Crown of the Cowibbean
Page 6
Chuck and Dakota shared a puzzled look. “Really? All that way by sundown?”
“Certamente!” Marco smiled. “We’ll just go in a straight line.”
12
SOME TREASURE HUNT
“So…you fought a whole army of shellfish by yourself?”
The four weary travelers were back home on Bermooda. It had been a whole week since they returned from their voyage. Marco was in his regular spot at the Leaky Tiki. As promised, Chuck had returned Dakota’s bandana to its rightful place on the tiki’s head.
“Not just a crew,” Marco said, waving his wings in the air. “A brigade! An army! A legion of savage shellfish, armed to the gills and led by their pirate king—an enormous, ferocious catfish as tall as the ceiling!”
Chuck and Dakota listened from a nearby table. They didn’t join the crowd. After all, they’d already had front-row seats to this story. The plucky chicken’s audience continued to grill him with questions.
“So where is this Coral Crown? Do you have it?” asked a tall reddish cow at the front of the crowd.
“Haven’t you been listening?” Marco demanded. “It disappeared with the mammoth spider crab, of course!”
“Oh, of course,” chuckled a plump cow in a straw hat. “The one as big as your ship.”
“Even bigger than my ship!” Marco said.
“Uh-huh. So is this before or after you met the…” the plump cow paused and snickered, “…queen of the fish cows?”
“Sea cows,” Marco corrected him. “And it was after, at Spidercrab Rock!”
“Oh, that’s right. The invisible island,” another cow said with a guffaw.
“Okay, what about that magic flute you were talking about?” came a voice from the back of the crowd. “Come on, Marco…play us a magic tune!” The whole circle of cows burst into laughter.
“You don’t believe me?” Marco clucked angrily, ruffling his feathers. “It is all true! Tell them, Ribeye!”
The surly Ribeye said nothing, but simply addressed the room with his one good eye and nodded his head in agreement with Marco. No one wanted to argue with Ribeye, but no one really seemed to believe Marco, either. They all went back to their tables, mumbling and rolling their eyes.
“Wait! Come back!” Marco pleaded. “Amici Miei! My friends! I’m just getting to the good part!” But it was no use. Story time was over.
With his feathers ruffled, Marco stormed out of the Tiki and back to the Swashclucker. Chuck and Dakota followed not too far behind. They found Marco sulking in his cabin, holding the old spyglass.
“It’s okay, Marco,” Chuck put a hoof on Marco’s shoulder. “We know you’re telling the truth this time.”
Marco picked his head up. “What do you mean, ‘this time’?”
“Marco, we looked all over the ship,” Dakota said. “We never found any treasures or anything. But it’s nice to know at least one of your stories is true.”
“One?” Marco laughed. “Try hundreds!” He fluttered across the cabin to the sword collection on his wall and pulled on the handle of the last sword. As he did, the boards on the floor began to move downward, creating a set of steps that led into a hidden room underneath the cabin.
“A secret room?” Chuck gasped.
“Of course!” Marco said. “Did you really think Marco Pollo would keep his riches where anyone can find them?”
Chuck and Dakota clomped down the steps into a small gallery filled to the brim with treasures. There were ancient artifacts and mystical objects…glittering jewels and gold coins…there was even a sea snake’s head mounted on the wall. It was everything Chuck had hoped for.
Standing in the middle of a room full of riches, they now both knew that they never had to doubt Marco again. And the two of them couldn’t help but agree on one thing: that really was some treasure hunt.
For hundreds of years, the secret, sunny island of Bermooda was a rather uneventful place. There were plenty of exciting and enjoyable moments, of course, but always in the name of progress or good fun. It was rare that the cows of Bermooda saw anything dangerous or out ofthe ordinary happen. Most things on this tiny tropical paradise were just as peaceful and predictable as the constant rolling of ocean waves upon the shore. But that was all before the days of Chuck and Dakota Porter.
Sure, lots of folks have talents. Some folks have a knack for swimming and sailing, some have a knack for baking coconut cheesecake, and some even have a knack for growing beautiful hibiscus flowers. In the case of Chuck and Dakota Porter…well, they had a knack for finding trouble, even in a place like Bermooda.
It had all started the day Chuck found Dakota washed up on a sandbar. Dakota was not a cow like Chuck. Nor was he a pig, a bird, a monkey, or any of the other animals that walked, talked, and lived on the island. Dakota was a hu’man, a savage creature everyone believed had been extinct for ages. No one on the island had ever seen a hu’man before, and no one seemed to know much about them, except for the legend about how they were nothing but monsters that ate cows and breathed fire. To keep the island from plunging into panic, Chuck dressed Dakota in “cowmouflage”—a cow costume to hide his real identity. Since Dakota had no home and no family, Chuck brought him home to the Porter House. Dakota was eventually adopted into the family, though no one had any clue he was really a hu’man.
Ever since then, life on Bermooda had become much more eventful. Chuck was a daring calf, and if he couldn’t find any excitement, he’d simply make some. This bold spirit constantly led him and his newly adopted brother into dangerous and thrilling situations. It seemed like every day was a new adventure.
Today, however, was not one of those days. Today was quiet and peaceful. No mysteries, no discoveries, no adventures of any kind. Just the crashing of waves, a warm breeze, and the gentle cawing of seagulls. As far as Dakota was concerned, it was the perfect way to spend a Saturday. Dakota was far less interested in adventure or excitement than Chuck. He would much rather spend the day lying in the thick grass under the tall trees, wearing a straw hat and filling up on delicious bananas. That is what they were doing on this Saturday in particular.
“Pass me another banana,” Dakota said.
“This is the last one,” Chuck said, tossing it to him. “If you want more, you’ll have to climb another tree.”
Dakota looked up at the trees towering over them. Bermooda’s banana trees stood nearly twenty feet tall. Clumps of yummy yellow bananas teased their eyes, dangling up out of reach. Bermooda’s cows were capable of doing many things that an average cow could not, but climbing trees was not one of them.
However, Dakota was excellent at climbing trees since he had fingers and toes instead of hooves. His climbing was not quite as fast as a monkey’s, but it saved them the trouble of dragging out a ladder. But Dakota felt quite relaxed at the moment and was not in the mood to scramble back up and fetch any more bananas. Propping his back against a tree, he pulled his straw hat down over his eyes and folded his hands behind his head.
Meanwhile Chuck paced back and forth in the grass. “I’m soooooo boooooored!” he mooed. “Aren’t you bored?”
“Nope,” Dakota replied from under his hat.
“Doesn’t it feel like something should happen?” Chuck asked.
“Nope,” Dakota repeated.
“Don’t you want to do anything exciting?” Chuck whined.
“Nope,” Dakota sighed. “I’m just fine right here.”
Dakota heard the sound of Chuck clomping over to him. Suddenly his eyes were treated to a flood of warm sunlight as Chuck pulled the hat off his face.
“Can we at least take a walk?” Chuck asked.
Dakota blinked in the sudden brightness. “Sure,” he said, adjusting his cow mask as he climbed to his feet.
They ambled toward the beach and then strolled along the shore, with Dakota eating his last banana and Chuck complaining about his boredom all the way.
“I wish something amazing would happen,” he mumbled, picking u
p a rock from the beach. “We’ve probably made this boring walk a billion times.” He pitched the rock far ahead of them. It whizzed through the air and landed in the soft sand with a loud clank!
Chuck and Dakota exchanged confused looks.
“What was that clanking noise?” Chuck wondered aloud.
They trotted up to the place where the rock had landed, looking for the source of the sound. There, half-buried in the sand, they found a shiny purple shell.
The shell was twisted into a cone-shaped spiral like a tiny tornado. But the shell’s shape wasn’t what made it so bizarre. Its entire surface was covered with a pattern of loops and swirls, as if thousands of permanent fingerprints had been left all over it. A string of symbols was etched along its twisted spiral curve. They almost looked like letters but not in any language that Chuck or Dakota could read.
Chuck was immediately fascinated. He had always been interested in shells, and he had become a bit of an expert. Not only did he learn about them in school, but he also took extra time on his own to research the ones displayed in the Hortica Center, the island’s museum. But of all the shells he had studied, he had never seen one like this.
“Wow!” Chuck said as his tail twitched all over the place. “Now this is amazing!” He turned the shell over in his hooves. “Look at these weird loopy patterns! And these markings! It almost looks like some kind of ancient writing. I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
“Well, I guess there’s a first time for everything,” Dakota said with a shrug.
“No, you don’t get it,” Chuck said, shaking his head. “This is impossible. Nothing like this occurs in nature. This shell shouldn’t be here.”
They looked down at the strange shell. Glowing in the slanted light of the late afternoon sun, it almost looked alive. A gleam ran across its pearly purple surface, as if it were telling them it was happy to be found.
“Are you going to keep it?” Dakota asked.
“Of course,” Chuck said. “You know I like to collect cool stuff.”
Dakota looked at the excited expression on Chuck’s face. He suddenly had a feeling things were about to become a lot less peaceful.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Text and pictures copyright © 2014 by Mike Litwin
978-1-4976-6269-8
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