“But…I’m runnin’ oot o’ time. Over,” he tells me.
“What does that mean?”
“Will ye please just ask? Over.”
“Roger that,” I say. “Denver over and out.”
* * *
Dad Googles the picture on his phone at breakfast.
“It’s Nessie,” I tell them over pastries from a Wee Spot of Tea and Biscuits and fresh cheeses from the Connage Highland Dairy just past Inverness.
“Hmmm.” Dad squints at his phone. “I don’t know, Ruby Ring.”
“Let me see it.” Mom hops up from her chair at the kitchen table and leans over his shoulder. She squints too and then says, “Zoom in.”
He does.
I find a spot over his other shoulder as he pans in closer, dragging his thumb and pointer finger over the tiny screen.
“Yeah,” he says flatly. “Looks like seals to me.”
I throw my hands out. “Seals? Are you kidding me?” I exclaim. “If you saw it on the bigger computer you wouldn’t say that.”
“Looks like seals to me too,” Mom agrees.
I huff air out of my mouth.
“Look here.” She points. “And here too. It looks like seal pups playing in the water, don’t you think, Zum?”
“Yep,” Dad says.
I sigh and slide back in my chair, taking a bite of orange scone. “You guys have no imagination whatsoever. If that’s what happens when you grow up, I’m happy to stay a kid.”
Dad smiles at me then and leans in closer, his elbows on the table. “I knew this guy once who said he would never grow up and you want to know what happened?”
I smell a joke.
I just stare at him and chew my scone. “No,” I say.
“He grew up anyway, became a professional photographer and snagged your mom away from this geek in a Members Only jacket.”
Mom laughs at that one.
“If you really still had the heart of a kid like me, you’d believe that picture is real,” I tell him. “But you’re a Muggle, tried and true. That’s what adulthood does to you.”
“RuRu, did you know that I spent my entire childhood searching for the perfect picture of that thing?” he asks me.
I suck air. “I knew it!”
“Just like you’re searching for your story to write. I searched to tell a story with my lens and I never found the soul in Loch Ness that I was looking for.”
“And you gave up because you stopped believing?”
“After that many years of never seeing any signs of the monster…yes, I would say I started to question the truth of it all, and then one day it just became ridiculous.”
I point a finger at him. “I knew it that day at Uncle Clive’s. You knew far too many scientific facts about it to be a full-on nonbeliever.”
“I don’t believe it,” he says, smiling and shaking his head. “You weren’t listening.”
“Oh, I heard you loud and clear,” I tell him. “And when I’m done with my story you are going to be a believer again. Big-time.”
“Mmm-hmm, well, I’m off to work,” he says, pushing his chair back from the table.
He kisses Mom on the cheek and then me.
I throw my arms around his neck and give him a giant squeeze.
“Good luck today,” he tells me in my ear, and then leans down so we’re eye to eye, putting a heavy hand on each of my shoulders. “The best part of the story,” he says, “is when the impossible becomes possible. Now go out and make it happen.”
“Brill, does that mean I’m officially forgiven?”
He smiles his big smile at me, the one with all the teeth, and heads toward the door.
“Tatty bye,” I call after him. “Have a pure barry day at university, Da!”
Mom smirks at me over her coffee mug. “You’re really digging into Scotland now, aren’t you?”
I shrug. “When in Rome,” I say, dancing a newly-found-freedom jig. “Or in this case, Fort Augustus.”
I give Mom a big kiss on her cheek and then pull my radio off my belt loop.
“Denver to Captain Green Bean, do you read? Over?”
Beep.
“Captain Green Bean here. Over.”
“I’ll meet you at twelve acorns on the oak tree that blows in the morning breeze!”
“Brill!” he calls into the radio, and then real loud he says, “Thank you, Mrs. Fitzhugh! Over.”
Mom just smiles and sips her coffee.
“Hello, the SS Albatross!” I call out when I hit the first weathered board on the rickety dock.
Mac-Talla barks from the water.
“Hello, the shore.” Hammy Bean peeks his head out of the wee salon.
Mac-Talla climbs out of the water at the shore, drops the soggy tennis ball at my feet and gives me a Loch Ness shower while she shakes herself dry.
“Ew! Yuck!” I say, covering my face with my arms. “I already had a shower this morning, Mac-Talla!”
Her tongue swipes my cheek as I pick up the tennis ball and throw it as far as I can.
Mac-Talla darts to the end of the dock and belly-flops in after it.
“So, what was so top secret?” I ask him, jumping onto the wee boat.
“Promise ye willna tell?”
I squeeze in through the wee salon door and stand next to him.
“Let me show ye somethin’. See this?” Hammy Bean points to a brand-new tiny television screen set next to the sonar.
“What is that?”
“It’s a Humminbird Helix Combo.”
“What’s a Humminbird Helix Combo?”
“It’s only the most advanced electronic boating device known to man. It has both advanced sonar and an audio GPS system. I can program over twenty-five hundred way points and up to forty-five routes when we get a direct hit so we can go back to the same exact location.”
“Yeah? So?”
“So wi’ this, I can go oot on my own.”
“Wait, what? That’s not the agreement,” I tell him. “Corny told you he had to go with you.”
“Corny’s workin’ wi’ Mamo Honey on the Nessie Quest today, so I need ye,” Hammy Bean says.
I point to myself. “Me?” I say. “No way, you’re not dragging me down with you again. I was subjected to YouTube videos for a week on account of you. Where did you get that thing anyway?”
“I bought it on Amazon.”
“How did you pay for it?” I ask. “I mean, it looks real expensive.”
“I’ve been savin’ my allowance for a year.”
“And Mamo Honey doesn’t know about this part of it either?”
“Ada Ru,” he says. “Nessie is oot there. The German tourists saw her in the exact spot we were searchin’. We need to have a sightin’ o’ our own. An’ I need ye to be my first mate!”
“Why can’t you just wait for Corny?”
He sighs. “Because I’m runnin’ oot o’ time.”
“What does that mean?”
“I heard that the Loch Ness Project is goin’ to start two new unprecedented searches. A DNA sweep and an underwater drone. If they find definitive evidence, then…well, the race is over. And so is my shot at bein’ a serious scientist. Please.”
Hammy Bean is waiting for my answer and so is Mac-Talla, a true and loyal mate sitting tall next to Hammy Bean, her tail sweeping back and forth across the wee salon’s floorboards. I can see the headline now:
TWO KIDS, ONE DOG AND THE HUMMINBIRD HELIX COMBO SINK TO THE BOTTOM OF LOCH NESS
That’s when he reaches out to put a hand on my arm.
“Ye think I dinna ken that no one sees me as a contender in the race?”
“People think you’re a contender,” I assure him.
“No…no, they dinna,” he sa
ys. “At least not until you and Dax. You are everythin’ to me.”
Beep.
“Strings to Team Nessie Quest, do you read? Come in. Over.”
Hammy Bean grabs the walkie-talkie from his belt.
“Captain Green Bean here, an’ Denver too. Over.”
“The three-headed slippery serpent has come to the surface and the Three Bears have the goods. Over.”
Hammy Bean drops the radio on the deck and stands there stuck in time like a Tin Man without his oilcan. And I don’t have one to unstick him with.
I unclip my radio from my belt. “What is it? Over.”
“Can’t say,” Dax tells me. “There’s no code for it. Over.”
“Just say it, then,” I tell him. “Over.”
“I heard from QDT that the BBC Highlands & Islands Edition is on their way to the beach now. What’s your ten-twenty? Over.”
“The red dog sees all, but the vessel looms large across the black diamonds. Over.”
Silence.
Beep.
“Alone?”
“It’s not what you think,” I tell him. “We’re on our way. Rendezvous at the arch in twenty acorns. Over.”
“Copy that,” Dax says. “You’re not supposed to be out without Corncob. What are you thinking? Over.”
“That’s affirmative, Strings,” I call into the radio. “Twenty acorns on the oak tree that blows in the morning breeze. Denver out.”
I clip the radio back to my belt and look up at Hammy Bean. Big tears form on his bottom lashes and topple down his cheeks.
“It’s probably nothing,” I assure him, pulling myself up on the dock next to him. “I mean, discoveries are made all the time, photos are taken every day, but it doesn’t mean they’re the most definitive thing.”
He stands there with his chin pointed toward the loch.
“Ye don’t understand. The Three Bears have the goods,” he repeats. “The goods is somethin’ way better than just a photo or a video. It’s actual physical evidence. The BBC Highlands & Islands Edition doesna come oot unless it’s real news. They must have something big.”
“Like what…exactly?”
“Dunno,” he says.
“Still, it might not be so bad.”
“Try bloody awful,” he mumbles.
The BBC Highlands & Islands Edition sets up right in front of the Fort Augustus beach. The news of the discovery travels as far as Inverness and everyone who’s anyone shows up for it.
Including Uncle Clive, Aunt Isla and Briony.
Granted they were invited to dinner at our place anyway, but still.
The news crew consists of one woman holding a microphone and two men, all in Windbreakers with BBC HIGHLANDS & ISLANDS EDITION written on the back.
I glance around at the crowd of spectators, which includes Jasper Price; Cornelius Blaise Barrington; Mr. Farquhar; Mr. and Mrs. Kumar, who own a Wee Spot of Tea and Biscuits; Quigley Dunbar III; Euna Begbie; and Mom and Dad. Even Tuna Tetrazzini shows up for it.
I wave Dax and Mamo Honey over as they push their way through the crowd. Hammy Bean is beside Mamo Honey, holding her elbow.
“You guys made it,” Dax whispers to me. “Going out alone? What were you thinking?”
“We didn’t actually go, plus you don’t even understand,” I tell him. “He’s running out of time.”
“What is that supposed to mean—”
Mamo Honey comes up behind us and puts her hand on my shoulder. “The clishmaclaver is that they found prints in the mud,” she whispers.
“Wait, what?” I say. “Nessie prints? Since when does a lake monster have feet?”
Hammy Bean reaches a hand out and finds my arm. “Is there a tall, skinny guy here with a long gray beard and a tweed jacket?” he asks me.
I stretch my neck and scan the crowd.
“He’s probably wearin’ a woolen Scottish flat cap.”
“Hmmm, no,” I say. “Why? Who’s that?”
“Haud yer wheesht, please,” the male reporter without the camera calls out to the crowd. “We’re on in five,” he says, holding five fingers at the woman, and then counts down, hiding a finger with each number.
Four.
Three.
Two.
And then he points to her with his final finger.
She smiles a dark-lipstick smile into the camera. “Thank ye, Gage, we are lochside in Fort Augustus at the edge of Loch Ness. As many know, this large body of water is synonymous with a well-known monster by the name of Nessie. I’m here today with three Loch Ness locals known as the Loch Watchers, a team taking part in what the locals here call the Nessie Race, an unofficial competition to find the most definitive evidence of the monster first. They claim to have discovered solid evidence of the elusive Nessie’s existence on the bonny, bonny banks of Loch Ness.” She turns to the three men. “Please, one at a time, introduce yourselves.”
The cameraman pans over them.
Lord Grunter, the Duke of Buttcrack, and Sir Farts-When-He-Laughs are lined up, all of them in their flat caps and nubby navy wool sweaters, with binoculars hanging around their necks.
Lord Grunter clears his soggy throat. “I’m Cappy McGee.”
The Duke of Buttcrack keeps one fist clutched tight to his belt and leans toward the microphone. “Norval Watt.”
And finally, it’s Sir Farts-When-He-Laughs’s turn. “Sterling Jack, ma’am.”
“Thank you all for being here with us today. Please tell us what you’ve found.”
“Oh, ah…thank you,” Lord Grunter says. “Today we’ve found definitive proof that a monster lives and breathes in the waters of our very own Loch Ness.” He looks at the other men and they nod. “We found actual prints in the mud.”
Sir Farts-When-He-Laughs waves the woman closer to the edge of the bank where there is a patch of dried mud. “See here.” He points. “These are prints we found early this morning.”
The woman leans in close to the dirt while the man with the fingers directs the cameraman to get a closer shot.
“They are three-toed prints wi’ large claws,” the Duke of Buttcrack says.
“We’ve never seen anythin’ like this before and we’re here every day, sunrise to sunset,” Lord Grunter says.
“And how can you be so sure they’re from our very own Nessie?” the woman asks the men.
“For one, we don’t know of another species that has a three-toed foot wi’ a large claw,” Lord Grunter tells her.
“And secondly,” Farts-When-He-Laughs adds, “the toes are webbed, see here? And history tells us that webbed toes possibly indicate a type of plesiosaur dinosaur from the late Triassic period.”
“Or a new species altogether,” Lord Grunter interjects.
“Oh, yer bum’s oot the windae, Cappy McGee.” Farts-When-He-Laughs chuckles, giving one solo toot, and then turns to the woman and says, “We don’t tend to agree about what Nessie might be.”
Hammy Bean leans closer to me. “What does it look like?” he asks.
I shrug. “Exactly what they’re describing,” I tell him. “A three-toed footprint in dried mud. And it looks like there are giant claws at the top of the toe.”
Hammy Bean huffs air out of his mouth and puts his chin on his chest.
The man with the fingers makes circular gestures to the lady and she gives another wide lipstick smile toward the camera. “Thank you, Loch Watchers, for your keen investigative skills and for sharing this amazing discovery with us. This is Mysie Maccrum, out at the bonny, bonny banks of the Fort Augustus beach with an outstanding discovery pertaining to one of the greatest mysteries of Scotland. Today’s discovery could just be the clue that determines once and for all what really is swimming down in the depths of the Loch Ness. Back to you in the studio, Gage.”
“It’s okay,” I tell Hammy Bean.
“Aye, they dinna even ken what made those prints,” Mamo Honey adds. “They’re just makin’ a connection to the plesiosaur prints found up on the Isle of Skye a few years ago. They could be dog prints for all they ken.”
“Yeah, HB,” Dax chimes in. “It’s bunk.”
Hammy Bean sighs. “Ye all dinna understand,” he says. “It was on the BBC. Now the whole world believes that the Loch Watchers have conclusive evidence, whether it’s true or not.”
“It will happen for you too,” I say. “You said so yourself. A discovery is meant to be discovered only when the time is right to discover it, right? Isn’t that what your great cryptozoologist Dr. Tobin Sky says?”
“Aye,” he mumbles. “But maybe I’m not the one meant to discover it.”
That night after the newscast, Uncle Clive, Aunt Isla and Briony come to our St. Benedict’s flat for an all-American dinner, including hamburgers with cheese and hot dogs with sauerkraut and relish.
After I give Briony a tour of the abbey, we find Dax and Ole Roy coming down the steps.
I actually hear Briony suck air when she sees him.
“Hey,” he says.
“Oh, hey,” I say.
He’s wearing his jean jacket.
“You going somewhere?” I ask him.
“Ness for Less,” he tells me. “QDT is working tonight and I have some new stuff to play for him.”
Briony gives me an elbow in the ribs.
“Um…yeah, so…” I give a limp wave in her direction. “This is my cousin Briony—”
“Howzitgoan.” She stands real tall, beaming at him with all her teeth showing. “I’m Briony, Ada Ru’s cousin.”
I wave a hand in his direction. “I just told him that,” I say.
But she’s not even listening because she’s way too busy mad eyeballing Dax in his jean jacket with the peace sign and smiling with far too many teeth showing to be normal.
“How old are ye?” Briony asks Dax.
“Thirteen,” he says.
“Wow, I really like your jacket…um, that’s really cool.”
Nessie Quest Page 17