Goldpaw pressed on through the shimmering tunnel until it opened out and a large turquoise lagoon sparkled before them. Trees surrounded the water, their branches lined with flickering candles and dripping with wax, and Fox wondered whether these were the trees that spelt out prophecies to the Unmappers.
There was a bridge, made of vines, that led over the lagoon to a beautiful temple fronted by a flight of paint-splashed steps and guarded on either side by what looked like two stone unicorns. A waterfall rumbled into the night on the far side of the lagoon and beside that was an enormous tree with windows of all shapes and sizes, large pipes leading out into the waterfall itself and a sign above the door carved into its trunk which read: The Bustling Giant.
‘Doodler’s Haven,’ Goldpaw told them. ‘This lagoon was once the busiest place in the kingdom. It was where we made the ink for the rain scrolls. Dashers would return from the jungle with satchels crammed full of thunderberries and they would be mixed with marvels – droplets of rain in its purest form collected in Rumblestar and carried here by dragons – by Dunkers to make ink. Finally, the ink would rush through those pipes into the waterfall and down into this lagoon. Then Doodlers would scoop it up into jars and use it to paint the rain scrolls on the steps leading up to the temple.’
Goldpaw smiled sadly. ‘I wish you could have seen a rain scroll on a Doodler’s easel. The hidden magic behind your rain. They were paintings so majestic they made you gasp in wonder.’
‘Paintings can be that powerful?’ Fibber murmured, more to himself than to anyone else.
Goldpaw nodded. ‘The rain scrolls are carried with the sun scrolls from Crackledawn and the snow scrolls from Silvercrag into your world every sunrise by our dragons so that you have your weather.’ She paused. ‘Or at least they were before Morg came to Jungledrop.’
Fox glanced at Fibber. He was listening to the panther with a look of awe on his face. The hardness that had been buried inside him had begun to thaw, as Fox had noticed, and although it still came out now and again (when he was scared or worried or when Fox wound him up because a lifetime of regarding someone as a rival is hard to shake), Fibber had been softening nonetheless. And this was because he had a secret.
It had all begun when his teacher, Mrs Scribble, noticed something in him last term that everybody else had missed. And, when a child who has been overlooked by their parents and almost everyone else in the world is finally noticed, they often turn out to be a very different person. Prior to his sessions with Mrs Scribble, Fibber would have scoffed at Goldpaw’s words, but, in discovering Fibber’s hidden talent and nurturing it, Mrs Scribble had also taught him to look at the world in a different way. And gradually Fibber’s tongue had become less sharp and his heart less thorny. But then he had heard about the Forever Fern on the train and seen the determination in his sister’s face and a familiar panic had set in. If Fox presented his parents with an immortalising fern, which was guaranteed to make millions, he’d be the one sent away. So, just like his sister, Fibber had concluded that finding it was the only option open to him.
And yet now, as he stood before a place like Doodler’s Haven in the presence of a mighty Lofty Husk, he was overwhelmed by wonder. Suddenly he realised that the quest for the Forever Fern was about something far bigger than beating Fox and impressing his parents. It was about saving Jungledrop and the Faraway and all the people who lived there. And somewhere, deep down, he thought that perhaps it was about saving a sibling, too – about trying to patch up a relationship that, until now, Fibber had pretty much given up on. Maybe this was a chance to work with his sister, as Goldpaw had told them, rather than against her, and to come out the other end as friends rather than rivals.
Fox, meanwhile, was experiencing no such revelations. She was simply feeling impatient with the Lofty Husk. ‘I’ve never seen any of these magical rain scrolls back home, or a sun or snow scroll for that matter,’ she said curtly. ‘Talking isn’t going to make the Forever Fern appear. I need weapons and a map.’ Her tummy rumbled. ‘And dinner.’
She huffed. Being a businesswoman with a proper plan in place was proving exhausting work and she would have to remind herself to eat more on this quest. Her lunch back in the Neverwrinkle Hotel seemed a long time ago.
Fox thought of her parents again and the look on their faces when she came bounding back to the hotel with an immortalising fern that would save the family fortune! She tried to imagine the scene. Perhaps a little podium would be nice for when she announced her news. And maybe there could be an orchestra playing some sort of triumphant music in the background – Fox figured musicians were probably quite easy to hire when you were a billionaire-in-the-making. And then there would be the way her parents treated her. Maybe they’d hold her hand when walking down the street or offer to read her a story before bedtime or even remember her birthday. Fox’s heart swelled at the possibilities.
But Goldpaw’s voice,
