The Rainforest — a world guide
Somewhere past the last road on the map, the jungle closes over your head like a big green umbrella. This is the Rainforest, and it does not bother with sky — the canopy is so thick and leafy that the light arrives in dapples, sliding across leaves the size of dinner plates. A waterfall tumbles away somewhere in all that green, vines hang down like ropes nobody put away, and everything is just a little bit steamy, the way a bathroom gets after a good warm bath.
The crowd came prepared. Every critter here wears a leafy little hat — very sensible in drip country — and they mill about under the vines like tourists who lost their tour. Cheeky monkeys swing overhead. Colorful parrots flit past on parrot business. And somewhere in that happy green muddle stands the one critter you came to find, wearing the same leafy hat as everybody else and quietly hoping you won't notice.
What to look for in the Rainforest
A small confession: the Rainforest hides no treasures of its very own. The jungle keeps its secrets, and it keeps them green. The traveling four — Cameow Sandiego, Schrödinger’s Kit, Penny the Pug, and Mika — can still wander through, since they turn up in any world when the mood takes them. Mostly, though, this is a world for looking, and there is plenty to look at:
- The waterfall — always tumbling, never arriving. A handy landmark once the green starts looking like more green.
- The hanging vines — the monkeys' highway, dangling down as if the jungle forgot to tidy up.
- The cheeky monkeys — swinging overhead and looking extremely pleased about it.
- The parrots — quick flashes of color flitting through all that leafiness.
- The leafy hats — everybody in the crowd wears one, which is either very good camouflage or very good fashion. Possibly both.
Tips for grown-ups
- The matching leafy hats make this a sneaky one. Slow down and talk through what is different about the critter you're hunting, not what's the same.
- Good mouth-words to practice here: vine, canopy, waterfall, parrot. Canopy is a fun one to say three times fast.
- Point at the dappled light coming through the leaves and ask where the sky went. (The canopy ate it.)
- Nobody can lose and nothing rushes you, so try a jungle walk: trace one slow finger path through the crowd together before anybody pounces.
One more thing…
Real rainforests take their canopies seriously: the leaves overlap so thickly that a raindrop can spend around ten minutes working its way down to the forest floor. Upstairs it's pouring; downstairs, the ferns are still waiting for the news.