Cloaked (13 page)

Chapter 28

“We’re looking for the ranger,” I tell the lady at the information desk.

“I can help you.” She glances at the door behind her, which says
RANGER’S OFFICE
.
“What do you need? Maps? Guidebooks? Tour information?” She hands me one of each, glancing again at the door. “There you go.”

“Um, thanks.” I take them from her. “But I really want to speak to the ranger.”

“He’s not here. Maybe another day. Or next week.” She reaches into a drawer and hands me a sticker that says
I BRAKE FOR KEY DEER
.
“Here. Have a bumper sticker.”

This isn’t good. I need the ranger now. “Is he on a trail?”

“Margaret?” says a voice from the office. “Have you reached the National Guard yet?”

Margaret turns and cracks open the door, then whispers, “They’re not coming.”

“Not coming! Why not?”

“Shh.” Margaret looks back at me. “They don’t believe you. Say it’s urban legend.”

“The National Guard doesn’t believe me?” The voice is even louder. “Let them come over here and look around. See if they think it’s an urban legend when they’re staring it in the face.”

Margaret glances back at me again, then whispers into the door. “Wendell, I’ve been telling these nice young people how the ranger isn’t in today.”

Wendell! That’s the name the fox gave me.

“Look,” I say. “I know that’s the ranger. I’m not leaving until I talk to him.”

I’m not usually pushy like this, but being trapped underground makes you bold.

“I can call the police,” Margaret says.

“And tell them what? That I’m in a national park, expecting to speak to a ranger, but the ranger can’t talk to me because he’s hiding in his office? Yeah, I’m sure they’ll arrest me.”

Meg puts her hand on my shoulder. “Let us speak to Wendell. Then we’ll leave.”

“I’m afraid I can’t.”

“It’s okay, Margaret.” The door opens. “They’re all going to find out anyway.”

The ranger is a short, balding man in a brown uniform with shorts. His scalp is sunburned and peeling. What’s left of his hair is unkempt. He looks like he’s gotten less sleep than I have. He gestures us into his office.

“All right,” he says when we get in. “Where’d you see it?”

“See what?”

“You’re here to report a dead Key deer, aren’t you?”

“Yes. I mean, no. I mean, we did see a deer, but that’s not why we’re here.”

“So you found another one? Another one?”

He bursts into tears, and not some manlike tears either, where you pretend you’re brushing something off your face and, incidentally, wipe a tear. Nope. He starts bawling like a kid who spilled his Slushie, clutching his head. Finally, he sits down and begins rocking back and forth, saying, “Ruined. It’s all ruined.”

Margaret walks behind him and strokes his back. When he keeps saying, “Ruined,” she puts her arms around him.

“There, there.” She glares at me. “See what you did?”

“What I did?” I don’t understand. What’s the big deal? “I just said . . .”

“This is a Key deer refuge.”

“I know. So?”

“So someone is killing the Key deer. That’s a problem.”

“Not some
one
,”
Wendell says. “Some
thing. Things.
Monsters. There are monsters. It’s all ruined. No one believes me.”

“There, there,” Margaret repeats. “It will be all right.”

“I’m a good ranger. When I was a kid, I was a science wiz, and my parents thought I should be a doctor. But noooooo. I wanted to save the planet. Now I’ll be singlehandedly responsible for the demise of a species.”

He starts to sob again, harder, and his words after that are indistinguishable from his sobs. I look at Meg. She shrugs but starts toward him.

“Excuse me,” she says. “May I change the subject?”

Wendell lets out a mighty sniff, then drags it in again. “Ch-change the s-subject?”

Meg nods. “Just for a moment.”

“You want to change the subject?” Another sniff.

“Yes. If it’s not too much trouble.”

“No . . . no. I’d love to change the subject.” He looks at Meg with red-rimmed eyes and running nose. “What s-subject did you want to discuss?” Another sniff.

Meg gestures at Margaret. “Maybe you could get him a tissue.”

Margaret notices the snot dripping from Wendell’s nose, sighs, and stands. “All right. But I’ll have to go to the supply closet. He used up the last box. Don’t you upset him.”

“How could he be any more upset?”

“You haven’t seen him when he really gets going.”

When she leaves, Meg says, “We’re looking for a frog.”

“A frog.”

Meg gestures toward my bag, for me to show the ranger the photo. I already have it out. “This is him. Have you seen him?”

The ranger glances at the photo, and I see recognition in his eyes. He’s seen that frog.

But he says, “I don’t think so.”

“It would have come into the park with a family, a trailer with kids.”

“You can’t have the frog!” Wendell says.

“So you do have it?” I say.

Wendell thinks a second, then makes a decision. “Yes. And I’m not giving it back. I took it away from those kids who brought it in. It’s a nonnative species.”

“It’s from Aloria.”

“Exactly. It’s a rare Alorian marine frog, and it has no business being in a national park in the United States. I may go down in history as the ranger who was in charge when the Key deer died off. I’m not also going to be the one who befouled the ecosystem by introducing a European frog.”

“What?” I’m completely confused.

But Meg chimes in. “You never did pay attention in science class, Johnny. What he’s saying is, when people bring in animals that don’t belong here, the animals can escape and damage the environment. Like those little turtles kids get as pets.”

“Right!” Ranger Wendell says. “Red-eared sliders. Noxious beasts!”

“People release them in canals,” Meg says, “and they reproduce and eat all the food.”

“Starving out the native species and destroying the food chain.” Wendell nods his head up and down. “Not on my watch!”

“Or the Burmese pythons,” Meg adds.

Wendell shudders. “Don’t even get me started on pythons. They grow and grow until their owners can’t handle them. So they release them.”

“And then, it’s good-bye house cats,” Meg says.

“Exactly.”

“So let me understand,” I say. “You took the frog away from a family because you wanted to make sure they didn’t release it in the park?”

“Yes. It was my duty as a ranger.”

“And what did you do with it then?” This is exciting. Maybe he still has it.

He falters. “Well, um, with a nonnative species, the proper response is to euthanize it.”

“Euthanize!” Meg and I both exclaim at once. We look at each other. He killed the frog? He killed the prince?

“You . . . euthanized it . . . him?” I say.

“I know it sounds cruel, but our ecosystem is more important than any one—”

“Where’s the frog?” I’m in his face, screaming. “Where’s the frog, you murderer?”

“Johnny.” Meg’s at my shoulder, pulling me away. “Let him answer.”

“But he killed the frog. He murdered—”

“I didn’t euthanize the frog, okay?” Wendell whispers.

“You didn’t kill him?”

He looks around, then whispers, “No, okay? I was supposed to euthanize the frog, but ranger salaries being what they are and all . . .”

“You sold it?” Meg says.

“Not yet. But I’ve . . .” He looks around again, then walks to the window, glances out, and comes back. “I’ve listed it for sale with a certain reptile and amphibian collectors’ site.”

“You took it from kids so you could sell it?”

“It was best for the ecosystem. If I sell it to someone in a colder climate, there will be no risk of its living if it’s accidentally released.”

“What a jerk,” I say.

“This is good news, Johnny. It means he still has the frog.”

She’s right. “Great. I’ll buy it from you for a thousand dollars.”

I see Wendell’s eyes light up at the number. Then they narrow. “I can’t do that. It has to go to a less hospitable climate. I can’t sell it to anyone from Florida.”

I’m starting to get upset again when Meg says, “Ooooh, we’re not from Florida. We’re from Minnesota, dontcha know. We’ll take it back there.”

“How do I know you’re not from the Environmental Protection Agency?”

“We’re kids!” I need that frog. I can’t let him get killed or sent to a “less hospitable climate” to freeze to death. I start looking around. “Is he here?”

“If you’re kids, why do you want the frog so much?”

Meg shrugs. “We just like frogs.”

“Right. Two high school students have a thousand dollars to spend because they just like frogs. You don’t look rich.”

I’m getting a headache. The frog is in the park, maybe in this building. He could be in a box, suffocating or something. “Listen, I need that frog.”

“No. Get out of here!”

“If you don’t give it to me, I’ll call the EPA.”

“That won’t get you your frog. I don’t have it anyway.”

“Johnny,” Meg interrupts. “You should tell him why we really want the frog.”

I gape at her. Does she mean tell him the
real
reason? “He’ll think we’re crazy.”

Meg shrugs. “If we’re crazy, he’ll know we’re not from the EPA or the cops. It’s a frog. Why would he care if he’s selling it to a crazy person?”

She has a point. We have nothing to lose. If he doesn’t give me the frog, I’ll use the cloak to break in tonight and steal it. But I’d rather not. I don’t like stealing. Besides, the last time I stole livestock, I ended up underground in Zalkenbourg.

So I tell him.

Chapter 29

In the forest lived two giants who had caused great mischief.

—“The Valiant Tailor”

“You expect me to believe that?” Wendell says when I’m finished.

I sigh. “I know it sounds crazy, magic and all that.”

“Oh, it’s not the magic part I’m having trouble with. I believe in magic.”

“You do?”

“Yes. I didn’t used to. But I couldn’t
not
believe in magic now. I’m being plagued with magical creatures myself.”

I think of the dead Key deer. Does he mean they’re being killed by magic?

“The part I don’t believe is a princess choosing a little wimp like you for her quest.”

“Excuse me?”

“Oh, don’t act all shocked with me. I went to high school. I know how it is. There are the jock boys, and the rich kids. They’re the ones with all the power. And then, at the bottom of the ladder, are people like us. The losers.”

Losers. It’s what I’ve always thought, always suspected others were thinking about me. But to have this guy say it is just too much.

“He’s not a loser,” Meg says. “He’s on the wrestling team at school.”

“Wrestling?” I think of those guys on
Friday Night Smackdown
. But when Meg gives me a dirty look, I say, “Yeah, wrestling. State champ, hundred-sixty-five-pound division.” I have no idea if there’s a hundred-sixty-five-pound division. What am I talking about?

“Hundred-sixty-five-pound division, eh?” Wendell says.

“They call him David because he fights guys bigger than him, like David and Goliath in the Bible,” Meg says. “Once, he stopped the football team from beating up a freshman.”

“The football team?” Wendell looks at me with new respect. “He fought the whole football team, the linebacker and everything?”

“Yup.” I’m getting into this now. Teach this guy to call me a loser. I’m a hero—of
biblical
proportions. “One guy weighed over three hundred pounds. I had him begging for mercy.”

“So you can fight giants?” Wendell’s practically jumping up and down now.

“Giants?” Sure. Whatever. “If there were giants, I could probably fight them. I’m a hero, after all.”

“So, can we have the frog now?” Meg says.

“I have money,” I add, “so name your price for the frog.”

Wendell stares out the window.

“Wendell?” Meg says. “Your price?”

“Yeah.” I reach for my backpack. “A grand for a frog is fair.”

Nothing.

“Wendell?” Meg waves her hand in front of his face. “Johnny wants to give you
money
for the
frog.
”

“Money? Oh, I don’t want money.” Back to the window.

What’s this guy’s problem? But then, I think I know. “We promise not to release him. No siree. This frog’s going right back to Aloria. In fact, he’s human. Humans can’t be a nonnative species, can they?”

“That’s not it.” Wendell walks away from the window and starts rummaging through his desk. I want that frog. Who knows if he’s even feeding him right, if he has enough air. Prince Philippe could be starving to death because he refuses to eat bugs.

Wendell pulls a pair of binoculars from his desk. He walks back to the window and starts looking through them like he’s trying to locate something, Finally, he gestures to me. “Look.”

I peer through them. Grass. Tall grass. And sand. In the sand is a big hole. A Key deer sniffs around it, looking for water.

“So? It’s a hole?”

“Look around the edges,” Wendell says.

Now I see that the hole has an elongated shape, like a foot. And at the end of the foot . . . toes! It’s a footprint. A footprint almost as big as a Key deer. Who would have such a big foot?

Wendell reads my thoughts. “We’ve been beset by giants.”

“Um . . . giants?”

“Yes, giants. Plagued by giants, two of them, which is two too many. That’s what’s eating the deer, and no one—not the EPA, the Monroe County police, the Sierra Club, or the National Guard—believe me.”

I glance at the footprint again. Giants. There’s no such thing. And then, I remember my mother telling me a legend about a giant in the Florida Keys, like the Abominable Snowman or the Loch Ness Monster. I never believed it, of course. But back then, I didn’t believe in witches or talking animals or magic cloaks either.

“You believe me, don’t you?” Ranger Wendell says.

I nod.

“And I know you can help me. You can kill them.”

“Sure, I can . . . what?” I tear my eyes away from the binoculars and stare at him.

“What?” Meg says at the same time.

“You can kill giants.” Wendell’s all happy, smiling now. “You’re young. You’re strong. You were chosen by the princess to accomplish her quest. You have experience defeating the mighty, so I know you can help me with my little, er, giant problem.”

“But . . .”

“Kill the giants, and you get the frog. Otherwise, I put him on eBay, and I won’t sell him to you.”

“That may be against eBay policy,” I tell him. “You could get banned.”

“Think I care if I get banned from eBay?”

And then he starts to cry again.

Between sobs, he says, “If I don’t do something about these giants, all the deer will die, and I’ll be responsible.”

Meg reaches over and pats his back. I look at her, incredulous. “Have you tried showing photos of the footprints to the EPA?” she asks. “Or photos of the giants?”

He nods. “They all think they’re fake, like the Loch Ness photo.” He opens his desk and pulls out two photos. They’re blurry, and the giants are mostly obscured by trees. They do look fake. “People have been spreading rumors about giants in Florida for years. Skunk apes, they’re called. No one believes it. If I push it, I could lose my job.”

They say you shouldn’t judge a man unless you’ve walked a mile in his shoes. I glance down at Wendell’s shoes, no-name hiking boots so worn down I wouldn’t want to walk a step in them. This man has a
giant
problem.

I hear Meg saying, “We need to see the frog if we’re even going to think about fighting the giants.”

Wendell raises his tear-stained face. “I have him right here.” He walks over to a tank that has a bunch of toads and frogs. He reaches in, takes out a wet, croaking frog not nearly as big as the one I saw on Key Largo. “Meet the
Alorius marinus
.”

The frog pees on his hand. He doesn’t wince.

It has a reddish orange spot and the family birthmark. It’s the prince. No doubt about it. But Wendell holds it away from me. If I could just grab it . . . I pull my backpack up and out from my shoulders, intent on getting the cloak. If I can get the cloak and the frog, and . . .

Meg. I need to get Meg too.

In that one second of hesitation, Wendell sees what I’m thinking. “Oh no, you don’t.” He pulls away the frog. “Trying to take it, were you?”

“He was just trying to get this.” Meg holds up the earbuds.

“Headphones?” Wendell clutches the frog so tightly I worry he’ll crush him. “Unlikely.”

“These are special ones that let me talk to him—if he’s the right frog. Try them.”

Wendell tries, using only one hand, to get the earbuds in his ears. I don’t offer to help. I have the cloak now, Meg poised beside me. If Wendell drops the frog, we grab it.

He doesn’t though. He gets the earbuds in, then looks at me. “Now what?”

“Say hello. See if he understands you.”

Wendell tilts his head toward the frog. “Hey, little guy. How goes it? Flies good?”

The frog lets out a massive croak that blows back Wendell’s hair and causes us all to jump. Wendell pulls out the earbuds.

“What’d he say?” I ask.

“He called me a not very nice name.”

“He doesn’t like being held captive. You should give him to me.”

“He doesn’t like the
food
here, and I’ll give him to you when you kill those giants.”

I hold out my hand. “Let me talk to him.”

I hope he’ll hand me the frog or, at least, put him down. He only gives me the earbuds. I slip them in, still looking for my opportunity, and lean real close to the frog.

“Victoriana sent me,” I whisper.

The frog doesn’t respond for a second. When he does, he says, “Victoriana? What do you know of Victoriana?”

“She’s staying at the hotel where I work in South Beach. She sent me to—”

“My sister is a heartless party girl who would no sooner concern herself about family zan wear cloze from ze thrift shop.”

“That’s not true.” I remember Victoriana’s anguish.

“No. Zat
ees
true. If you say Victoriana sent you, zen you are a trick. You are send by ze witch to kill me.”

“I’m here to save you. Tonight . . .” I stop myself before I say I’m going to come back tonight and steal him. “I’m going to kill some giants. After that, I’ll be back.”

The frog practically jumps from Wendell’s hand. “I spit in your face—
Pfft!
” He lets out a fountain of frog spittle. “I will escape. I will be a free frog!”

“How will you find a girl to kiss you if you run, er, hop away?”

The frog’s bulging eyes roll up. “Oh, I haf my ways. Even in zis warty skin, I haf my charms. I haf made ze plan. When a family comes wiz a teenage daughter, I will go wiz zem.”

“Whatever. I’ll come back for you later. Tomorrow, after I’ve killed the giants.”

“And I will be gone, Zalkenbourgian infidel!” The frog spits again, but this time, I’m able to get out of the way before he hits me.

“Oooookayyy,” I say.

“What’d he tell you?” Meg asks.

“He’s pretty angry,” I say.

Wendell drops the frog back into the tank, where he croaks in protest. Since I still have in the earbuds, I know he’s expressing his opinion of us and our mothers in a French accent and, eventually, in French. I remove the earbuds.

“Now what?” Wendell asks.

“I guess we’ll camp here. We need supplies.” I try and think what I’d need if I was actually going to kill a giant. “Those binoculars, for one thing, and um, some stuff for a trap.”

“How will you make a trap for giants?” Wendell wants to know. “Take a box and stick and hope the giants wander in? That would have to be some box.”

“It’s none of your business how I’m going to do it. You haven’t done it.”

“Don’t belittle him.” Meg rubs my shoulders. “He knows what he’s doing.”

“Just tell me where they are,” I say.

Wendell tells us the giants like to hang out in a stand of large trees where they’re mostly hidden. Then we leave.