The Weird in the Wilds

by Deb Caletti

  “Yikes!” Jo says.

  “Cool!” Pirate Girl says.

  “I’m afraid of insects!” Jason Scrum whines. “And it’s too dark in here. Way too dark.”

  Henry agrees, to be honest. It’s dark and hollow-sounding in the cave, and now that he knows there are large insects that might trek over his skin or through his hair . . . Well, he gets that shivery-creepy feeling you have no doubt experienced yourself. But then Pirate Girl speaks.

  “There are night-lights all around you.”

  It’s a good reminder that light is everywhere, even if it doesn’t seem so. It makes Henry remember his grandfather, too, and his house with the always-swiveling beam.

  “I need my OWN night-light!” Jason Scrum whines, and stomps his hooves. “I only sleep with my special glittery night-light!”

  His Special Glittery Night-light

  “Ugh!” Apollo says. “None of us are going to get any rest with him around.”

  For once, though, Apollo is wrong. As you know, large amounts of cheese plus adventure plus a trying and frightening day will cause immense exhaustion, and so, in spite of albino ants and giant crickets and the Shadow, and all the creaky, alarming, what-might-that-be? sounds of darkness, Button curls up at Henry’s feet. And since a sleeping dog always brings an extra sense of calm and rest, Jo’s eyes begin to droop, and Apollo curls up on his side of the jacket and begins to nod off, and Mr. Reese rests on the Nougat Nut Nuggets wrapper like it’s a lovely, yet somewhat noisy sleeping bag, and even Jason Scrum finally shuts up and lies down, resting his stinky unlikable self for the night.

  But Pirate Girl is still awake. She sits upright with her arms looped around her knees. And Henry is awake, too, sitting beside her. It reminds Henry of their other spell-breaking adventure, after the fair on Rulers Mountain. Now, though, Pirate Girl stares up at the sky that isn’t a sky, to the stars that aren’t stars but are magical just the same. When Henry looks up there, it’s only the magic he thinks of, not the darkness.

  “Everything in nature is weird, Henry. I never realized it before,” she whispers.

  “I noticed that, too,” he whispers back. “All of those plants and trees and flowers . . . the baboons and the bats and the baobabs . . . the glowworms! Weird and wonderful.”

  They both stare at the galaxy of blue glowworm stars. “Beautiful, beautiful weird,” Pirate Girl says.

  “Even the toilet plant,” Henry says, and then, oh dear, it starts. They both crack up, but quietly, so as not to wake the others.

  “But it really was beautiful,” she says, and even though it’s not that funny, they start giggling again, because at that hour, and when you’re that tired, everything is downright hilarious. Well, maybe not everything.

  “Should we take turns staying on guard? Two hours on, two hours off?” Pirate Girl asks, which makes them both immediately quite serious again. “I’m scared of the Shadow. And Needleman, too. I know he’d never go in the Wilds himself, but he always seems to know where we are. And we’re so close to Vlad Luxor and that awful wall he’s building.”

  “Yeah. We better stay alert since we’re out here all alone,” Henry says. “I’ll go first.”

  “Thanks, Henry.”

  Pirate Girl curls up and closes her eyes. After a while, she finally falls asleep in the blue light. The ancient dark cave curves around Henry, and the night noises jangle his nerves. He stays up way past his two hours, because Henry’s used to being up at night, listening carefully for the footsteps of his angry father, or the change in the air that might mean a sharp smack from his mother’s hand. But even more than that, he decides not to wake Pirate Girl because she looks so peaceful right then. When he remembers those two sad clumps of broccoli, he thinks that Pirate Girl may need to rest as much as he does.

  CHAPTER 18

  The Worst Forest of All

  In the morning, Henry wakes up before the others. He props on his elbows and looks around. The cave smells like clay and rotting plums and smooshy stuff, but Henry likes the smell. Button rouses and trots over and licks Henry’s face. It’s still dark, dark except for the curve of morning light Henry can now see at the other end of the cave. But it’s not too dark to notice something very worrying.

  One of them is missing.

  “Where is he?” Henry says in a panic.

  “Where is who?” Apollo’s voice is groggy. He stretches his arms and yawns. “Ow, sleeping on a limestone bed is very uncomfortable.”

  Jo sits up, her eyes blinking. “Oh, we’re still here! I was hoping it had all been a dream!”

  “It’s still dark,” Jason Scrum complains. His gerenuk face is all dirty from sleeping on the cave floor, and his fur is sticking up on his head. “And my alarm hasn’t even gone off yet. My mother only comes to wake me up after my alarm goes off lots and lots of times.”

  Pirate Girl’s head pops up. “Wait. Mr. Reese.” She notices instantly. “He isn’t here.”

  A bad feeling glugs around inside Henry like those times when you drink too much water and can actually feel waves in your stomach. At first, the bad feeling is about shadows and warthogs and creatures who eat other creatures, especially small squirrels. But then it turns to something worse. All at once, Henry can hear Mr. Reese’s voice in his head. I can’t believe you foolish children are my best hope for becoming a man again. Ugh! I’d be better off trying to beg Vlad Luxor for forgiveness.

  “This isn’t good,” Henry says. “What if Mr. Reese lost patience with us? We haven’t turned him back into a man yet! What if . . .” It’s almost too horrible and urgent to say. “What if he went to Vlad Luxor?”

  “He wouldn’t do that, would he?” Jo says. “Maybe he’s just out looking for breakfast. Oh, I hope he hurries back. We’ve got to get on with this day so I can get home before my mother’s celebration tomorrow!”

  “Can we trust a once-bad man turned into a squirrel in a dress?” Pirate Girl asks, reading Henry’s mind. “Especially when he’s gone missing? He could be telling Vlad Luxor all about us right now! Who we are, and where we are. We need to get out of here.”

  “I hate to think he’d do that. He seems to really care about us,” Jo says.

  “Maybe we better be on the safe side. Mr. Reese was Vlad Luxor’s left-hand man.” Apollo picks up his glasses and hooks them over each ear, and then he puts on his jacket. “We can eat the Luscious Lime Pockets that I saved for breakfast on the way.”

  “Man, I just hope we get this done fast. Tonight, we’re supposed to start gathering flowers for the celebration,” Jo says as she ties her shoes.

  Pirate Girl shoves her flashlight into her pants, adjusts her pirate scarf, and tugs on her boots. “We’ll make it, Jo. Come on. My compass says we need to go out that way, if we’re heading east to where they’re trying to build the wall.” She points to the dark, gaping mouth of the cave. “If there is an out.”

  Button takes a quick but noisy drink from the river and begins to run ahead, droplets flying from her little chin like rain from a speeding windshield. Henry and the other children follow as quickly as possible over the bumps and crags, dips and divots of the cave floor. And thankfully, there is an exit to the cave, one that grows wider and brighter with daylight the nearer they get. But it’s hard to feel hopeful when a Shadow might be anywhere, and a squirrel might be a traitor, and each step takes you closer to great evil.

  “What if Vlad Luxor is there at the wall?” Jo shivers. “Or that horrible Needleman.”

  “It’s hard to imagine building an actual wall around our entire province,” Apollo says. “This place is so huge and sprawling, it would be like putting a fence between two different countries.”

  “It makes no sense at all,” Pirate Girl agrees.

  “I’m trying to tell myself that if Juana Azurduy could fight twenty-three battles for freedom, we can walk the line between good and evil t
o turn Jason Scrum back into a boy,” Jo says.

  The Amazing Zazel, Just Shot from a Cannon

  “What?” the stinky gerenuk in question says. He tries to stand in the cave, but he’s too tall, and bonks his head. “Ow. I can’t hear back here. I don’t know why I always have to be in the back during this stupid field trip. And what do you mean, turn Jason Scrum back into a—”

  Right then, Jason Scrum shrieks so loud, and the noise echoes so loud back again, that Henry feels like he’s the amazing Zazel, just shot from a cannon.

  The gerenuk holds his two hairy arms with hooves for hands out in front of him. “What is this? What is going on here? Wait a sec. Maybe I read about this in that book my mom gave me, Welcome to Puberty. No, it can’t be! I’m still too young for that! And what are these?” He waves his hooves around. “Are these hooves? And why do I have this strange craving for vegetables when I hate vegetables? Oh no!” The gerenuk’s face is suddenly full of horror.

  “Jason—” Jo begins gently.

  “Something happened while I was sleeping! Some terrible spell for no reason at all, or maybe a bite from one of those awful ants!”

  “This happened to you yesterday!” Apollo is losing his patience. “Let’s just hurry up and get outside again, and then we’ll explain everything.”

  “I know! It was you! You weirdos did something to me! Where’s the rest of the class? Where’s Ms. Fortune? What have you creeps done?”

  “You have mud on your face,” Jo says. “You big disgrace! Someone should put you in your place, you horrid boy.”

  “I’d be happy to,” Pirate Girl says, glaring fiercely at the bully.

  “I vote to leave him with the albino ants,” Apollo says.

  But instead of leaving the bully behind, the children do another difficult and brave thing. They shake off the yucky feeling of being wrongly accused and continue winding and weaving and hopping from rock to rock toward the bright curve of an exit. Finally, that dark, magical cave is almost behind them, and the morning light is right there. Morning light, well, those are two of the most hopeful words that exist, so imagine the shock and horror and betrayal the children feel when they step out into it, and this is what they see.

  It’s a land of gray rock, a land that stretches not only for miles out in front of them, but upward toward the sky, too. This is not just a tangle of exotic plants and trees, grasping vines, and monster insects. It’s a treacherous scene of your worst imagining—deadly towering pillars, and tall, jagged spires, and thin, rising needles. An endless labyrinth of pinnacles and peaks and summits of gray rock and more gray rock, all with edges and spikes sharp enough to slice you like a blade through a banana.

  Henry gasps in horror. Button cowers near Henry’s legs.

  “What is this?” Jo breathes.

  “A forest of stone. A limestone forest.” Pirate Girl’s voice is a whisper.

  Knife upon Knife upon Knife

  Well, breathing and whispering, the details hardly matter, because right then, Pirate Girl reaches out and . . . “Ow! These are razor sharp!” She hurries her bleeding finger to her mouth.

  “The Forest of Knives,” Apollo says.

  This is what it looks like to Henry, too. Knife upon knife upon knife.

  “You told us about it, Apollo, but I never imagined this,” Henry says.

  “It’s much more awful than I thought, too,” Apollo says.

  “Hooves! WAAAHHH!” Jason Scrum cries. For the hundredth time, he can only see himself. “What has happened to me?”

  “Shush!” Pirate Girl says. “Can’t you see we have enough to deal with right here? Mr. Reese might be a traitor, and who knows where the Shadow is, and Needleman or Vlad Luxor might find us at any second, and look at this scary place! Besides, we already told you, you’ve been a gerenuk for a full twenty-four hours already.”

  “A gerenuk? I thought those things had horns,” Jason Scrum says. He puts one hoof to his head. “NOOOO!”

  “Even walking near these pillars could be dangerous!” Apollo’s eyes are huge behind his glasses, and the Luscious Lime Pocket he’d begun to eat has left a circle of green around his mouth.

  “Wait. Aren’t gerenuks stinky?” Jason Scrum asks. “Because I smell like a beautiful flower. Every one of you smells like the back end of a cow, though.”

  “How will we ever get through here? Let alone to the wall and back before my mother’s celebration.” Jo’s voice wobbles, and her eyes fill with tears. Oh, Henry’s heart is about to break when he sees her like that.

  “Are you sure there’s no other way through the Wilds, Pirate Girl?” Henry asks. This route looks impossible.

  “I’m sure. I guess we’d better wind our way through there.” She points to her right, to the maze of tall, thin spires stretching east. “The only other way is over that thing.” Now she points to her left, to a large and towering spiky summit, which sits between them and their destination like a giant guard at a gate. The river that rushed through the cave seems to flow around that summit or through it or under it, it’s hard to tell which. It’s not as high or as massive as the peaks of the Jagged Mountains, of course, but climbing that giant would be the last thing Henry would want to do.

  “Even if we come to a dead end in this place, we can’t even think about scaling that. No way. Absolutely not,” Apollo continues. “If you were up there and fell and landed on one of those knife trees . . . You might get impaled.”

  “Impaled?” Pirate Girl asks. “What’s that?”

  Apollo shivers. “You don’t even want to know.”

  You Don’t Even Want to Know

  “We’ll get through the maze as quickly and carefully as we can, then, so we can get back before the celebration,” Henry says. Quickly and carefully—he might as well have said impossibly and absurdly.

  “And we’ll stay as low to the ground as possible. We won’t climb up, no matter what.” Apollo pats Jo’s shoulder, which just adds to Henry’s despair.

  Pirate Girl has her bandana in her teeth, and all at once, there is a loud riiip, and then another and another. She offers the strips to her friends. “Wrap these around your hands for protection,” she says. Pirate Girl thinks of everything. “Button, you stay very close to Henry.”

  Imagine a time you had to walk through a crowded space that was so jammed that you could only go single file. In spots, the children have to turn sideways to fit, and every so often, after squeezing themselves right and then left through narrow passageways, there’s a glorious opening up of space where they see the sky and can breathe again. Apollo, with his backpack, gets wedged in one stone corridor, and the children have to yank on his arms to free him. Thin Henry manages to navigate more easily than anyone else, and so he takes the lead. The children wind and weave around stone pillars until it’s hard to tell if they are actually going forward or around in circles, because gray rock looks pretty much like gray rock everywhere they look. The fall day has the muggy, smothering feel of clouds about to rain, and Henry wipes his forehead with the bandana tied helpfully around his palm. Henry sees a lizard tail scoot through a crack in the stone. A snake slips past him and then vanishes. He hears the screech of a hawk, and a bird cackling, and a ring-tailed lemur saying hmm, hmm, as if he’s perplexed. Henry spots a monkey with unusual facial hair, and points it out to Apollo.

  “A bearded emperor tamarin,” Apollo says. “Our swim instructor, the sarcastic Mr. Cutting, has a mustache like that.”

  The Sarcastic Mr. Cutting

  But then the children hear another noise, the kind of noise that stops you in your tracks, especially in such a dangerous foreign landscape. It’s the slurping-smacking sound your little brother makes when he sucks up one noodle at a time, only this is much, much worse. And then there’s a crunch, crunch, crunch, rather like your annoying sister eatin
g ice. But be assured, this is no brother or sister. This is a terrible sound.

  A chilling sound.

  A predator and prey sound.

  Suddenly, Henry gasps. Up ahead, lying across their path—it’s the Shadow. Apollo grabs a pinch of Henry’s T-shirt to stop him from going forward, but he would never, not in a million years, be able to go forward. Henry’s not even sure he can breathe. His lungs feel just the way they did that time when he fell off the monkey bars and landed flat on his back.

  “Ah, ah . . . ,” Henry says.

  The Shadow of the Wilds is stretched out in gluttonous glory. And it’s eating something that looks like Beef Glop Rondelee with Tomato Puree, but is definitely not Beef Glop Rondelee with Tomato Puree. Its tail is so long, it disappears up and around a column of stone until you can’t see the end of it. Its teeth glint. It licks its rubbery lips. Button leaps into Henry’s arms.

  There is no possible way around it, which is how all of life’s most difficult situations feel at first. But this is no time for wisdom and deep thoughts. The Shadow swivels its head at a sound they haven’t even made yet. Its yellow eyes, with their black diamond pupils, lock on Jason Scrum. They have to get out of there, and fast. And in that moment, every single one of them knows there’s only one terrible thing they can do.

  CHAPTER 19

  Of Course They Go Up, You Knew They Would

  When you’re fleeing a terrible crocodile-lizard-dinosaur-Shadow-something, you move with extraordinary speed. You climb higher and faster than you’ve ever been before without stopping to think about it, even if up is the worst possible direction. Henry’s tennis shoes skitter on that gray rock, jamming into toeholds, as he pulls himself higher using each jutting stone. He’s thankful for Pirate Girl’s bandana, bound around his hands, or his skin would surely get as sliced as Ham Streamers with Gravy.