The Cryptid Catcher

by Lija Fisher

  Stephanie began typing on her computer. “Okay, we know it’s not in southeast Alaska anymore—”

  Clivo raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Where did it go?”

  Stephanie squinted at her computer screen. “Let’s see. At one point the Otterman accidentally wound up in an airplane—don’t worry, I’ll explain that more later; we know approximately where that plane crashed but not the exact spot, so we could triangulate the last known flight path, but that would take too much time. Drat! I wish I still had access to my satellite, but that company is on to me and kicks me off the second I start poking around.”

  They sat in silence for a moment until a thought struck Clivo. “What if I could get you access to a satellite?”

  Stephanie looked up. “You have satellite access?”

  “I might. I’ll call you back in an hour and let you know.”

  Stephanie scrambled for her phone. “Amazing. I’ll rally the troops to come back over. Tomorrow’s Saturday, so we can work here all night. We may just be able to pull this off, Clivo.”

  “Thanks, Stephanie. It’s really great having your help on this.”

  “You’re on our team now, remember? Helping is what we do.” She looked down for a moment, a question forming on her face. “What are you going to do with the immortal when you find it? We haven’t even talked about that.”

  Clivo played with the beaded bracelet around his wrist that his father had given him. Memories of his dad flashed through his head and his stomach knotted with grief. He thought about what his father would have done had he actually found the immortal, and suddenly he felt enormous sadness that Russell wasn’t around to answer that question. “Honestly, I haven’t really thought that far ahead yet.”

  “Don’t worry, you’ll figure it out. You’re a smart kid, Clivo. You’ll know what to do.”

  A look of confusion crossed Clivo’s face.

  “What? What is it?” Stephanie asked, concerned.

  “It’s just, well, nobody’s ever accused me of being smart before,” Clivo said with a slight laugh. “You’re kinda the first in that department.”

  Stephanie looked at him with surprise. “Wait, but don’t you speak, like, forty languages?”

  “Only five,” Clivo said, shrugging his shoulders. “I still ended up in remedial math.”

  Stephanie creased her forehead in deep thought. “Well, do you feel you’re smart?”

  Now it was Clivo’s turn to think. After a moment he lifted his head and said with certainty, “Actually, I do. I mean, I can’t hack satellites or identify a fake photograph, but I know I’m good at some things.”

  “There are many different ways to be smart, Clivo. I may be good at computers, but put me on a volleyball court and I’m dumb as a stump. Sometimes it just takes time to find out what you’re good at.”

  Clivo smiled—as much as he could under the circumstances, anyway. “Are you going to follow that up with a joke?”

  Stephanie laughed. “No way! It took me, like, a week to come up with the last one. Yet another area I stink at.”

  Clivo laughed, too. Even with everything going on, it suddenly felt like a huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders. “I’ll let it slide. Call you in an hour.”

  “We’ll be ready, smarty-pants.”

  XVII

  Clivo hopped on his bike and sped down the mountain toward town, flipping on his handlebar light to beat back the lengthening shadows of the coming night. He had sent Jerry an e-mail telling him he was on his way with a severe math problem. It was evening already, so hopefully Jerry was home and not stuck at SETL with some monumental alien discovery.

  He arrived forty-five minutes later, panting from exertion, and was relieved to see the lights on in his friend’s bedroom.

  He was about to knock on the front door when Jerry flung it open, Hercules the dog cradled in his arms. “You’re doing what?” he exclaimed.

  “Honey, keep it down,” Mrs. Cooper yelled from the kitchen, where she was stirring a steaming pot. “Hi, Clivo, baby!”

  “Hi, Mrs. Cooper.” Clivo waved and then did his best not to wince as he caught a smell drifting from the kitchen that reminded him of dirty feet wrapped in cabbage.

  Jerry pulled Clivo upstairs into his bedroom, which was filled with posters of football players and reeked of a smell suspiciously like aftershave. It was in stark contrast to Clivo’s bedroom, which held tribal dream catchers and smelled like incense. “You’re doing what?”

  Clivo filled Jerry in on everything that had happened in the past few days—although once again he left out the part about his father being murdered; he just wasn’t ready to talk about it, even with his best friend.

  “Hang on, hold up,” Jerry said. “You’re going to Alaska?”

  “I have to, Coops. The Otterman took a plane somewhere that crashed; I’m just not sure exactly where.”

  Jerry’s eyes widened and his voice rose a few octaves. “The Otterman took a plane somewhere? Of course he did, probably coach too, since they don’t allow HAIRY OTTER MONSTERS IN FIRST CLASS!”

  Clivo held his hands up and tried to shush his friend. “I know it sounds crazy, Coops, and I don’t have the whole story, but I’m pretty sure this is the immortal one and I need to find it fast. All I need you to do is steal SETL’s computer codes so this girl I met can break into one of your satellites.”

  Jerry’s eyes snapped from wide to narrow. Even Hercules looked at Clivo with a whine. “That’s all, huh?”

  There was a tapping at the door and Mrs. Cooper yelled, “Clivo, hon, you need a snack? I can juice you some greens.”

  “No, thank you, Mrs. Cooper, I’m fine.”

  Jerry went to the door. “Ma! Privacy! We talked about this. When I have guests over you need to give me a wide berth for man time.”

  “Just showing interest in your social life,” she said, her voice sounding like her lips were pressed right up against the door.

  “Which is exactly what I don’t need you to do! I’m a teenage man now! Scootch.” Jerry eventually opened the door a crack to make sure she had gone. “Anyway, where were we? Oh yeah, the part where I tell you there’s no way I’m passing over our satellite codes.”

  “Why, ’cause you don’t know how to steal them?”

  “No! I stole them a long time ago! And if I give them to you my dad will know and send me to a military academy because I keep stealing stuff!”

  “Come on, Coops. It’s not for anything bad. She just needs to get a closer look at something,” Clivo pleaded.

  “Wren, our satellites look into space to find aliens. Not down at Earth to find large, angry otters. The operators will know in a second someone’s hacked in, and my dad will come looking my way first. I can’t risk it, Wren; Dad would kill me.”

  Clivo was amazed. “You put blue dye in your dad’s shampoo last month! How is this suddenly taking things too far?”

  “It just is, okay!” Jerry yelled back. “Messing with my parents and teachers and the people at the grocery store deli counter is one thing. But my dad’s work is off-limits. No trespassing—got it?”

  Clivo looked at his best friend and spoke the next part softly. “If the evil resistance finds the immortal, none of that stuff will matter, Coops.”

  Jerry let out a long sigh of exasperation and plopped down on the edge of his bed. He sat in silence, scratching Hercules behind the ears as Clivo stared at the floor. When the dog began to snore, Jerry finally spoke.

  “All right. I’ll do it. Even though my parents will probably kick me out of the house and I’ll have to come live with you and the furballs,” Jerry said morosely.

  “Thanks, Coops. And if your dad finds out and comes after you, I’ll tell him it was all my idea. I’ll take the fall.”

  “Nah, I can handle the heat,” Jerry said. “Just look out for yourself and don’t get killed, okay? That newspaper picture may have made you look like some kind of beast slayer, but you’re still a softie in my book.”

/>   Clivo remembered beating Blirgenbach in the fight after taking a branch to the head, but he didn’t think now was the time to tell his friend about it.

  Jerry put Hercules on the floor and stood up, letting out a dramatic sigh as he did. “Okay, might as well get on throwing my future down the toilet. Who am I giving the information to?”

  Another knock sounded on Jerry’s door.

  “For the love of Moses! I said a wide berth!” Jerry yelled before yanking open the door. Mrs. Cooper quickly stepped forward.

  “Sorry to interrupt you boys again. You’re staying for dinner, right, Clivo? We’re having a special brussels sprout stew.”

  Clivo had completely forgotten about their Friday-night dinner plans. “Shoot, I’m really sorry, Mrs. Cooper, but I just can’t stay tonight. Can I take a rain check for next week?” He always enjoyed their dinners together, but he was so distracted by everything going on, there was no way he could pretend to have a regular conversation.

  “Of course, hon,” Mrs. Cooper replied. “I’ll pack some stew for you when you’re ready to go.”

  Jerry slowly closed the door on his mom, who was still hovering in the doorway.

  “Out! This is my private space! I am a man now and demand my own private space!” Jerry stomped his foot in frustration.

  As soon as the door was closed, Clivo pulled his laptop out of his backpack and Skyped Stephanie. She answered quickly, and the other Blasters were standing happily behind her, their faces crammed into the camera’s view.

  “DUDE!” Charles said, his face bright red with joy. “The Otterman is the immortal?! I may have to be sedated because I am literally about to have an out-of-body experience!”

  “That’s intense stuff, man,” Adam agreed. “In-flipping-tense. Gotta give mad respect to whoever figured that out.”

  “Mad respect,” Hernando agreed.

  “Who are these nerds?” Jerry whispered to Clivo. “That one guy has a rad set of single-forever glasses.”

  “Guys, this is my best friend, Jerry. He’d like to be part of your team, if that’s okay,” Clivo said.

  “What’s up?” Jerry said.

  “’Sup,” Adam responded, puffing his chest out in an attempt to look more muscular.

  Charles eyed Jerry suspiciously. “We’ll give him a one-day emergency team membership. After that, he’s gonna have to earn it.”

  “One day only,” Hernando concurred.

  Clivo nodded in acceptance. “That’s all we need. Stephanie, Jerry’s going to give you access to his dad’s work computers and from there you can steer their satellite.”

  “Got it. Jerry, what company does your father work for?” Stephanie’s fingers hovered over her keyboard.

  Jerry looked at Clivo uncertainly.

  “The fate of mankind is determined by this, Coops. Please?”

  Jerry grunted. “This Earth-saving crusader stuff better not cramp my style, Wren. Fine, he works for the SETL Institute.”

  The Myth Blasters stared at Jerry as if he had suddenly turned into the tooth fairy.

  “You’re giving us access to a SETL satellite?” Amelia asked in awe.

  “Have you guys found any aliens yet?” Charles interjected.

  Adam cheered. “That’s, like, deep-space stuff, man. We could spin that baby around and check out the Andromeda Galaxy! That’s totally an alien playground, I know it!”

  “Hang on, hang on!” Jerry said, pointing his finger at the screen. “I am giving you access to this satellite only for terrestrial research, not extraterrestrial research. If you take one peek into space, I’m cutting off your access, got it?”

  “He’s a spicy one,” Adam muttered.

  Stephanie focused the computer’s camera onto herself, blocking out the others. “Don’t worry, Jerry, I’ll do a quick Earth scan and be right off, okay?”

  Jerry relaxed a bit. “Okay. This can get me in serious trouble, so just try and be fast.”

  Stephanie cracked her knuckles. “I’ll be in and out quick as a whisper.”

  “She’s kinda adorkable,” Jerry whispered to Clivo. “Okay, Stephanie, let’s make some magic.”

  * * *

  As Stephanie was gaining access to the satellite, the rest of the Myth Blasters went to work in the background.

  “Okay, Blasters,” Amelia began, rubbing her hands together. “It’s showtime. Hernando—”

  “Present,” Hernando said, raising his hand.

  “I want you to dig up the plane’s flight path and last known coordinates so Stephanie has a smaller search area. Charles—”

  “Locked and loaded,” Charles said, cracking open a Moxie.

  “I want you to do the same for the last known radio call from the plane. Adam—”

  “Yup.”

  “See if you can find any information on this International Secret Order of Mythological Beasts, Legends, and Cryptid Catchers. First of all, it’s a stupid name, and second of all, I’ve never heard of them and that bothers me.” Amelia was playing with her nose ring, her face wrinkled in concentration. “As for me, I’ll research whatever clues I can find in the literature regarding the Otterman while Stephanie hacks. Clivo, might as well get some rest; we’ll be at this all night.”

  “All right, thanks, guys. I’ll talk to you in the morning,” Clivo replied.

  When Jerry had finished with Stephanie, Clivo closed his computer. Jerry was shaking his head. “That’s a very interesting team you’ve got there, Wren. I just hope you know what you’re doing.”

  “I don’t, but they do.”

  Saturday

  XVIII

  The next morning Clivo paced around his house, glancing at the grandfather clock in the dining room every few minutes. To say he hadn’t slept the night before was putting it lightly. He had tossed and turned and finally gotten up at three A.M. to stare out the window, watching the light rain that was now falling as if it could somehow take his mind off of what lay in front of him. No matter how many lights he turned on, he still felt like he was being swallowed in darkness.

  He finally went into the hallway and looked at pictures of his mom hanging on the wall, hoping they would bring him comfort. There was one of them sledding together; another one showed her smiling as she rubbed noses with him as a baby. Clivo suddenly doubted his ability to do the right thing if he actually found the immortal. If he had found it before his mom died, he would have given her the gift of immortality, just so he wouldn’t have to lose her. But who got to decide who lived forever and who didn’t? Did Douglas get to make that choice, too? Clivo shuddered at the thought of Douglas yelling at him for all eternity.

  Clivo took a deep breath and realized that before figuring out any of these questions, he first had to face the Otterman, who might enjoy eating kids for a snack. If he survived that, then he could deal with the question of living forever.

  The clock chimed seven and Clivo turned away from his mom’s photos, wishing that she were there to shake the Egyptian rattle over him. He needed all the protection he could get right now.

  Finally his computer dinged and he raced to it.

  “Good morning,” Stephanie yawned.

  “Hey! How’d it go? Did you guys find out where the Otterman is?” Clivo asked, eager to know what his next step was. He was hoping his nerves would subside once he had something to focus his mind on.

  “Yeah, we did!” Charles yelled, his hair puffed out like a cotton ball and his eyes wild.

  “Sorry, he’s been chugging energy drinks all night and is about to have a stroke,” Stephanie explained.

  Adam ushered Stephanie out of her seat, jelly from a powdered doughnut covering his face. “Hey, dude. So we’ve compiled our data, but we didn’t have time to put a formal presentation together so we’re going to have to wing it.”

  “I’m going to give you a shortened version of the Otterman’s origin tale,” Charles interrupted, pushing Adam’s face out of the way.

  “Dude! Out of my face and chill! Origin
stories are my territory!” Adam yelled, engaging in a quick hand-slapping war with Charles.

  “Dude! We talked about this! The Otterman tale is all mine!” Charles yelled back.

  “Oh, right. Sorry, man. Take a seat.”

  “Thanks, dude,” Charles said, taking Adam’s seat. Charles took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and steepled his fingers under his chin, as if this was something he had been waiting for his whole life and he wanted to savor every moment of it. He finally opened his eyes and spoke in a slow, reverent tone. “The Otterman. That beast of the Alaskan wilderness. Similar to the infamous Alaskan Hairy Man but way cooler, since the Hairy Man is pretty peaceful and doesn’t feast on human flesh for dinner.”

  Adam poked his head in and yelled in Charles’s ear: “Today, frizzhead, before the evil resistance finds the otter dude!”

  Charles waved Adam away and continued, though he did speak a little faster. “In the folklore of the Tlingit Indian tribe, kushtaka means ‘land otter man.’ Some say the Otterman saves lost people by turning them into other Ottermen. But our evidence shows that the existence of many of these cryptids is highly unlikely. Which means the other legend must be true—there’s only one Otterman, and it sends out a high-pitched whistle to lure sailors and children into its clutches, whereupon it eats them using its razor-sharp teeth. That makes the Otterman one of the most malicious cryptids out there, perhaps due to its existence in sad yet manly isolation in the desolate rain forests of southernmost Alaska—”

  Adam popped his head into the screen again. “We said no poetry, dude, stick to the facts.”

  Charles paused for a moment and took a sip of water, letting out a long exhale before again steepling his fingers and continuing on. “As for its origin tale, it’s a cool one. Many people claim the O-man is a shape-shifter, an otter that turns into a man—a wereotter, if you will. We already know of creatures on Earth that shape-shift, such as the chameleon, puffer fish, and rain frog, but their shifting is pretty small compared to a tiny otter busting into an eight-foot-tall man. But what if something happened that did allow for such a crazy transformation? Let Hernando demonstrate.”