Читать книгу The Hidden Kingdom - Tracey Hecht - Страница 21

THE NOCTURNALS

licked the grime from her cheeks. Tobin smiled. Cora’s fur was dull and her nose was chapped, but her eyes still glimmered like always. “Thank goodness we found you,” he whispered.

Immediately, Cora brightened. Then, slowly, she inched her front paw forward until it was nestled in Tobin’s claw.

The pangolin felt his scales tingle, and a warm, fuzzy feeling—the one he always seemed to get around Cora—spread from the top of his scaly head all the way down to his claws.

Dawn bent toward the wombat. “How did this happen?” she asked, eager to gather some information.

Cora swallowed hard. “I don’t know,” she said at last. She took a shallow breath. “It seemed to collapse out of nowhere!”

“It was probably from the drought,” Dawn reasoned. “Mud can dry into brittle dirt and crumble.” The fox circled the chamber, studying the walls that remained. “Your den’s walls must have caked up, flaked off in pieces, then collapsed.”

“That’s probably what happened,” Cora agreed. “It’s just impossible to know for sure.” The wombat picked up a clump of tumbleweed then tossed it aside. “This tumbleweed blew into my den by the bundle last ________

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