“My wife used to keep scrapbooks of the kids who stopped in on their way across the border,” said Mr. Valentino as he handed out the cones. “Is that what your dad was doing?”
I nodded, and he handed me a computer tablet so ancient, I couldn’t imagine the screen would even light up. My hands were already sticky from the ice cream. I wiped them on my T-shirt.
“You just click on that arrow and it’ll take you through the pictures,” he said. “Goes back forty years, that one. You can scan by the date, if you know it.”
Juliette, whose hands were less sticky, started looking through the photos.
“Ahab, look!” I looked, and there was my dad’s face, filling the screen with two boys who had to be the Mellor brothers. I couldn’t figure out which thing was weirdest. The fact that my dad was:
(A) skinny,
(B) laughing, or
(C) wearing a T-shirt that said SAVE THE WORLD.
“Can we forward this?” Juliette asked.
“Afraid it’s too old to be a part of the network,” Mr. Valentino said. “But you can copy it.” He looked at the screen. “They look familiar. Came by twice, as I recall. Full of themselves on the way up. Drowned themselves in milkshakes on the way home.”
Juliette scanned the photo with her One and sent it on to my dad. When she finished her cone, she went in the bathroom and washed the mud off her arms. She coated them with pink lotion she’d gotten at the drugstore and came back to the counter.
From his satchel, Alph croaked. It sounded weaker than his croaks that first night of the trip. The jostling around was getting to him.
“Now, that is familiar, too,” the man said.
“It’s my digestion,” Leroy said.
The man gave a bark-like laugh. “Is that what you call it?” he said. “Son, you can fool some of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool a Valentino. You kids heading to the border, too, ay? Wouldn’t be bringing something you’re not supposed to have?”
“Us?” Leroy said.
Mr. Valentino let out another laugh, and a whoop at the same time.
“Reminds me of the old days,” he said. “That’s what this place used to be. A weigh station for environmentalists. Yessir. Did I sell ice cream? The best around. But information. That’s the real reason people came in here. I’ll bet you want to know the best place to sneak across now, don’t you? Oh, I wish Mildred was here. People used to run back and forth all the time, you know. But we haven’t seen anyone in years, especially after the Unfriending with Canada. You’re going to have to let me take your photo, too. For the scrapbook. Where you headed?”
“Toronto,” said Davy. He wanted to cover our tracks, just in case.
Mr. Valentino seemed to know it. “You’ve got a lot more riding to do if that’s the case.” He sniffed, angry, I guess, that we didn’t fully trust him.
“Wait,” Juliette said. “What do you mean, sneak across?”
“I mean you have to tiptoe,” Mr. Valentino said. “Duck and cover. You can’t bring Prince Charming here through a checkpoint, now, can you? They’d just take him to one of those whaddyacallits.”
“Rehabilitation centers,” I mumbled.
“Right. Those people don’t know a frog from a chimp.”
“Sneak across?” Juliette said again.
I tried to look innocent.
“May I see him?” Mr. Valentino asked, nodding toward my bag.
I looked at Davy, who shrugged. If Mr. V was going to turn us in, he already had enough evidence. Besides, I needed to check on my frog. I put my satchel on the counter and opened it. Alph stared up at us.
“Would you look at that?” said Mr. Valentino. “Would you just look at that? Ooh, he’s a biggie. Takes me back, this critter does.”
Alph looked a little yellower than usual. I dropped a roach into the aquarium. It crawled on the rock, avoiding the water. Alph didn’t even try to eat him.
Mr. Valentino didn’t ask to hold Alph, which showed he knew something about frogs. He went back to his electronic scrapbook and started punching keys.
“Lookit,” he said. “See these kids? They went up to Ontario on a horse. A horse. And these ones”—he nodded his head up and down—“went to go find some bird eggs and bring them back. Kept an incubator in our back room for a week.”
“What hatched out?” asked Davy.
“Puffins,” said Mr. Valentino. “Cute little things. They named one of them after me.” His face clouded a little. “Didn’t live, though.”
“Mr. Valentino,” I said. It seemed impossible, but I had to ask. “Was my dad transporting anything when he came through? Was he trying to save … something in particular?”
“I don’t remember, son,” he said, looking at my dad’s photograph again. “Could be he was trying to save everything.”
That didn’t sound like my dad. He was more likely to try to save a hamburger than anything else.
Even though we didn’t ask for it, Mr. Valentino had a plan to get us past the border. He drew us a map on the back of an old receipt. “The river’s a natural border, see? But this is a skinny part. You can cross. Otherwise, you’ll have to go all the way up here, and sneak across inland. Either way, this is the road to take.” He handed me the receipt, which had Valentino’s in fancy script across the top. “Something to remember me by,” he said.
We let him take our picture before we left, though we kept Alph hidden. If Mr. Valentino turned us over to the EPF after we left, we didn’t want any visual evidence. It wasn’t as good a photo as the one our parents took, and Delph was the only one who was smiling. Juliette looked like she belonged on a wanted poster. She also looked like she wanted to kill me.
“Are you kidding me, Ahab?” Juliette said when we got outside. “I’m supposed to go to college next year. How am I going to do that if I’m in jail in Saskatchewan?”
“We’re not going to Saskatchewan,” I said. “We’re going to Wodiska Falls.”
“We’re going home,” Juliette said.
“What? No.”
“Well, I’m going. I’m done.”
“You’re our chaperone.” It was humiliating. I bet none of Darwin’s Disciples had to have chaperones. If you asked the One, it said, “Darwin’s Disciples is a secret society of scientists dedicated to protecting, preserving, and improving the natural world.” Every time there was a great advancement, the name was there. “Reported to be a member of Darwin’s Disciples, she would neither confirm nor deny …” It didn’t say, “Accompanied by their chaperone.”
“Then I’m chaperoning you right back to Blue Harbor,” Juliette said. “What kind of chaperone lets her charges illegally cross into Canada? With a frog?”
“A good one?” I didn’t know whether to:
(A) call her bluff,
(B) beg her to stay, or
(C) beg more.
“Have a nice trip back,” I told her.
She got on her bike and punched some coordinates into her One. “You’d better be right behind me,” she said. She sounded like my dad, except my dad might have thrown a joke in there, too.
“Mom’s going to be mad if you abandon us in the middle of nowhere,” I called.
“Oh, I think she’ll see things my way,” Juliette called back.
“I think it’s time for you to make a move,” Davy said. “Do something.”
“Don’t worry. She’ll stop at the next corner.”
Juliette didn’t stop.
“Ahab,” Davy said. “She didn’t stop.”
“She just wants us to go after her,” I said.
“Fine,” Leroy said. “I’ll go after her.” And he took off.
Davy and Delph looked at me. “We’ve got to get her back,” Davy said.
“You can’t talk to her,” I told him. “Nobody can talk to her.”
“Well, I’m going to try,” Delph said. And then she and Davy took off after my sister. I straddled my bike and waited another minute, watching heat rise from th
e pavement. But nobody came back.
Demikhov’s dogs. It was the worst swear I could think of, a reference to a Russian scientist who worked on organ transplants, but who also tried to create a two-headed dog. Finally, I took off after them, too.
Even with Leroy yelling, it took us half an hour before Juliette slowed down enough that we could catch her. When she finally stopped, she glared with eyes like a hellhound, if hellhounds were 1.7 meters tall, with curly brown hair and lip gloss.
Leroy was talking to her when I pulled up, but they stopped talking when I got there. I put down my kickstand and faced my sister. “I’m sorry we didn’t tell you our plan.”
Nothing.
“We didn’t think you’d come if you knew.”
“You were right,” she said.
“Don’t leave the mission,” Davy said. “Please?”
“You’re my sister,” I said.
“That’s not my fault.”
“It’s for science,” Davy said. “And saving the world and stuff. Like on your dad’s shirt.”
“‘Saving the world and stuff’? Very convincing, Davy. Very scientific. How are we going to save the world by introducing two toads?”
“Bullfrogs,” I corrected her.
“I’ll tell you what’s bull. This. I cannot believe you were going to risk our lives for a stupid frog. People get shot sneaking across the border. It’s not like you’re going to save the species, Ahab.”
“They don’t shoot people,” I said. According to my research, the border patrol didn’t even carry guns; they carried long-distance “nummers” that made your body feel like it had gone to sleep. “They just tase them. And maybe we are going to save the species. Somebody’s got to. Why not us?”
“‘Just tase them.’ People die from being tased. They go to jail for less than this. You’re delusional, that’s all.”
“I’m not delusional,” I said. “Stay with us. Let’s finish this. Because I’m not going back now. And you shouldn’t either. What kind of chaperone leaves a bunch of kids alone in the middle of nowhere?”
“What kind of chaperone leads a bunch of kids across a border in front of armed guards? I can’t win.”
If Juliette kept going, we’d never make it to the border before our parents came to retrieve us. If they did, there’d be no frog spawn. No Disciples. Maybe we’d avoid jail, but I’d be grounded for five to ten years, easy. I wasn’t sure I could win, either way.
“You have to help,” I told her. “It’s the only option.” And then, because I like to be exact: “Well, it’s the best option.”
“What are my other choices?” she asked.
“Giving up.” I meant more than just this trip.
The effects of Mr. Valentino’s air-conditioning were gone. The sun bore into our skin. It was easy to be angry in this type of weather. It was easy to explode. I looked into Juliette’s eyes, to see how far gone she was, but she closed them, squeezing the handlebars of the bike like she was trying to steady herself. She opened her eyes again and breathed. Then she turned her bike so it was facing north again.
“You owe me,” she said.
“I owe you,” I agreed. Until she turned the bike around, I hadn’t realized how much I wanted her to stay.
She didn’t say another word, she just started pedaling.
“I knew she was an outlaw at heart,” said Leroy, with his wide smile.
We’d lost a lot of time, so we pedaled in silence and made it to about forty-three kilometers before we reached the literal crossroads: Mr. Valentino’s Way or the Way of the Naked Mole Rat.
“Mole Rat,” said Davy. “What does he get if he steers us wrong?”
“Mr. Valentino seems like he’s been around, though,” Leroy said. I think he liked him more because he didn’t charge us for the “ice cream.” “I vote for the old-timer.”
“Me too,” said Juliette. I could tell from her voice that I was going to be giving up showers and a lot of other stuff once we made it home. “At least he’s somebody I’ve met in person. He knew our dad.”
“He barely remembered him, though,” said Davy. It stung more than I wanted it to. “And I don’t think Mr. Valentino’s been out much lately.”
“I wish Mom had come through here,” Juliette said. “I’d trust her opinion.”
My mother didn’t talk much about her journalism job before product photography, so it was hard to know where she’d been. Maybe she’d tried to save the puffins. Maybe she’d ridden a horse. She’d probably at least taken pictures of them.
“What if Mr. Valentino has a deal with the border patrol?” Delphinium said. “What if he’s giving us a false map so that we’ll get in trouble?”
The sun came through the trees and made me think of a poem we’d learned in English once:
During the day
Dappled sunlight
During the night
Splintered stars …
“We have to choose,” Leroy said. “I say we go Mr. Valentino’s way.”
There’d been a note in my dad’s journal, next to best ice cream ever. Gr8 guy, it said. My dad had trusted him. (Though there was also a note, a few pages later, that said TRUST NO ONE.)
If we didn’t go Mr. Valentino’s way, that left us following a path plotted out by a guy we’d never met who illegally owned a frog. A guy who illegally owned a frog just like me. And that was my answer. I had more in common with Mole Rat than with anyone—including my dad.
“Mole Rat,” I said.
“Could have predicted that,” Leroy said. “Let’s put it to a vote. Who’s with me on Mr. Valentino?” Only Juliette raised her hand.
“Mole Rat wins,” I said.
“I’m the chaperone,” Juliette said. “My vote counts more.”
“Well,” Leroy said, “at least this way we’ve got someone to blame if we get busted.”
“That doesn’t make me feel better,” Juliette said.
“We’re not going to get busted,” I said. “We’re going to go to Canada.”
We started pedaling in the direction of the woods near Easton like Mole Rat had instructed us. We rode under the cover of trees, sweat still pouring off us. It made Juliette’s arms itch even worse. I wondered why, if they could develop cures for Ebola and diabetes, no one could find a way to get rid of mosquito bites. We stopped in Geddy to get our bearings.
“We have to stay hushed from now on,” Davy whispered. “Mole Rat said not to make noise.”
There were patrol stations set up on each side of the river, and sensors that ran parallel to it. According to Mole Rat, most of the sensors didn’t work; they were just there as a deterrent. There was a spot twenty-eight kilometers from the border station that was especially faulty.
I rearranged Alph in my satchel, turned on a cold pack to keep him cool and a flashlight to act as the sun. “Stay quiet, Alph,” I said. I sealed him up.
My One showed when we were getting near the invisible line, though the rush of the water told us that, too. Leaves crunched under our bike tires.
Just stay quiet, Alph, I thought. Stay quiet.
You could hear the rattle of our bikes as we rode single file through the woods.
My heart beat faster. So far, so good.
And then, the silence was ripped apart.
“JUST WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING, YOUNG MAN?”
The voice was shrill, like a siren, but it wasn’t the border patrol. It was Davy’s mom, her life-size head glaring at us from between Davy’s handlebars.
Davy slammed on his brakes. I was impressed he didn’t wreck. I would have.
He made his own voice super soft, and we hoped Mrs. Hudson would mimic him. “I’m just riding, Mom.”
This was the part of the trip I’d worried the most about—not just because we were sneaking across the border but because whether we followed Mr. Valentino’s route or Mole Rat’s route, we were veering from the route we’d told our parents we were taking. Mrs. Hudson was tracking us.
“I thought you kids had some sense, and that includes sense of direction.” Mrs. Hudson didn’t take the hint, about lowering her voice.
Juliette pulled down her kickstand and stood behind Davy, so Mrs. H could see her face. “There was a problem with the path—” she began, but Mrs. Hudson kept shouting. She was still shouting when two patrol officers approached us on scooters not so different from the one Derek Ripley’s dad drove. They had helmets, the kind someone would wear on a safari.
“Piltdown Chickens,” I muttered. That was the name of the fossil of a chicken that had been merged with the fossil of a dinosaur tail. It was supposed to be the missing link, before people found out it was a hoax.
“Are those officers?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Davy said.
“You see what a wrong turn can do? It can get you arrested. You stand up straight and listen to them.”
One of the officers—her name tag said Officer Kennedy—addressed Mrs. Hudson directly. “Border patrol, ma’am. We’ll get them moving in the right direction.”
“I appreciate you doing so,” Mrs. Hudson said.
“I’ll call you later, Mom,” Davy said. “After we see what transpires here.” “Transpires” was up there with “ergo” in Davy World.
“Five minutes,” she said. “You will call me in five minutes.”
There was silence.
“We couldn’t help overhearing,” said the other officer, Officer Liu. “Are you lost?”
“We were following the river,” Leroy said. He was good under pressure. “I guess we got confused.”
“Why didn’t you stay on the pike?” asked Officer Liu, somehow overlooking the fact that getting confused by a river that only flowed in one direction did not say much about our level of intelligence.
“We wanted the road less traveled,” Leroy said.
“What’s your destination?” asked Officer Kennedy.
Don’t say Canada. Don’t say Canada. Don’t say Canada.
“My grandmother’s house,” said Leroy. “In New Glaser.”
That was on our side of the border. It was close enough that our “wrong turn” didn’t look suspicious. Plus, New Glaser happened to take us near the road that Mr. Valentino had suggested. It was like Leroy had a grid laid out in his head instead of on his One.
One Small Hop Page 11
