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"That's not your problem!" Nada flared. "You're beautifully slender!"
"I'd trade my figure for yours anytime!"
"If I eat any of that jam, you won't want my figure," Nada said. "I'd be so fat I could roll without pulling
in my arms or legs."
Electra tried to picture that, and found it hilarious. But it didn't come out as a healthy laugh, or even a
girlish giggle, just a foolish titter.
She dipped a finger and tasted the jam. "No, this isn't strawberry, quite. It's too metallic. Not hayberry
either. And look-those aren't exactly berries. They're moving around."
Nada peered. "You're right! Some are bigger than others, and they're sort of square. They keep nudging
up to each other and stopping."
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"Until something else gets out of the way," Electra added. "Only things seem to be much better at
getting into the way than out of it."
"And the total effect is one of absolute gooey crawl," Nada said. "Not one berry can get where it's going
before all the others do, so they are all made maddeningly slow."
"I think I tasted something like this, once, hundreds of years ago," Electra said. "It was a kind of berry
growing in a circle, a-a traffic circle. The berries just kept rolling around and around it until they wore
out."
"Those must have been crazy berries!"
"Traffic berries. They're always moving around, except when they get stuck in-"
"Traffic jam," Nada concluded. "And this is one big mess of jam!"
"Yes, it's awful. How can we get by it?" They watched the jam ooze its way onward. "There's no help
for it," Nada said reluctantly. "We'll just have to slog through it. I hope I can take a bath at the other
end." Electra sighed. "I'll go first. I have less to lose."
"No, you don't! You have more to win." Nada stepped into the jam.
Immediately she slowed to a crawl. She tried to move her feet, but there was always something in the
way. The jam wouldn't give her any chance to get anywhere. "This is no good!" Nada gasped. "I can't
move!" Electra reached out to take her hand. "I'll pull you out." But though she did pull, Nada remained
stuck in the traffic jam.
"There has to be a better way!" Nada said. "I'm just getting caught worse!"
"Change into a small snake, so I can lift you out," Electra suggested.
Nada did so. She became a garter snake, whose garters had nothing to attach to. Electra closed her hand
carefully about the body and pulled, but the snake's tail was hopelessly caught. She just couldn't get free.
Finally she changed back to human form, so that she could stand on her own without getting in deeper.
Electra put her hands to her head and ran some current through it, making her brain strain. This enabled
her to force out an idea. "Maybe if we could get the jam to go somewhere else," she said, "and leave us
here."
"But that's the problem," Nada objected. "It can't move anywhere very fast."
"The traffic berries in it can't move fast," Electra said. "But maybe the whole thing can-if it wants to."
"But what could make it want to?"
Electra fished in her knapsack. "I saw something in my calendar about a festival or something." She
pulled out a battered copy of a Xanth calendar and leafed through it. "Yes, here it is! A jamboree!"
The traffic jam quivered.
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"But isn't that-" Nada started.
"Yes. It will occur in the Gap Chasm."
The jam began to move. It slid slowly, then more swiftly out of the hall, carrying Nada along with it.
Soon it was going at a respectable speed. Electra grabbed onto Nada again, and hung on, and the jam
moved onward so rapidly that it lost cohesion and let her feet go.
A moment later they watched the jam sliding on across the moat. There was no question: it was headed
for that jamboree. Electra had guessed right; no jam could resist something like that.
"Didn't you make a teeny fib?" Nada asked. "There's no party at the Gap!"
Electra showed her the calendar. "I didn't say it was a party. I said it was a Jamboree. And here it is."
She pointed to it.
"The month of Jamboree," Nada said, "But-"
"Right here in the calendar," Electra agreed. "It occurs in the Gap, just as it does everywhere else in
Xanth at the same time. The traffic jam is sure to find it, in due course."
Nada shook her head. "I suppose that jam wasn't going anywhere else fast anyway," she said, resigned.
"But we are-quick while the passage is clear." She hauled Nada along into the castle. The naga woman
let herself be towed, deciding it wasn't worth further protest.
The passage ended in steps that led to a door, and beyond the door was Ivy. She was in a yellow dress
that complemented her pale green hair. She was Nada's age, but not as luscious. In that respect she fell
more or less between Nada and Electra. "Oh, how wonderful to see you two again!" she exclaimed,
hugging each in turn. "Why didn't you tell us you were coming?"
Both Nada and Electra stared at her, caught between astonishment and outrage. Then Ivy's mouth
quirked, and in a moment all three were lost in girlish laughter.
"Well, come on," Ivy said as they subsided. "I think Grey's had time to research the Answer now."
Electra nodded. There was reason for the challenges. Not only did they discourage those who weren't
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