Nessie Quest

by Melissa Savage

  When it finally does, me and Dax scramble in behind Hammy Bean in his leather desk chair.

  “Ready?” Hammy Bean asks.

  “Answer it!” I exclaim.

  Hammy Bean pushes the button and the one and only Tobin Sky appears before us.

  I’ve Googled him before, and he looks just the same. A skinny man with a mound of red curls, just like Mamo Honey. In every picture I’ve seen he’s wearing a red T-shirt and today is no different. Right this minute, he’s sitting at a desk in what looks like an office with posters of Bigfoot scattered all over the walls behind him. Plus, one coatrack with a single safari hat hanging on a hook that has BIGFOOT DETECTIVES INC. written in shaky black letters.

  “Good morning, Hammy Bean,” Tobin Sky calls from the screen.

  “G-good mornin’, sir,” Hammy Bean stutters. “It—it’s an honor to speak wi’ you. I’m a very big fan o’ yours.”

  “And I’m a fan of yours, as well,” Dr. Tobin Sky tells him. “I’ve seen the papers and the interview on the news. You have really discovered something important there in the Highlands. It’s a step forward for the entire study of cryptozoology. Well done to you and your team.”

  “Th-thank ye, sir,” Hammy Bean says. “It means so much to me to hear ye say those words because I want to be just like you when I’m grown.”

  “Well, you’re already causing quite a buzz here in America with your find,” Tobin Sky says.

  “I am?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Hammy Bean grabs my arm and squeezes it.

  “I didna do it alone, sir,” he says. “I couldna have done it without my team. These are my Nessie Juggernaut employees, Ada Ru Fitzhugh an’ Dax Cady. They’re my mates too.”

  I wave. “Hi, Dr. Sky,” I say. “Me and Dax are from America. We’re just here for the summer.”

  Tobin Sky nods.

  “I just did the intro for the podcast,” Dax says.

  “They’re modest,” Hammy Bean says. “If ye want to know the truth of it…they’re everythin’.”

  “I understand. I wouldn’t be where I am today without my partner, Lemonade Liberty Witt,” Tobin Sky says. “Partners are an important part of the field. I’m glad you’ve found them. I can’t wait to listen to your future podcasts. In my day we didn’t have technology like we do today. Lem and I just had a film camera when we first started.” He chuckles.

  “Dr. Sky,” Hammy Bean says, “I have some questions here that I would like to ask ye, if ye wouldna mind.”

  “Of course,” Tobin Sky says, taking a sip from a mug that has BIGFOOT DOESN’T BELIEVE IN YOU EITHER scrawled across the top.

  I can see why Hammy Bean is fanning out on this guy. Tobin Sky is right up his alley when it comes to creatures.

  Hammy Bean runs his pointer finger across large index cards lined with Braille letters.

  “Can ye give any advice to those o’ us who want to be serious cryptozoologists when we grow up?”

  “Absolutely,” Tobin Sky says. “First, never, ever give up. Never let naysayers negate your drive to find definitive evidence, because it’s out there. The only people who don’t believe it’s true just haven’t learned the truth yet.”

  “Yes, sir,” Hammy Bean says.

  “And one more thing.” Tobin Sky holds up a finger and leans closer to the screen.

  “What’s that, sir?” Hammy Bean asks.

  “It’s the most important piece of advice I have,” Tobin Sky says.

  I can feel Hammy Bean suck air and hold it in, waiting.

  “Always remember…picture first,” Tobin Sky says. “Always picture first.”

  Hammy Bean turns to me and scoffs. “Did ye hear that, Denver?”

  The morning I wake up to leave for home is the hardest day yet.

  Hammy Bean beeps in around five fifteen and doesn’t say one word. I beep back and we leave it like that.

  He’s letting both me and Dax keep our walkie-talkies even though they won’t work that far away. I think he’s hoping we’ll both be back next summer.

  I am too.

  Today, for my very last feelings journal entry, I just draw a big sad face.

  We already said our goodbyes yesterday.

  With the exception of Hammy Bean.

  Mom and Dad threw a great big Goodbye to Fort Augustus picnic on the lawn of St. Benedict’s Abbey for everyone: Uncle Clive and Aunt Isla and Briony and Euna Begbie and Mr. and Mrs. Cady and Dax, and Mr. Farquhar and Quigley Dunbar III and the Kumars from a Wee Spot of Tea and Biscuits and Tuna Tetrazzini. Even the Loch Watchers took a break from their Nessie-watching shifts. Dad grilled hot dogs and hamburgers and Mom filled everyone’s paper cup to the brim with iced tea. It was around nine-thirty in the evening when I noticed they were gone.

  Hammy Bean and Mamo Honey.

  He didn’t want to say goodbye.

  But it was okay by me, because neither did I.

  That early-morning beep says everything that needs to be said.

  * * *

  Euna Begbie is on the third-floor landing as I’m bringing out bags to help Dad load the car.

  “Ada Ru.” She smiles down at me. “I hope to see ye again.”

  I drop the duffel bag that’s hanging off my shoulder and wrap my arms around her skinny waist. I feel her arms wrap around mine.

  “Me too, Ms. Begbie,” I tell her. “I’m going to keep looking for my orange possibilities even back in Denver. But it won’t be the same. And every single time I see something orange, I’m going to think of you.”

  “Thank ye, lass. Here, I made this for ye.” She hands me an orange knitted cap.

  “I love it,” I tell her, slipping it onto my head. “This will come in handy for Denver winters.”

  “That’s what I thought as well,” she says. “Ye know, you’ve taught me some things too.”

  “I have? Like what?”

  “I’ve started writing a story myself,” she says.

  “You have?” I exclaim.

  “Aye,” she says. “I’m looking for my supporting characters now, an’ ye want to ken what?”

  “What?”

  “You’re one o’ them.” She taps me on my nose.

  “Me?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I can’t wait to read it, Ms. Begbie.”

  “I canna wait to read yours, Ada Ru.”

  “Can we keep in touch on email?” I ask her.

  “Absolutely,” she says. “Yer mom has all my contact information.”

  “Maybe we can have a distant writers’ group, just us?”

  “I would love that, lass.”

  * * *

  On the third trip down the heavenly staircase, I find Dax playing right above the second-floor landing, the exact same place I found him on the very first day we came to St. Benedict’s.

  I stop and sit down on the step below his, Dad’s camera around my neck for some last-minute souls to catch before we go.

  “I’m going to miss you playing on Ole Roy,” I tell him.

  He keeps strumming without looking up and says, “I finished your intro.”

  I sit up straight. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah,” he says, still strumming.

  I listen for a few more seconds, until I’m about to burst.

  “Well?” I say. “Are you going to sing it for me or do I have to figure it out through osmosis?”

  “You know I’m not very good at singing in front of people,” he says, without looking at me.

  “That’s fine,” I say. “Just pretend I’m not here.”

  “How can I do that when you’re staring at me?”

  “I’ll turn around, then, okay? Here, look.” I turn my body on the step.

  “Okay,” he says.

 
I wait while he strums, searching for his tidbits.

  Words with Ru is pure dope,

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  with your friend, Ada Ru.

  You’ll be happy to stay,

  and that’s no goose poo.

  I turn back around to face him.

  “Come on!” I grin.

  “I’m kidding, I’m kidding,” he says. “There’s one more verse.”

  He clears his throat.

  I wait.

  Then he looks at me.

  “Aren’t you going to turn around?” he asks.

  I roll my eyes.

  “Fine,” I say. I turn my back.

  He clears his throat again and his fingers start to strum.

  Ada Ru is a special soul,

  I hope to get to know her better.

  I will miss her wit, her sass and grit,

  maybe she’ll send me a letter?

  I turn back around to face him, grinning wider than I mean to. “You’re going to miss me?”

  He shrugs without meeting my eyes. “Maybe a little,” he says. “You think you’ll come back next summer?”

  “You want me to?”

  “Hammy Bean sure would like that.”

  “I would too,” I say.

  “Maybe…we could email…or text or whatever.”

  “Totally,” I say. “I would like that.”

  He pulls an iPhone out of his jean jacket pocket. “What’s your number?” he asks.

  I give him my phone number and he types it into his contact list.

  “Let me take your picture too,” he says. “You know, to attach to your contact.”

  “Sure,” I say. “Can I have yours too?”

  “Yeah,” he says, aiming his phone in my direction and snapping a shot.

  I do the same, and then we just sit there. Him strumming and me watching until Mom shows up.

  “Hi, kids,” Mom says, stepping past us with a suitcase in each hand and a duffel over her shoulder.

  “Hey, Mrs. F,” Dax says. “Can I help you with those?”

  “Oh, I’m fine to do it,” she tells him. “I’ll let you two say your goodbyes.”

  “Thanks,” he says, and then turns back to me. “Oh, by the way, Denver, I think this is yours.” He hands me a Kit Kat bar. “You left this in my pocket that day I let you use my jacket.”

  Mom stops in her tracks and sneaks a peek at me over her shoulder.

  “Mom,” I warn.

  She just grins real big at me, a grin that’s far too wide to be normal without saying one word, and then bounces down the steps.

  She’s so embarrassing.

  “So I guess I’d better go,” I say, standing up.

  “Cool,” Dax says, going back to his strumming. “I guess I’ll see you around.”

  “Yeah…I guess,” I say.

  I start down the steps, stop, and then turn back to face him again. “I’m going to miss some things about you, besides your playing on Ole Roy,” I say. “You know, not everything…but some things.”

  He slaps a palm against the strings. “Like what?”

  “Liiiiike…your music and your ‘groovy’s and your ‘right on’s and…your smile.”

  He one-lips me and keeps on strumming on Ole Roy.

  Just the way I found him on my way up the heavenly staircase on that very first day.

  I raise my camera and gaze at him through my lens.

  Click.

  I know I got the soul of that shot for sure.

  I stare out the backseat window as Dad drives to Glasgow in the backward car so we can catch our flight home. The clouds came down from the mountain to make our last day as gray and rainy as our first, which actually seems like the perfect ending to our Fort Augustus story. I watch the scene whizzing by us on the A82 and try to remember every single thing my eyes see.

  The gray, drizzly day.

  Velvet hills and mountains.

  Shaggy cattle in the countryside that need a trim from Supercuts.

  I think about all the people I’ve met and all the words we’ve shared and I swallow down a large lump.

  PAGE ONE

  It all started with a boy named Hammy Bean Tibby. A boy who could see what the rest of us couldn’t, until he taught me to close my eyes.

  Mom leans over the front seat and faces me, putting her chin on her hand. “You’re quiet,” she says.

  “Just thinking,” I tell her.

  “About?”

  “All the things I’m going to miss about Fort Augustus.”

  “Mmm. Like what?”

  I sigh and watch the raindrops race each other to the bottom of the window. “The green,” I tell her.

  “Anything else?”

  “Everything else,” I say.

  “Like Kit Kat bars?” Dad eyes me in the mirror.

  “Mom!” I exclaim. “I can’t believe you told him.”

  She laughs.

  “You’re so embarrassing,” I tell her.

  “Oh, honey.” She waves a hand at me. “Don’t you think I tried the same thing on your dad?”

  I put a hand on the back of his seat. “She did the pocket thing to you too?” I ask him.

  He nods. “Except it was her keys.”

  “Keys?” I say. “Didn’t you need those to get home?”

  Mom shrugs. “Desperate times call for desperate measures.”

  I laugh and sit back again as we drive in silence, except for a low tune playing on the radio.

  And then Mom says, “Well, I’m going to miss the scones at a Wee Spot of Tea and Biscuits.” She starts her list on her fingers. “Clive, Isla and Briony, Ms. Begbie, Honey, Corny…oh, just everything and everybody.”

  “We should still have our same English Breakfast tea in Denver in the mornings,” I say. “And scones too, maybe?”

  “Ooh, and we could pick up some scones and other treats from House of Commons on Fifteenth.”

  “What is that?”

  “A British tearoom.”

  “That sounds pure barry,” I say. “We could bring a little Scotland culture home with us to Denver. That’s a brilliant plan, Mum. Pure tidy. Oh, but make sure they don’t slip in any haggis or any bloody puddings with meat in them.”

  “Oh, my little Ruby Ring, you are a can of corn,” Dad says, meeting my eyes in the rearview mirror. “Any more final thoughts as we head home?”

  I think hard about his question and stare out at the green whizzing by me in a blur, begging to be its very own one-word dynamic character in a very important story. In Jelly Belly terms…actually to be honest, Jelly Belly doesn’t have enough green to even come close to capturing it.

  They’d have to add a million more shades for that to happen.

  Then I turn and meet Dad’s eyes in the mirror again. “Aye,” I say. “Number one, I’m definitely going to branch out on my Jelly Belly flavors. You know, throw some oranges and greens in there along with the Buttered Popcorn ones.”

  Even though I can’t see his lips, I can tell he’s smiling in the mirror at me because of the getting-old wrinkles around his eyes.

  “Number two,” I say. “I’m going to invite that new girl, Remy Prudant, to eat lunch with me and Britney B in the school cafeteria so she doesn’t have to eat lunch alone anymore.”

  “And is there a number three?” he asks.

  “Definit
ely,” I say. “As it turns out, Scotland was way better than Disney World.”

  I’m often asked, What inspires you to write the stories you do? Inspiration comes to me in many forms. But in Nessie Quest, one character was inspired by someone very special—my mom. Hammy Bean Tibby is a character who possesses many amazing qualities. He is full of life; he is a steadfast friend; he keeps going in the face of adversity; he is proud to share his Gaelic heritage; he is a Nessie Hunter extraordinaire—and he is blind.

  My mom was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa when my brother and I were young, and although I don’t personally know what it is like to live without sight, I know what it means to be inspired by someone close to me who does.

  Growing up, we did things differently from our friends’ families—but to us it was just our daily reality. My mom didn’t drive, but we got to ride downtown in fancy taxis. She didn’t read words on a page, but she got books on tape, a treasured service only available for the blind. She was invited as a speaker for our classes and taught the students how she reads Braille, walks with a cane, and uses her talking wristwatch, among all the other helpful tools and tips that enabled her to adapt. My mom went to a specialized school to learn these new skills and more, including how to reorganize the kitchen to allow her to continue cooking for us.

  I have been asked so many questions throughout my life about my mom, from how she matched her socks to how she completed a master’s degree in educational psychology. But mostly, I have been asked whether raising children while losing her sight was a struggle. And although the obvious answer is yes, through my young eyes I witnessed something very different. I witnessed her ability to cope, overcome, and thrive despite this adversity. To my brother and me, she was Mom 2.0, a supercharged version of our mom.

  Although she has shaped me in so many ways, there was one moment in particular that made me excited to incorporate her experiences into one of my stories. One day I overheard her telling someone about the unique way she navigated the world, which included hearing the walls. When I asked her more about that, she described how the air shifts with changes in the environment. She could sense these changes through echoes that bounce off buildings and objects, revealing what is around her. She was describing something called echolocation—or seeing through sound. I was so intrigued by this process, I wanted to research it more. As I did, I learned just how similar echolocation is to sonar, which bounces sound off objects to detect size and movement. And sonar is used in the search for the Loch Ness Monster, due to the low visibility in the loch.