Sunset of the Sabertooth: The “M” Things

So, Jack and Annie are on the way home from swim lessons, and Annie wants to go to the treehouse. Yeah, I’m with Jack. Go home and get changed out of your wet stuff.
So, Peanut is still chilling there.
OK, yeah, they’re catching onto the M theme.
Dang it, Annie, why are you wishing to go to the snow in wet bathing suits? That’s how you freeze to death.

Sunset of the Sabertooth: Prologue

OK, note to self: try not to get “Livin’ on a Prayer” stuck in my head because of that chapter title.
So, yeah. Now they’re home again.
Annie’s over here about to eat the mango, but Jack’s trying to remind her it’s for Morgan.
So, how is the mango not gonna go bad by the time Jack and Annie can find the other two Morgan Things? The treehouse magic?
So, wait, a moonstone, a mango… all M Things.
Annie apparently wants to keep Peanut as a pet, but the mom doesn’t like mice.
Seriously though, even with the Narnia-type thing where it doesn’t seem like there’s any time passing in the present Pennsylvania, it does at least take some time for the kids to run back and forth between the treehouse and home. So what do they tell the mom about where they go?
So, yeah, they’re talking about all the cool animals they saw while they’re going home.

Oh, fun. Annie’s trying to find the Pennsylvania book to go home while Jack finishes his notes, but the book is gone.
So, the monkey is back. And apparently it was throwing fruit at them earlier because that was the Thing for Morgan.
And now they can find the book because it was invisible until they got the thing.
No, but really. How did the monkey know to help?

So, Jack and Annie escaped, and the monkey is MIA.
And Peanut is freaking out.
And now it’s almost night, and they’re about to just nope out of there without helping Morgan because they’re afraid of the vampire bats.
So they’re getting Peanut to lead them back to the treehouse now.
OK, yeah, they are back at the treehouse now, all without rowing back up the river. So why does this cover have the wrong version of the illustration?

OK, random tangent time. I’ve been getting the series with the newer covers, which normally have the old artwork slightly resized and with a new series logo. But I just now noticed this cover might be an originally rejected take on the old cover artwork where Jack and Annie have oars for the canoe when they shouldn’t have them. Unless I’m getting ahead of myself and they end up getting them in order to row back up the river to go back to the treehouse. Meh. What do I know? I don’t think I read this one as a kid.
But anyway. Now it’s pouring rain, and Annie is now convinced that the monkey is trying to lead them to the special thing for Morgan.
Oh, fun. Now it’s a straight-up thunderstorm.
So, Annie wants to play with the baby jaguar, but the protective mom just showed up.
And now the monkey is helping them get away.

So, Peanut doesn’t like the monkey. And the monkey’s throwing fruits at the boat. (That’s, like, the most kid-friendly thing it could be throwing.)
Annie almost fell out of the boat when scaring off the monkey.
And now it’s raining. Fun.
Oh, OK. Now the monkey just got a stick to pull the boat to shore.

And now they have no idea where they’re going.
So, yeah, they’re… on the Amazon. Somewhere. Who knows where, since it’s such a long river.
“Hey, Jack, look at the cool fish!” “Uh, Annie, don’t pet it. That’s a piranha. It’s gonna eat you.”
Oh, fun. The vine Jack was gonna use to pull the boat over to shore was actually a snake hanging from a tree.
And then the branch they were gonna use was a crocodile.
And now they’re gonna run into a monkey.

So, there aren’t any animals yet because they’re all hiding.
And apparently something might be following them, with all those breaking branches.
And now Jack and Annie are running across a bunch of ants.
They’re trying to run from the ants, but they forgot what tree the treehouse is in, and they got to a river with a conveniently placed canoe.
Oh, fun. They’re just going down the river without paddles.

So, apparently they landed in some bushes. Instead of up in a tree.
OK, yeah, the bush is closer to the ground than rainforest tree branches here.
Just kidding. They’re not actually in a bush. They’re in the top layer of trees. And Annie was just about to fall out of the sky because she thought she was closer to the ground.
So, the ladder apparently magically adjusts itself to the right length of tree.
And the jungle is so thick that it’s creeping Jack out.