Once Upon a Toad

by Heather Vogel Frederick

  Hawk Creek Middle School had made it!

  Olivia’s face lit up and she started to turn around—to look for Connor Dixon, no doubt. I elbowed her sharply. She glared at me, then faced forward again and jammed her sun hat down more firmly on her head. We filed into the exhibit’s warm, humid interior, wrinkling our noses. The Oregon Zoo’s penguins are Humboldts from the coast of Peru, not the arctic kind. The temperature in the exhibit always fools people who expect it to be glacial.

  “P-U,” said Pearl. “It’s stinky in here.”

  “You said it, sister,” agreed Bald Elvis, fanning the air in front of his face.

  The crowd began milling around, and the large, dimly lit room soon echoed with the shouts of excited middle school students. As planned, Pearl, Bald Elvis, Olivia, and I made our way to the wall across from the glass tank, where we pretended to examine the informational placards.

  “‘Found only in the Southern Hemisphere, Humboldt penguins are agile and can swim at speeds of up to thirty miles per hour,’” Pearl read aloud, keeping one eye on the crowd. “Well, whaddya know.”

  All systems go, I texted A.J.

  He texted me right back: Hawkwinds in place.

  I glanced over to where Rani and her brother and Juliet Rodriguez were setting down their backpacks. Connor was with them too. Their mission was to provide a diversion if one proved necessary. I wasn’t sure exactly what they were going to do, but I had a pretty good idea.

  Olivia, who was wedged securely between Bald Elvis and the map of the Humboldt penguin’s natural habitat, reached over and poked me in the arm, jerking her chin toward the entrance. My father and Iz had just walked in. I glanced at the cell phone in my hand: 9:00 a.m. on the dot—right on time. My heart did a somersault at the sight of them, and I would have given anything at that moment to be able to run across the room and fling myself into their arms.

  But if I did that, Dr. Dalton would step in and snag Olivia, and our bargaining chip would be gone. We might not get Geoffrey back. Suck it up, Cat, I told myself sternly. Pull up your socks. Hold fast.

  My father and stepmother had a girl between them with curly blond hair just like Olivia’s. Or at least at first glance I thought she was a girl. On closer look I could see that she was actually a vertically challenged adult—an FBI agent, probably—dressed like a middle schooler.

  Would she fool the kidnappers? I certainly hoped so. If she didn’t, we’d have to step in.

  I saw my father tense as he spotted Dr. Dalton. He clearly didn’t like the government scientist. I doubted anyone did. If Dr. Dalton had a dog, I’d bet even his dog didn’t like him.

  A moment later a door in the wall just to the left of us that read STAFF ONLY opened, and a tall, skinny man in a zoo employee uniform appeared. He was carrying a janitor’s broom. He started sweeping, scanning the room all the while. His gaze settled on my father, Iz, and the female FBI agent standing between them.

  Here we go, I thought. Showtime.

  A few yards away on the other side of us, I noticed a woman with a stroller lean down and speak directly into her baby’s sippy cup. Odd, I thought, then realized that it was actually Agent Reynolds—and that the “baby” in the stroller was just a bundle of blankets. She’d spotted the kidnapper too.

  I nudged Pearl and Bald Elvis, pointing at the janitor.

  “Got him,” Pearl whispered. “Where’s your little brother?”

  There was no sign of Geoffrey.

  Olivia peeked out from behind Bald Elvis. Her eyes widened when she saw the man we were talking about. “I’ve seen him somewhere before!” she exclaimed, quickly covering her mouth with her hand to hide the inevitable result of her words.

  Pearl frowned. “Who is he, honey?”

  Olivia scrutinized him as he began sweeping his way toward my father and Iz. She shook her head. “I’m not sure,” she told us, covering her mouth again.

  Suddenly a female voice cried, “Hey, look, there’s Olivia!”

  I whirled around to see Piper Philbin waving at my stepsister. Olivia ducked back behind Bald Elvis, but it was too late. The janitor paused, alert as a hawk. He watched as Piper ran over to us.

  “Why are you hiding?” she asked my stepsister. “And what’s with that ugly hat?”

  “You stupid—,” I began to say, before Pearl clamped her hand over my mouth. I gagged as I felt my mouth fill with toad.

  “Fleabrain!” Olivia finished for me, launching a sharp-edged diamond at her.

  Everything happened really fast after that. The janitor spotted the gemstone. His eyes lit up. So did Dr. Dalton’s. As Piper stood there looking bewildered, they both started for us. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Agent Reynolds grab the sippy cup off the stroller. She spoke into it again as she sprinted in our direction.

  The janitor reached us first. Pushing Piper aside, he lunged for Olivia. Bald Elvis stepped forward to block him, but the janitor tripped him with his broom, sending him sprawling. Pearl let go of me and started smacking the janitor with her purse as he grabbed Olivia’s wrist and dragged her toward the door that read STAFF ONLY.

  My eyes were watering. I couldn’t hold the toad in any longer. “Bleah!” I cried, spitting it into my hands and hoping no one saw me.

  Piper did. She shrieked and backed into Dr. Dalton, who stared at the toad, then at me, riveted.

  Great, I thought. Area 51, here I come.

  At least the janitor hadn’t seen me. He was too intent on capturing my stepsister. Hoping to distract him, I pitched the toad at the back of his head. Unfortunately, it missed and hit Pearl instead, who yelped and dropped her purse. The Hawkwinds mistook this for the signal to create a diversion, and in a flash the Penguinarium echoed with the strains of Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik. I resisted the urge to cover my delicate, shell-like ears. Connor was terrible on the saxophone.

  “Where’s my little brother?” I hollered at the man in the zoo uniform, heedless now of toads, Piper Philbin, Dr. Dalton, or anyone else. All I could think of was Geoffrey. “You promised to give him back!”

  He didn’t even pause to turn around and look at me as toads streamed from my lips, dropping to the floor and scattering in every direction. One landed on Piper Philbin’s foot. She fainted, and Dr. Dalton caught her just before she hit the ground.

  As the toads hopped off in a panic, people screamed and ran for the exit doors. Agent Reynolds was swept away in the stampede, and so were Pearl and Bald Elvis and my father and Iz.

  Things had gone terribly, horribly wrong. Plan A, Plan B, all of it. I looked around wildly, hoping to spot the cavalry again, but Great-Aunt Abyssinia was nowhere in sight. Really, I thought with disgust. What was the point of a fairy godmother if she didn’t show up when you needed her?

  I had no choice.

  It was up to me to try and rescue Olivia and Geoffrey.

  I dived for the man in the zoo janitor’s uniform, latching on to his leg as he hauled my shrieking stepsister through the open door in the wall. The last thing I heard before it slammed shut behind us was my homeroom teacher wailing, “Mrs. Bonneville doesn’t like toads!”

  CHAPTER 26

  Before I could even open my mouth to scream for help, a gag was stuffed into it and my hands were bound in front of me. Something scratchy—a burlap bag, maybe?—was pulled over my head.

  A second later I was dumped into something soft and squishy. One of my hands brushed up against whatever it was, and I recoiled. The something was slimy, too. And what was that awful smell?

  I nearly gagged on my gag when I realized that I was sitting in a cart full of dead fish.

  “Mmmf mmmf!” Olivia was trussed up beside me, struggling wildly. I felt a brief flash of sympathy—Miss Prissy Pants, who hated nature when it was alive, must be even more grossed out to find herself sitting in the middle of the penguins’ lunch.

  The cart surged forward, one of its wheels squeaking loudly as our captor pushed it down a dimly lit corridor. Panting heavily, he steered us a
round a sharp corner. Olivia rolled into me. Another stretch of corridor, then the cart suddenly picked up speed. We were heading downhill.

  Where the heck were we going?

  I got my answer a minute later when the cart angled up again and I felt a blast of fresh air. The trumpet of an elephant and a whole new set of smells announced that we were halfway across the zoo, behind the elephant enclosure.

  I remembered my dad telling me once, when he brought me here with Olivia before Geoffrey was born, that the exhibits were connected by underground tunnels. My heart sank as I realized the FBI would be looking for us in the wrong place. They’d be searching outside the penguin exhibit, not way over here.

  I squeezed my eyes shut and tried sending Great-Aunt Abyssinia a mental SOS, hoping that fairy godmothers were equipped with some kind of radar that could pick up a distress signal.

  If she heard me, though, she didn’t respond.

  Now that we were outside in the daylight, I could make out a tiny bit of my surroundings through the burlap bag’s rough mesh. The cart was heading for a white zoo van. Its rear door was wide open, and when we reached it, our captor picked me up and tossed me inside. A second later I heard a thud as Olivia was dumped in too. Then the door slammed shut.

  Where were the police and the FBI? Why weren’t they stopping us? Where were Dad and Iz and Pearl and Bald Elvis? Where was Great-Aunt Abyssinia?

  The van’s engine roared to life, and a split second later there was a crunch of gravel as we pulled forward onto a driveway or a road. I tried to make as much noise as possible as we drove on, hoping someone would hear me. I didn’t dare holler—no point choking myself on a toad—but I did lash out with my feet, kicking as hard as I could against the side of the van.

  Unfortunately, I also kicked Olivia.

  She grunted and kicked me back.

  “Keep it down back there, for crying out loud!” snapped the driver, making another sharp turn that sent Olivia rolling into me.

  We lay there side by side, breathing heavily. The van made its way along what must have been some kind of a back road, from the way we were bumping and jolting. Were we in the canyon?

  We lurched again, and then I felt the hum of smooth pavement. We were back on a main road. Had we left the zoo? Before long I heard the rush of cars on the freeway. The kidnappers were getting away with it!

  Olivia grabbed my hand and squeezed. She must have had the same thought. I squeezed back, just as scared as she was. Where, oh, where was Great-Aunt Abyssinia?

  Life lessons, my mother had said. Our family’s fairy godmother was all about teaching life lessons.

  What kind of a life lesson is this? I wondered bitterly. All of a sudden Great-Aunt Abyssinia’s words came floating into my mind. “What you two need is to find some common ground,” she’d told me that first night she came to visit, right before this whole stupid diamond and toad business started.

  What did Olivia and I have in common, though? We were so completely, utterly different. I racked my brain trying to think of an answer. And then it hit me.

  Geoffrey.

  Of course! Our little brother was what we had in common. We both loved Geoffrey, and we both wanted him back.

  But how was knowing this supposed to help? I mulled it over as we sped along the freeway.

  A short time later we pulled off. Another stretch of road, a few more sharp turns, and then the van slowed as I heard the rumble of a garage door. We eased forward and came to a halt, the garage door rumbling shut again behind us.

  My stepsister and I were rapidly bundled out of the van and set on our feet. As the burlap sacks were whisked off our heads, we blinked in the harsh glare of the overhead light.

  “Two of them?” said a gravelly voice—the same gravelly voice we’d heard on the speakerphone after Geoffrey first vanished. It belonged to a short, pudgy man who was standing in front of us. Very short, in fact. The two of us stood eye to eye. “You were only supposed to bring me one.” He pointed to Olivia. “Diamond Girl here.”

  “Yeah, boss,” our captor replied. “But I couldn’t shake the other one, and I just thought—well, I figured I’d better not leave her behind.”

  “You thought? You figured? You shouldn’t think so much. It gets us in trouble when you think. And whaddya mean you couldn’t shake her? She’s a pipsqueak.”

  Who’s calling who a pipsqueak? I thought, scowling at him.

  He ignored me. Leaning in for a closer inspection, he grimaced. “What is that nasty smell?”

  “Sorry, boss,” said the janitor. “It was feeding time at the zoo. Only way to get them out.”

  The pudgy man flicked his pudgy fingers at me dismissively. “Get rid of her. No point dragging along dead weight.”

  My heart nearly stopped at his words. Olivia shot me a glance, then started hopping up and down and squealing behind her gag. The pudgy man brightened.

  “Quick,” he said. “Untie her! Not her hands, you moron, her mouth! She might be making diamonds!”

  She was. Lots of them.

  “Keep your hands off her!” she sputtered. “She’s my sister!”

  I take back every mean thing I ever said about you, I thought. Well, almost every mean thing.

  The pudgy man stooped down to gather up the glittering stones she’d dropped, then straightened again and looked at me with renewed interest. “Sister, huh? That’s right, I read about how there were two of you.” He extended a fat finger and poked me in the ribs, then looked over at Olivia. “So what you’re telling me is, if we squeeze her, she might make diamonds too?”

  He doesn’t know, I realized with a sudden burst of clarity. He didn’t know about the toads! Neither of them did.

  I had a secret weapon.

  I edged a little closer to Olivia, hoping she’d catch my drift. If she could just untie my gag somehow—

  Instead she stepped on my foot.

  “That’s right,” she told the pudgy man, shooting me a warning look.

  “Really? Lemme see.” He motioned to the janitor to remove my gag.

  As the man in the zoo uniform moved to do his bidding, his cell phone rang. He answered it. “Uh-huh,” he said, listening to the voice on the other end. “Uh-oh. I see. I’ll tell him.”

  “Tell me what?” snapped the pudgy man as the janitor hung up.

  “Our transport is ready,” he replied, and Olivia and I exchanged a glance. Transport? That didn’t sound good.

  “Captain says there’s a complication, though,” he continued.

  The pudgy man frowned. “What complication?”

  “The harbor is crawling with FBI,” the janitor told him unhappily. “They’ve shut down the airport and the train station and set up roadblocks on all the freeways, too. It’s all over the news.”

  The pudgy man threw his hands up in the air. “I should have known better than to listen to you!” he cried, waddling back and forth in agitation. “If we’d made the trade the day after we grabbed the kid, like I wanted, this never would have happened. They wouldn’t have had time to get organized. But noooo, you had to talk me into your stupid ‘my cousin who works at the zoo and is out of town’ scheme. Your stupid ‘I can borrow his ID’ scheme.” He stopped and shook his head in disgust. “And Field Trip Friday—what was that all about? I don’t care if the zoo was crawling with kids. Waiting for that extra cover you wanted was a disaster!” He started pacing again. “‘Piece of cake,’ you told me. Some cake! What’d you do back there, leave a bread crumb trail leading to our door?”

  The janitor looked like he was hoping the floor would open up and swallow him.

  “Call him back,” the pudgy man ordered, snapping his fingers. “I’m not getting this close and giving up. Tell him to move the boat downriver. Far enough away where the feds won’t be watching. St. Helens, maybe. We’ll meet him there.”

  The janitor nodded.

  “And get these two in the car,” added the pudgy man, snapping his fingers. “We’re leaving now.”


  We were going on a boat? I could feel panic welling up inside. It would be much, much harder for the FBI, and probably even for Great-Aunt Abyssinia, to rescue us if we were on the river, or worse, at sea. I doubted the RV could float.

  “I have to go to the bathroom,” Olivia announced as the janitor started for us.

  “Oh, for crying out loud,” said the pudgy man.

  “Well, I do,” she told him, spitting out another diamond.

  He picked it up, mollified. “Fine, then,” he said, motioning to the janitor. “Take her inside. But make it quick.”

  Olivia disappeared, leaving me in the garage with Mr. I’m Not Vertically Challenged. For the first time in my life I was sorry to see her go.

  “Get in the car,” he told me, opening the rear door of the black SUV that was parked next to the zoo van.

  I climbed awkwardly inside. It wasn’t an easy thing to do with my hands tied, and I fell on my face. I managed to squirm into place, and he buckled me in. “Gotta protect the valuables,” he said with an unpleasant smile. He removed my gag. “Now let’s see what you can do.”

  I could hardly wait to show him. It was high time for a demonstration of toad power.

  “Cat!” cried Olivia just as I sucked in a lungful of air and prepared to unload. “Cat, look!”

  Something in her voice made me pause. Holding my breath, I turned around to see her emerging from the house with the janitor. Our little brother was in her arms.

  “Geoffrey’s safe!” Olivia cried, and burst into tears.

  CHAPTER 27

  I whooshed out my breath.

  In all the excitement of the last few minutes I’d completely forgotten about our little brother!

  “Cat!” he hollered, spotting me in the back of the car. He waved, and I held up my bound hands and waved back, wanting to laugh for joy and at the same time blinking back tears.

  A few seconds later he and Olivia were bundled into the backseat alongside me. The janitor put Geoffrey between us, and my stepsister and I bumped heads as we both leaned down at the same time to kiss him. Olivia sat up. “You first,” she said in a low voice, scattering bluebells. Geoffrey’s favorite flower. “He likes you best.” She turned away to face the window, and I heard her mutter, “He doesn’t even know my name.”