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pointing to Permute, “and this is where you
started, am I right? Let’s put some pencils here to stand in for Mount Upper Bound, and a
little spoon there for Lower Bound Valley.” The map also had markers for Bach and Recursion
Junction, as well as many other places Laurie hadn’t been to yet.
    “Now for the fun part,” said Rustic. “Let’s ask the
ants.”
    “Ask the ants ? What are you talking about? Ants can’t read
maps!” Laurie said. At the mention of insects, Xor was suddenly alert.
    “Who says they can’t? Next you’ll try to tell me that turtles can’t
draw circles,” Rustic said.
    “So you teach the ants to read maps?”
    “Not exactly. Ants are good at finding their way home already. The idea is to get them
to work for us.” He opened a jar of honey and put a tiny daub of the sweet stuff on each
town.
    A minute passed. Nothing happened. Then a little ant crawled onto the table. It smelled the
honey and zig-zagged its way onto the map. It nibbled from one bit of honey, then wandered around
until it walked into another one.

    “When an ant finds food, she leaves a little scent message for the others that come
after her,” Rustic said. “Ants follow the scent of food and also the scent of other
ants. Lots of ants can try lots of different paths at the same time. Eventually they’ll settle
on a quick route to all of the food and back to their nest.”
    The first ant continued on to Bach. Another appeared and went directly to Recursion Junction
instead. Still others went all the way across to Probability Bay, Permute, Notation, and other
towns. Soon the map had dozens of ants going every which way, collecting bits of honey and leaving
scents for their sisters.
    After a few minutes it was clear that some paths were more popular than others. The lines of
ants got wider and wider, until there was just one ant superhighway that marched all around the map
and back to the nest. Hugh Rustic copied it to a piece of paper before the honey disappeared.
    “Ah, there you go!” he said, handing Laurie his sketch.
    “Thank you, Mister Rustic! Is this really the shortest way?”
    “It’s a short way. That’s as much as I can
promise.”

Chapter 9. Don’t Repeat Yourself

    Laurie and Xor set out from Permute with their new map. They finally knew where they were,
where they were going, and how to get there. It was all right there on
paper.
    “The places on this map have funny names,” said Laurie.
“ Truncate . What’s that?”
    “To Truncate is to make something shorter by cutting off part of it. The town of
Truncate has very precise borders,” Xor said.
    “Oh. So what’s Axiom ?” Laurie asked.
    “An Axiom is a rule that you pretend is true even if you don’t know why it’s
true,” said Xor.
    “Really?”
    “Surely. My cousin Nand taught me all about it. She’s a
Euclidosaurus.”
    “You’re making stuff up again, Xor.”
    “No, it’s just one of those things,” the lizard shrugged, turning
gray-green. “Either you believe in Axioms or you don’t.”
    “Oh yeah? I bet you don’t know what a Furfnoodle is,” Laurie said.
    “It’s a . . . I mean, um. I give up. What is it?”
    “A Furfnoodle is a kind of bird,” she said. “With long, blue feathers! And
it loves eating little lizards.”
    “Really?” Xor looked worried and checked the sky for blue feathers.
    “No. But if I ever see a big, blue bird that loves to eat lizards, I’m going to
call it a Furfnoodle.”
    “You really shouldn’t make up words like that,” said Xor.
    “If you can make up words, so can I,” Laurie said.
    “I was telling the truth, Laurie.”
    “It’s even fun to say!” she said. “Furfnoodle.”
    “But—”
    “Furfnooooodle!” she sang.
    “Look, it’s not safe—”
    “Furfnoodle. Furfnoodlefurfnoodle. Furf. Nood. Ull!”
    There was a bloop sound, and a tiny mouse-looking creature appeared on
the path in front of them.
    “ Furfnoodle! ” it said in a tiny mouse voice. It ran