Evangeline Mudd's Great Mink Rescue

I wonder if you can imagine how Evangeline Mudd felt on the day this story begins. After all, not so long ago, she had been whisked through a jungle in the arms of a four-hundred-pound ape. She'd rubbed noses with a headhunter. Why, she had even broken the Law of the Jungle. But now all that was over. Now she was home, safe and sound with her parents at their cozy bungalow in New England. It wouldn't be fair to say that Evangeline was unhappy. After all, she had spent most of her time away wishing that she could be home. It's just that, well, now she had a great deal in common with those kids in countries where parents give them slices of pineapple sprinkled in red-hot chili pepper. The first time those kids have that snack, their eyes practically bug out of their heads. Their faces turn pink, then maroon, and then a lovely shade of ver-milion. Tears stream from their eyes. "Call a doctor!" they holler as they run in circles, looking for buckets of water to dunk their heads in. "Call the police! Call the fire department!" But then, after the hullabaloo has died down and the pineapple is gone, and the kids are back to normal, the strangest thing happens. "Please," the kids say to their parents, "give us more." Yes, Evangeline was very much like those children. In other words, she had had one adventure, and she was dying to have another. On the afternoon in question, the sunlight was filtering through the canopy of the trees, dappling the leaves in a way that made them seem like the feathers of a fantastic bird. Evangeline was brachiating, hand over hand, in a stand of maples that grew behind the cozy bungalow. (Brachiating, by the way, is how monkeys and apes get around in this world - by swinging from one branch to another. Evangeline was an expert brachiator.) This is terrific, she thought as she reached for a branch just over her head. But it would be so much better if I were being chased by a gorilla. She was just about to do a double flip when she heard her mother calling from below. Magdalena's voice was such that no matter how loudly she spoke, she seemed to be reciting the sweetest poetry. This was especially true when she was speaking to Evangeline. "Perhaps you'd better come down now, dear. The mail has just arrived. There's a letter for you." A letter! Evangeline landed on the next limb with both feet. Hugging the maple's smooth trunk as if it were a long-lost friend, she scrambled her way to the ground. The letter could be from only one person. Dr. Aphrodite Pikkaflee, the world's most famous primatologist and the very person with whom Evangeline had had her adventure in the jungle! Dr. Pikkaflee had already written Evangeline several letters telling her of the progress she was making with the jungle school she had started. Evangeline opened her arms as wide as she could and ran to her mother. Her intention, naturally, was to hug the woman. But this wasn't as easy as you might think. At present, Magdalena was as round as a beach ball. Evangeline would have a brother or sister very soon. "Where's the letter from Dr. Pikkaflee?" Evangeline asked, her arms encircling what they could of her mother's generous middle. "It's on the kitchen table, darling. Right next to the gooseberry jam." Magdalena picked at her daughter's scalp exactly the way a golden-haired ape mother might do. Evangeline let go of Magdalena and ran toward the house. "But the letter isn't from Dr. Pikkaflee, dear," her mother called out. Evangeline stopped in her tracks. If it wasn't from Dr. Aphrodite Pikkaflee, then who could it be from? Evangeline wasn't the kind of girl who got a lot of letters. After all, she was only ten years old. She turned back to her mother, who had plunked herself down in the grass at the base of the trees. &qWesson, Andrea is the author of 'Evangeline Mudd's Great Mink Rescue', published 2008 under ISBN 9780763634209 and ISBN 0763634204.