Chapter 4

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Chapter 4 It was late afternoon when we landed in a small clearing in a wooded area. We began unloading our supplies to set up camp. "Hey, you guys picked a great campsite," Toph said. "The grass is so soft." "That's not grass," I pointed out. "Appa's shedding." His fur was all over the place. That night Toph suddenly rushed out of her tent. "There's something coming toward us!" We couldn't see anything, but we trusted Toph. We packed up all our stuff and climbed onto Appa's back before flying away just in time. Sure enough, from above, we spotted a strange- looking metal tank chugging beneath us. We found another clearing and landed. And once again we unloaded our supplies and set up camp. All this work, and I was so tired. Then Katara and Toph started arguing. Toph didn't want to unload or set up camp. "Ever since you joined us you've been nothing but selfish and unhelpful!" Katara shouted. "What?" Toph screamed. "Look here, sugar queen, I gave up everything to teach Aang

Earthbending, so don't talk to me about being selfish." "Sugar queen?" Katara repeated, shocked at what Toph had called her. I laughed. Sugar queen. I have to give Toph credit for that one! "Should we do something?" Aang asked me, a little concerned. "Hey, I'm just enjoying the show," I said. It's better not to get involved with two angry girls. But the arguing continued. "Hey, how's a guy supposed to sleep with all this yelling and earthquaking?" I said. And wouldn't you know it, that tank thing came back, so we had to pack up and leave AGAIN. I didn't know when I would get to sleep—if ever! Our next campsite was on the side of a tall mountain. Now I was officially exhausted. The bags under my eyes had bags. I had no plans to set up camp. All I wanted to do was stretch out on the softest pile of dirt I could find and go to sleep. I thought I could finally relax without worrying about that tank following us. Then Toph jumped up. "Oh, no! Don't tell me," I whined.

"Let's get out of here," Katara said, but Aang had a different plan this time. "Maybe we should face them," he said. "Who knows, maybe they're friendly." I sighed. "You're always the optimist, Aang." Nobody would go to all that trouble in a big scary- looking machine just to say, "Hi, how ya doing? Why don't we be friends?" And a couple of minutes later I was proven right. The tank appeared and from its belly came those three crazy girls who fought us in Omashu, charging toward us on their mongoose-dragons. It was clear they weren't coming to bring us a housewarming gift for our new campsite! "We can take them," Toph announced, setting herself in a battle stance. "Three on three!" Uh, I know she's blind and everything, but… I had to correct her. "Actually Toph, there's four of us." "Oh, sorry," she said, not sounding sorry at all. "I didn't count you. You know, no bending and all." And I was actually starting to like having her around! "I can still fight!" I snapped. "Okay," she relented. "Three on three—plus Sokka." Now I understood why Katara was arguing with

her all the time! She knows how to make people mad. The crazy girls continued to charge toward us. Toph created a wall of rock to stop them, but that didn't pose a problem. The Firebending girl just blasted the rock away and kept on coming. I have to say that she was one scary-looking Firebender! I had seen enough—I didn't need a closer look. "Let's get out of here!" I yelled. We got back on Appa and returned to the sky. "I can't believe those girls followed us all the way from Omashu!" Katara said. "The crazy blue Firebending and the flying daggers are bad enough, but the last time we saw them, one of those girls did something that took my bending away. That's scary!" I was exhausted. We were all exhausted, even Appa. And then, as if to prove the point, Appa fell asleep in midair, and we started to plunge toward the ground. We screamed. This was not the time to fall asleep! "Appa's exhausted," Aang said. "We have to land." And so we set down near a river. "Okay, we've put a lot of distance between us and them," I said when we landed. "The plan right now is to get some sleep!" That's when Katara and Toph started up again. "Of course we could've gotten some sleep earlier if

Toph didn't have such issues about helping," Katara said. "What?" Toph cried. "You're blaming ME for this? If there's anyone to blame, it's Sheddy over there." She pointed at Appa. "You want to know how they keep finding us? He's leaving a trail of fur everywhere we go!" "How dare you blame Appa!" Aang shouted. "He saved your life three times today!" Okay… I see there's not going to be any sleep for me anytime soon. "Appa never had a problem flying when it was just the three us," Aang added harshly. And all of a sudden it got really quiet. No one said anything and no one did anything—until Toph picked up her bags. "See ya," she said, as she headed toward the woods. This was not good. We needed her. Aang needed her. I had to stop her. "Wait!" I called out. But Toph pushed me away as she disappeared into the forest. I shot a look at Aang and Katara. Nice going, guys. You blew off your Earthbending teacher and our early warning system for those