The Amazing Adventure of Amanderella Gottsnobbler Chapter 13

                                                                         Chapter 13:

From Despair to ?

Each day Amanderella set off into the jungle. She spent her days searching, finding only disappointment: parrots, mocking her whistle, tapir tracks, scraps of cloth. The jungle felt unwelcoming her notebook heavy, her resolve thinning. At night she cooked for the explorers, listening to their pompous speeches of failure.

The highlight of the week was the visit of Ramone with supplies, a change of clothes and coffee. He listened sympathetically then left.

The only bright spot was a few weeks later when Amanderella was sat quietly sketching a pangolin.  Armoured and shy, it curled into a ball when she approached, then rolled silently into the undergrowth. Strange, comic, but not the discovery she longed for.

She turned, ready to follow her string back to camp, when a fluttering in the canopy caught her eye. She pushed through the vines, branches snagging at her sleeves, until she came to a small clearing.

There, perched on a branch, sat a bird. It was brightly coloured, its crest rising proudly as it preened, utterly unafraid of her presence. Its feathers shimmered in the dim light, and from the branch dangled its long tail.

Amanderella froze. The tail feathers streamed down like ribbons, bright, flowing, delicate, exactly like the ones Reverend Tiddlewink carried with him everywhere, tied to his sleeves, his staff, his sermons.

She sketched quickly, her hand trembling. This was his quest, his ribbon bird, alive and real. Proof that the jungle held what he sought.

But she could not tell him. The code bound her, and besides, he would never believe her. She whispered, “So it does exist. And I cannot tell him.”

The bird shook its crest, gave a sharp cry, and flew off into the canopy, its ribbon‑tail trailing behind like a banner. The jungle rustled, then fell back into its noisy hush.

Amanderella closed her notebook, her knapsack heavy, her secret heavier still. She turned at last toward camp, knowing she had seen what Reverend Tiddlewink would never find.

Back at the camp, once again she had to listen to the disappointment of the others. They seemed sadder than usual, eating the meal she made for them in almost silence, before declaring the meeting closed, drinking their tea, eating their biscuits and retiring to their huts.

Lord Crankleboot sniffed at the aroma from her tin cup and declared that coffee should only be drunk in a morning.

Almost ready to give up and go home Amanderella went to bed. “At least the hammock is comfortable,” she thought. Next morning instead of going exploring she stayed in her hut, waiting for Ramone to arrive. after unloading tins and coffee,

He lingered for a moment and  looked at Amanderella, weary from her fruitless searches, and said quietly, “Sometimes you only hear the truth when you’re whistling in the dark.” Then he sailed away down the Amazon.

The phrase lodged in her mind. She repeated it to herself, tasting it like the coffee, wondering what it meant.

That evening, unable to sleep, she recalled Ramone’s words. Whistling in the dark. She looked round the hut and remembered Commodore Knickerflap and how he had only found the whoopee birds when he had to change how he looked for them. “That is what I must do,” she thought. “I must change the way I look for the Blue monkeys.”

She took her string and knapsack and stepped into the jungle under a bright moon. She moved quietly, the jungle transformed under moonlight. Leaves gleamed like polished metal, vines hung black and heavy, pools of water shone like mirrors.

At first only frogs croaked and owls called. Then, faintly, a whistle rose, not parrots mocking, not explorers blundering. Another answered, then another, weaving into a chorus. The sound rose and fell, playful yet solemn, threading through the canopy like music.    

She froze, heart racing. The branches stirred, shadows shifted, and from the green depths they appeared. Monkeys, their fur shimmering blue in the moonlight, brighter than river water, deeper than twilight. Their eyes gleamed, their bodies agile, their tails curling as they leapt from branch to branch.

They whistled again, a chorus that filled the night, rising in patterns she could not follow, playful and haunting at once. The jungle itself seemed to pause: birds hushed, frogs silenced, even the insects stilled. The canopy became a theatre, the vines a stage, the air alive with music.

Amanderella’s hand trembled as she sketched, her eyes wide. At last, the Blue Whistling Monkeys — real, alive, waiting. She whispered, “So they do exist.”

The monkeys circled her, whistling, their voices weaving into a pattern that seemed to beckon her forward. Then, as suddenly as they had come, they vanished into the moonlit canopy, leaving only echoes and the silver hush of the jungle.

She stood very still, her notebook heavy, her secret heavier still. Ramone’s words lingered in her ears, and the jungle seemed to breathe with her, alive, changed forever by the sound of whistling growing ever distant.

The jungle was quiet again after the monkeys’ chorus faded. Amanderella turned to go back to her hut, her notebook heavy with sketches.

She paused when something shifted at her feet. The earth bulged, split, and from the mud a worm heaved itself up — long, pale, glistening. It stretched across the path, longer than her arm, longer than her umbrella, longer than any worm she had ever seen.

She crouched low, astonished. This was Professor Thimblewhack’s obsession, the longest worm, the treasure he had measured for in vain. Proof that the jungle held what he sought.

She sketched it quickly, noting its pale sheen, its slow, patient crawl. She whispered, “So it does exist.”

The worm slid back into the soil, vanishing as silently as it had appeared. The jungle rustled, birds shrieked, frogs croaked, but the earth closed again, leaving only damp silence.

Amanderella stood very still, her knapsack heavy, her secret heavier still. She had found them all now — the stalk, the beetle, the leaf, the stone, the ribbon bird, the monkeys, and at last the longest worm. Each quest fulfilled, each proof hidden.

As the campfire smoke mingled with the scent of Amanderella’s meal, in his battered book, Professor Thimblewhack recorded their words, turning meals and friendship into part of the Grewpug Explorers’ story.”