Sour Apple Goes Missing - An Excerpt from "Book 4: Earth"
All of a sudden, Buckthorn heard a commotion. A dryad much smaller than the others came bursting in through the crowds. "Has anyone seen Sour Apple?!"
Through the commotion, Buckthorn thought she recognized that dryad. Wasn't he at the party back in the Turquoise Archipelago? She remembered that there were two dryads at the party the day she and Jack Thunder liberated the islands from the wendigoes. And the name Sour Apple...
Suddenly it hit her. Sweet Apple. He was at the party with Sour Apple. They had a competition between them to see how many apples each of them could sell. She almost didn't recognize him without the bright red apples hanging from his head branches. It was only by his eyes that she recognized him. They were a soft pastel red, much like the apples he bore on his branches during the Cherry Sun.
Buckthorn pushed her way through the crowds and approached him. "Hey, what's up? What happened to Sour Apple?"
Sweet Apple turned his glance to the reef siren. "Buckthorn?! What are you doing out here?! Aren't you supposed to be in the Great Barrier Kingdom?"
So he recognized her. "Haven't you heard? It was me and Jack who beat the wendigoes and brought peace to the Turquoise Islands."
He jumped back. "That was you?!"
Buckthorn sighed and rolled her eyes. Was this dryad dense? She knew trees were slow, but Sweet Apple took it to a whole new level.
"I'm sorry. I'm just kinda all over the place right now. Me and Sour Apple had come down here to see if we could help with the Solstice preparations, but then he suddenly went missing! It's not like him to just disappear like this!"
"Sour Apple... he was the one selling apples with you, right?"
He nodded. "Yeah. He's a bit taller and thinner than me and has green eyes. Have you seen him?"
She shook her head. "I'll keep an eye out for him."
He thanked her as she left to regroup with the rest of the team. She relayed to them what she'd heard.
"Sour Apple's missing? Wasn't he one of the dryads at the party?" Jack Thunder asked. Buckthorn had told him about it, but he hadn't seen them since he'd been in the hospital after the battle on the central island.
"I saw him there, too," San confirmed for her. "I don't really know them well, but it does seem suspicious that the tall one would suddenly vanish. That seems to be more in Sweet Apple's league." He chuckled to himself.
"I don't know," Buckthorn replied. She hoped that Sour Apple had just gotten separated from Sweet Apple while they were in the grove, but with all that happened lately, she feared something darker.
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