“Whoa Nelly, Wheeler!” Mary exclaimed. “Got another one, phew!”
“Coolie,” said Wheeler, still thinking about the events of the day. “So… Tronesisia figured out that Aspinwall, the snake pet that came with (Allen Martin’s) gas station, was the portal animal needed to cross over because of Woody’s clue. Because it had grown larger recently. She had to move it from a matchbox to a cigar box about a week back?”
“I think so. (That’s) what Baker Bloch told me.”
“Snakes and dogs,” she continues. “Wonder what other animals could be used?”
“Birds, I’ve heard. But you have to get a walking one. Like, say, an emu.”
“Or a dodo,” Wheeler offers, but then remembers that particular species is extinct, with the walking aspect actually helping to do them in.
“No dodos,” Mary replies.
“Yeah, I recall now.”
Mary suddenly gasps. “Or *is* there?” She turns toward Wheeler with something different on the end of her line. Not a perch this time.
Wheeler was still thinking of possible portal animals. “I wonder if you could, say, just stick a perch in your pocket.”
“Look!” Mary commanded.
Sunklands 