6 Urp!

CHAPTER 6

Urp! Lucas, Clara, and Ruskin stopped at the palace stables and quietly saddled Clara's horse, Scallop. Then they galloped toward Bogburp. Bogburp was a spongy bog made of water and many dead plants, known as peat. Wrenly farmers harvested the peat and a plant called peat moss. The villagers burned peat in their fireplaces to warm their homes. Sometimes they lined their walls with peat moss to keep out the cold. The Witch of Bogburp lived in the middle of the peat bog up in an old, dead oak tree.

Lucas and Clara grazed their horses on a patch of grass, away from the bog. Dragonflies hummed in the air and frogs plopped into the water around them. Urp! went the bog. The very bog itself seemed to be alive. Every few moments, it belched, and bubbles rose to the surface. That's how it had come to be known as Bogburp. Ruskin rushed to the water's edge and sniffed at the bubbles. In the distance Lucas and Clara saw a tree house in the middle of the bog on a tuft of land. Charms and lanterns hung from the bare, twisted branches. Tucked

in the branches, on top of a wooden platform, was a house with a thatched roof, along with two smaller huts. A boardwalk swirled around the trunk of the tree and led up to the house.

"That's the witch's house," said Clara, who always knew where everything was in the kingdom of Wrenly. "How are we going to get across the water?" questioned Lucas. Clara shrugged as she studied the swamp. Urp! The bog burped again. Ruskin jumped into the bog and landed on a rock. He leaned over and chomped

at the bubbles that had come to the surface. The bog burped again. Ruskin hopped to another rock and tried to eat the bubbles. Each time the bog belched, Ruskin jumped to another rock. "That's how we'll get across!" Clara exclaimed.