Once Upon a Toad (20 page)

Olivia and I spent an uncomfortable night on the floor under the Kumars' pool table. Rani and Rajit draped it with a bedspread so that their parents wouldn't spot us in case they came downstairs. I hardly slept a wink, expecting to be discovered any minute. There were so many things that could go wrong with this harebrained scheme, and so many reasons that the FBI might find us before we were able to catch the bus to Grants Pass.

Plus, now I had something new to worry about. What if Connor couldn't figure out a way to get the note to my father? In it I'd told him that Olivia and I were okay, and that somehow he had to make sure the kidnappers showed up at the rendezvous on Friday because we had a plan. Which wasn't exactly true. The plan part, I mean. I was still improvising.

I didn't mention anything about Great-Aunt Abyssinia or Redwood National Park. That would need a whole lot more than just a scribbled note to explain, anyway.

I must have fallen asleep, though, because the next thing I knew, Rani was shaking me awake.

“What?” I said groggily. A toad popped out and squatted on my chest. I sat bolt upright, banging my head on the pool table above me. “Ouch,” I exclaimed, popping out another one. I rubbed the sore spot with one hand and brushed both toads away with the other. They hopped off under the sofa.

“Don't worry, I'll get them later,” Rani whispered. “We have to hurry; it's almost six. Connor will be here any minute.”

As Olivia and I crawled out from underneath the pool table, she passed us each some clothes. “Rajit and I talked it over, and we think you both should wear disguises.” She gave Olivia a Seattle Mariners jacket. “Rajit's a big fan, and you two are about the same height,” she told her, then plopped a matching Mariners baseball cap on her head. “Stick your hair up under this, okay? It's a dead giveaway otherwise. And you,” she added, turning to me, “are going to be Olivia's little brother.” She passed me a faded Red Hawk Elementary School hoodie and a pair of round glasses. “They're fake—no prescription. I wore them last year for Halloween. I went as a famous wizard.”

I stood in the bathroom a few minutes later, looking at myself glumly in the mirror. It was depressing to think that I could pass for a boy. Olivia would never be able to pull off my disguise—she was already starting to develop a figure. Not me, though. I could pass for an ironing board. A vertically challenged ironing board, at that. I looked like a taller version of Geoffrey, only with glasses.

Might as well go whole hog,
I thought. Rummaging through
the drawers, I managed to find a pair of nail scissors and started snipping off my hair.

“Whoa,” said Juliet when I emerged a few minutes later.

Rani circled me, eyeing my close-cropped head with a critical eye. “It's a good look for you, actually. A little raggedy, but I like it. Short and sweet.”

“You'll definitely pass for a boy now,” added Juliet. Across the room, Olivia smirked. I resisted the urge to launch a toad at her.

Rajit had come downstairs now too. He spotted me and grinned. “Hey, bro,” he said, punching me on the arm.

I scowled at him, and he laughed.

Even with her curly blond hair twisted up under the baseball cap, Olivia still looked like a girl. A cute one. She knew it too, and she gave Rajit her most dazzling smile.

A tap at the side door signaled Connor's arrival. He did a double take when he saw me, but at least he didn't say anything.

Rajit had printed out our bus tickets. He gave them to us, and then he and Rani and Connor shoved a bunch of money at us.

“It's all we have,” Rani told us. “Sorry it isn't more.”

“I don't know how we can ever thank you,” Oliva told them.

“Are you kidding?” Rajit replied. “With the diamonds you gave us last night, we'll be able to pay for college.” He grinned. “I'm just not sure how we'll explain it to our parents, though.”

“You can tell them the truth once this is over,” Olivia told him.

Connor passed me his cell phone. “All charged up,” he said.

I nodded silently. I wasn't in the mood for more toads this morning.

I shouldered my backpack, and we gathered up our instrument cases and slipped outside. It was still dark out as we walked to the city bus stop at the top of the hill. The bus arrived a few minutes later, and we climbed aboard. My heart was racing like a metronome set to
prestissimo
, but I needn't have worried. The other passengers were just a bunch of yawning commuters heading to their jobs downtown. Nobody paid us the slightest bit of attention on the short ride, even though two of our pictures were plastered on the front page of the newspapers they were reading.

Rani was right; word of our disappearance had leaked to the press. Connor was right too, though. People were looking for a pair of kids, not five.

The bus station, though, wasn't quite so easy.

“Policeman approaching from the left,” said Rajit. “Let's go over here for a minute.”

We followed him to a doughnut kiosk and waited as he ordered half a dozen to go. The policeman glanced at us briefly as he walked by, but Rani and Connor started talking loudly about the all-state woodwind competition we were supposedly heading to, and tossing around terms like “aperture” and “tempo” and “glissando.” Olivia and I stayed completely silent. This was not the time for a spontaneous eruption of any kind. The policeman's gaze dropped to our instrument cases, then slid right over Olivia and me as he walked on.

“That was close,” said Connor after he left. “Stick together, now.”

Moving as a unit, we made our way across the station to where the bus for Grants Pass was waiting. Connor and Rani and Rajit crowded forward with Olivia and me toward the line of passengers.

“See that family there?” Rajit whispered, and I nodded. “Go stand close to them. The driver will think you're their kids too.”

I grabbed Olivia's arm and steered her toward a harried-looking couple with a baby and a pair of toddlers. Rajit's plan went off without a hitch; the driver barely looked up as we handed over our tickets and boarded the bus.

My stomach gave a little lurch as we pulled out of the station a few minutes later and our friends waved good-bye to us from the curb. We were on our own now. As I waved back, I wondered if we were doing the right thing. What if we couldn't find Great-Aunt Abyssinia? And even if we did, would she be able to fix the muddle she'd caused? We had less than twenty-seven hours left until the rendezvous at the zoo. If there even was one.

Only one thing was certain. It was too late to turn back now. Olivia and I were officially on the lam.

CHAPTER 19

Have you ever tried to pay for a cheeseburger with a diamond?

“You have got to be kidding me,” said the lady behind the counter at the Pie-in-the-Sky Diner. She squinted at the sparkling stone that Olivia had just handed to her. “Honey, we take Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and cash. No rhinestones.”

I took my notepad and pen out of my backpack.
It's not a rhinestone,
I wrote.
It's real
. I tore off the piece of paper and gave it to her.

She looked at it and plunked the gem down on the countertop. “Right. And I'm the queen of England.”

I sized her up. The name tag on her blindingly pink uniform read
PEARL
, but it might as well have read
ONE TOUGH COOKIE
. Her fingernails, which were tapping the formica countertop impatiently, were the same bright shade as her lipstick and dress, and that sky-high updo of hers looked like she'd set her hair dryer control to “stun.”

I elbowed Olivia and emptied my pockets. I had fifty-seven cents left. Olivia had two crumpled dollar bills and a quarter. We'd spent the rest of the money our friends had given us on granola bars, yogurt, and juice at one of the earlier stops. I shoved the pile of coins and bills across the counter and pointed to the picture of the cheeseburger on the laminated menu. We had almost enough money for one, and we could split it.

Pearl sucked her teeth as she counted up our money. “Sorry, kids. You're still a little short.”

Please,
I wrote on the pad. My stomach had the good sense to rumble just then. It was two thirty in the afternoon. Breakfast had been a long time ago.

She looked at me sharply and frowned. “What's with the notebook, young man? Are you mute or something?”

I nodded. She jerked her thumb at Olivia. “How about her?”

Also mute,
I wrote.

“Let me get this straight. You're telling me you're both mute?”

I passed her another piece of paper.
It's genetic. It runs in the family
.

Her expression softened. “Oh, you poor little things.”

You have no idea,
I wanted to say, but I kept my mouth closed and did my best to look like a poor little thing. Which, when you haven't had a hot meal in over twenty-four hours, isn't all that difficult.

“Cheeseburger, is it?”

Olivia and I nodded hungrily. Pearl sighed. “Well, I guess we'll call it close enough,” she told us, scooping up our money.
She leaned over the counter and lowered her voice. “Go find a booth. And don't breathe a word to Frank. He's the owner.” She looked over her shoulder at the man at the grill behind her, then straightened up again and gave a short bark of laughter. “Not that you could anyway,” she added. “Breathe a word, I mean. You two being mute and all.”

When she showed up with our order a few minutes later, she brought us not one but two cheeseburgers, plus two huge helpings of fries, two chocolate milk shakes, and two pieces of cherry pie. “Getting close to closing time,” she said, scowling. “No point leaving all this food sitting around going to waste.”

Olivia kicked me under the table, and I grabbed my notepad.
Thank you!
I wrote.

The waitress sniffed and trundled off. The diner was empty except for a lone customer on the far side of the room. Pearl refilled his coffee, patted her beehive hairdo as she chatted with him a bit, then came back to our table and looked us over. “So where are your parents?”

Olivia stopped midbite and glanced anxiously at me. It hadn't occurred to us that someone might ask this question, and I didn't have an answer ready. Grabbing my pen, I wrote the first thing that popped into my mind:
Bolivia.

Pearl's painted-on eyebrows shot up beneath her stiff blond bangs.

Olivia glared at me and reached for the notebook.
They put us on the bus this morning before they left,
she wrote.
We're staying with our grandparents in Ashland while they're out of the country
.

My grandparents, not yours,
I thought, but I had to give my stepsister credit for quick thinking. It was a pretty decent answer.

Pearl thought so too, apparently. “Well, that's good,” she said, sounding relieved. “You had me worried there for a minute. We get runaways coming through here every now and again.”

She went back over to the counter and busied herself refilling ketchup bottles.

Olivia leaned over the table. “Bolivia? What the heck did you say that for?” she whispered furiously, brushing a fistful of dandelions and another diamond off her cheeseburger.

“It just came out!” I replied indignantly.

“Yeah, like that stupid toad,” whispered Olivia again, flicking a french fry at the amphibian on my plate. She flicked one at me, too, for good measure.

I grabbed the toad and stuffed it into my backpack. I'd release it outside later, before we got on the bus to Crescent City.

“You kids need anything else?” Pearl called from the counter.

We shook our heads.

“Croak,” went my backpack.

Pearl looked up and frowned. Olivia kicked me under the table again. I glared at her and shoved my backpack onto the floor.

Do you think she saw anything?
Olivia wrote on my notepad.