Creature Keepers and the Hijacked Hydro-Hide

by Peter Nelson

  Dedication

  For you, Dad. So glad you opened up Kuku Copy and Printing.—P. N.

  To Mom, the original Creature Keeper.—R. R.

  Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Credits

  Back Ad

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  1

  NO SERVICE.

  Jordan Grimsley’s very smart smartphone smartly alerted him that he was no longer in an active cellular area. Wi-Fi had vanished about fifty miles back, and now Jordan looked from the tiny, useless screen in his hand to the enormous backseat window of his family’s enormous station wagon. The air outside had become muggy and sticky, so all the windows were rolled up. A sign zoomed past. It read: Now Leaving Leisureville, Florida! Take ’er Easy!

  Leisureville was not Jordan’s hometown. Florida was not his home state. And nothing about this trip had been easy to take since they left the big city where Jordan lived. The city. Where there was an abundance of Wi-Fi, and cell service roamed free.

  Jordan had been riding with his family for two days in an embarrassingly ancient 1972 Pontiac Grand Safari, which Jordan’s dad had nicknamed “The Grimsley Family Rambler.” Currently, it was rambling the family through the Sunshine State, along a two-lane stretch of broken road called the Ingraham Highway. And according to both Jordan’s phone and that sign, they’d just officially blown through the last stop before entering a technological dead zone.

  “Dad. There’s still no Wi-Fi. And now I lost my signal.”

  Mr. Grimsley glanced at his son in the rearview mirror, then smiled over at Mrs. Grimsley, sitting beside him in the passenger seat. “You may as well put that thing away for the rest of spring break, Jordan. The Grimsley Clan is off the grid!”

  “Clan” was the term Jordan’s dad used when they were all doing something he considered adventurous—or worse, character-building. “Off the grid” could only mean one thing: both Jordan, who was twelve, and his fourteen-year-old sister, Abigail, who was sitting beside him, would soon be bored stupid.

  Abigail lifted her skull-shaped headphones and glared through dark, mascara-painted eyes. “I still can’t believe you made me abandon Chunk while he’s going through his first molting period!” She held up a book: Raising and Caring for Your Reptile. Jordan noticed a picture of a chubby lizard shedding its skin in a moist, moss-filled terrarium, with a lightbulb hanging over the fogged-up roof. “Auntie Anne better keep Chunk’s molting tank at the right humidity level, or she’s toast!” Chunk was Abigail’s pet iguana, and the only living thing she cared about.

  “Don’t you worry, Abbie,” Mrs. Grimsley said. “Auntie Anne is very reliable.”

  “You mean she’s old,” Abigail said under her breath. She replaced her headphones and buried her face back in her lizard book. “I can’t stand old people.”

  “Y’know, gang,” Jordan’s dad said. “If this house turns out to be fixer-uppable, we could open it up as a B and B! That stands for bed-and-breakfast! See, visitors from all over the world come sleep in our beds, and we make ’em breakfast! Fresh-squeezed juice, homemade bread, hand-churned butter, farm-fresh eggs . . .”

  As his dad continued a list of basic breakfast items, Jordan turned back to the blur of landscape flying by. The thick, tangled woods on either side of the highway did not look inviting. What they did look was full of nasty insects, mucky water, smelly sludge, and probably more than a few alligators. Jordan hated alligators. No one from anywhere would ever want to visit here, he thought.

  “It sounds wonderful, Roger,” Jordan’s mom said. “But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. First we have to see what condition this old house is in.”

  Jordan’s parents loved old stuff. Anything worn down or tossed out, they’d fix up and give new life. They still wrote and received letters, on actual paper, presumably from other people who also liked old stuff. His dad recently got a letter from a lawyer named C. E. Noodlepen, along with something called a deed. The letter said that Jordan’s Grampa Grimsley had left Jordan’s dad an old house in the Florida Everglades. The deed made it official.

  Jordan knew exactly three things about his Grampa Grimsley: (1) that he died years ago; (2) that they’d never met; and (3) that they never would (see #1). Jordan could now add two more things to that list: (4) his grandfather left his dad a cruddy old house; and (5) Jordan would be spending his two-week spring vacation fixing it up with his family, without Wi-Fi or cell service, bored stupid.

  Just as he was thinking all of this, the Family Rambler suddenly jerked and hit something. WUMP! Scrreech! His father slammed the brakes, skidding to a stop in the middle of the empty road.

  Abigail had bumped her head on the seat in front of her and glared at her dad through raccoon-painted eyes. “What are you doing?”

  “Roger, what was that?” Jordan’s mother said in a panicked voice.

  “Some animal,” Jordan’s father said. “It ran out of the woods. I swerved to miss it, but I think it bumped the back corner of the car.”

  The Grimsley family slowly turned around in their seats. Something big, black, and furry was lying in the middle of the Ingraham Highway, fifty yards back.

  “Roger, what is it?”

  Jordan peered through the back window. He couldn’t make out what it could be, either. But he wondered about something else. “Dad, what if it’s—not dead?”

  “Then it’ll be angry,” Abigail said. “I would be if a big, stupid, ugly car hit me.”

  “We can’t just leave it there. Right, Dad?”

  Mr. Grimsley looked at his son, then at the black lump lying on the road in the distance, then finally at his wife’s worried expression.

  “I’m sure it’s just an overgrown possum, Betsy,” Mr. Grimsley said. “You ladies sit tight.” He jumped out of the car and opened Jordan’s door. “C’mon, son. The Grimsley men will tackle this challenge together!” Jordan slowly got out, hoping his father didn’t mean that literally.

  The humid air hit Jordan in the face like a warm, wet towel. It was thick and still as Jordan followed his father to the rear of the car, keeping a sharp eye down the road on the animal lying perfectly still. Whatever it was, that was no possum.

  They turned their attention to the back of the 1972 Pontiac Grand Safari. It had a dent in the side panel, and there was a tiny bit of black fur wedged in the bumper. Mr. Grimsley pulled the clump loose and sniffed it. “Whew,” he said. “Whatever it is, it sure could use a bath.” He offered a whiff to Jordan. The two of them turned to face the animal that had left the stinky clump.

  A chill
shot up Jordan’s back. The creature was gone.

  Jordan’s heart beat faster as he and his dad walked briskly toward the spot where it had been lying. There was no blood, no fur, nothing—just a sharp odor hanging in the muggy air. “Well, I guess it couldn’t have been hurt too badly,” Mr. Grimsley said. “So that’s good.”

  “Dad, what was it?” Jordan asked.

  “I dunno. Bear, maybe.” He sniffed the stinky fur he held between his fingers. “Too big to be a skunk, although it sure smells like a—” He stopped and thought for a moment.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” Mr. Grimsley dropped the fur and chuckled to himself. “No, nothing. C’mon. Let’s get ramblin’ again. I wanna see this house before nightfall.”

  The last few hours of the drive were silent ones. Mr. Grimsley drove a bit slower and each of them kept their eyes peeled for any critters that might leap out of the woods. As the Ingraham Highway took them deeper into the swamp, the twisting vines on either side of the road gnarled higher and thicker. Jordan felt as if the woods were straining to reach out and grab their Family Rambler.

  With the sun sinking behind the thick tree line, the strip of sky above them turned a deep orange. Jordan’s dad put on the Rambler’s right-turn blinker, even though they hadn’t seen a single other car since they passed through Leisureville. They turned onto a new road, passing a sign: Welcome to Waning Acres: A Retirement Community for the Young at Heart!

  The road immediately became wider and smoother, and the wild, curling, swampy roadside vegetation was suddenly tamed—pushed back behind neat, stone walls, making space for a line of perfect little houses, each with a perfect little lawn. Aside from slightly differing colors, each house was identical to the next.

  “Creepy,” Abigail said.

  “Is it one of these?” Mrs. Grimsley asked.

  Jordan stared straight ahead. “No. It’s gotta be that one.”

  The street dead-ended at an iron gate, which was cluttered with locked chains and KEEP OUT! signs. Beyond the gate rose a front yard thick with weeds, leading up to an enormous house. Completely unlike all the neat, cute little houses, this one stood two stories at least and took up the entire width of the dead end. Its paint was dingy and peeling, its windows broken and boarded up, with black shutters hanging off their hinges.

  Mr. Grimsley put the 1972 Pontiac Grand Safari in park and grinned at his family’s empty faces. “Here we are.” He beamed. “Welcome to Grampa Grimsley’s!”

  2

  Jordan’s dad slid a rusty key into the lock and turned, then pushed open the front door to the old house. The Grimsley family was immediately greeted with a burst of musty air waiting to engulf the first intruder foolish enough to enter. Jordan coughed. It was like breathing through a sweaty old gym sock.

  They stepped into the large, empty front hall. There was a dusty staircase on the left, a long, dark hallway straight ahead, and a big living room off to the right. The Grimsleys went right.

  They entered what must have been at one time a lovely living room, long before the spiderwebs, mold, smelly carpeting, and peeling wallpaper took over.

  Abigail spoke first. “Okay. This place is totally—”

  “Perfect!” Mr. Grimsley exclaimed, stepping into the center of the room, waving his hands around dramatically. “I couldn’t agree more, Abbie! It’s perfect!”

  Jordan and Abigail glanced at each other, then turned to their mother for help. But it was too late. Mrs. Grimsley was grinning ear to ear. “And totally fixer-uppable!” she said.

  Jordan stared at his parents as they hugged each other in the center of this filthy room. Whatever form of insanity they shared, he hoped they hadn’t passed it along to him.

  “I can’t believe you’re going to make us work here on our spring break,” Abigail said. “I miss my room. I miss Chunk. I miss—oxygen!” She stepped to a window and ripped open the heavy curtains. The window was boarded up. “Perfect.”

  “All right, family meeting,” Mr. Grimsley said. “Look, I’m beginning to sense that not everyone is as excited as your mother and I about fixing this old place up. But the letter I received from Mr. Noodlepen was clear. We had a short time frame to take physical ownership of the house to claim it as our own.”

  “We should claim it as a disaster area,” Abigail said.

  “Look, I know it might need a little TLC—”

  “More like TNT,” Jordan said, smiling at his sister. She didn’t smile back. Abbie never smiled at his jokes.

  “But I also know,” their father continued, “that a little of the ol’ Grimsley grit will turn this place into a palace in no time!”

  “I can’t believe this is our vacation,” Abbie said.

  “Anyone can go on vacation,” Mr. Grimsley replied. “This is a . . . renovacation!”

  Making his way down the long hallway, Jordan found numerous doors, each one opening to reveal a small bedroom. The hall continued all the way to the back of the house, leading into a massive dining room. Inside, a long, wide picnic table ran the entire length of the chamber, with benches on either side that could easily seat fifty or more people.

  At the far end of the huge picnic table was a swinging doorway, which Jordan pushed through to enter a very large kitchen. Its multiple sinks, miles of countertop, and countless pantries and closets were all just as run-down and dingy as the rest of the house. Jordan tried to imagine the massive meals that could’ve been prepared here—and wondered who might have sat down at that humongous picnic table to eat them.

  There was one last door off the kitchen, which led to the outside. It was jammed shut, and Jordan had to use all his might to push it open. It gave way, sending him stumbling into a thicket of weeds. Lying there, he looked up to see a cracked little face grinning over him. He locked eyes with the stone garden gnome, put his hand over its faded, pink-painted dimples, and pushed himself onto his feet.

  The backyard was modest in size compared to the enormous house. It was bordered by a tall ivy hedge on either side, which ran straight back and attached themselves to an even taller concrete rear wall. In the yard were a few rusty old metal chairs overrun with tall weeds. The weeds grew everywhere, but were nothing compared to the monstrous growth towering upon and above the back wall, where a gnarl of swamp trees and vines twisted and tangled like an army of serpents attempting to storm the yard. Jordan couldn’t see over the wall but knew it was the only thing keeping the swamp from devouring his grampa’s old house—and all of Waning Acres beyond it.

  The damp, heavy smell of the swamp wafted over and past the vines, settling into the backyard and reaching Jordan’s nostrils. He shut his eyes, breathed it in, and imagined all the slimy, rotting sludginess that could give off such a dank stench.

  “Hey there, pal!”

  Jordan’s eyes popped open to find his father standing beside him, staring at the swamp-jungle climbing over the wall. “Now there’s a Grimsley project! I’ll pick up some high-performance hedge clippers and we’ll tackle that challenge together!” He pulled out a clipboard and started flipping through pages of tasks. The man actually seemed happy about the impossibly long to-do list he’d created within the first ten minutes they’d been here.

  “Uh, Dad, can I ask you something?”

  “Sure, son.”

  “Why are we doing all this? Why do we have to fix this place up?”

  Mr. Grimsley glanced up from his list. He looked out at the sea of weeds leading to the ugly concrete wall barely holding back the swamp beyond it. “Jordan, your mom and I have always dreamed of running a bed-and-breakfast, someplace far from the city, where you and your sister could breathe fresh air.”

  Jordan inhaled deeply again. The thick, rotten air filled his lungs like a mossy soup. “This place is a swamp, Dad.”

  “The Okeeyuckachokee Swamp, to be exact! One of the biggest. And it starts right here, in our backyard. Or ends here, depending how you look at it, I suppose.”

  He flipped thr
ough his to-do clipboard, considering the work ahead. “We’ve got two weeks to clean this place up, starting with, hmm . . .” He flipped through a few dozen more pages of chores. “Rip out carpet in hallway . . . identify sticky brown goo in the upstairs bathroom . . . Here! You can help me set up a few bedrooms so we can all get some shut-eye tonight. We’ve got a big first day tomorrow!” He smacked Jordan on the back, then bounded into the kitchen.

  The sun was setting somewhere far beyond the Okeeyuckachokee Swamp, and the thick, curling trees cast long shadows across the yard, straining to reach Grampa Grimsley’s house. Like conductors’ arms, they seemed to cue a sudden symphony of creaks, croaks, and chirps that rose up from beyond the wall. Jordan moved toward the noise, wading slowly through the tall weeds. He placed his hand on the wall that held back the dark swamp, shut his eyes, and listened for a moment—this time trying to imagine the insects and animals making such a racket.

  Suddenly, all went silent. Jordan opened his eyes. He looked up. A dark clump of tree branches was silhouetted against the sunset-streaked sky. He peered closer. It seemed to be breathing. Jordan strained to focus as it swelled. . . . FWOOSH! A violent flapping noise broke the silence as the black clump suddenly exploded into pieces, launching from the branches into the air above Jordan’s head.

  “Aaaaaauuuggh!” He stumbled backward as a flock of blackbirds burst from the branches and took flight. They circled above the old house and flew off, disappearing somewhere over Waning Acres.

  Jordan got up slowly. Abigail stood at an upstairs window, laughing at him. Without looking back at the wall, Jordan walked inside.

  3

  The next morning, Jordan woke with a start. His eyeballs darted around the empty room. He’d been sleeping so deeply that it took him a minute to remember where he was. But when he smelled the musty morning air, it all came flooding back. He got up, put on his clothes, and went downstairs.

  He found his father on his hands and knees on the kitchen floor with his head shoved in the large oven. His mother stood over him, holding a large iron skillet rather menacingly. If these weren’t his parents, Jordan might’ve thought he’d stumbled across a complicated murder in progress.