try and sneak past his enemies in a little while, when they
started to get bored. If they got hungry, they might even
head back to the swamp. “I need to find shade,” Laval
said to himself. “If I’m going to save my strength, I can’t
let the hot sun get to me.”
Laval started walking south. After a while, he became
tired and thirsty. He was about to sit down and take a
rest when heard a very small voice from below say, “Hey,
watch where you’re sitting!”
Laval stopped and looked down. There was a little
desert mouse waving a tiny fist at him.
“You big guys think you can do whatever
you want!” said the mouse. “Well,
this is my property, right here,
not yours.”
“This is your property?”
Laval asked, surprised.
“Where?” Laval looked
left and right, but all he
could see was sand.
27
“From that pebble over there,” the mouse said,
pointing to the north. Then he pointed south. “Then all
the way to that sand dune down there.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know,” Laval apologized.
“It’s okay,” said the mouse. “Hey, you’re a long way
from home, aren’t you? There aren’t any Lions in the
desert.”
Laval explained why he was there. “I won’t be staying
any longer than I have to, but I had better find water
pretty soon.”
“Stick with me,” the mouse said with a smile. “I know
all the best places. My name is Alonz, by the way.”
Alonz scampered off, with Laval following. After a
few minutes, they came to an outcropping of rocks that
provided cool shade from the desert sun.
“Thanks,” said Laval. “I’ll need to stay here a while
and wait out the Crocs.”
“That might be hard,” said Alonz, pointing past Laval.
The Lion turned to see that the four Crocs had advanced
into the desert and were heading in his direction, though
they hadn’t spotted him yet.
“Show yourself, Lion!” one of them called. “You can’t
hide out here forever!”
28
Laval looked back down at the little mouse. “You’d
better find a place to hide,” he said to Alonz. “There’s
going to be a fight, and I don’t want you to get hurt.
You’re too small to stand up to Crocs.”
“Ha!” said Alonz. “You don’t have to be big to win a
fight . . . and sometimes you don’t even need to fight to
win. Those Crocodiles are in my territory now. I’ll show
you how to handle them!”
Before Laval could stop him, the mouse darted off
toward the Crocodiles. “Wait!” cried Laval. “I’m coming
with you!”
29
“You’ll just get in the way,” the mouse yelled back
cheerfully.
“Stop!” Laval said, using a hand to block the mouse’s
path. “You can’t take on four Crocs by yourself! You’re
just a mouse!”
“This is my home.” Alonz puffed out his chest. “I’m
going to defend it. Besides, did you ever stop to think that
maybe around here, you’re
‘just’
a Lion?”
While Laval was thinking about that, the mouse raced
away. When Alonz was about ten feet from the Crocodiles,
30
he started jumping up and down and waving his arms.
“Hey, Crocs!” he yelled. “What’s big and dumb and
smells of swamp? You guys!”
One of the Crocodiles glanced at another. “It’s a
mouse,” he said.
“No kidding,” said the other Croc.
“Should I step on him?”
“Nah, just let him squeak. It’s good for a laugh.”
31
But the Crocs weren’t laughing for long. Alonz ran
around them, insulting their looks, their intelligence, and
their body odor. After a while, the Crocs started to get
annoyed. They chased after him, and Alonz took off as
fast as his little legs could carry him.
Alonz was fast, but the Crocs’ big legs covered more
ground. They were about to catch him! Laval sprang out
to help his new friend when, suddenly, the four Crocs
sank into the sand up to their waists!
Alonz stopped running. He turned around and laughed.
“See, Laval? I told you. They might be bigger and stronger,
but they don’t know the desert. I do, especially where the
patches of soft sand are.”
32
Laval walked up to the four Crocs, chuckling. “Looks
like you’ve been beaten . . . by a mouse.”
The Crocs squirmed and glared at Laval. “We’ll get you!”
they snarled. “As soon as we get out of here.”
Laval laughed. “I’d say the only thing you’ll get is
waist-
deep
in trouble when Cragger finds out about this.”
All four Crocs gulped. They had wanted to please
Cragger by capturing Laval. But the king wouldn’t be happy
to hear they’d been defeated by a mouse!
“So, this is what’s going to happen,” Laval continued.
“I’ll help you out of that sand before you sink up to your
33
snouts, and you’ll go back to the swamp. In return, I won’t
tell your king about what happened here today. Deal?”
The Crocs grumbled a lot, but agreed.
With Alonz’s help, Laval returned to the edge of the
jungle and grabbed a long vine. He brought it back to
where the Crocs were still stuck in the sand. Then he tied
the vine to one of the rocks and left it within reach of the
Crocs. They would be able to use it to pull themselves
out of the sand and make their way back to the swamp.
34
But not before Laval and Alonz were long gone from the
desert.
As the Crocs slowly pulled themselves free from the
sand, Laval dragged his Speedor back to the edge of the
jungle. Alonz went with him, perched on the seat. As soon
as they were near the trees and plants, the engine roared
to life. Startled, Alonz jumped onto Laval’s shoulder.
“Why don’t you come home with me?” Laval asked.
“We could sure use your help defending the CHI against
the Crocs. And I have to say I’m sorry to my dad—he was
right about something, and I didn’t see it until just now.
I think he’d like to meet you.”
“Will there be cheese?” asked Alonz.
“Probably,” said Laval.
After a minute, Alonz said, “So, what do you have to
apologize for?”
“Oh, I had this idea that only small
things come in small packages,”
answered Laval. He smiled.
“Turns out I was wrong.”
35
t was just about Cragger’s favorite time of the day:
lunchtime! He had asked the cooks to make him an
especially good feast today, and he could already
smell the food cooking. Best of all, it was all for him. As
the king of the Crocodiles, he didn’t have to share with
&nb
sp; anyone.
His sister, Crooler, saw him sitting at the table and
came up to him. Crooler was a very sneaky Crocodile, and
36
she had an idea for a trick to play on Cragger. “You still
have a while before the food is ready, don’t you?” she
asked. “Let’s pass the time with a little bet.”
“What kind of bet?” asked Cragger.
“Hmmmm,”
Crooler said. “I bet that you can’t swim
across the swamp and back in less than five minutes. If
you can, then you can have my next ration of CHI.”
“I can do that easily,” said Cragger, already thinking
about how powerful some extra CHI would make him.
He dove into the swamp and swam as fast as he could,
making it to the far shore and back in record time.
37
“There!” he exclaimed. “I won!”
“Oh, wait, I forgot,” said Crooler. “You have to do half
the swim with your eyes closed.”
Cragger was annoyed. “You didn’t say that was part of
the bet,” he argued.
Crooler shrugged. “Well, if you don’t think you can do
it, then we can call it off. . . .” she said.
38
Cragger shook his head. “You’re not getting out of
giving me your ration of CHI that easily,” he said. He
didn’t like the change, but he knew he could still win the
bet. So he swam across the swamp with his eyes closed,
then back with his eyes open.
“Okay, done. I won again,” he said, starting to climb
out of the swamp.
“Wait, wait,” said Crooler. “I’m sorry, there was one
more part. You’re supposed to dive all the way to the
bottom
halfway across, and then do it again on the way
back. And you have to keep your eyes closed the whole
time.”
Cragger glared at Crooler. He knew his sister hated to
lose bets, but this was getting ridiculous. “You can’t keep
changing the bet just because you lost,” he snarled. “I
won the CHI and it’s mine.”
“Of course you did,” Crooler said, a soothing tone in
her voice. “Just like you will one day beat Laval and the
Lions in battle, and control the rest of all the CHI. So
don’t tell me you’re afraid of a little added difficulty in
such a simple bet?”
“I’m not afraid of anything!” snapped Cragger. “I’ll
show you!”
39
And with that, he dove back into the swamp. He shut
his eyes tightly and started to swim through the muddy
water.
When he thought he was about halfway across, he
dove down deep. Now it didn’t matter that his eyes were
closed, because it was too dark down here to see anyway.
He kept going until his nose struck the bottom, then he
swam back up. Once he reached the surface, he made it
to the far shore, turned around, and repeated what he had
just done on his way back. It was hard, but he still did it
in well under five minutes.
40
This time, he climbed all the way out of the water and
stood on the shore. “Done. I won. You lost. Understand? I
swam it in under five minutes, and then I swam it with my
eyes closed half the way, and then I did it with my eyes
closed the whole way and diving to the swamp bottom on
both legs of the trip. Now it’s time for my lunch!”
Crooler shook her head sadly. “All right, all right. But
I don’t know how you think you can defeat Laval if you
can’t even beat your own sister in a bet.”
“What are you talking about?” Cragger yelled in
disbelief. “I won the bet! W-O-N, won!”
“Well, if you call that winning,” Crooler replied. “I
mean, that was so easy that Crug could have done it. You
left out the part where you were supposed to count to five
hundred when you were at the bottom.”
41
Cragger felt like his head was going to explode.
“
I
didn’t leave that out,
you
left that out! You want me
to count to five hundred? Fine! But this is absolutely,
positively the last time I am doing this! When I win—and
I
will
win—I want your CHI for the next two months, not
just one.”
Before Crooler could reply, Cragger turned and dove
back into the swamp. He repeated the entire routine,
including counting to five hundred both ways.
When he was done, he swam to shore and opened his
eyes. There was Crooler seated at the table, finishing off
his lunch. As he watched, she popped the last morsel in
her mouth and smacked her lips.
“Mmmmm,”
she said.
“I can see why you were looking forward to this so much!”
42
“Why, you—you—” sputtered Cragger.
“Oh, and by the way, you were supposed to do all
that with one arm tied behind your back,” Crooler said,
smiling. “So you had better get busy. I’m going to go take
a nap. A good meal always makes me sleepy.”
Cragger was so angry he could barely speak. But
before he could shout back at his sister, she had already
walked away to take her nap. Now Cragger would have to
wait for the cooks to make
another
meal. And who knew
how long that would take?
“Stupid bet,” Cragger muttered, sitting down on the
shore. Even if Crooler gave him her next two rations of
CHI, his stomach was still empty. “Now I’m hungry
and
tired,” he grumbled.
Grumble,
his empty stomach replied.
43
nvisibility—many have sought after this power, believing
it would bring them luck, or stealth, or just the ability
to do whatever they liked without anyone knowing. But it is
often said that what is truly invisible is not that which we can’t see,
but that which we choose not to see.
– King LaGravis
“I’ve done it!” cried Cragger the Crocodile. “I’ve won
at last!”
Cragger’s two henchmen, Crawley and Crug, were
walking behind their king. As soon as they heard what
he said, they both started nodding their heads vigorously.
“Oh, absolutely,” said Crawley. “No doubt. You are
the winner, boss.
Winner
. Everybody else is a loser next
to you.”
“Right,” said Crug. “What he said.”
“After today, Laval and his pitiful tribe of Lions won’t
44
be able to stop us from taking all the CHI we want,”
Cragger continued.
“Wow,” said Crawley. “Tell us what you did, boss, so
we can feel dumb for not thinking of it ourselves.”
Cragger waded into the swamp. The two Crocs followed
eagerly behind him. “I made a deal with Rizzo the Raven.”
Cragger grinned deviously. “It seems Rizzo came across
an old alchemist with an invisibility potion. The only one
&nb
sp; in all of Chima. And I bought it! With this potion, the
45
Lions won’t stand a chance against us. How can they
defend their precious CHI against an enemy they can’t
even see?” Cragger cackled. Crug and Crawley looked at
each other, and then cackled along with him.
Cragger rubbed his hands together. “Rizzo is going to
deliver it any minute now. And that will be the end . . .
gna
. . . the end . . .”
Cragger tried to continue speaking, but a little bird
had suddenly flown up and started picking at his teeth!
“
Gah!
Plovar, what are you
doing
?” Cragger cried.
The bird tsked. “Craggy-Waggy, did you forget our
teeth-cleaning appointment
again
? That’s the third time
this month!”
Cragger shook his head. “Not now, Plovar. I’m
expecting a very important delivery.”
But the bird refused to leave. “I’m afraid I must insist,”
Plovar said. “As I always say, a king’s most valuable
treasure is his pearly-white smile! Surely Crawley and
Crug can accept your important delivery?”
Cragger grunted as the little bird nudged him along
to his chambers. “Crug, Crawley, I want you two to guard
the potion while I’m getting my teeth cleaned,” he said.
“Don’t let my sister, Crooler, have it!”
46
“Got it,” said Crawley. “Rizzo is going to bring the
potion. When it gets here, we should give it to your sister
and go get our teeth cleaned.”
“Crug,” called Cragger, “take care of this.”