Raccoon snorted and jumped up. Otter was shaking her awake. “Hey, Raccoon, you fell asleep.”
“Drat, how could I let myself fall asleep?” Raccoon muttered. “Did I miss it?”
“Miss what?” asked Otter.
“Sloth, of course,” said Raccoon. “Look out, Otter, you’re blocking my view of the tree.”
“You want to look at a tree? Be my guest,” said Otter, stepping aside. Raccoon’s mouth fell open. There in the tree, hanging from a low branch, was a furry shape…
“Oh my gosh, it’s true!” said Raccoon. “I’ve got to…” She started toward the tree, but Otter grabbed her tail.
“Are you talking about Sloth?” said Otter. “Don’t bother her, she’s asleep.”
“Oh, right, of course,” said Raccoon. “Well I have to tell somebody…Beaver! I’ll go tell Beaver! Thanks for waking me up, Otter.”
“You’re welcome,” called Otter as Raccoon rushed away. When she was out of sight, Otter ran over to the tree and called up “OK, she’s gone.”
“Good,” said Muskrat, “all this grass is itchy.” He was hanging upside down from the tree limb, covered with enough grass to make him look about as big as Sloth. He jumped down.
Otter looked at Muskrat. Muskrat looked at Otter. Then they both began to laugh so hard they fell over. They went on laughing for a long time.
Beaver was in his library when Raccoon arrived, so it took him a minute or two to answer the door. By the time he got there, Raccoon was nearly jumping up and down with excitement. “It worked, it worked, the experiment worked!” she said. “Sloth showed up in that tree, Beaver. It’s all true!” Raccoon was talking as fast as she could, she was so excited.
“Wait a minute, Raccoon, slow down,” said Beaver, holding out his paws. “Come on in and sit down.”
When they were settled, Beaver said “okay, now tell me what happened, step by step. Try not to leave anything out.”
“First of all,” said Raccoon, “nobody thought it was going to work; not even Sloth herself. But I brought the book and asked her to look at it before her nap, and she did. Then I went over near Otter’s house to watch the tree.”
“And you saw Sloth appear out of thin air?”
“Well no, I missed that part because I fell asleep. But Otter woke me up, and there was Sloth, right in the tree! She was asleep, so I rushed over here. I had to tell somebody.”
“Wait, Sloth was asleep again?”
“Sure, you know how many naps she takes.”
“And Otter was there?”
“I told you, Otter woke me up.”
“Why didn’t you just tell him?”
“Oh, because he’s Otter, he never takes anything seriously.”
“He might have taken this seriously,” said Beaver. “Animals appearing out of nowhere?”
“He would just have made jokes,” said Raccoon. “The way he always does. Anyway, Beaver, let’s go back there; maybe Sloth is awake by now.”
“Good idea,” said Beaver, “maybe Sloth can tell us more. Whether it has to be a special kind of dream, for example. Maybe,” said Beaver, “it will turn out to be something anybody can learn to do.”
“Oooh, I never thought of that,” said Raccoon. “Yes, let’s go.”
When Beaver and Raccoon got to Otter’s house, Sloth was nowhere to be seen in the tree. Otter and Muskrat were playing on the mudslide, but they stopped when Beaver and Raccoon called them over.
“Did you see where Sloth went?” asked Raccoon.
“Sloth?” said Otter innocently. “She was, um, in that tree over there. Is she, er, gone?” he nudged Muskrat, who stifled a giggle.
“She’s gone,” said Beaver. “We wanted to talk to her, too. You didn’t see where she went? Or how she went?”
“Nope,” said Muskrat. He nudged Otter, who stifled his own giggle.
Beaver frowned at Otter and Muskrat. “Are you sure you didn’t notice anything unusual?” he said.
“Nope,” said Otter.
“We’ve been playing on the slide” said Muskrat. They both bit their lips to keep from laughing.
“Well, okay,” said Beaver. He turned to Raccoon. “Let’s go back to Sloth’s favorite tree and see if that’s where she is,” he said. Beaver and Raccoon turned to go. When they were out of sight, Otter and Muskrat rolled around laughing again.
“Those two were acting weird,” said Beaver to Raccoon as they ambled along the path. “Did you see those nudges? And they were barely holding back their giggling.”
“They act like that all the time,” said Raccoon, who often got annoyed at Otter and Muskrat and their silliness. “It doesn’t mean anything.”
“Maybe not,” said Beaver. “But you know, Raccoon, there is one thing that Otter takes very seriously.”
“Mudslides?”
“Tricks,” said Beaver.
