by Lija Fisher
“I figgered ya was a nice laddie,” she said, standing on tiptoe to affectionately sweep the hair out of his eyes. “Now, put on some clean knickers and come on down, then. I’ve made some fresh blood puddin’ for yer fry-up.”
Clivo’s stomach growled, though from nerves or hunger he couldn’t quite tell.
* * *
Clivo walked hesitantly into the dining room, his eyes quickly scanning the other three guests. The couple from Amsterdam seemed eager to talk to anybody except each other, and the guy from Luxembourg looked like something out of an old spy movie. He must have been in his midtwenties, with dark hair slicked back to within an inch of its life and a pencil-thin mustache (that could have been drawn on), and wore a black-and-white-striped shirt and a red ascot tied neatly around his neck. And he was very petite—even Mrs. McRory could easily have taken him in a fight.
“Ah, here ya are!” the innkeeper said, putting down a steaming plate of fried eggs, grilled tomatoes, bacon, toast, and two things that looked like burned pancakes, which must have been slices of blood pudding. “Folks, this is Clivo Wren. Clivo, this is Mr. and Mrs. De Vries.”
“Charmed to meet you!” Mrs. De Vries said, giving Clivo a smile that caused her plump cheeks to swallow her eyes. She had a thick accent and an even thicker body, and her face flushed red in odd, splotchy places.
Mr. De Vries simply sat with his hands resting on his round belly and didn’t say a word. By the sour look on his chubby face, Clivo got the feeling coming to Loch Ness had hardly been his idea.
“And this is Blirgenbach Schnauss,” Mrs. McRory continued, making a sound like she was clearing her throat while pronouncing his name. “He’s here to find Nessay, too, so maybe you boys can look togethah.”
“I look forward to that,” Blirgenbach said seriously, his big black eyes never leaving Clivo’s face. Clivo swallowed and took a seat at the table.
Mrs. McRory bustled in and out of the kitchen, leaving the guests to fend for themselves with the conversation. The food was delicious, and Clivo even took a nibble of the blood pudding. Weird, but not as bad as he’d expected.
“So you two really think you can find her?” Mrs. De Vries asked, piling her plate with fresh toast.
Clivo and Blirgenbach looked at each other, each waiting for the other to speak. Clivo cleared his throat. “I mean, that’d be really exciting. But at the end of the day she’s just a legend, right?”
Blirgenbach kept his inappropriately wide-eyed stare trained on Clivo. “Of course. Just a legend. Like the chupacabra, Honey Island Swamp Monster, and blue tiger.”
Clivo snapped his head up so fast he almost gave himself whiplash. Those were the last three cryptids his father had caught. A slow smile spread across Blirgenbach’s face.
“Game on,” Blirgenbach said, chomping a mouthful of blood pudding.
Clivo instantly lost his appetite. This guy was definitely a competing cryptid catcher. But was he dangerous? Blirgenbach’s small size didn’t make him look it, but Clivo had learned through jujitsu that you didn’t need to be big to pack a solid punch.
“Well, I happen to believe in legends,” Mrs. De Vries began, shaking Clivo out of his thoughts.
“Here we go,” Mr. De Vries muttered.
“A few years ago, a flock of fairies flew into my bedroom and blessed me with the gift of psychic vision.” Mrs. De Vries was smiling so hard it looked like her splotchy cheeks were going to burst.
“And what have you seen?” Clivo asked, trying to avoid Blirgenbach’s stabbing stare. If Clivo hadn’t known any better, he’d have sworn the guy was trying to hypnotize him with his eyeballs.
“A whole lotta nothin’,” Mr. De Vries murmured.
“I can read people’s auras. I can sense the magical energy of a place. I can tell when evil is lurking,” Mrs. De Vries countered.
“Is evil lurking here?” Clivo asked quickly.
Mrs. De Vries put down her fork. “I don’t know, I haven’t opened myself up to communicating with the imps here yet. Let me try.”
Mr. De Vries made a snoring sound and pretended to fall asleep with his chin on his chest. Mrs. De Vries ignored him, closed her eyes, and opened her palms to the ceiling. She slowed her breathing and began humming quietly. After a moment she opened her eyes and gazed calmly about the room.
A smile pulled at her lips but suddenly stopped before it lifted her bubbly cheeks. Her eyes flicked to Blirgenbach and her face dropped. Her mouth opened slightly and she looked at Clivo with concern, her flushed red face going ghostly white.
“Oh,” she said quietly.
“What is it?” Clivo asked, dropping his fork onto his plate.
Mrs. De Vries pulled on her husband’s sleeve. “Come on, honey. We forgot we have someplace to be in a few minutes.”
“We don’t have anyplace to be! Let me enjoy my breakfast, you pestering ninny.”
Mrs. De Vries whispered something in her husband’s ear. “Is that right?” he muttered, glancing at Blirgenbach. Without another word, the two of them grabbed their plates (and a few extra slices of buttered toast) and quickly retreated to their room.
“Let the games begin,” Blirgenbach said, wiping his mouth with a napkin.
Clivo got up from the table with such haste that he knocked over his chair and juice glass. As he sprinted up the stairs to his room, Blirgenbach was right behind him.
* * *
Clivo ran into his room and slammed the door in Blirgenbach’s face. Now he regretted his decision not to just sneak out the back and run away. The Luxembourger was bent on finding Nessie, and something about his small body oozed big danger. Clivo shuddered with the realization that he was now officially in peril.
He threw on a sweatshirt and grabbed all of his equipment, stuffing it into his backpack. He looked out the peephole of his door and saw Blirgenbach hiding awkwardly behind a banister, waiting for him to exit. Clivo went to his window and checked out the drop, groaning when he saw there was nothing but air between him and the flower patch two stories below. He quickly tore off the bedsheets, tied them together, and anchored them to the bedpost. He’d seen this done in the movies, so hopefully it worked in real life, too. But come to think of it, it never worked that well in the movies, either.
He grabbed the sheets and lowered his body out the window to test the makeshift rope. Miraculously, the sheets held. He glanced at the Luxembourger’s window to see if he was watching him with his creepy stare, but the curtains were drawn tight. Clivo was shimmying his way down the side of the inn, feeling pretty proud of himself, when he heard a ripping sound.
“Oh, shoot!”
The sheets tore loose and Clivo fell backward to what he figured was certain death. But just as he began to fall, his back hit the ground, the blow worsened by the metal case in his backpack.
“Oh.” Clivo looked around, realizing he must have been just a few inches from the ground when the sheet gave way.
He scrambled up and ran toward the village. He’d have to come up with some good excuse to give sweet Mrs. McRory for why her nice sheets were ripped and hanging out the window. But for now he had to focus on racing a threatening Luxembourger to the Loch Ness Monster.
* * *
After a good five minutes of running toward town with constant panicked backward glances to make sure he wasn’t being followed, Clivo slowed his pace and began looking for the seafood restaurant he had noticed on the list of pubs Mrs. McRory had given him. He needed to buy the treats to summon Nessie with before heading to the loch. Fortunately, the village was small, so it took him just a few streets to find a wooden building with a sign painted on the window: SULLY’S SEAFOOD PALACE.
Clivo pulled on the front door, but it was locked. He stomped his foot in frustration. It was just a matter of time before the Luxembourger realized he was gone and came after him. He needed to move quickly.
Clivo heard some banging from the cobblestone alley next to the building and discovered a bald man with the longest earlo
bes he’d ever seen unloading crates from a truck. By the smell of them, the crates were definitely filled with some kind of seafood.
“Excuse me, sir, do you have any clams or snails in there?” Clivo asked quickly, looking down the street to make sure Blirgenbach wasn’t creeping up on him.
The man quit his unloading and eyed the boy. “Maybe, maybe not. What’s it to ya?”
Clivo pulled out a wad of bills. “Can I buy all of your clams and snails, please? It’s really important.”
The man sniffed. “I only deliver what’s been ordered. If ya haven’t ordered, ya don’t get a delivery.”
“But I really need them, and I can give you a lot of money!” Clivo said, waving the bills again.
The man grabbed a crate from the van. “And ruin this restaurant’s day by not delivering their order? Not a chance. Now bugger off!”
The man entered a side door to drop off the crate, leaving Clivo with only one option: thievery.
“Pearl would be so upset with me for doing this,” Clivo mumbled to himself.
He slammed the door shut behind the man and wedged a metal trash can under the knob, locking him inside.
“Hey! I said no delivery unless you order!” the man roared, banging on the door.
“And I politely asked you to reconsider!” Clivo said, climbing into the back of the van.
He frantically looked through the boxes and crates. Most were filled with ice-covered dead fish of all shapes and sizes, and one held a bunch of live lobsters that reached for him with their pincers. He finally opened a box and saw a gorgeous sight—a pile of smooth white clams, one of the foods that plesiosaurs had eaten millions of years before, when they’d lived in the oceans.
“I hope you like these, Nessie,” Clivo said, hoisting the box and gathering himself to climb out of the van.
Just as he turned, a sight greeted him that made his belly sink. Standing at the front of the alley was the deliveryman, who was staring at him with anger and menace. Clivo had completely forgotten about the exit through the front door of the restaurant.
“Come here, ye dafty bampot!”
Clivo dropped the box of clams and grabbed a crate of small fish, tipping it over so the slippery bodies covered the narrow alley in front of him. He grabbed the clams and ran the opposite way as fast as he could just as he heard the swish, thump, and swearing of the man falling on his backside.
As Clivo ran away, he dropped a wad of cash by the van. “I’m sorry about the fish!”
He peeled out of the alley and stopped dead in his tracks as Blirgenbach came running around the other corner, his ridiculous mustache twitching with excitement.
“Gotcha!” Blirgenbach yelled.
Clivo reversed direction and ran into the street, jumping on the hood of the first car that drove by. The elderly male driver, who was wearing a beret with a bushy pom-pom on top, looked at Clivo in surprise, his long, wiry eyebrows just about jumping off his face. He slammed on the brakes and Clivo went flying onto the street, the box of clams clutched to his chest. He stumbled to his feet and jumped in the passenger seat, much to the surprise of the man sitting next to him.
Clivo slammed the door locks down. “I’m sorry, this is an emergency, can you please take me to Loch Ness?”
“But I’m not going toward Loch Ness,” the man said as slowly as sap running down a tree.
“Please, I’ll pay you a hundred pounds.” Clivo was breathing so heavily he thought his lungs were going to explode.
The old man scratched his head. “With the price of petrol, that may hardly be worth goin’ out of me way fer.”
Blirgenbach ran up and began slamming his palms on the windshield. The old man didn’t seem to notice and just kept rambling on.
“Although a hundred pounds could fetch me a nice meal at the pub.”
“I tried to be reasonable, Clivo!” Blirgenbach yelled, coming around to the passenger’s side window.
Clivo ducked his head, reached down, and pushed his hand against the old man’s shoe, revving the gas and causing the car to squeal forward.
“Mercy!”
The old man gripped the steering wheel and struggled to keep the car on the road as it roared out of the village.
“Two hundred pounds! But you have to go fast!” Clivo bellowed from the floor of the car, where he was still pressing on the accelerator.
“I’ll take it, I’ll take it!”
Clivo sat up in his seat and the car slowed down. The old man turned to him and instead of a look of terror, he had an expression of pure glee on his face.
“Did ya say fast?” He slammed his foot against the accelerator and the car lurched forward, throwing Clivo back into his seat. “Didn’t know ya got into the car of a former rally car driver, now did ya? Fasten yer seat belt, laddie, we’re going for a ride!”
The car sped forward even faster and the man swerved around cars in front of them, narrowly avoiding oncoming traffic on the two-lane road. Clivo scrambled to get his seat belt on and was both relieved and terrified that he had chosen such a fast getaway car. He looked behind him, figuring it would have been impossible for Blirgenbach to follow him, unless the Luxembourger had lucked out and happened upon a retired race car driver, too.
“First time in Scotland?” the man shouted over the roar of the engine.
“Huh? Oh, yes. First time out of America—since I was a baby, anyway,” Clivo replied, clutching the clams to his chest in sheer terror as they narrowly avoided an oncoming tour bus.
“Just a lovely time of year to be here. Name’s Ainsley.”
“Clivo.”
“Weird name. Anyway, if you look over there, Clivo, ya can see a little wooden shed. Me mother was born there at night right in the middle of a wicked hailstorm. Her papa wanted to name her Stormy, but Nana would na hear of it!”
Ainsley laughed and looked at Clivo just as a hay truck was coming at them.
“Hay!” Clivo managed to shout.
Ainsley veered back into their lane and kept his tour-guide spiel going.
“Now, I’m gonna let ya in on a wee secret. Over there are some standin’ magic stones discovered when I was a young man. People come from all over tha world to see what the fairy people created. But—and this stays between us—it was actually me and my pal Johnny who did that one drunken night with the help of a donkey and a bottle of whiskey!”
Ainsley laughed so hard his foot pressed even more heavily on the gas pedal.
* * *
After the longest and scariest five minutes of Clivo’s life, Ainsley squealed the car to a halt in front of the large ruins of a castle. URQUHART CASTLE, a sign read.
“Thank you so much. If you got me here any faster, we would have been in warp speed.” Clivo handed Ainsley two hundred pounds, trying to hide the shaking of his hand.
“Ah, keep it, lad. I haven’t had that much fun in years. The missus won’t let me drive above the speed limit, so this adventure put a bit of sass back in the old stallion.”
Ainsley peeled the car away with a wave out the window, shooting pebbles and dust in Clivo’s face.
Clivo spit a piece of gravel from his mouth and quickly took cover behind a bush to make sure he hadn’t been followed. A few cars passed by, but he didn’t see Blirgenbach’s hypnotizing eyes peering from any of the windows.
He scurried past the crumbling stones of the castle and found a secluded spot on the rocky shore. Putting down the box of clams that was now dripping with slimy, pungent juice, he tossed a few as far as he could into the water. The loch was so massive it would have taken a ton of clams to spread them throughout the entire thing, but this was all he had—one box, and not a whole lot of time.
Clivo emptied almost all the clams into the loch and waited in the most comfortable spot he could find, his eyes scanning the water, searching for any movement that was out of the ordinary.
And he waited.
And waited.
And then he fell asleep.
Foile
d again by jet lag.
* * *
He had no idea how long he’d been zonked out or what had awakened him.
His heart was pounding at a frantic pace, and he stood up and walked to the edge of the water, hoping with every fiber of his being. He tried to ignore the feeling that he could spend the next twenty-five years waiting for the mysterious creature to appear. But his dad had found cryptids, so it must be possible. It was the possibility, no matter how remote, that gave Clivo hope.
What happened next hit him like a tree branch. Actually, it was a tree branch, whacking against the side of his head with a sickening cracking sound. He saw stars and really hoped the sound of breaking had been from the branch, not his skull.
He whirled around just as the branch was pulled underneath his chin and pressed painfully against his throat.
“Where is she?” Blirgenbach hissed in his ear. For such a small guy, his strength was astounding.
“As if I have any idea,” Clivo gagged, grabbing the stick with both hands. He could barely breathe.
“What’s in the box?”
Blirgenbach jerked the branch tighter and Clivo gasped.
“None of your business.”
Clivo was scared, but he forced himself to remember that he had been in this position hundreds of times in jujitsu class. It was an easy move to get out of; he just had to calm his nerves so his muscles could relax and respond to what he told them to do. He took what breath he could and closed his eyes, thankfully feeling his seized muscles releasing just a little, but it was enough.
“I’d appreciate it,” Clivo began, his voice coming out in a wheeze, “if you’d give me some space.”
Clivo flipped his body forward, throwing Blirgenbach over his shoulder in a somersault.
Blirgenbach quickly sprang up into a crouch, ready for battle. Clivo did the same, though his pose was rather different. The Luxembourger seemed a bit surprised.
“Hmmm, tae kwon do?” Clivo asked, forcing his trembling voice to sound calm.
Blirgenbach nodded. “And you? Kung fu?”
“Jujitsu.”
Blirgenbach snorted. “Your father trained you terribly.” He kept his distance and warmed up with a series of movements, exhaling in sharp bursts as he kicked and punched his way through a routine that was obviously meant to intimidate. Clivo tensed in preparation for the fight.
