The Understory Read Online Free

only acquaintance (companion) in a strange land, which certainly wasn’t like home at all. I didn’t feel my soft bed, or see any of my books, or smell Dad’s chocolate-chip pancakes. Where I came from, good days were welcomed by bright golden sun. But here it was dark and shady with only small slivers of sunlight peeking through the canopy of trees above.
    “What do you do here?” I asked the sluggish sloth.
    Still clinging to the smooth, gray branch, he turned his head slightly and said, “I hang on.”
    Duh. “Do you ever let go?” I asked, looking up at him from a pile of dead leaves where I now stood.
    My new friend flashed a leisurely smile. “Only when I have to.”
    I looked up through the roof of tangled trees and wished for more sun. “Okay, funny little trick someone pulled, but I want to go back home now, to my home,” I said.
    “Don’t be sad,” said the sloth. “The forest will help you. It helps everybody.” Still hanging on, he added, “But first you must find the treasure box—it holds all the magic of the forest. And then you must find the moonflower.”
    “Moonflower?” I said. The mere mention of the moon made me tremble. “But I can’t be here when night comes!” I yelled. I couldn’t be here in the dark.
    The sloth slowly adjusted his grip. “It is the only way—the treasure box will give you what you need, and the moonflower will give you a home.”
    “I already have a home,” I said, “away from here!”
    The sloth’s voice grew stern, like my dad’s when he was trying to make a point. “Have some faith. First the treasure box, then the moonflower.” I wasn’t there five minutes, and already I had a list of chores. Maybe this place was home. “But beware of the Fierce One,” the sloth continued. “He will begin to prowl at sundown, and for each one of his spots, he has taken a life. You must go now.”
    As soon as he said it, before I even had a chance to enjoy being lost in a horribly dangerous jungle, a giant water boa nudged her way underneath me until I had no choice but to ride sidesaddle atop her coils, and begin the next leg of my journey.
    And suddenly the small amount of sun sneaking through the trees shrank to one tiny glimmer, and I began to shiver, thinking about surviving the night in this dark, scary place. It made spending the night at Grandma Margaret’s seem inviting, meatloaf and all.
    The facts were staggering (dismal) (bad). I had vanished into the jungle. I was riding a potentially lethal (deadly) (flippin’ scary!) snake. And some spotted, fierce creature wanted me dead at nightfall. I wondered if I could dream my way out this nightmare, so I strengthened my grip on the snake’s scales and closed my eyes. But when I opened them, the only thing that disappeared was the sun, and all I could do was hang on.



THREE
    I f Phoenix was a jungle, Story Easton lived in the understory. Before she took up breaking and entering, you could say she lived on the forest floor—a microscopic organism hiding in the shadows, an easy target for the shit-droppings from those with higher positions. But now that she’d found a new passion, a nighttime habit more active than watching bacteria grow, she was ascending the layers, and now lived where shelter was provided, and everything around her enjoyed a nocturnal existence. Like a jaguar on the prowl, she lurked about, searching not for food, but for a new identity. She tried different branches of different trees to see how they felt, and when the sun came up, she went back to her sleepy life, going through the motions without intent.
    And like most mornings, Story’s Monday arrived like an unwanted dream, abrupt and loaded with bad omens. She tiptoed out of Martin Baxter’s house in the dark, wee hours to avoid getting caught, but barely made it to her car without being noticed.
    When she finally got there, the streetlamp highlighted a bright yellow parking ticket jutting out from under the windshield