The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman Page A

came to a halt not fifty yards away, and the dust settled, she suddenly made the connection, and she couldn’t help laughing out loud with a little cough of delight.
    The wheels were seedpods. Perfectly round, immensely hard and light—they couldn’t have been designed better. The creatures hooked a claw through the center of the pods with their front and rear legs, and used their two lateral legs to push against the ground and move along. While she marveled at this, she was also a little anxious, for their horns looked formidably sharp, and even at this distance she could see intelligence and curiosity in their gaze.
    And they were looking for her.
    One of them had spotted the seedpod she had taken out of the grove, and he trundled off the road toward it. When he reached it, he lifted it onto an edge with his trunk and rolled it over to his companions.
    They gathered around the pod and touched it delicately with those powerful, flexible trunks, and she found herself interpreting the soft chirrups and clicks and hoots they were making as expressions of disapproval. Someone had tampered with this: it was wrong.
    Then she thought: I came here for a purpose, although I don’t understand it yet. Be bold. Take the initiative.
    So she stood up and very self-consciously called:
    “Over here. This is where I am. I looked at your seedpod. I’m sorry. Please don’t harm me.”
    Instantly their heads snapped around, trunks held out, glittering eyes facing forward. Their ears had all flicked upright.
    She stepped out of the shelter of the roots and faced them directly. She held out her hands, realizing that such a gesture might mean nothing to creatures with no hands themselves. Still, it was all she could do. Picking up her rucksack, she walked across the grass and stepped onto the road.
    Close up—not five steps away—she could see much more about their appearance, but her attention was held by something lively and aware in their gaze, by an intelligence. These creatures were as different from the grazing animals nearby as a human was from a cow.
    Mary pointed to herself and said, “Mary.”
    The nearest creature reached forward with its trunk. She moved closer, and it touched her on the breast, where she had pointed, and she heard her voice coming back to her from the creature’s throat: “Merry.”
    “What are you?” she said.
    “Watahyu?” the creature responded.
    All she could do was respond. “I am a human,” she said.
    “Ayama yuman,” said the creature, and then something even odder happened: the creatures laughed.
    Their eyes wrinkled, their trunks waved, they tossed their heads—and from their throats came the unmistakable sound of merriment. She couldn’t help it: she laughed, too.
    Then another creature moved forward and touched her hand with its trunk. Mary offered her other hand as well to its soft, bristled, questing touch.
    “Ah,” she said, “you’re smelling the oil from the seedpod . . .”
    “Seepot,” said the creature.
    “If you can make the sounds of my language, we might be able to communicate, one day. God knows how.
Mary,
” she said, pointing to herself again.
    Nothing. They watched. She did it again: “Mary.”
    The nearest creature touched its own breast with its trunk and spoke. Was it three syllables, or two? The creature spoke again, and this time Mary tried hard to make the same sounds:
“Mulefa,”
she said tentatively.
    Others repeated,
“Mulefa”
in her voice, laughing, and even seemed to be teasing the creature who had spoken.
“Mulefa!”
they said again, as if it were a fine joke.
    “Well, if you can laugh, I don’t suppose you’ll eat me,” Mary said. And from that moment, there was an ease and friendliness between her and them, and she felt nervous no more.
    And the group itself relaxed: they had things to do, they weren’t roaming at random. Mary saw that one of them had a saddle or pack on its back, and two others lifted the seedpod onto it, making it