Digger Doyle's Real Book of Monsters

by Daniel Warriner

  The jail huts all had steep roofs and round walls and plank floors. Outside and around each hut was a circular walkway—a narrow hoop of a path—where one careless step could mean falling to your death, since there was no rail to stop you from going over. In a way, the true walls of these jails was the air itself.

  Yukiko was stuck with Braden in the same jail hut. Whereas Pam had the misfortune of being jailed with Big Bee in another. All of them were too far from the village to hear much of what was going on over there, or to be heard, but close enough to be constantly reminded they were captives. With a really long rope, escape might be possible. After all, there were no guards around. And Kenja and Kenza had been gone for two or three hours. But even with a rope, Yukiko figured it would be impossible to get both Pam and herself down together.

  Inside each hut was a chain, hanging from a thumb-round hole in the ceiling. Pulling the chain released drinkable water, which trickled down a chute of bamboo. There were also bulky leather sleeping rolls, filled with crunchy-dry leaves and moss. Yukiko had unfurled one to sleep on the previous night, and it was reasonably comfortable. The jail huts were also each furnished with a wooden seat, with a gaping hole in the middle—a toilet for anyone brave enough to sit on and risk falling through.

  Four shapes—a triangle, a star, a diamond, and a half-moon—had been cut out of the walls. From those, Yukiko could peer out in all four directions at their leafy surrounds. There was also a door-shaped, but doorless, opening in the wall, through which you could enter the hut or go outside onto the walkway.

  Yukiko guessed these huts were used to imprison naughty giants. For Tengus, such a cramped space would be unpleasant—a punishment in itself—but for her, Pam, Braden, and even Big Bee, there was ample room to walk around and avoid one another.

  Pam was tough for her age. And Yukiko could barely believe how fearless of heights the Happer girl was. She’d already told Pam twice not to climb beneath the walkway or up onto the roof. But Pam tried anyway, only to discover there weren’t any branches close enough to grab hold of, and the tree was too broad to shinny down.

  So far, Big Bee had stayed away from Pam. He’d done plenty of cursing, though, at the trees, at the Tengus, and especially at Braden. He dangled his thick legs over the side of the walkway and was in a horrid mood, blaming Braden for their getting caught.

  “This is your doing,” he raged. “You’ll be even sorrier if you don’t come up with a plan to get us down from here.”

  Braden crossed his arms and kept his mouth shut. He lay flat on his back on the walkway, on the side which Big Bee couldn’t see.

  “Can’t hide from me, boy.” Big Bee’s fury was never-ending. “You lost the mirror, too. You bungling embarrassment of a Bee.”

  “I still have the jewel,” Braden whispered, thinking only he could hear himself. But Yukiko, inside the hut, was on the other side of the oval window, which was right above Braden. She had heard him, too.

  Earlier that morning, Kenza had delivered leaf-wrapped bundles of flattened mushrooms, boiled baby bamboo slices, chewy green flower stems, and stubby white grubs. As soon as Big Bee had unwrapped his, he hurled it back at the Tengu and spat at the giant. Even worse, the brute threatened to eat Pam if the giants didn’t bring him some meat. Pam heard this and climbed onto the roof to eat her bamboo. Yukiko and Braden chewed up and swallowed what they could. The mushrooms and bamboo were salty and sweet, but the stems and grubs were bitter and gritty, and felt gross on their tongues.

  Yukiko had no idea why she and the others had been brought there. She’d dropped her rucksack while fleeing the Kappas—not that anything inside it could help her now. She could throw it, but at whom?

  Their best chance of escaping was by using the ropeways that ran between the trees. These vine ropes served as skyways for the Tengus, and she’d watched the giants use them to shuttle cages and lifts up and down, and outside of, and throughout the village. If she and Pam were able to reach a rope, they could scamper off like squirrels in search of a place to climb down safely. However, the closest one was higher than her jail hut roof. Even if she sprinted as fast as she could and jumped, she wouldn’t be able to spring herself that high.

  The village started filling with the sounds of Tengus returning to their work—the banging of hammers, the thuds of hatchets, and the whirring of lifts, as well as the shrieks of young giants at play. Why did all of them stop for a while? Yukiko wondered. Who did they see?

  The rope above suddenly tightened like a skipping rope pulled from both ends. Yukiko spotted a cage zooming toward the jail huts.

  “Digger,” Pam cried out. “Yukiko, it’s Digger. Is that Corliss with him?”

  “Be careful,” Yukiko warned, keeping an eye on both the cage and Pam. “Don’t fall off that roof.”

  As the cage drew near, Yukiko saw the shelled creature with Digger. The Kappas and Tengus must not be working together, she assumed. Unless that one somehow angered the giants.

  Kenja and Kenza were catching a ride at the sides of the cage, and the screwy one, Kenza, reached up and yanked the rope, which halted the cage by one of the unoccupied jail huts. The serious one, Kenja, then hopped down onto the walkway. After that, both giants went about opening the cage and setting Digger and the sleeping Kappa down against the hut’s outer wall.

  “Digger!” Pam and Yukiko both yelled with a mixture of excitement and unease. He grabbed hold of the half-moon window and pulled himself up against the wall, wobbly from his speedy delivery, and dizzy from being so high up.

  Big Bee glared at him, then spat toward the Tengus before going inside his jail hut and out of view.

  “I’m all right,” Digger said. “I think.” For a second Yukiko could tell he was happy to see her and Pam, but whatever relief he felt instantly faded when he realized where they were.

  “You will remain here,” Kenja told Digger as Kenza shut the empty cage.

  “For how long? When can we go home?”

  The giants said nothing, and after another yank of the rope, they were zipping back toward the village.

  Is Digger really all right? Yukiko wondered. If he is, then why is he talking funny? “Digger, what did you say to them?” she asked. Surely he can’t speak their language. What was that mumbo-jumbo? Has he lost his marbles?

  Digger chose the words that Yukiko, and Pam, would understand: “Where are we?”

  “I don’t know exactly, but near the lake. They brought us here yesterday.” Yukiko looked about grimly.

  “They left us on the beach—all night,” Digger said, then he pulled Slithis away from the ledge so the Kappa wouldn’t fall off if it happened to roll over.

  “We were on the beach, too, but they brought us up before dark.”

  “Nowhere to go but straight down.” Pam sniffled. “Where’s my brother?”

  Digger shook his head, unsure of what to tell her. “I don’t know. He was at the waterfall, and then . . . I just don’t know, Pam.” He peeked over the edge and took an immediate step back. What appeared to be stones, scattered across the forest floor, were actually rocks and boulders.

  “That’s a Kappa, isn’t it? Is it sleeping?” Pam asked. Digger checked to make sure Slithis was still breathing. “Kind of,” he told her. “It’s wounded. And weak. I have to refresh the water on its head pretty soon.” Just then Digger noticed Braden, who had poked his head out a triangular window. “Hey, are you okay, Yukiko?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. I’d rather be stuck with him than his brother, or you-know-who. Anyway, there should be water in that hut. Pull the chain. I drank some. It’s clean.”

  Digger reached into his rucksack for his cup and went inside to pull the chain. A streamlet flowed down the bamboo chute. He went back outside and poured a cupful into the dip in Slithis’s head. The Kappa took in a deep breath, its hair wriggling excitedly in the fresh water.

  Yukiko turned to Pam. “Corliss must have gotten away, then. That’s a good thing. He’ll go get help. Don’t worry, okay
?” Pam nodded. Then Big Bee—for cruel fun—shouted out the door in his hoarse voice. “No way your nitwit brother’s gonna save us. He’s as gone as your father. Or dead.” Pam clamped her hands over her ears. At that same moment, Yukiko imagined Big Bee as a big fat pig under a smelly hat and dirty long coat. In her mind, the Kappas and Tengus were nowhere near as rude, barbaric, or dangerous as that boorish brute. And poor Pam was trapped in a tree with him. We have to get out of here. She looked over at Digger, who was lugging the Kappa inside. She then looked back at Pam, who was still on the roof, hands still pressed against the sides of her head. We’re helpless, Yukiko thought. Or hopeless? Either way, she was certain they needed to be rescued, and it would take a whole lot of luck for anyone to get them out of those trees alive.

  Chapter 24—Of Foxes and Gods

  Corliss had run from the Kappas through the darkness, holding his hands out in front of him so as not to bash himself into a rock wall. The passageway narrowed at first but then widened into a subterranean chamber. Stalactites dripped, and stalagmites caught those drips, together like toothy wet chops about to chomp. The Kappas hadn’t caught up with him, but they soon would if he didn’t make a decision quickly . . .

  In the wall of this underground chamber were nine holes to nine tunnels, all branching off like pipes in different directions. Corliss felt air streaming out of a few. They must go all the way outside. But which one to take?

  The second he heard the Kappas scurrying into the chamber, he slipped into the nearest hole. He didn’t have to crawl. He didn’t have to do anything. There was nothing he could do. As if on a slide, he coasted through the shaft, over its slimy slickness, veering violently from side to side.

  Then daylight—blindingly bright. As well as the realization that he’d shot straight out of the ridge and into a bathtub-sized pit of gooey muck.

  He was faster than the shelled creatures but only by a little, and he wasn’t sure if any had seen him climb into the hole. He watched as two Kappas plopped out of the same shaft. He’d already hidden himself behind a mound of earth and rocks, and even if the creatures looked his way, it would be difficult to make him out since he was completely covered in mud. Concealed, as he was, the Kappas wouldn’t be able to tell him apart from the ground, or smell him. What’s more, the Kappas were rubbing their eyes. Adjusting to the daylight seemed hard enough, let alone focusing their reptilian eyes to spot their prey.

  After some sniffing about, as well as a few mumbles and shell-shrugs between them, the Kappas climbed back into the hole.

  Corliss skulked around the base of the hill, not wanting to attract the attention of other Kappas, or giants, if any were still around. And the more he walked, the more mud he shed. It dropped off him in brown gobs and chunks.

  When he reached the river, he saw no signs of what had happened there, apart from a cluster of giant footprints by the river’s bank.

  “The minka and village,” he whispered to himself. “I have to get back. Get help. The Japanese must have trackers—or helicopters—to search for lost people.”

  He started running downriver, as fast as he could, toward their campsite, then realized that making it all the way back to the village before nightfall would be impossible. “I won’t find the minka in the dark. I’ll have to stay at the camp tonight. And head back early tomorrow.”

  The tents and supplies were just as they’d left them, and he got a raging fire going immediately. The bears and boars, if any still roamed these woods, would keep their distance from the fire. With any luck, he thought, the other beasts would as well.

  He felt an urge to call out “Pam!” “Dad!” “Digger!” Even “Yukiko!” But hollering wouldn’t do him any good.

  He found a few packages of noodles in the professor’s rucksack. Even better, he found the professor’s canteen, and drank half its water in a few thirst-quenching gulps. Next he went into each tent to check what else had been left behind. He found a chocolate bar mixed in with his father’s stuff and sat down to eat it right away. After that he stepped out of the tent. But what he saw beside the fire made him stumble, and he fell between the flaps and back inside the tent.

  “That can’t be,” he told himself, his heart racing, and his mind also racing, to figure out what it was he’d just witnessed—and what to do about it.

  Corliss peeked out between the flaps. It hadn’t scampered away. Its beady eyes were staring back at him, in the reddish head of a fox—atop an old man’s body. A fox that was half man. Or a man that was half fox. Its arms and paws furry and clawed. Its naked back hunched, and bony shoulders, each somehow drifting apart from the other. With both paws, it was holding its pants up around its waist.

  Corliss let the flaps close, and he sat still in the middle of the tent. He could cut a hole in the back and make a run for it, but what could he use for cutting? Fox or man—it’s old, he thought. He could fight it, but its teeth appeared as sharp as its claws.

  “Corliss,” he heard, half a voice, half a snarl. “Corliss, come on out from there.”

  Corliss stayed put, searching around for something to use as a weapon. There was the pot Yukiko had brought along, but it was barely big enough to boil four eggs in.

  “It’ll have to do,” Corliss muttered to himself. He then lunged out of the tent screaming with the pot above his head. But he stopped short of striking the fox-man.

  “Inari-san?”

  The fox’s snout was retreating. Its ears were changing too, from pointy to round. Its whiskers were shrinking into its flattening face. Its eyes were no longer the eyes of a fox—they were the eyes of the old hermit fisherman, Inari-san.

  Corliss didn’t lower the pot by even a smidge. “What are you?” He cocked his head to one side, mystified by Inari-san’s swift transformation.

  “I am Inari. And I have been walking since last night.”

  Corliss remained in shock. Moments before, the fisherman had been a fox. Had this man-animal done something to his father? “I’ll ask you one more time . . . What are you?”

  Inari-san’s fur had altogether disappeared into his now wrinkly human skin. He lifted his shirt off the ground and put it on. “I am what I said I am—Inari. I’m a fox sprite, and I’m not here to harm you.”

  “Then why are you here? And what did you do to my father and Professor Satori?”

  “Your father? Satori-sensei? I did not do anything to them.”

  Corliss wasn’t prepared to put down the pot, but it wasn’t as high above his head now.

  “Did you see them after you left us?”

  “Satori-sensei spoke with me at my hut. He told me about . . . Digger.”

  “What about him?”

  “Digger is able to see and read the words of the ancients, about secret societies, creatures, spirits . . . And what he reads is invisible—to most of us.”

  “I know that already. Doesn’t matter much now, does it?”

  “The man who gave me the jewel can also read what is invisible. He spoke to me with the same words my ancestors used. And he had a page from a book.” Inari-san studied his hands for several seconds.

  “So what about it?” Corliss asked.

  “The page had no words on it—like the one your cousin can read.”

  “Words, no words, words, no words . . . I don’t care about that right now. Who was the man?”

  “I have no idea who he was. He didn’t say. But I listened to his story about the Sun Goddess—Amaterasu. He told me she was angry at the forest, and every living thing in it. He told me the goddess was making it sick—to punish us all for not worshipping her, for not admiring her. He warned me to keep her jewel. He said that if I held onto it—until the day a special boy came for it—then the Sun Goddess would be too weak to destroy these lands.”

  Corliss pinched his leg. Nope, he decided. I’m not dreaming. He was in a woods full of wacky beings, and a mad god to boot. To think he’d agreed to drop summer camp for this whole mess.

  And he wasn’t sure yet if
he could trust Inari-san. He didn’t know if he could trust anything—not even the fire, which hadn’t helped to keep this fox sprite away. He lowered the pot, but he kept a firm grip on its handle. “All right, no funny business. Sit on that log and stay. You hear me?”

  Inari-san nodded.

  Corliss stood there trying to put pieces together in his head. He wondered if that man—the one with the dog—had Digger’s father’s book and had sent the page to Westwood. Or . . . Could that man actually be Uncle Doyle? Corliss didn’t remember Doctor Doyle as having a single cruel bone in his body. Then again, being lost for three years would certainly change a person.

  He sat down across the fire from Inari-san.

  “I should have known better,” Inari-san said, shaking his head. “I should have been more careful with the jewel.”

  “Why? Do you think the Sun Goddess, what’s her name? A-ma—”

  “Amaterasu.”

  “Yeah, her. Did she take the jewel from you?”

  “She did not,” Inari-san again shook his head. “Others took it from me. Now the sword is with the Tengus, and the mirror is with the Kappas?” He sniffed the air twice.

  Corliss shifted uncomfortably. He wasn’t about to tell this mysterious fox-man that the mirror was right there, in his rucksack.

  “You see, Corliss, I believe that without the Three Sacred Treasures, Amaterasu cannot stop the poisons. They will go on flowing. Into the lake. Down the river. And spreading through the woods in every direction. All will die. And the dying will be endless.”

  The fire snapped and popped.

  “Noodles,” Corliss said. After all, what could he say about the creeping death that Inari-san had spoken so grimly of? “Do you eat noodles?”

  “No. No noodles.”

  “Well then, what can I do for you?” Corliss dropped the pot on the ground.