But he did have Savannah. He carefully withdrew his phone from his life jacket. If he fumbled, his phone would fall and be lost forever. He began to text her: Up in giant’s face. Need idea.
But he didn’t press SEND.
Of course! How could he not have thought of it earlier? The answer was already in his hand.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
ZZT
“GO FOR HER EAR,” he yelled into Abigail’s own ear, tucking his head down close to hers.
Abigail banked into the wind stream created by the giants’ march, then quickly flew over the mother giant’s great head. Then she dove straight down to curve around the mama’s giant earlobe. Her gigantic ear resembled a human’s in shape, with a dark inner canal extending past their sight. It had been just at the water line when the giants stood dormant in the Pacific, so her ear was rimmed with starfish, sea urchins, and barnacles. Moss covered the entire inside, and of course, appropriate for a giant that has been asleep for years, stalactites of earwax hung that would never, ever be Q-tipped.
“Inside, Abigail. Inside!” Bailey’s heart pounded with excitement. He had a plan, but also realized that he would be exploring what no other monster hunter had ever explored before. Abigail flew in, and even sad Canopus could not help whistling in awe. The ridges and canals of the ear formed pools and rivers. Ocean water swirled in crevices filled with all kinds of creatures that hadn’t thought to escape before their tidal pool homes were lifted one thousand feet up.
“We need to go farther in,” Bailey whispered determinedly in Abigail’s ear. “It’s the only way.” The harpy nodded her head in understanding, which struck Bailey as such a human gesture.
The air calmed around them, and the moss-covered ear canal became darker as they flew deeper and deeper. “Just a little farther,” Bailey yelled, surprising himself by the increased volume of his voice echoing in the giant’s ear canal. Abigail let her black-and-white osprey wings stretch completely open as they glided into the black.
He had studied the human ear in human biology. If Bailey could assume the giant’s ear was at all similar, they would soon be approaching the eardrum.
The ear canal echoed with the howl of the wind outside. Bailey heard splashing, too, and he whispered to Abigail to slow down. She banked and they glided silently, side to side. It was almost time to try his plan and hope for the best, but the sound of splashing water alarmed him.
Bailey turned on the flashlight app on his phone just in time. Zzt! He ducked as a spear went whizzing over his head.
“Keep down, Canopus!” Bailey yelled, his voice echoing all around him. “It’s another freaking mermaid!”
Zzt! Another spear veered toward them from the illuminated mermaid. She screeched through sharp teeth and pulled another spear of hardened earwax from the canal wall.
“Swing right above her,” Bailey whispered into Abigail’s ear. It didn’t take much volume for the harpy to hear him now, and she agreed reluctantly with a most serious chirp.
Zzt! Abigail banked just before the spear nearly pierced the pointy tip of Canopus’s long ear. Bailey had his three Frisbees ready, and Abigail dove in for the bombing run. Holding the phone flashlight in his left hand, he stood up as much as he dared, holding himself steady on Abigail with his knees and gripping all three Frisbees between the fingers of his right hand.
Pft! Frisbee to the forehead. Pft! Frisbee to the forehead. Pft! Frisbee to the forehead! Then Zzt! Her last wax spear flew wildly, and the mermaid screeched and dove out of her pool into the saltwater river of the ear canal to flee and tend to her likely concussion.
“Yeah!” Bailey and Canopus exclaimed together as loudly as they dared.
“Okay, girl,” Bailey whispered. “Back around to the eardrum.”
Bailey urged Abigail to fly in as close as they could. The ear canal narrowed on all sides—top and bottom, left and right. Soon the mother giant’s ear canal was not much wider than Abigail’s wingspan. Bailey patted her on her shoulder.
“Okay, girl. Take a rest.”
She was grateful to do so. She circled and glided downward to softly land on the mossy canal floor, gently gripping the earwax below to hold them still. The canal ended in a thin blue membrane that curved with the canal wall. It vibrated with any motion they made.
Canopus sighed, ready for this aerial tour to be over. “Stopping for photos, eh?”
“No,” Bailey said as quietly as he could, because he guessed the mother giant could now hear every word they breathed, every flap of Abigail’s wings, every rustle of their life jackets. What would he do if she stuck her humongous finger in here and crushed them all? He turned off his phone’s flashlight, leaving them in darkness except for the soft glow of his phone’s home screen. He had eighteen percent battery life left. He hoped it was enough.
Bailey scrolled through his phone settings, looking for the ringtone he had customized months ago. He turned up the volume as loud as his phone would allow. Then he set the ringtone to play in a loop. He held his phone up to the giant blue membrane.
They all felt the mother inhale a great gust of wind as she stopped in her march, caught off guard. Her whole body shook, and Abigail nearly lost her grip on the flesh beneath her. The mother had heard the joyful, innocent sound of her baby, lost to her for seven years, and Bailey smiled when he heard her unleash a great wail that could only be a cry of relief and joy. His phone echoed the booming bass-drum rhythm over and over again: Roump, roump, roump. Roump, roump, roump. Roump, roump, roump.
CHAPTER FORTY
A HAPPY, INCONVENIENT TRUTH
A GREAT MOAN of surprise vibrated through them as the father sea giant echoed the same wonderful but incredibly loud wail. Bailey thought the resulting sound waves might tear them apart as his teeth chattered and his hands trembled. He patted Abigail and pulled back on her hair to fly up and out of the ear canal. She was happy to oblige. Another moan shook her, sending her crashing into the mossy wall, but Bailey and Canopus managed to keep upright. Bailey kept his phone up in the air so the big mama could continue to hear her baby’s voice: Roump, roump, roump.
And then they flew out of her giant ear into the open air.
Canopus pointed. The sea giants’ great blue faces moved as if in slow motion relative to Bailey, the creases in their skin like earthquakes, their expressions undeniably turning from anger to hope.
“Fly just ahead of them, Abby. We’ll lead them back home.”
Abigail chirped and his phone repeated a steady roump, roump, roump, undoubtedly softer to the parents’ ears now, but their heads turned slowly left and right trying to catch their baby’s voice on the wind. Bailey had to multitask. He prayed he wouldn’t drop his phone while pulling Abigail’s hair to bank them toward the spot where the Farrallon Islands were supposed to be. He stopped Henry’s bark from looping for just a moment to quickly call Savannah, holding on with his knees and trying not to let fear overtake him as he looked down to see the water churning around the giants’ knees hundreds of feet below him.
“Bailey!” she screamed in delight.
“They’re turning,” he said excitedly. “Head north with Henry to where the islands are supposed to be and we’ll let them meet there. I’m playing Henry’s bark and they’re following me!”
“You’re a genius,” she said, but in the background Bailey heard Mr. Boom shout out, “The time on our contract is almost up, buddy!”
“You will make an exception if we are an hour late,” he heard Nikos say.
“Full speed!” Savannah cried. “You did it, Bailey boy!”
“We did it,” he said, and he hung up to continue the roump, roump, roump loop as the giants turned completely about-face and followed. Helicopters buzzed behind them, not sure what to do. They must have seen a boy and a goblin flying on a harpy by now, but as of yet, they hadn’t tried to shoot them down.
The giants followed the faint sound from Bailey’s phone. They marched so slowly, he often had to turn Abigail around
to circle back, gliding through the air currents around their heads, his phone barking roump, roump, roump just in front of their noses. It took so long for them to take a step in the direction he wanted, he didn’t dare waste time letting them wonder which way to go. The helicopters buzzed like angry wasps behind them all, and Bailey imagined pilots and ground control arguing over protocols and authorization to use force and whether or not these giants were real. He imagined that, even now, generals and politicians miles from here were inventing stories to convince the public that monsters still did not exist, no matter what they might be seeing with their very own eyes.
Night had fallen over the West Coast and Bailey said, “Canopus, I think I can fulfill my promises to you now.”
The goblin sighed and grumbled beneath his breath, clearly doubting him. Bailey pulled gently back on Abigail’s hair. She turned upward, and they climbed through the wind. The moon in the distance barely revealed itself, nothing more than the thinnest crescent.
“Look up,” Bailey said over his shoulder.
“Why?” Canopus sighed.
But then the little goblin saw.
The ambient city light could not hide them. Neither could the clouds, nor the moonlight. The stars lit up the entire sky from California to Japan, too many to count. The Milky Way—one long, graceful, illuminated brushstroke—stretched in a beautiful arc above them. Bailey heard Canopus’s soft groaning.
“Sweet, beautiful stars,” the pointy-eared goblin said. “There are so many of them! I never imagined—”
The goblin’s voice trailed off as he looked up in absolute wonder. As Abigail spread her wings to glide, the hum of helicopters far behind them and the slosh of the ocean around the giants’ feet way below them, Bailey felt as if they drifted through heaven. He supposed that, in a way, the stars and the wash of the Milky Way did look like a million, billion desk lamps and chandeliers lit by God in the greatest living room of all. It was so quiet, too, with only the occasional hopeful moan of the sea giant parents to remind them they were not alone with the stars.
“So, so many,” Canopus repeated in awe. “They must have multiplied. They must be the children of the children of the stars. How did they escape the humans, I wonder.”
The scientific part of Bailey couldn’t help himself. “They never needed to escape, Canopus! That’s what I wanted you to see. The stars have been safe all along. They are far, far away from Earth, safe from humans or anyone else.”
Bailey could feel Canopus’s arms shaking around his chest. The little goblin may have been cold, or quietly crying from the sight of all his beloved stars shining bright and free. It really was sad, Bailey thought, that ambient light hides the stars, and that human governments hide monsters. He felt very fortunate, even if he was an orphan now, that he was one of the few humans on the planet to have seen both worlds up close—and he had been changed forever by them.
After a very long moment, the goblin stopped shaking and exhaled. “I thank you for showing me this great beauty, Bailey. But if you could take me back to Capella, I would appreciate it. It’s time for us to go home and return to our work.”
Bailey wasn’t sure if he had heard Canopus right. “But don’t you see? You don’t have to worry now. Your people don’t need to be star guardians anymore. The stars are just fine without you. You don’t need to risk your lives to steal electric lights, because the stars live! Doesn’t that make you happy?”
The goblin sighed sadly. “Just the opposite, human boy. My life has been a complete waste of time, devoted to a mission that I now see has been completely meaningless. I suppose you’re right—the stars never needed us. What will I live for now? I won’t dare tell any of the Order about this. I will tell them you showed me the sky and it was black and empty. I won’t take the meaning out of the lives of my people or make them feel hollow and foolish like I feel now. I guess the mountain goblins were right to migrate up into the snow where they could see the stars. I had always thought of them as traitors, but apparently they were right after all. Am I supposed to leave my people and join them? It’s awfully cold in the mountains. I don’t know what I will do. Maybe I’ll take a mining job in Utah, or crawl into my bed and sleep for three weeks.”
The goblin said no more, and when Bailey looked over his left shoulder, he saw Canopus wasn’t even looking at the stars anymore. Instead, his head was tucked down into the back of Bailey’s life jacket.
“I promised the twelve of you something else, too,” Bailey said quietly. “I promised if you gave me the gold nuggets you intended for Pazuzu, I would ask the sea giants to lift the stars back up into the sky. Maybe it was deceptive of me, but I knew if I showed you that the stars were fine, you wouldn’t need me to fulfill the second promise.”
The goblin stopped him with a pat on the back. “It’s fine, human boy. No apology necessary. I’m glad the stars are safe. It’s a happy, inconvenient truth, which I will keep to myself. In time, I will tell my comrades that you asked, but that the giants said that even they could not lift the stars so high. The Eighteenth Goblin Order of Star Guardians will carry on and try to find another way.”
For some reason Bailey felt guilty when he had expected to feel like a hero. He pulled gently on Abigail’s hair to send them into a slow dive.
He pointed his phone at the giants so they wouldn’t lose him and replayed the loop of roump, roump, roump. His phone only had seven percent battery life left, and he hoped he had timed this right. The Sweet Tooth came into view as he flew Abigail down to waist height of the giants. Like an expert fighter pilot, he guided the harpy in line with the moving yacht, where he saw Nikos, Savannah, and Capella on deck with Henry bouncing excitedly next to them. Mr. Boom had turned on all of the yacht’s lights so they’d be an easy target.
“Nice and easy, Abby,” Bailey whispered as she glided in. She touched onto the deck with the softest of landings, her talons clicking lightly on the wood. Bailey climbed down and detached Canopus from his back. He put his hand on Abigail’s shoulder and said, “Thank you,” as Savannah moved closer to hug the proud bird-woman. But before she could, and before Bailey could even step back, Abigail launched straight up in the air and screeched chiiiiiiirp, pointing herself toward Greenland.
“She didn’t even wait to take a sardine break,” Savannah said sadly, squinting her eyes to find the harpy in the dark night sky, but Abigail was already gone. “I hope she finds other harpies.”
Roump, roump, roump, Bailey’s phone kept barking. He told Candycane to slow the yacht down when they approached the site of the Farrallon Islands. “We’re just about there,” he said.
The yacht bounced up and down as the giants’ footsteps came closer and closer, making the waves surge ever higher.
“Okay,” Bailey said. “If we’re going to do this, we should do it now.”
Henry bounced on both his hands and feet in excitement. It was time for a new game as far as he was concerned. Savannah jumped up and wrapped her arms around his neck.
“I’m going to miss you, Big Blue!”
The twelve goblins lined up and quietly patted him on the knees, each offering him a sweet goodbye. “Thank your parents for us,” and “We honor you,” and “The stars will bless you.” Although when it was Canopus’s turn, he couldn’t say a word.
“Okay, anytime now,” Candycane said urgently, trying to keep the bobbing yacht upright by pulling hard on the wheel. Each of the giant’s steps caused a looming wave that any surfer would love to ride. Slowly, and with great gasping moans, the father and mother were beginning to lean over to get a closer look at the water. Boom’s bald head was sweating. “We’re really getting tossed around here, Bailey!”
Bailey scratched the back of Henry’s neck and pulled his head down so that he could touch his forehead to the baby sea giant’s.
“Okay, boy, it’s time. I love you so much,” he whispered. “So much so, that I need you to jump in the water now. You’ve been one of the best friends I’ve ever known, which
is why I want you to have your parents back. I can’t have mine, but I’m happy I can give you back to yours.”
Henry replied with a roump, roump, roump! and licked Bailey’s face, but the baby sea giant could not stop looking upward at his parents towering above him. He started bouncing on feet and hands in excitement, barking and whining with pure joy.
Bailey smiled. “Someday, Henry, you’ll be that tall, too.”
Then Bailey pushed Henry gently away from him. He gripped a neon-orange Frisbee in his right hand and pulled back slowly, like an Olympian readying to hurl a discus as far as humanly possible. He held his position as long as it took Henry to realize his old friend was going to throw the Frisbee way, way out there. Henry bounced up and down happily, always ready to play this game.
“Until we meet again,” Bailey whispered, and with a perfect, graceful flick of the wrist, the Frisbee soared over the night green water. Henry never took his eyes off the disc, bounding for it using both hands and feet to gain speed, then leaping off the stern of The Sweet Tooth into the water. Bailey, Savannah, Nikos, and twelve goblins held the handrails and looked over the side as Henry swam a beautifully perfect butterfly stroke with the orange Frisbee in his mouth. He looked so proud.
“Hit the gas,” Bailey said, his heart breaking, and Candycane did, turning the yacht toward Whalefat Beach.
Bailey watched Henry’s bobbing blue head recede behind the yacht and it was hard not to cry leaving him there. But Henry would only be alone for a few moments. They all watched as two great giant heads descended out of the clouds, their hands on their knees, squinting their huge blue eyes as they looked for their baby in the water. As Henry disappeared from their view, they all heard the mother giant gasp a wonderfully happy “Ooomeeeeeee!”
Savannah smiled and said, “She found him.”
Bailey felt a pride that he had never known before. He had fought off faeries, goblins, and even a wind demon, but better than those victories, he had reunited a child with his parents, and he could just feel that they would be a happy family of three for hundreds of years to come.
The Monster Catchers--A Bailey Buckleby Story Page 18
