Creature Keepers and the Hijacked Hydro-Hide

by Peter Nelson

  “We can’t let this happen. Not there. Not anywhere.”

  “Trust me, it won’t!” Alistair scoffed. “D’you two really think my Haggis-Breath can be caught by a loony bunnysitter and his rich grandpappy? Transferred to some swamp-zoo on the other side of the Atlantic, then kept in a tank just to be gawked at! Please—I know her better than anyone. There’s no bleedin’ way she’d go without a fight!”

  “Let’s hope you’re right,” Eldon said.

  Peggy’s ears suddenly sprang straight up in the air. The two fluffy antennae tilted toward the entrance to the burrow. The others strained to listen as well.

  “I don’t hear anything,” Alistair said.

  “You’re not listening with those things.” Jordan pointed to Peggy’s ears.

  “They’re coming,” Eldon said. “They’ll see the balloon outside. They’ll find her. We have to do something.” He turned to Alistair. “Mac, I need you to stay here with Peggy. Jordan and I are going to go see about this crypto-zoo.”

  “Not on yer life,” he said. “I’m her Creature Keeper. I’m comin’ to Florida.”

  “I need you to remember your sworn vow—to all cryptids.”

  “Help, hide, and hoax,” he muttered.

  “You take care of the first two. Jordan and I will cover the third. We’ll lure ol’ Bertha and Milo far away from this rock.”

  “But hoaxing is the funnest one.”

  Eldon smiled at him. “There’ll be plenty more hoaxing in your future, Mac. I promise.”

  “Just find her,” Alistair said. “And stop whoever’s done this.”

  Eldon smiled at him. “Creature Keeper’s honor.”

  Alistair turned to Jordan. “You’re no Keeper—not yet, anyway. But you’re definitely a Grimsley. Just listen to Eldon, and do everything he says. He’s the best there is.”

  “Funny, that’s how he described you.” He smiled at Alistair, then turned to Eldon. “Okay. I’m ready for my first hoax.”

  “Good,” Eldon said. “Now grab a couple of those giant bunny turds and follow me.”

  20

  Abbie poured the last cup of lemonade and handed it to Mr. Norris, a wrinkly old man in a shiny blue tracksuit. “There you go, Mr. N,” she said. “My last cup.”

  He gulped it down, crushed the paper cup, and slammed it onto the counter. “Mm-mm! That’s some good sarsaparilla!” he exclaimed. He turned and skated off on Rollerblades toward some elderly neighbors setting up a pair of roller-hockey nets.

  In the yard next door, another group of retirees was playing a vigorous game of volleyball. Mrs. DeMartelli leaped four vertical feet and spiked the ball, sending it bouncing over a hedge. Mrs. DeMartelli was at least eighty-six years old.

  Across the street a half dozen old folk pulled folding chairs out onto the lawn, joining Mr. Hirschberg, who was sitting quietly. “That’s more like it,” Abbie said to herself. “That’s what old people do.” Suddenly, they began to somersault, one by one catapulting themselves into the air, landing in handstands on their chairs, stacking themselves on Mr. Hirschberg’s shoulders like circus acrobats.

  Abbie’s customers were all involved in some feat of strength or dexterity. She looked down at the empty pitcher in her hand. “Must be something in the water.”

  “You look like him, too, y’know,” an old woman’s voice croaked from behind.

  Abbie spun around to find the old woman with the bunny slippers standing behind her. “Mrs. Fritzler! Don’t sneak up on me in those rat slippers of yours!”

  “Got more of a sassy mouth than him, though.”

  “Who are you talking about?”

  “Your grandfather. George.” She scowled. “You are George Grimsley’s granddaughter, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, all right, then,” she said, picking up a rag and bumping Abbie out of the way. “Don’t make me explain everything to you like you’re a brainless guppy.” Abbie smiled as Mrs. Fritzler wiped the counter. Brainless guppy, she thought. She’d have to remember to use that one on Jordan.

  The sky-blue bus rumbled across the scorching desert, straight toward the bunny-shaped rock. The Bulgarian tourists bounced in their seats, snapping pictures of nothing much out the window, looking a bit confused as to where they were being taken, or when they might get lunch.

  “Y’see?” Bertha yelled into the ear of a large, bearded man in the driver’s seat. “Y’see those tracks, Milo? I told ya! A giant bunny rabbit stole our balloons!”

  “Bertha, sit back down and stop talkin’ crazy,” Milo said. “There ain’t no such thing as a giant desert bunny. And besides, if our balloons was dragged out here, we’d see ’em by now. Them balloons are huge.”

  “I told you, this ain’t no ordinary giant desert bunny! He’s got antlers, Milo. Big ol’ antlers! I bet he used ’em to pop our balloons! Makes total sense!” She turned to the tourists. “Am I right?” They nodded, more out of polite confusion than agreement.

  “Antlers? All right, I’ve heard enough. I’m turnin’ around and headin’ back—”

  Bertha suddenly gasped. “MILO! DEVIL BUNNY, TWELVE O’CLOCK!” Milo looked up and slammed the brakes, sending the Bulgarians into the seatbacks in front of them.

  The tourists scrambled off the bus to find Bertha grinning as Milo stared at the odd-shaped rock in the distance. Something stirred behind it. Something big. And white. And puffy.

  “What in the name of heckfire?” Milo mumbled.

  “I told ya,” Bertha whispered back. “Now you’ll see. You’ll see I ain’t crazy. . . .”

  The large, whitish blob moved slowly out from behind the bunny-shaped rock. It looked to have big, floppy ears, a sort of round, puffy face, and a big, blobby belly. It was still too far away to make out much detail, but it was definitely huge, definitely bunnylike in shape—and most definitely on the move away from the bunny-shaped rock.

  “Well, I’ll be an armadillo’s uncle,” said Milo.

  “I told ya.” Bertha grinned.

  Click-click-whir-zzzt-click-click, went all the Bulgarian tourists’ cameras.

  “EVERYBODY BACK ONNO EL BUSSO!” Milo suddenly shouted. “EL NOW-O!” They all piled back on and Milo gunned the engine, roaring in hot pursuit across the desert.

  Bertha was screaming at her husband as the white bunny-blob disappeared inside a steep, rocky ravine. “Faster, Milo! He’s gonna get away!”

  “Relax, honey,” Milo said. “We got him. That ravine dead-ends. There’s no way out ’cept the way he hopped in.” He gunned the engine. The Bulgarian tourists grinned nervously at one another, hoping they were racing toward lunch.

  The bus rolled into the ravine and stopped, blocking the entrance. A few hundred yards in front of them sat the huge, white bunny, bobbing gently with its enormous back to them. They all slowly piled off the bus and began sneaking up on it. The creature had a blobby butt that drooped over brown feet; a big, white back; oddly shaped lumps for ears atop a lumpy, featureless head; but—

  “Hey,” Milo whispered to his wife. “Didn’t you say he had big ol’ antlers?”

  Bertha looked up at the top of the devil-bunny’s head, bobbing and swaying high above the desert floor. “Wait a cottontail-pickin’ minute,” she said.

  Click-click-whir-zzzt-click-click! went the Bulgarian tourists’ cameras.

  Bertha and Milo waved the tourists back and approached on their own. As they got closer, the bunny’s blobby butt bobbed up and down, exposing its feet to be wooden, or wicker—like a basket—and a good six feet off the ground. They reached up under the great bunny’s butt to grab a wicker foot, and two heads popped out.

  “Bombs away!” Jordan yelled. They both unloaded the huge Peggy turds, which hit the ground with a stinky SPLORT! They just missed Milo and Bertha, who dived to take cover behind a rock.

  Click-click-whir-zzzt-click-click! The Bulgarian tourists snapped wildly, turning their cameras upward as the basket began to rise. SPLORT-SPLORT! SPLORT! Jordan and
Eldon dropped a few more giant pellets. With each turd-bomb, they rose higher into the air, lifting skyward, up, up, and out of the ravine.

  When it was safe, Milo and Bertha crawled out from the rock they were hiding behind and looked up at their hot-air balloon, which had been expertly roped into the shape of a giant devil-bunny, thanks to some good ol’-fashioned First-Class Badger Ranger knot-tying know-how.

  Click-click-whir-zzzt-click-click!

  As the lumpy dirigible drifted eastward, Milo noticed Bertha staring off with a crazed, empty expression on her face. “Bertha, I think we need to get outta the desert for a spell. Whaddya say we go on a nice, long cruise together?”

  “Yeah . . . ,” she faintly whispered, “I think I’d like that.”

  21

  The rolling desert hills below drifted by silently as Eldon studied a map he’d found in Peggy’s cave. He checked his compass, put a finger in the air, then jotted a note in his Badger Ranger notebook. He turned to the open flame burner in the center of the basket and adjusted it. This heated the air inside the giant bunny balloon that was carrying them across the sky.

  Jordan smiled at his friend in action. “How did you learn to do all this stuff?”

  Eldon looked up, a little surprised. “Did I not mention I’m a Badger Ranger?”

  “C’mon. There can’t be a Badger Badge for navigating a hot-air balloo—” Eldon stuck out his sash. One badge had a tiny balloon on it. “Wow. That’s actually impressive.”

  Jordan watched Eldon test all the knots along the side of the basket, then check each task in his notebook. It reminded him of his dad’s to-do list. He wondered how his family was doing, and if his mom and dad missed him.

  “Eldon, where’s your family?”

  Eldon stopped writing, and Jordan immediately felt like he shouldn’t have asked. “Sorry,” he said. “You don’t have to tell me.”

  Eldon slipped his notebook into his shirt pocket. “It’s just that no one’s asked me about them in a long time.” The two boys stood together looking out over the horizon. A warm southerly breeze gently nudged them toward the Gulf of Mexico. “I guess the short answer is, I’m an orphan.”

  “So your parents are, uh—”

  “Yep. Died years ago. But I lost them long before that happened.” Eldon glanced down at his uniform, flicked a speck of sand off his lapel, and straightened his bolo tie. “For as long as I can remember I wanted to be a Badger Ranger. As soon as I could walk, I became an honorary Junior Runt. I learned as much as I could, as fast as I could. And of course, I grew eager to apply what I’d learned. I’d sneak out, scaring my family half to death. They’d find me wandering the woods, sleeping in trees in the park, tracking and trapping neighbors’ pets. They started locking me in my room at night. They were just trying to keep me safe, of course, but I didn’t see it that way. I felt like a prisoner. So I ran away. I wanted to live outdoors, like a real Badger Ranger. Eventually I learned that being a Badger Ranger isn’t about survival and adventure and living in the wild. It’s about helping others.”

  “So you went back?”

  “No. I couldn’t face my parents after the pain I’d caused them. But I needed to go somewhere. I found a place—a home—filled with others like me, who had run away and couldn’t go home.”

  “An orphanage?”

  “Sort of. It was a broken down old house, rotting from the inside, run by a wretched old woman who didn’t even own it. She moved in and took it over, then did the bare minimum to claim herself as a caretaker, so she could collect money from the government. The more of us she had living there, the more money she got.”

  “Some caretaker.”

  “I just liked that she didn’t care enough to lock my door. So I snuck out a lot. I still dreamed of becoming a First-Class Badger Ranger, and living with so many people in need allowed me to work on my community badges. But I needed wilderness skills, too. And the location of the house was perfect for me to hone my survival-badge skills. It sat at the edge of a thick, overgrown swamp.”

  Jordan’s eyes grew wide. “The Okeeyuckachokee? You lived in my grandfather’s house!”

  “Your grandfather had long since abandoned it. But for many of my friends, it was the best life they’d ever had. At least, until I offered them a better one. The Okeeyuckachokee Swamp was my classroom. It’s where I learned plant and animal classification, survival skills, hunting, gathering—and of course, the ancient art of spooring, which led me to the trail of the great Florida Skunk Ape.”

  “Bernard said my grandfather taught him how to trust you,” Jordan said.

  “That came later. I had to find him first. I’d pick up clues—a clump of fur here, a warm dropping there—but the trail always went cold, right at the same spot.”

  “Let me guess. The great lemon tree.”

  Eldon nodded. “Of course I’d heard all about your grandfather. Both he and Skunk Ape Summer were still a local punch line. But like you, I began to think maybe there was something real behind the jokes. Maybe your grandfather hadn’t been crazy.”

  “You must have a badge in acting. You were such a jerk when I asked for your help, but you knew exactly how I felt.”

  “I had to test you. I wanted to be sure you were serious.”

  “So how did you find Bernard?”

  “One night, a terrible rainstorm hit while I was out spooring. The swamp began to flood, and I nearly drowned as I made my way back to the house. I entered my usual way, through a broken basement window. It was flooded that night, and in the darkness I could hear water rushing under the house. My only concern was sneaking safely back to my room. I made my way up the rotting basement stairs. I quietly opened the door to the kitchen to find the old woman sitting up, guarding the refrigerator. She was afraid that in the noisy storm some of us might try to sneak downstairs to steal extra food. As I reached the top of the cellar stairs and opened the door, she lunged at me. But I was too quick for her, and ducked out of the way.”

  “She fell down the stairs?”

  “She fell through them. She was swept away by the underground torrent rushing beneath the house. As much as I hated her, I had a duty as a Badger Ranger—especially one working toward his Citizen Hero Badge—and dived in after her. The water whisked me away from the house and under the swamp. The underground streams split off in ten different directions, and I was sure I’d drown. But I got lucky. I suddenly found myself careening down a mudslide, faster and faster, deeper into the earth. I shot out into an underground room, splashing and sputtering on the muddy floor, gasping for air like a catfish. And there he was—the great Florida Skunk Ape, surprised as I was that the floodwaters had dropped me smack-dab in the middle of your grandfather’s lemon-tree lair.”

  “What happened to the awful caretaker?”

  “I never saw that old lady again. As for Bernard, he was a proud creature, and not very happy when the annoying ranger kid he’d successfully dodged and evaded for so long belly flopped in the middle of his flooded-out living room. But he respected me as a worthy adversary, and decided not to toss me back out into the storm, or tear my limbs off.”

  “That was nice of him.”

  “He was lonely, and he saw a loneliness in me. For the first time in my life, I didn’t want to run away. I felt like I was home. I wanted to stay down there forever. And soon after, Bernard invited me to do just that. He showed me what he and your grandfather had started, and wanted me to help him make it a reality. Bernard wanted to protect and hide the cryptids your grandfather had made contact with, but knew it was just a matter of time before they were discovered. He couldn’t board an airplane or cruise across the sea to check on them. We both realized what I could bring to the operation, aside from my Badger Ranger skills, was the ability to pass in and out of both worlds. Together we could protect all the cryptids your grandfather had met. But we couldn’t do it alone. We’d need helpers. Lots of them. We’d need a team.”

  “So you went back to the old house. For the ot
hers.”

  “With the old lady finally gone, there was no one left to care for them. Many of them were happy to follow me into the swamp. Those who weren’t we helped take care of in other ways. But the ones eager to join this adventure were even more eager to get to work. They made it all happen. Your grandfather’s dream of a secret society of Creature Keepers would’ve died without them. They all would’ve made him very proud.”

  “Not all of them,” Jordan said. “I don’t think Grampa Grimsley would be too happy with this Harvey Quisling kid.”

  Eldon shook his head. “I can’t understand it. I helped trained Harvey myself. He’s a good kid. Never in a million years would I have guessed he’d be capable of something like this. Still, I should’ve seen it. This is all my fault.”

  “Don’t say that. You never know about people, what’s really in their hearts. How could anyone guess someone who’d been abandoned himself could abandon the amazing creature he was supposed to care for? You told me how being a Creature Keeper is about keeping quiet and remaining unseen. I bet it can get boring. Maybe Harvey was offered a better job.”

  “Not a chance. Being a Creature Keeper is far niftier than being a zookeeper.”

  “Not just a zookeeper. A crypto-zookeeper.” Jordan thought about this as he gazed out at the horizon. “Still, I can’t connect Harvey to getting Nessie across the Atlantic.”

  “You saw the letter from that Gusto person. They had a deal.”

  “Exactly! Harvey’s part of the bargain was to deliver Nessie. But it wasn’t Harvey that Alistair saw that night; it was some old man—maybe even this Gusto himself. So if Gusto is paying for the zoo, and he’s kidnapping Nessie himself, what’s he need Harvey for?”

  “Maybe Harvey just told Gusto where he could find her.”

  “I thought that, too, but it still doesn’t compute. If Harvey wanted to open a crypto-zoo with Gusto, what’s wrong with the cryptid he already had? I mean, he and his antler-headed, fluffy-tailed roommate live just a few states away from where the zoo’s being built—why cross an entire ocean to try and bag a six-ton water lizard with an attitude, who you know will put up a fight the whole trip back from Scotland to Florida?”