Read The Color Of Her Panties for Free Online Page B

we know,” Che said.
    Then they both looked at Jenny, who was oddly silent.
    “You don't have to meet any ogress, Jenny,” Che said reassuringly.
    “It isn't that.  It's that I didn't know I was chosen.  That someone else got excluded.  I didn't mean to do that.  I thought it was just an accident, my coming here.”
    “You didn't exclude anyone,” Che said.  “You have no responsibility for that.”
    “Still, I feel guilty.  That poor ogre girl.”
    Gwenny laughed.  “Poor ogress!  That's impossible.  All ogres are brutes.”
    “How do we know?” Jenny asked.
    Gwenny exchanged a glance with Che.  It was evident that Jenny had not had much experience with ogres.
    Che changed the subject.  “We must build our raft.”
    “That's right!” Jenny agreed.  “I forgot about Sammy.
    I hope I can find him.” She hurried off again, in the direction the cat had gone.
    This time the other two followed her.  The three spread out, so as to be able to cover more territory.  The little orange cat could be anywhere.
    He was able to find anything except his way back from wherever he went.
    That was why Jenny was so careful about letting him go in strange territory.  The demoness had appeared at just the wrong time, perhaps by no accident.
    But it was all right.  Sammy was just a short distance away, playing in a pile of vines.  There was a quiescent tangle tree nearby.  They were able to recreate what had happened:  an ogre had passed by, and the tangle tree had made a grab for it, and the ogre had twisted off a number of tentacles and thrown them away.  Such incidents occurred all the time in Xanth, because neither ogres nor tangle trees were noted for their intelligence or caution.
    They hauled the drying vines to their assembled wood.
    They bound the wood together until they had a ragged but serviceable raft.  It took only half the day, because it was no fancy job.
    They hauled the raft to the water, clambered onto it, and used deadwood poles to push off.  When the water became deep, they used deadwood paddles to move the raft forward.
    “I hope Fracto doesn't spy us,” Jenny said.
    There was a rumble of thunder.  Horrified, they paddled madly, but the raft moved as slowly as it could.  The inanimate tended to be perverse.
    The thunder turned out to be a false alarm.  It wasn't Fracto, but a routine action of offshore clouds that did not come closer.  They nudged on toward the shore to the south of the Gap.
    Then the current caught them.  The raft was carried out to sea, and they were unable to stop it.  They watched helplessly as they moved away from the land.
    But there was an island.  The current carried them tantalizingly close to it.  Yet they were afraid to try to swim to it, because there could be lurking water monsters waiting to gobble them.
    The raft passed the northern tip of the island and started out into the larger part of the sea.  They watched despairingly.  As adventures went, this was a bleak one.
    There was a breeze here, blowing from the sea toward the land.  But it wasn't enough to reverse the effect of the current.  It merely slowed their outward travel, prolonging the agony.
    Then Gwenny had an idea.  “Che!  You can make the raft light!  Then we can use the wind to get to the island!”
    Che did it.  He flicked every log of the raft with his tail, and the raft rose in the water, floating very high.  Then they braced themselves and stood with their backs broadside to the wind.  Now the current had less raft to work on, and the wind had more to work on.  The raft slowed, jogged a bit, twisted around, and finally nudged back toward the island.  It was working!
    Finally they reached the beach and jumped back onto firm land.  They hauled the light raft after them, for they would need it to cross from the island to the mainland.
    But meanwhile it was getting dark, and they had to make camp for the night.
    “Find us a good place to sleep, Sammy,” Jenny said,