When the tears start to roll down my face, it’s just one, then it’s two and then it’s too many to count. I can’t breathe. It feels like I’m never going to breathe again, like the tears are never going to stop.
I’m drowning.
Sinking in sadness quicksand.
And no one will ever find me.
‘Mama!’ I cry into the bunny’s matted fur. ‘I don’t know how to be here without you. I need you back, Mama. Please tell me what to do.’
The bedroom doorknob turns, and the door creaks open. I scramble to my feet, wiping my face and hiding the blue bunny behind my back. Charlie, in his plaid pyjamas and suede slippers, stares down at me. He glances around the floor at the messy piles of clothes, toys and ribbons.
I brace myself for the yelling. The judgment. A new sentence.
I wait for it, wiping more tears and trying to find my breath.
‘Can’t sleep either, huh?’ Charlie asks softly.
I shake my head.
‘Hard day,’ he says, like it’s a fact instead of a question.
I try my best to swallow the lump down, but it’s so big now it feels like it won’t ever go down again.
‘When your mom was your age and she couldn’t sleep, we used to heat up some milk together.’
I wipe my nose across the length of my forearm.
‘You did that?’ I ask.
‘Yes,’ he says.
‘Together?’
He nods. ‘You can bring Rainbow if you like.’
‘Who?’
He juts a chin towards the blue bunny behind me. ‘That’s what she called her.’
I stare down at the floppy blue stuffed animal in my hands.
How ’bout it? A mug of warm milk?’
I look back up at him.
‘I’d like that,’ I say.
He holds out a hand towards me. A big hand. Rough, with straight nails and one very special silver ring. The hand is strong and tough, but kind.
A hand saving me from sinking in the quicksand. I guess there is someone looking out for me, making sure I don’t drown.
Charlie.
‘Ready?’ he asks.
‘Yes,’ I tell him, and slip my hand into his.
31. Going Down in History
Tobin is a no-show for breakfast again the next morning. This time my stomach feels all twisted up inside about it too. And after I finish my sticks and seeds and bark, the twisting gets worse, and then the sweating starts, and I feel like I might even throw up.
Before I leave for the Bigfoot Headquarters, I put Rainbow right on top of my pillow. Then I pin my name badge to the front of my shirt. It’s hot in the garage this morning, and I find Tobin sitting at the desk with the green receiver in his hand.
He doesn’t look at me when I open the door.
‘Yes, Mrs Dickerson . . . uh-huh . . . There just never seem to be tracks or prints or anything we can measure. We’re scientists, Mrs Dickerson. We need concrete proof that—’
Pause.
‘Uh-huh . . . yes, but . . . OK, Mrs Dickerson, we’ll come out and check it out. Yes, ma’am . . . OK . . . goodbye.’
He hangs up the phone and starts writing on his yellow legal pad.
‘Another sighting at Mrs Dickerson’s?’ I ask.
Nothing.
‘You still mad?’
‘I’m not mad,’ he says.
‘Seems like you’re mad.’
‘You think I care what you do?’ he says, still scribbling. ‘People come and go. That’s life. Best just to accept it. You can do what you want. I couldn’t care less.’
‘I don’t believe you,’ I tell him.
‘So?’ He looks up at me with red around the edges of his eyes. ‘Why should I care about that, either?’
He looks away. His chair scrapes on the concrete as he pushes it back from the desk.
‘Come on, let’s go.’
‘Wait, there’s a message.’ I point to the machine. ‘The light is blinking.’
Tobin sits back down and pushes the big square button marked Play.
‘Uh, this is a message for Lemonade . . . Lemonade, this is Eliza Rose. Um . . . yeah, so, we had this game of Capture the Flag at our house last night and everything and um . . . we saw something out in our back woods. I’m wondering if you guys want to come out and investigate. You can call me back . . .’
Tobin scribbles the phone number on the yellow legal pad. He suddenly looks up at me. ‘Why would Eliza Rose ask for you?’
I stare at him, wide-eyed.
‘I–ah, I don’t, ah . . .’
He picks up the receiver and holds it towards me.
‘Do you want to call her back?’
‘I know, Mrs Dickerson, but we never find anything,’ Tobin complains, holding his case in front of him on her front porch. ‘And we have another call to get to this morning.’
‘This time is different,’ Mrs Dickerson tells us with a broad smile.
‘Why’s that?’ Tobin asks.
‘Because,’ she says, ‘this time I remembered the Polaroid.’
I gasp, and Tobin drops his leather case on his foot.
‘You didn’t!’ he exclaims.
‘I did!’ she says.
Her smile gets even bigger, and her eyes disappear in all her wrinkles. Then she pulls an instant photo out of her apron pocket and holds it out in front of us. Tobin grabs it and I scramble to get a look over his shoulder.
‘Wow,’ I whisper, looking back at Mrs Dickerson.
‘It can’t be,’ Tobin breathes.
‘O ye of little faith,’ she sighs. ‘I told you one of these days I’d have the proof you’re looking for. Now, who’s hungry? I made M&M cookies and chocolate meringue clouds.’
‘We’ve got an eye!’ Tobin calls out to Charlie when he pushes open the door at Bigfoot Souvenirs and More. ‘An actual eye!’ He waves the picture in the air.
‘What?’ Charlie says from the front counter, where he’s watching a show on a small black-and-white television set.
‘Mrs Dickerson got a picture!’ Tobin runs over to him and holds the photo out. ‘And it’s an eye, Charlie!’
‘You’re kidding!’ Charlie exclaims.
‘Look for yourself,’ I say. ‘It looks like an eye to me, too!’
Charlie takes the picture and examines it. Tobin pulls his magnifying glass out of his back pocket and hands it to Charlie.
‘For goodness’ sake,’ Charlie mutters, removing his glasses and examining the picture with the magnifying glass.
He passes it back to me.
It’s not the greatest picture in the universe. Mrs Dickerson said she shot it through the kitchen window, so there’s a glare from the flash on the glass, and it’s blurry in spots for sure. But there is one part that’s clear as day.
An eye. An actual eye, with a pupil and a brown iris and reddish-brown skin and reddish-brown hair and a snippet of a wrinkled nose.
The rest is just blurry reddishness.
‘We’d better call Professor Malcolm,’ I say.
‘Bigfoot Detectives Inc. is going to go down in history!’ Tobin shouts.
32. Operation: Eliza Rose’s Back Garden
‘He was out there.’ Eliza Rose points towards the woods from her back porch later that morning.
My palms are sweating.
Not because of the Bigfoot, but because I’m praying that Eliza Rose doesn’t say anything about the game of Kick the Can to Tobin. At least if I can tell him first, it won’t be as bad as it would be hearing it from her.
‘There?’ Tobin follows the direction where her finger is pointing. ‘At the tree line?’
She nods.
Tobin and I start down the back porch steps. Eliza Rose hesitates on the top step, holding on to the pillar at the top of the stairs. I turn around and look at her.
‘It scared me to death,’ she says.
There’s fear in her eyes, and I really believe her. This isn’t a hoax or a joke or a bear or a
guy in a suit.
No one is laughing on the other end of the green phone now.
‘It’s OK,’ I tell her, reaching out to touch her arm. ‘Whatever it was is gone.’
She smiles, looking a little embarrassed.
‘Right, sorry. It was so scary. Can I just tell you the story from up here? I don’t really want to go back out there.’
‘Sure,’ I say, ignoring the exasperated sigh leaking out of Tobin.
We all settle on the white wicker furniture with fluffy floral cushions, Eliza Rose on a rocking chair, me on the ottoman, and Tobin on a small bench against the porch rail.
‘Tell us exactly what happened.’ Tobin has his pen poised over his yellow legal pad.
‘Well, it was right when it was getting dark, and we were playing Capture the Flag that night,’ she starts, and then turns to me. ‘It’s like Kick the Can, but not really. Joe Kelly was there, Mei Cunningham, Beau Stitch and . . . oh, yeah, Nick French . . .’ She starts listing names on her fingers. ‘And J-Man – doesn’t he have the greatest dimples?’
I glance at Tobin.
His eyebrows are scrunched together, and he’s looking at me suspiciously over his wire-rims.
‘About the Bigfoot, Eliza Rose,’ I say.
‘Right . . . yeah, so, me and Mei were on Nick French’s team, and he had us hide our flag just inside the tree line under this dead tree on the ground. We found a hole in the tree and folded up the flag and hid it there. Technically, we weren’t supposed to go into the forest, but Nick French goes, ‘It’s not like it’s cheating,’ and me and Mei said—’
‘If we could get to the sighting sooner rather than later, that would be helpful,’ Tobin interrupts her.
I give him a look.
‘What?’ he asks.
She turns to me. ‘It’s part of the story.’
‘Yeah, I get that,’ I say. ‘Take your time.’
Tobin huffs another big sigh.
‘Anyway, the other team tried and tried to find the flag, and couldn’t, and it was getting dark, even though the back porch light was on. It was still dark, especially out there.’ She points to the woods. ‘My mom has been nagging at my dad to put more lights back here, but he’s been so busy he just hasn’t got to it, you know . . .’
Tobin has stopped scribbling on his notepad and is holding his chin in his hand, staring at Eliza Rose with a completely annoyed look on his face.
‘Anyway, the other team lost and got kind of mad, especially Joe Kelly and J-Man. You know, they’re big babies anyway when it comes to losing. But they started accusing Nick of cheating by hiding the flag in the woods when we agreed that the tree line was the boundary. So we all headed to find the flag and—’
‘And what?’ Tobin bursts out with frustration, his arms wide in the air.
‘That’s when we saw it,’ she says.
‘Saw what exactly, Eliza Rose?’ I ask.
‘That beast,’ she whispers.
‘Ah . . . let me stop you there,’ Tobin says. ‘It’s not a—’
‘Let her finish.’ I hold my hand up, hoping to save us all from yet another Bigfoot Are People Too lecture.
‘He was just standing there.’ She points to the woods again. ‘Crouched down behind the dead tree. Like he was . . .’
‘Like he was what?’ I ask.
‘Watching us play,’ she says, and then laughs. ‘That sounds weird, doesn’t it? But that’s what it seemed like.’
‘What did you do?’ I breathe.
‘I don’t know if I ever really thought it was true, you know?’ she says. ‘I mean, I’ve heard the stories and all that, but there was this part of me that thought it was just a legend. A story that’s not really true, you know?’
‘Yes,’ I say.
‘But it’s not just a story.’ She turns to Tobin.
He’s busy scribbling on his pad. When he’s done, he looks up at her and leans forward on the bench.
‘It’s not a story, Eliza Rose,’ he says. ‘They’re real.’
‘I know that now,’ she says.
‘So, what did you do?’ I ask again.
‘I think I might have screamed . . . or at least someone did. Maybe it was Mei. It’s hard to remember. Then everyone started yelling, and my daddy came running out of the house with a rifle, and—’
‘A rifle?’ Tobin stands straight up. ‘What the heck for?’
She looks at him in surprise.
‘It’s a wild animal loose in the woods. Would’ve been the same if it had been a bear or something that close to the garden. Actually, I think that’s what he thought it was at first when he raced out of the house.’
Tobin sighs and starts pacing the porch.
‘What if he’d shot him?’ he asks, pointing his pen at Eliza Rose.
She thinks about his question.
‘Well, I guess then there’d finally be proof, and no one would ever doubt it again. You’re lucky, Lem,’ she says to me. ‘If we’d seen that thing that day we all played Kick the Can, you’d be as scared as me.’
Tobin turns to face me then.
I don’t even know the words that would describe the look on his face. It’s like a combination of surprise and hurt and anger and disgust, all at the same time.
He looks like I punched him hard in the gut and he never even saw it coming.
‘A rifle!’ Tobin exclaims while we trudge through Eliza Rose’s back garden towards the tree line out the back.
‘You guys be careful!’ Eliza Rose hollers after us from the safety of her wicker chair on the back porch.
‘A rifle!’ he says again. ‘Can you even imagine?’
‘I know it, Tobin,’ I say. ‘I heard her. I was sitting right next to you.’
‘Why in the world would anyone want to kill a Bigfoot? It’s the most idiotic thing I’ve ever heard of. See? What did I tell you about their modus operandi? Hiding. I’d do the same if I could. There’s nothing worse than people. They’re awful. I’d go and hide away for ever with the Bigfoot if I could.’
‘What about your mom?’
‘We’d let her visit,’ he says.
‘And your dad?’
This time he ignores me.
When I see the fallen log at the tree line, I point to it.
‘That must be it there,’ I say.
‘I have eyes,’ he snaps. ‘You think I need you to point it out? I can do this all by myself. Why don’t you just go back to HQ and man the phone in case we get another call?’
‘See, I told you you were mad.’
‘How many times do I have to say I’m not mad? I don’t care what you do.’
‘Good,’ I say. ‘Then you won’t care if I stay.’
Tobin sighs long and loudly, putting his black leather case on top of the log, then trudges through the grass and pushes through low-hanging branches to look all around it.
‘No footprints,’ he tells me. ‘Too grassy here.’
I push through branches to the other side of the tree, scanning the woods. A mosquito lands on my arm, and I swat at it.
‘What else should we look for?’ I call to Tobin.
‘Any signs that he was here.’ Tobin takes his magnifying glass out of his case. ‘Hair or scat.’
Again with the number two. Disgusting.
We both push into the woods. Him in one direction, and me in the other. Even though it’s sunny and warm, the light only sprinkles its glow between the tall pine branches reaching towards the sky. Birds are chirping and pine cones slowly fall between branches to the soft bed of needles below.
My stomach growls.
I wish I’d thought to bring a Twinkie with me. Especially since we didn’t have time for even one of Mrs Dickerson’s meringue cloud cookies. Or time to order sandwiches from Diesel’s.
Just when I’m about to give up, something grabs at the back of my head, pulling on my hair.
‘Ouch!’
I reach behind me to try to free myself from a crooked branch, but the mor
e I try, the more tangled I get. My fingers work at the knot, but while they do, hairs are being pulled straight out of my scalp. When I finally get myself undone, I can see that the branch has snagged a good handful of my curly red hair.
But that’s not all I see.
Next to the long red hairs is an even bigger clump of thick reddish-brown fur.
‘Tobin!’ I scream. ‘I found something!’
33. Termination
Tobin is so excited about the hair sample that it seems like he’s completely forgotten about the whole thing with Eliza Rose and the game of Kick the Can.
At first.
The very next day at the Bigfoot Headquarters, we call up Professor Malcolm all the way in Idaho to tell him what we found. Eliza Rose had given us a ziplock bag from the kitchen to collect the specimen. Tobin had pulled it off the tree branch with a pair of tweezers from his leather case.
‘Less possibility of contamination,’ he told me.
Now he’s holding the green receiver between our heads so I can listen in too.
‘That’s amazing, kids!’ I can hear Professor Malcolm say. ‘Absolutely amazing!’
I want to say I’m the one who found it.
Me.
Lemonade Liberty Witt, Assistant Bigfoot Detective Extraordinaire.
But I don’t.
I figure I’m already in the doghouse with Tobin – best just to let him take all the credit.
Which he does.
Thunder stealer.
‘Did I tell you that I’m the president and founder of Bigfoot Detectives Inc.?’ Tobin asks Professor Malcolm. ‘It is the mission of the corporation to be a leader in the scientific world of Bigfoot discovery.’ Then he turns to me and whispers, ‘Bigfoot Detectives Inc. is going down in history.’
Professor Malcolm chuckles.
‘You’re right about making history!’ he says. ‘Good job to both of you! If you can slip that sample in the mail to me, I can run tests on it to see if we can identify where it came from. And if you can get copies made of that image as well, I would love to have one. With your help, we might just add a new species to the list of primates!’
I don’t think Tobin’s chest could be bigger or his smile wider.
‘We make a good team,’ I say after we hang up.
He doesn’t say anything for a minute, and I watch the smile slip off his lips. Then he puts his hands on his hips and glares at me.
Bigfoot, Tobin & Me Page 13
