He took out the letter and read it again right side up, upside down, back and forth. “It is the first time I ever read pigeon foot blue handwriting,” he said to himself. And the way he read the letter, it said to him: Daddy, daddy, daddy, come home to us in the Rootabaga country where the pigeons call ka loo, ka loo, ka lo, ka lo, where the squirrels carry ladders and the wildcats ask riddles and the fish jump out of the rivers and speak to the frying pans, where the baboons take care of the babies and the black cats come and go in orange and gold stockings, where the birds wear rose and purple hats on Monday afternoons up in the skylights in the evening. (Signed) DIPPY THE WISP, SLIP ME LIZ. And reading the letter a second time, Hot Balloons said to himself, “No wonder it is scribbled over the paper in pigeon foot blue handwriting. No wonder it is full of secrets and syllables.” So he jumped into a shirt and a necktie, he jumped into a hat and a vest, and he jumped into a steel car, starting with a snizz and a snoof till it began running smooth and even as a catfoot. “I will ride to the Shampoo river faster than two pigeons fly,” he said. “I will be there.” Which he was. He got there before the two pigeons. But it was no use. For the rain and the rainstorm was working—and the rain and the rainstorm tore down and took and washed away the steel bridge over the Shampoo river. “Now there is only an air bridge to cross on, and a _steel_ car drops down, falls off, falls through, if it runs on an _air_ bridge,” he said. So he was all alone with the rain and the rainstorm all around him—and far as he could see by shading his eyes and looking, there was only the rain and the rainstorm across the river—and the _air_ bridge. While he waited for the rain and the rainstorm to go down, two pigeons came flying into his hands, one apiece into each hand, flipping and fluttering their wings and calling, “Ka loo, ka loo, ka lo, ka lo.” And he could tell by the way they began tying the shoestrings on their shoes and the bonnet strings under their chins, they were the same two pigeons ringing the door bell that morning. They wrote on his thumb-nails in pigeon foot blue handwriting, and he read their handwriting asking him why he didn’t cross over the Shampoo river. And he explained, “There is only an _air_ bridge to cross on. A _steel_ car drops down, falls off, falls through, if it runs on an _air_ bridge. Change my _steel_ car to an _air_ car. Then I can cross the _air_ bridge.” The pigeons flipped and fluttered, dipped their wings and called, “Ka loo, ka loo, ka lo, ka lo.” And they scribbled their pigeon feet on his thumb-nail—telling him to wait. So the pigeons went flying across the Shampoo river.