18
“What do you think she’s thinking?” Chad’s whisper was soft enough that it barely earned them a glance from an anteater rooting through an old log with his strong claws and sticky tongue.
Tanya wished she knew.
The jungle at midday was quiet, for a jungle. Some monkeys were chattering as they moved through the canopy far above—probably tamarins by the high pitch. She knew not to look up too often because, in a towering jungle, it was a sure-fired path to a vertigo-induced headache. The trees climbed forever. The vines wound around them. The animal and bird life flew in and out of the massive biomass. It was always a little startling. A small flock of parakeets settled on a branch for mere seconds to observe them before flitting aloft. And to the west, a soft ripple of the river.
The
