3 THINGS THAT HOP

CHAPTER 3 THINGS THAT HOP As I darted through the yard to the barn, I tried to imagine what new magical creature might be waiting for me. A pegasus? A griffin? When I got in the barn, Sassafras was already there waiting for me. I took a single deep breath and opened the door to find… "Pip?" My shoulders slumped. It's not that I wasn't excited to see Pip, it's just—I shook it off and knelt down to greet my frog friend. Pip gave Sassafras a quick hug and started pacing and gesturing. "Zoey, it's the hophops. I can't believe this! Why, oh why did the hophops

have to come? And why NOW?!" "Whoa there, Pip. What happened? And what are hophops?" Pip stopped and stared at me for a moment. "Oh, right. I always forget how little humans know." He put a webbed hand on his forehead. "OK, so hophops are like… the jumpy things that eat a lot?" Jumpy things? "Ummm, kangaroos?" "No, no, no. Smaller. You know. Small jumpy things." "Bunnies? Frogs?" Pip gave me a look. "Frogs? Really, Zoey?" We both started laughing. Then Pip got serious again. "Oh, that's right. You call them something like treehops? No. Shrubhops? No, that's not it either." He looked around our yard. "Oh, that's it! Grassyhops!"

"Grasshoppers?" Pip clapped his webbed hands together. "Yes! Grasshoppers. Hophops are like the magical version of those, but very small. Usually they just eat a bit here and there—some magical plants and some forest plants. But every once in a while, a big bunch hatches at once and they rush through the forest, eating just about everything in their path." "Whoa," I said. "Meow!" said Sassafras. "I know," said Pip. "So anyway, that's bad

and all, but this time it's REALLY, REALLY bad. Because the path they took where they ate everything? Well, it went over a bunch of forest roses." I swallowed hard. "They ate all the forest roses? But they were just about to bloom." I turned to Sassafras with sad eyes. "We're going to miss them AGAIN this year." "No… well, yes… maybe…" Pip said and started muttering to himself again. "I'm so confused, Pip!" I sat down, and Sassafras crawled into my lap and bopped my chin to try to make me feel better. Pip paused and thought a moment, then grabbed a stick and walked over to a nearby patch of dirt. "It's like this, Zoey." He drew a round circle with big eyes. "This is a bip." "A what?" I asked. He sighed. "Just listen, and it will all make sense. So, as I was saying, this is a bip." Then he drew an arrow and a rose leaf. "This is a forest rose leaf, and that's where allll the bips live. The bips make the forest roses grow." He drew another arrow from the rose leaf and added a

rose bloom. Then he added another arrow and sketched something and scribbled it out. And tried again. Pip muttered some more and sighed. "Well… that's close enough. OK, so forest roses are really important because they are the first food of baby hippogriffs." "BABY HIPPOGRIFFS?!?!" I squealed. I love all baby animals, but magical baby animals are my extra-favorites. He pointed the stick to the word he'd written. "Baby hippogriffs are born with wings that aren't fully developed. They need the magic from the forest roses to make their wings work."

"AHA!" I cheered. "That's why those roses smell so good—they're magical!" But then I thought about the poor baby hippogriffs, and my smile faded. ""So, without the bips, there won't be roses, and without the roses, the baby hippogriffs won't be able to fly?" Pip nodded sadly. "But… couldn't they wait until next year to eat next year's roses? Would their wings work then?" Pip sighed. "Yes, but baby hippogriffs need their wings to escape from predators. Without