.

  His paw flew to the side of his head in a salute. “Bale Blackwater, Platypus Delivery Service, Northern Streams and Rivers Division.”

  “Hate to break it to you, but this isn’t a stream or a river,” Melvin said as he wrung salty water from his fur.

  Bale pushed his goggles onto his forehead and scowled. “I know it’s not a river. Ya sayin’ I don’t know it’s not a river? I got electroreception.” He snorted. “What’re ya doin’ here? One of ya need a delivery? Cause if ya don’t need a delivery, then I got better things to do.”

  “I’m Lola. Lola Budge. Don’t you remember me? You gave me a secret message in the Northern Forest.”

  Bale screwed up his face and stared at her. “A young wombat who talks too much? I remember you. What’re ya doin’ all the way down here?”

  “Mister Blackwater, I’m here because of that message. You gave it to me but I think it was supposed to go to my mum.”

  “Wha’d ya say?” Bale stomped over to her, stood on tiptoes, then stuck his face in her face. She was well aware that his venomous spur was only inches away. “Ya sayin’ I delivered to the wrong critter? That’s a serious accusation, missy.”

  Melvin stopped grooming, his whiskers alert. “Sir, if you would kindly settle down.”

  “Settle down?” Bale stomped his foot. “She can’t go around sayin’ I delivered to the wrong critter. That would ruin me reputation. Ruin me chances of gettin’ a Golden Platy.”

  “I didn’t say it,” Lola told him. “Someone else did. But I’m wondering … is it true?”

  “Course it’s not true, and I’ll prove it!” Bale stomped over to his delivery bag, opened it, and began to rifle around in its contents. Then he pulled out a form. “Here it is, right here.” He read it. “Deliver to Alice Budge, Northern Forest Burrows.” His tail thwapped the ground and he gave Lola an I-told-you-so look. “And that’s exactly what I did. Hmmmph.”