Spiddleby had found an extraordinary leaf…
At first glance it looked perfectly ordinary, but Spiddleby did not believe in first glances. There was a strange pattern in the veins near the stem, and he had been lying in the grass studying it for nearly twenty minutes when Iggy arrived.
Iggy wanted to know what he was doing. Spiddleby explained, and Iggy crouched beside him to look. For approximately three seconds. Then he noticed an ant, a beetle and a cloud that looked like a potato. He reported each discovery at considerable volume while Spiddleby tried to concentrate. Eventually, Spiddleby asked him, very politely, to please be quiet for five minutes.For twelve wonderful seconds, he was.
Spiddleby returned to the leaf. The veins divided in an almost perfect repeating pattern, except for one tiny section where something was different. He examined it from several angles, turned the leaf over, and was just beginning to form a theory when Iggy suddenly shouted his name.
Spiddleby jumped so violently that he lost the leaf.
Iggy had found another one with the same strange markings. Spiddleby forgot his irritation immediately. He laid the two leaves together and studied them, delighted to discover that the unusual pattern appeared in exactly the same place on both. This was fascinating. He wondered whether all the leaves from this particular tree were like that.
When he finally looked up, Iggy had disappeared.
Spiddleby spent a blissfully quiet hour examining the leaves, making observations and thinking very hard. He was just beginning to understand something important when Iggy returned with forty-three more.
Spiddleby sighed.
He was going to need a bigger notebook
