An Unwelcome Visitor
In next to no time, Pepper was standing under a shelter made of palm
leaves that could be turned to face any direction with the help of a gear
wheel mechanism. Pepper was tucking her screwdriver back into her
pocket when the rain stopped just as suddenly as it had started. And as
if someone had pressed a switch, the sounds of the rainforest noises
that had been previously drowned out by the rain grew louder again.
Pepper could hear the monkeys shrieking, the birds singing, and a
loud sneezing directly beneath her. Wait a second — did she really
just hear someone sneeze? But Aunt Linda wasn’t due back for
another hour. An unsettling thought popped into Pepper’s mind. Did
Pepper have some uninvited visitors? Pepper crawled over to the
edge of the platform and peered cautiously downward. When she
saw a wild mane of hair coming up through the open trapdoor, she
didn’t stop to think.
Pepper grabbed hold of the nearest dangling vine, tugged on it a
couple of times to see if it would hold, and then grabbed onto it
tightly and zoomed down on her improvised zipline.
The ride down the zipline was a little too fast and uncontrolled for
Pepper. On the way down, she resolved to build a proper zipline
sometime, and quickly came up with a number of good design
ideas for it in her head …
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