Excerpt from Splinterdorf's Tale: Volume One

Chapter 1 -- Strange happenings
Splinterdorf was not in a happy mood. She was not in an unhappy mood. In fact, she was not in any mood at all. She could have been angry, but she wasn’t. She certainly could have been sad, but that description didn’t fit. She could have just been thoughtful, but ... wait an etunim, yes, that is what she was: Thoughtful.

She was thoughtful, which meant that her eyebrows met in the middle. When giptafs saw that expression, they often thought she was angry ... or maybe sad, or possibly angry-sad.

Splinterdorf didn’t mind if the slow-thinking giptafs thought she was angry or sad or angry-sad because they were, well, about as smart as sguls. The giptafs blundered around like half-blind, 200-pound slerriuqs, which in fact is what they were. They were assuredly not smart. They did not know they were big or that they had sharp, pointy teeth. They did not know that dribs or lammams that didn’t know them were scared simply by seeing their dust clouds in the distance.

Giptafs traveled in great herds because they were frightened of everything. They were frightened of yeknoms (the flying and walking clans) and tnedors (the tiniest species, which were less than six-feet-tall). Giptafs were even afraid of boulders on hillsides. They were afraid of things that didn’t move, but were more afraid of things that did. They were especially afraid of small, spindly trees called ehsubs, which were fragile and shook in even the smallest breeze.

Giptafs did, however, bring food and lots of it to Splinterdorf whenever they came near.

Because the giptafs were afraid of Splinterdorf and all of the other tacwols, when they passed by the lone doowder tree on the Plain of Plains they carried whole ananabs and gifs and mulps and elppas in special jowl bowls as an extravagant offering and tasty plea not to snap the giptafs up and grind their bones. They were too stupid to know that no drib or lammam ever ate a giptaf because they smelled like the south end of a northbound Live Mountain taog and their skin exuded a pus-like yellow liquid that smoked and burned when touched.

Right, Splinterdorf thought. That's what I want to stick in my mouth! A stupid giptaf!

But if the giptafs were stupid and frightened of everything (even small ecim, which squeaked at them just to see them jump and shake in fear) they were also very considerate of things that frightened them. Like Splinterdorf.

The ognams they brought were always ripe and juicy and all of the thorns were always  carefully bitten off so that the purplish pulp literally oozed out of the thorn pores. The oblong, bumpy. evac mulps they found in openings in the sides of hills in the highlands were nicely pulped by grinding them underfoot on flat stones. When the special mulps (juicier and tastier than the tree mulps of the Suffering Forest)  were eaten with elppas, the mixture provided contrasting tastes of sweet and sour that made Splinterdorf’s upper lip draw back slightly in abject pleasure.

This reaction to the mulps thought revealed a row of uneven, large white teeth. Giptafs didn’t like seeing Splinterdorf’s teeth (giptafs didn't like to see any creature's teeth!). When they did, they made the high keening sound like two tekcirc trees rubbing together in a high wind and fled in lock-step back to the highlands.

Splinterdorf liked ognams. She liked them a lot. But the gifs giptafs sometimes left were Splinterdorf’s favorite! The orangy center, which was surrounded by mint-green outer circle, when mixed with the tart red seeds and bluish, hairy rind, tasted absolutely glockbust!

But it had been several Two Sun rises since any giptafs had ventured past her favorite resting tree and Splinterdorf was getting hungry. In fact, Splinterdorf didn’t recall seeing a single giptaf mass or giptaf mass cloud in an unusually long emit.

Jat, she thought, I'm getting hungry. Jat didn't answer. Splinterdorf pushed the single tuft of hair out of her eye with one paw and looked down. Jat was asleep as usual. Asleep on the job. It was Jat's job to keep watch for dribs and lammams and other bongojats, but he wasn't very good at it. The only thing Jat did well was eat, sleep, and think so loud it made Splinterdorf's head hurt.

Splinterdorf looked up at the leafy branches of the doowder tree and lifted up a hairy paw to shield her eye. She was trying to see Eittam, the wide-winged, big-footed hobell drib that was usually sitting in the nest at the juncture of the largest limb. She unrolled one ear just a little, pointed it toward One Sun, and listened intently for the unique, yet quiet, cry of Eittam: “Hooooobeelll! Hobeeeeeeeelll!”

She was disappointed when all she heard was the wind moving the high clouds west to east in the emerald sky and the distinctive flutter of a single kwah’s wings the other side of a near rise.

Eittam was a clumsy drib and ate mulps in the nest and more often than not dropped about half of them. The falling fruit was easy pickings for Splinterdorf’s large mouth.

Like fruit from the skies, Splinterdorf thought. She liked that thought and would have smiled if she could have.
     
Eittam was not in the tree and as far as Splinterdorf could see, Eittam was not flying about looking for giant chichi gubs either. Where is Eittam?

She's probably just out visiting or trying to find some mulps, Jat thought back.

Oh, so you're awake at last,

Not asleep. Never asleep. Resting. Always watching. Resting my two good eyes instead of just one.

Splinterdorf thought, Well, you rest more than any lammam I've ever known and that includes my brother Nosaj who once went to sleep when One Sun set and didn't awaken until Three Sun was sliding down into the Black Waters of Egduls.

Must run in the family, Jat thought, then quickly skittered around the base of the tree to avoid being whacked by his friend.

Splinterdorf was a tacwols, a large three-legged plains animal with spongy yellow fur spotted with small horizontal stripes and a single eye right above a huge, flat, brown nose. Full-grown, she weighed more than 700 soliks and had paws the size of large stones and claws that could easily rip the bark right off any tree – and half the tree! – in Suffering Forest.

Jat was a bongojat and, for all of recorded history on Tenalps (the fourth orb in the Third Galaxy), tacwols and bongojats didn't get along. In fact, Splinterdorf had always liked to whack bongojats, which usually travel in rolling ball herds and were, mostly, singly or in herds, were thought to be lazy thieves and fruit robbers.

Splinterdorf quickly forgot about Jat. She liked sitting under the rif tree because of its immense branches and leaves. Hardly a single ray from Tenalp's three suns made it through the leaves, which were irregular in shape and each about six feet in diameter. The leaves ended in a rigid point that was as sharp as sharp could be.

Sometimes a strong wind would actually break one of the leaves away from the tree and if it should happen to hit Splinterdorf on the ear or the sensitive area around her eye ... it hurt like a hazzerbud! Once, when a leaf happened to land on Splinterdorf’s nose when she was in the third stage of sleep-think, it hurt so bad she roared in pain. An entire giptaf herd more than six elims away jumped into a deep enivar in fear for their lives!

Splinterdorf scanned the leafy branches of the doowder tree again but Eittam was no where in sight. No free food today, she thought. She leaned forward and craned her neck until her flubbery nose and upper lip were on the ground, planted her massive front feet firmly in between the knobby roots of the rif tree, straightened her single back leg, balanced her body with her fifteen-foot-long tail, and stood up.

She looked off in the distance toward the Suffering Forest. She was already dreading the long, tiring walk, but she knew she would be rewarded by the cool water found in Retaw Creek and by the abundance of gifs, tree mulps and elppas that grew along the creek’s bank. It was almost time for the iwik fruit to ripen. And that was always a special time. But it was a short time. The greenish fruit bloomed, grew and went from rock-hard to soggy in the time it took One Sun to rise, climb overhead. and set. To enjoy the delicious fruit, you had to time the visit just right.

Splinterdorf remembered the ripening time of the iwiks last year. She had stood under one of the last iwik tree in Suffering Forest for six sunrises and five sunsets before she was able to gorge herself on the juice-filled, delicious iwiks. And she and her friend Karab, a six-legged cuzbat, had to defend the precious fruit from a herd of bongojats, which was drawn to the tree by the sweet smell of the ripening iwiks. Karab, who had claws the length of short tree branches and teeth as sharp as a nilbog’s tail, stood guard, daring the bongojats to try and get to the tree, while Splinterdorf stuffed most of the reachable fruit in his jaw-bags and belly-pouch.

With Karab guarding her hopping back leg and tail, Splinterdorf struck out to the special clearing two-and-a half elims inside the forest where the two friends settled down to enjoy the delicious one-time-a-year feast.

It was hard for Splinterdorf to enjoy the iwiks that day because she kept raising her head to check for stray bongojats.
       
Splinterdorf stopped remembering and started thinking: I wonder where Karab is? I haven't seen him in 11 or 12 sunrises.
     
Karab is old and slow and may be lost, Jat thought back.
     
Splinterdorf growl-barked at Jat and thought, Karab may be old but he's better than any old bongojas. Your kind are dumber than giptafs! She ignored the low moan and teeth grinding from the other side of the tree.

Except for Jat, Splinterdorf disliked the greedy, bone-backed, big-jawed, long-toothed bongojats more than anything. That is, except for the two-legged snuppers.
     
Bongojats were a major irritant and could hurt you if they clustered up in a bongojat ball with their teeth facing outward and rolled at you with twenty jaws snapping. Snuppers were pure evil. They were strange creatures. Their bodies were covered with a baggy, skin-like coating; they walked upright with their small heads mostly obscured by a variety of coverings. Some headcoverings were rounded with a front flat that extended in front of the face; others resembled a leaf that had been bunched up and wrapped with a vine, creating a shadow-catcher over their faces. Some carried bang-sticks that were full of invisible death pills; others dug pits to capture the animals in the forest.

Those unfortunates who were captured were carried off toward Mount Live, the big, smoke-spewing mountain to the east. Those animals were never seen again.