Cale and his friends hide all the talking books in Cale?s castle and discover that the person who?s chopping the talking trees and turning them into talking books is still free! They need to be extremely careful! Ridel tells Cale and his buddies that the fifth seed is hidden in one of the gnarled shapes on the trunk of the Tree of Life. This tree is one of the biggest attractions in the kingdom. People come to see it and spend hours looking at all the animal shapes. This task will be like looking for a needle in a haystack. Cale and his friends look all over the tree but don?t find anything and decide to return the following day. Upon their return, they are surprised to discover that someone has hacked out all the animal shapes, badly damaging the tree. While they are looking in dismay at the terrible damage, Wickenburg and his son Murda appear and accuse them of having done it. The punishment they receive will ruin all their plans: Cale and his friends will be grounded in their castles for the rest of the summer. How are they going to complete their mission?