think I'd rather be weak. It is far better to be
small and have friends than to have all the strength in the universe but
be so full of anger and resentment that you can't even enjoy it."

"So now that you have become a mountain of power," replied the Lion,
"you no longer care to be powerful?"

"Exactly," sighed the Forest Monster. "If there were a way to reverse
time and put things back as they should be, before I ever hurt anyone, I
would do it. I wish I could apologize to all of the poor animals that I
sapped. If their spirits are still in the vicinity, I hope they see how
utterly foolish I feel for having taken such unfair advantage of them."

"It is very sad that so many of our friends and families had to be
destroyed in order for you to have learned this lesson," said Elephant,
thinking sadly of the loss to the forest and its denizens. "But I hope
that you will try to reverse your reputation now by putting your
strength to good use. It is hard to forget what you did, but I think
that, in time, we will all be able to accept you as a neighbor. At
least, if you act like one."

"Oh, that I will do," said the spider gratefully. "I will do all that I
can to make up for my past misbehaving."

"Then it seems we are no longer needed," said one of the Sniffers. "We
met the Droffs on our way here, and they have agreed to help us plow our
fields. If our job here is done, I think we should like to go home and
get started."

"Me wants to plow fields," said the Droff who stood beside him.

"Then something positive did come of all this tragedy," said Hootsey.
"Not only have the Sniffers and the Stinkfoots made friends with the
Droffs, but the Forest Monster has had a major-league change of heart.
But can we at least find the empty shells of our families and give them
a proper burial?"

"That would be right," agreed the Forest Monster.

"Wait a minute," said Ozma. "You mean to say that the bodies are still
around? You didn't devour them entirely?"

"No," explained the Monster. "I only drained them of their energy. I
never actually hurt their physical bodies. Only their internal energy."

"And their energies are still inside of you," observed Lisa, catching on
to what Ozma was getting at. "So you never actually _killed_ them! Their
bodies are still alive, but dormant because they have no life energy.
That means that, if we could reverse the process, we could put all of
their energy back into their bodies again!"

"It