“How wonderful,” the man says, handing over his credit card.
“Aye, it is.” Hammy Bean pushes the buttons on the cash register.
I pull on Dax’s arm and lead him around the side of the booth. “Wait. Missionaries?” I whisper. “He said they were royalty when I first met him and then he told us they worked for Doctors Without Borders.”
“So?”
“So?” I scoff. “Clearly he’s lying.”
“No duh,” Dax says. “Please tell me you didn’t really believe the whole deal about royalty, did you?”
I blink at him. “Why wouldn’t I?”
“Because Scotland hasn’t had royalty since 1745,” he tells me. “Google it.”
“Fine, but that’s not the point—the point is why is he lying?” I say.
“Who cares?” Dax pulls his sleeve out of my grasp and heads toward the front of the booth.
“Hey, HB, what’s up?”
Mac-Talla barks and puts her pink paws on the counter to get a pat on the head.
“Howzitgoan, mate,” Hammy Bean says to Dax.
“I’m here too, Hammy Bean,” I say.
“Denver! Cheers!”
Mac-Talla licks my fingertips, and I give her pink nose a kiss.
“Hammy Bean, how do you know it’s us without our telling you so?” I ask him, scratching Mac-Talla on her head.
“Yer voice,” he says. “Your eyes remember faces, and my ears remember voices. An’ my nose remembers too. Ada Ru, ye always smell like coconuts.”
“I do?” I say.
“Mmm-hmm,” Dax agrees, his eyes glued to the pages of one of Hammy Bean’s Nessie Quest brochures.
“Oh,” I say. “But I mean, like how can you remember everyone’s voice?”
“Well, not everyone’s.” He grins with the deep dimples. “Just important ones.”
Suddenly the whole lying-about-his-parents thing seems less of a big deal than it was before.
“Important?” I ask, pointing to myself, even though I know perfectly well he can’t see me. “You think I’m important?”
“Of course,” he says. “Both of ye are the verra first employees o’ the Jug and you’re…my mates.”
“Yeah, but I’m like your first mate, right?” I ask him. “Because I’m your first reporter/secret agent and all.”
“Well, to be an official first mate by definition ye’d actually have to go on the water,” he tells me.
Dax’s laugh comes out in a burst. “Yeah,” he says. “You’d have to find your tidbits for that first.”
My fists find my hips again. “I told you before. They aren’t lost.”
“Well, that’s brilliant news,” Hammy Bean announces. “Because the tour leaves in five minutes. Since you are both official employees o’ the Nessie Juggernaut, yer fees are waived.”
“The eagle will take flight when the sun rises west and the goose poops on the blue Subaru,” Dax says to me with a wide smile.
Hammy Bean giggles behind his hand.
I scowl at them both. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Memorize your codes,” Dax tells me.
“Since when is official Nessie Juggernaut business so important to you?” I ask him. “I thought all you do is music in the summer and now you’re all up in this monster business.”
“Yeah, well, that was before I was a part of the Nessie Race,” he informs me. “I think it’s pretty groovy to be a part of the Jug crew. Plus, I’m here every summer and you leave in September. Who knows if you’ll ever be back? Me and HB here might get our mugs in the history books.”
“Well, just so you know, I’m writing a story that I need supporting characters for and you aren’t even going to be one of them.”
“N.I.,” he says.
“What about me?” Hammy Bean asks. “Am I one?”
“Yeah, you’re in it,” I tell him. “You’re my Ron.”
“Your what?” he asks.
“My Ron,” I say again. “You know, like Harry Potter’s best pal?”
“Really? Who’s your Harry Potter?” he asks.
“Me,” I say. “I’m the protagonist of my own story.”
“Oh,” he says. “An’ I’m your Ron?”
“Yep.”
“Jings!” he exclaims. “I’ve never co-starred in anyone’s story before.”
“I’m going to put Quigley Dunbar the Third in it and Mr. Farquhar and Euna Begbie and the Loch Watchers and even Jasper Price. But only as the antagonist.”
“Okay, I want in now too,” Dax says.
I shrug with my chin in the air. “I’ll consider it…maybe you can be my Hermione.”
Hammy Bean laughs again. “Ooh, that’s a cheeky shot,” he says, while Dax gives him a playful slug.
“I’m no Hermione,” Dax tells me. “You’re going to need to come up with a whole new character for me…something unique and cool, like Guitarman or maybe Wolfgang. I like the idea of a one-word name for my character. It fits me, don’t you think?”
I roll my eyes real big on that. “We’ll see,” I tell him.
The radio beeps.
“Mamo Honey to Captain Green Bean. Come in, Captain Green Bean. Over.”
Hammy Bean feels for the radio and once his fingers touch the edge of it, he pulls it into his palm and presses the button. “Captain Green Bean here. Over.”
“Rendezvous at the Nessie Quest in three minutes,” she says. “Let’s crack on with it. Over.”
She starts the engine, and I hold my breath waiting for the loch wind to wash away the gas fumes circling me.
“Thaaat’s a roger,” Hammy Bean calls into the radio. “Strings has made it to the top o’ the Great Glen and is ready to swim. Over.”
“Brilliant. Bring him along,” Mamo Honey tells him. “Over and oot.”
Hammy Bean slams the hatch on the booth.
GONE TO FIND A MONSTER
I watch him scramble out the side door with Mac-Talla’s leash in his hand as she leads the way toward the edge of the dock, with Dax following.
“Wait,” I call after them. “Just so you know, I interviewed Jasper the Price Cut on Salami today and he was standing in his boat for part of the time. That’s how close I was to the water. I might as well have been swimming in it. Ask anyone.”
“Not the same,” Hammy Bean says.
“Why not?”
Dax turns to me and says, “Because…and this is key here…to report on the water, you have to actually be willing to go on the water.”
Hammy Bean turns to face me. “Meet me an’ Dax in the morn at the stroke of six o’clock. I think you’re both ready for the next level of top-secret information. Even if ye havena learned all the codes yet. But you’ll have to promise ye willna tell another livin’ soul.”
“I promise,” I say.
“Me too,” Dax says.
“Can ye guys cross-your-heart promise?” he asks.
“I cross-my-heart promise,” I tell him.
“Dax?” he says.
“Yeah, whatever.”
“It will be our most top-secret odyssey yet,” Hammy Bean informs us, climbing into the boat.
I stand watching as the Nessie Quest begins to pull away from the pier. Dax cups his hands around his mouth and hollers something to me.
“What?” I holler back.
“I said, the goat soaks up the cheese with a gullet of chocolate-dipped haggis,” he calls again, and then beams a wide grin.
I put my hands on my hips and give another good glare before turning on the heels of my Nikes and stomping down the pier, cursing his name all the way back to St. Benedict’s, until the radio on my belt loop beeps. I don’t know what I ever thought was so great about him, anyway. Seaweed-green eyes and a one-li
pped smile, I scoff to myself, who cares about that? I have plenty of new feeling words to put on the page I dedicated solely to him and his stupid seaweed eyes.
Feeling word: ANNOYED in all caps.
Along with the words Dax is a fathead! in bubble letters and an exclamation point.
Beep.
“Dax the Great to Denver. Come in, Denver. Over.”
I grab the radio from my belt loop. “Please tell me that is not your new handle. Over,” I say.
“What’s wrong with it? Over.”
“Ah…it’s stupid,” I inform him.
“Actually, it’s Strings,” he says. “That’s cool, right? Over?”
Back when I thought those seaweed eyes were the cutest thing walking, I would have thought that was a pretty cool choice, but now, I couldn’t care less.
The radio beeps again. “I have one more message for you,” Dax says. “Are you ready for it? Over?”
I sigh. “What? Over.”
“Okay, listen carefully, though. Over.”
“I am,” I insist. “There’s no degree of listening carefully or not listening carefully. You either are listening or you’re not listening and I already told you I am, so why don’t you just go and say it already? Over.”
Beep.
“The eagle has taken flight, but the goose still poops on the blue Subaru because she didn’t take the time to learn her codes. Over and out.”
I clip the walkie-talkie back on my belt loop and stomp down to the dock with my cheeks on fire.
Sci-Fi
PAGE ONE
Wolfgang Guitarman was the first to be abducted by the extraterrestrial entity residing at the bottom of Loch Ness.
Never to be seen or heard from again.
I smile at that one. Definitely a contender.
At St. Benedict’s, in the small room behind the door marked OFFICE, I print out the list of codes Hammy Bean emailed to me.
And you want to know what?
It turns out there isn’t one single, solitary thing about a pooping goose or a blue Subaru. Not to mention goat gullets or chocolate-dipped haggis.
Zilch.
Zippo.
Nada.
Feeling words: Mad rage (aimed completely at stupid boys who are in for it big-time).
The problem is, me not knowing the codes is one thing, but it doesn’t change one very important fact.
My tidbits are nowhere to be found.
Not the really important ones, anyway. The ones I need to be a serious and advanced reporter on land and water. Hammy Bean and Dax were right—what kind of writer writes about a lake monster and can’t even go on the water?
A lame one, that’s what kind.
I decide it’s all just way too big for me to handle alone and seek the help of an expert. I find her sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the coffee table in the living room working on her journal article.
“Mom,” I say, flopping my deflated body down on the red velvet couch.
“Mmmm?” she says.
Her fingers clicking the keys.
“I can’t find my tidbits,” I tell her.
Still clicking.
“Did you try under the bed?” she asks.
My head pops up from the rolled velvet armrest. “Under the bed?” I say. “What would tidbits be doing there?”
Still typing.
“How about your jacket pockets, then?” she suggests.
“Mom, you can’t find tidbits under the bed or in a jacket pocket,” I explain. “You either have them or you don’t. And I don’t. Get it? You’ve raised a tidbitless child. This is more than my twelve-year-old brain can compute. I need some real help here.”
The clicking stops and her eyeballs finally focus on me over her glasses, her eyebrows crunching up.
“What did you say you lost?” she asks.
“My tidbits,” I tell her.
“Is this another YouTube thing that I don’t get?”
“No,” I say.
“Syfy channel?”
“No, it’s Hamish,” I tell her.
She gives me a Cheez Whiz. “It’s what?”
“It’s a bravery thing.”
“A bravery thing,” she repeats, slipping her glasses off her nose.
“Yep,” I say. “It’s recently been brought to my attention that I have zero tidbits and I’m being ousted from the Jug because of it.”
She takes in a long breath and then breathes it out again, pushing her laptop to the side.
“Huh,” she says. “That is a tough one.”
I give her a look. “That I already figured out all on my own,” I say flatly.
“What I mean is, are you sure you’re missing them?” she asks.
“Positive,” I tell her.
“How do you know?”
“Well.” I start a list on my fingers. “For one, what kind of writer won’t go on the water when what they’re writing about lives in the water? And this is your fault, by the way. You’ve been so focused on the feelings part of parenting that you shirked your parental responsibility on the tidbit part.”
“Mmmm.”
“And before you ask me how I feel about it, I will tell you…I feel tidbitless.”
She nods. “I can see that,” she says.
I throw my hands out. “So?” I say. “This is where you come in. I need some adult guidance here. That’s you. So?”
“So what?” she asks.
“So lay it on me.”
“Well.” She puts her cheek in the palm of her hand and leans an elbow on the table. “I think it’s best that you come up with your own answer on this one.”
“It’s highly unlike you to slack off on your motherly duties when I’m actually giving you the chance to tell me what to do,” I say.
“How about this,” she says. “I’ll tell you a story about me when I was around your age.”
“This isn’t the story about you thinking you saw Rick Springfield at the Red Owl, buying Totino’s Pizza Rolls, is it?”
She points a stern finger at me. “It was him,” she insists.
I roll my eyes the same way me and Dad do every time she tells that story.
“But this is a different one,” she tells me. “I refer to it as the Ferris Wheel Incident of 1984.”
I put my cheek against the smooth red velvet of the armrest. “Fine,” I say. “What do I have to lose?”
“When I was a little older than you, all my friends and I would go to the state fair every August. It’s the biggest event of the year in Minnesota. I loved going. There were so many things to see and do and eat. Anyway, there was one ride at the fair that I was too frightened to go on, but it was the best ride in the fair—this humongous Ferris wheel, and I was terrified of heights.”
“You were scared of a Ferris wheel?” I say. “Don’t they go like two miles an hour?”
“That’s exactly what my friends all said,” she goes on. “Every year they made fun of me and every year I would search down deep for my tidbits to give that attendant my ticket and go on the ride.”
“Did you ever find them?”
“It took a long time, and then one year, the year I was going into eighth grade, all my friends were lined up for the Ferris wheel, taunting me about not wanting to go with them. That’s when I saw Jeff Thomas.” She raises her eyebrows at me. “He was the boy.”
“Did he have seaweed-green eyes and wear a jean jacket?”
She laughs. “No, blue eyes and a tan Members Only jacket.”
“A member what?”
She shrugs and waves her hand in the air. “Doesn’t matter,” she says. “Anyway, I was not about to let Jeff Thomas see that I was too much of a baby to get on that Ferris wheel, so I reached down and foun
d as many tidbits as I could muster and I did it. But I was terrified, thinking of going all the way to the top. So much so, I started to feel sick to my stomach.”
“I know what that’s like,” I tell her. “So what happened? You did it and everything was fine?”
“Not exactly,” she says. “Each car had four people inside. Ours had me, my best friend, Tammy, Jeff Thomas and his friend Tim Johns.”
“Did he ask you on a date?”
“Nope,” she says. “When we got all the way to the top, I made the mistake of looking down, and when I did my stomach started to churn. And unfortunately, before the Ferris Wheel Incident, I had eaten three foot-long corn dogs on a stick, two orders of mini-doughnuts, and a bucket of Sweet Martha’s Chocolate Chip Cookies.”
“You didn’t!”
“I did,” she says. “I threw up my state fair snacks all over the floor of the Ferris wheel car, and on top of Jeff Thomas’s brand-new high-tops.”
I throw my hand over my mouth. “That’s horrible!”
“I was mortified, to say the least,” she says, holding her hands over her face.
“So what happened?”
She takes a breath and smiles. “We dated all through high school.”
“You did?”
“Yep,” she says.
“Even after you blew chunks on his shoes?”
“Yes.”
“So basically, you never found your tidbits?” I say. “Is that the point of this story?”
“I did find them,” she says. “I rode that Ferris wheel.”
“Yeah, but you blew chunks on Jeff What’s-His-Name,” I say. “I’m embarrassed for you just sitting here.”
“The point is that even though I thought that was the worst thing that had ever happened in my life, it really wasn’t, because he felt so bad for me he let me wear his Members Only jacket home that night. And you want to know what I did?”
“What?”
“I left my bracelet in his pocket on purpose so he’d have to call me after I gave the jacket back.”
Nessie Quest Page 12
