Mom gets up to answer it while Dad keeps reading and it’s right at the part where Harry, Ron and Hermione are at the trapdoor that we hear that something’s not right.
In fact, something is very wrong.
“Um, no,” Mom says. “We haven’t seen him at all tonight, Honey. Did you call the Cadys?”
Dad stops reading midsentence.
I look up at Mom and she’s looking at me.
“Uh-huh…uh-huh. Adelaide Ru?” Mom says. “If Hammy Bean’s not home, do you know where he might be?”
My heart is beating hard.
Pounding in my chest.
Hammering in my ears.
I swallow. “No,” I say. “Why? What’s wrong?”
“He wasn’t home when Honey returned from her class and no one is answering at the Cady flat.”
The half a grilled cheese that made it into my stomach doesn’t feel so good anymore and neither does the hot chocolate with extra marshmallows that Mom made me for our story.
“Where else might he be?” Mom asks Honey.
She listens.
“Uh-huh…uh-huh. I don’t know,” Mom says. “I’ll ask her. Adelaide, when is the last time you spoke to Dax?”
I just blink at her with wide eyes and don’t say a thing.
“Adelaide Ru?” she says. “Answer me.”
* * *
As it turns out, I am a wee clipe after all.
I cave, plain and simple.
I blab, big-time.
The lowest of the low is what Dax will call me.
Hammy Bean will most certainly strip me of my position and force me to relinquish my walkie-talkie too. He’ll probably never speak to me again and regret making me his very first reporter/secret agent for the Nessie Juggernaut.
But I don’t blame him one bit.
I cross my heart and then blab his most ultimate bobble. I’m the worst secret keeper in the history of secret keeping. I totally renege on a cross-your-heart-hope-to-die. And everyone who’s anyone knows there is nothing more sacred than a cross-your-heart-hope-to-die. Nothing.
But Mom and Dad don’t exactly see it the same way.
“I cannot believe you kept this from Honey,” Mom is saying to me from the front seat of the rental car on the way to the rickety dock where Hammy Bean keeps the SS Albatross. “Haven’t I always said you can tell me anything?”
“But, Mom, I crossed my heart on this one,” I tell her.
She just shakes her head and stares out through the rain racing across the car window. “That’s nonsense.”
She doesn’t get it.
“It’s his wee boat, not mine,” I say. “What are you yelling at me for?”
She snaps her head in my direction. “Because you’re my daughter and I thought you knew better than this.”
“You don’t understand.” I try again. “I crossed my heart and everyone who’s anyone—”
“Don’t.” She points a finger at me. “Hammy Bean’s and Dax’s safety is at stake here and that takes precedence over some childish dare.”
“I mean…technically it’s not a dare,” I explain. “It’s more like a—”
She holds a hand up. “Please, just stop,” she says.
I cross my arms over my chest and stare out the rainy window.
“Where is it?” Dad asks, squinting through the windshield.
“Just past the McLean’s Farm sign on the right,” I tell him.
Dad pulls the car off the road. Wet leaves slap against the windshield as he rolls to a stop. I push open the back door. The lights on Mamo Honey’s Nessie Quest tour van shine bright behind us, and behind that is Mr. and Mrs. Cady’s BMW. I watch as Mamo Honey pulls herself out from behind the steering wheel, forgetting to even turn the engine off and fly toward me in her yellow rain slicker and matching hat, her wet curls stuck to her face.
“Where is it?” she demands. “Where is it?”
“This way,” I say, taking her hand and pulling her through the wet, sloppy leaves. Raindrops click on the hood of the rain jacket that’s zipped up over my flowered nightgown and my bare feet squish inside my Nikes as I lead her down the embankment through the soaked leafy branches.
“Can you still see them?” I hear Mrs. Cady call to Mr. Cady.
“It’s through here,” I call back to them, waiting until I hear their footsteps sloshing through the wet ground.
When we finally all reach the edge of the rickety dock, I stop on the first weathered board, but Mamo Honey runs to the very last one, shining her flashlight out on the water.
“Wh-where is it?” Mamo Honey demands.
The SS Albatross is gone.
“Where is the boat?” Mrs. Cady asks when she reaches the dock. “I thought you said the boat was here. Where is it?”
“I—I guess…it—it’s gone,” I say.
“Oh my God,” Mrs. Cady gasps, dropping her face into her palms.
“I canna believe this is happenin’!” Mamo Honey cries into the rain. “How did he even get a boat? Someone must have helped him do this. Was it you?” She spins to me, shining the light in my eyes.
“N-no,” I say. “He had the boat before I got here. He showed it to me. It wasn’t my idea. I promise it wasn’t.”
“Well, then ye must know who did this.”
Uh-oh.
I can’t reveal another bobble.
I can’t.
I won’t.
“Adelaide Ru,” Mom says. “Answer her.”
“Where is it?” a breathless Mrs. Cady calls out when she hits the dock, with Mr. Cady behind her.
“They’re gone,” Mamo Honey announces. “Gone, oot there somewhere!” She points to the loch.
“Adelaide Ru,” Dad says in a voice I’ve never heard before. “Where did Hammy Bean get this boat?”
The rain is pelting our coats harder now and they’re all standing there staring at me.
Waiting for answers.
Answers I can’t give them. Answers I crossed my heart not to ever reveal. But they’re answers that could help save Hammy Bean and Dax from sure danger.
“What’s that?” Dad shines his flashlight at something at the end of the dock.
Mamo Honey’s light bounces left, then right, then back again until the beam finds it.
A hat.
Hammy Bean’s way-too-big captain’s hat.
Mamo Honey bends down to pick it up and hugs it to her middle.
“Adelaide Ru,” Mom says. “You aren’t doing anyone any favors by keeping secrets.”
Tears roll down my already-rain-soaked cheeks, and when my words make it past my throat, they come out in a croak. “B-but…I promised.”
So I do it again.
I blab another one.
I’m a wee clipe supreme, the teller of sacred and classified secrets. A blabbermouth of bobbles big and small. A snitch. A stoolie. And a big, fat fink wrapped into one twelve-year-old girl. I cross my heart and hope to die on Hammy Bean’s secret and then spewed it all over town. I’m a menace to society of all things confidential. If he ever speaks to me again, it sure won’t be to tell me anything even remotely classified.
And I deserve it.
All of it.
I am the lowest of the low.
When I finally blab about Cornelius Blaise Barrington giving Hammy Bean the SS Albatross, Mamo Honey is fit to be tied. Not to mention Mom and Dad.
I will surely be sentenced to far worse than a week of solitary for this one.
Pound.
Pound.
Pound.
Mamo Honey slams a fist on the door of Corny’s lochside camper van. A small motor home with a large wooden sign on the front of it that says Nessie Hunter. “Cornelius Blaise Barrington!” she hollers. “Open the d
oor this instant!”
The smooth stones on the small stretch of beach outside Fort Augustus are especially slippery in the rain with just wet Nikes hanging on to bare feet with loose laces.
“Knock again,” Mrs. Cady calls to her.
“Wait, Mamo Honey,” I say. “I told you Corny won’t let Hammy Bean go out by himself.”
She stares hard at me. “So he’s never asked ye to go oot alone?”
At first, I don’t say anything. But then I break. “He asked once, but I said no.”
For some reason, that didn’t make her feel any better.
Or Mrs. Cady either. “Knock again, Honey,” she calls, louder this time.
Mamo Honey slams on the door with her fist again.
Pound.
Pound.
Pound.
“Cornelius Blaise Barrington!” she calls and pounds again. “I ken you are in there! Yer lights are on!”
I stand behind her on the stoop, with Mom and Dad and Mr. and Mrs. Cady standing on the rocky beach below. I close my eyes and hope with all my might that he doesn’t answer the door. That Cornelius Blaise Barrington, Nessie hunter extraordinaire, is out in the boat with Hammy Bean and Dax.
I hope with all my might that they aren’t alone.
But when the door cracks open just enough for us to see Corny peek two blue eyes out at us, all the air I was holding in my lungs escapes, making me feel more deflated than anything else.
“Honey,” he says, opening the door wider. “Ada Ru? What are ye doin’ here so late?”
“Hammy Bean and Dax are gone,” I tell him before Mamo Honey even has a chance to say the words.
“What do you mean?”
“The SS Albatross,” I say. “It’s gone. And neither of them are answering on the radio.”
Corny puts two flat palms on top of his head. “Ahhhh—”
“I’m sorry, I had to tell her,” I say. “I had to. They made me.”
“How could ye, Cornelius?” Mamo Honey asks him. “He has no business havin’ that boat, and ye ken it.”
“It’s not what ye think. We go oot on it together,” Cornelius tells her. “He’s never taken it oot without me. That was the agreement.”
She points an angry arm toward the water. “Well, tonight he’s out there without you, isna he?” she says with anger flashing in her eyes, even though her voice cracks on the very last word.
“It’s okay,” I say. “He has the Humminbird Helix Combo.”
They all turn to me and stare.
“What is that?” Mr. Cady asks.
“It—it’s an advanced s-sonar and…and…GPS,” I explain.
Mamo Honey huffs a blast of hot air out of her lungs. “Cornelius! How could ye?” she exclaims again.
“I didna do that!” he tells her. “I dinna even ken what that is. We just had the regular sonar setup and we went out together. That was the rule. That was always the rule.”
“Well, where did he get somethin’ like that, then?”
They both stare at me again.
“Online,” I say. “It—it came in the mail.”
Cornelius takes his bright yellow slicker from a hook near the door and begins to slip it over his gigantic shoulders. “Keep the heid,” he tells Mamo Honey. “I know this loch better than anyone. I will find them, I promise ye that.”
Then I remember something horrible.
Terrible.
Absolutely and completely dismal.
“Unless…,” I start.
“Unless what?” Mamo Honey says.
“I just remembered something,” I say.
Mamo Honey puts her strong hands on my shoulders. “What did ye remember?”
I look at Mom and she shakes her head at me. “No more secrets, Adelaide Ru. You tell Mamo Honey everything you know.”
I swallow hard.
Mamo Honey’s eyes are filled with worrying tears, and her brow furrowed with fear.
Waiting.
“The Moray Firth,” I tell her. “He said something about the Moray Firth leading out to the North Sea.”
Mrs. Cady gasps, and Mamo Honey closes her eyes and shakes her head.
“What do you mean?” Dad demands.
“He wanted to take the boat to London one day,” I say.
“Oh my God, Gary,” Mrs. Cady says to Mr. Cady, grabbing his hand.
“London?” Dad says. “What for?”
Mamo Honey drops onto the ground like an emptied sack and Mom bends down quickly at her side, wrapping her arms around Mamo Honey’s brokenness.
“It’s where his parents live,” Mamo Honey says, and then drops her face into her palms and cries, her shoulders shaking with every sob that comes out of her.
Words.
They torture me all night with dreams of all the awful ones I spewed all over Hammy Bean and Dax. Horrible, despicable words chasing me through leafy branches and pulling me down in black waves.
It’s words that wake me the next morning too, my eyes opening to a strange ceiling with an antique chandelier hanging in the center of the room. Dad’s coat is covering me and Tuna Tetrazzini is curled up in a ball in the crook of my arm. I push the coat aside and sit up, rubbing my eyes and watching all the pictures from last night flood my brain, reminding me all over again of the real-life nightmare that’s way worse than any dream could ever be.
Voices float around me.
Mumbles and whispers along with dishes clanking and cups clinking. I’m on my feet in an instant and I scramble into the Tibby kitchen with Tuna Tetrazzini on my heels.
“Are they back?” I demand.
Mamo Honey, Mom and Dad, and Mr. and Mrs. Cady are all sitting at the table, sipping hot tea with bleary eyes and somber faces. Minus one Cornelius Blaise Barrington.
“No, honey,” Mom says.
“Well, what are we doing just sitting here?” I say, pacing the kitchen floor. “We have to do something.”
“The police are oot lookin’ today,” Mamo Honey says. “They’re searchin’ the waterways now. Unfortunately, the rain an’ fog are makin’ the search difficult. But I’m hopin’ they come through that door any minute.”
“Well, Mac-Talla is with them,” I say. “She won’t let anything bad happen.”
“Dax should’ve known better,” Mrs. Cady says, while Mr. Cady bites his bottom lip and stares out the window. “He usually has better judgment than this. Maybe we gave him too much freedom here.”
Mr. Cady puts a hand on her arm.
“I’m sure they’ll be fine,” he whispers, glancing at his wristwatch and biting his lip again.
Mamo Honey just shakes her head, creating invisible circles onto the surface of her teacup. “I would never have let him go oot on that boat.”
“He loves that boat,” I tell Mamo Honey. “He says the SS Albatross gave him his wings.”
“I havena hidden him away,” Mamo Honey says. “Even though I wanted to, just to keep him safe from the world. But I kent he needed to be oot in it. I kent that,” she tells Mom.
Mom puts a hand on top of Honey’s and nods.
“But he’s a bird,” Mamo Honey says. “He wants to fly all the time, in every different direction. No matter how much I’ve wanted to keep him in my nest, I’ve let him fly and fall again and again until he fell less and less. But he never stops wantin’ to soar. He is an unstoppable force sometimes.”
“He’s an albatross,” I whisper.
“The albatross,” she says, “spends its life circlin’—”
“I know,” I say. “Flying the skies of the world above us, circling and watching from afar…wishing,” I whisper, tears starting to leak from the corners of my eyes.
I swallow hard and take a deep shaky breath.
“Mamo Honey,” I choke. �
�I have something else to tell you…and I’m afraid it’s…it’s worse than the wee boat.”
“What is it, love?”
“I think it’s all my fault. I think he left b-because of me.”
“What do ye mean?”
“I told him I know he’s been lying about his parents,” I say.
She doesn’t say anything.
“It’s worse than that,” I say. “I told him…that everyone knows it too.”
She stays silent for a very long time. Such a long time that my legs start to ache as I stand there waiting for her anger.
The fury.
The lashing out.
The horrible words.
“He doesna deserve all that’s happened to him in his life,” she says softly. “But he’s never once complained.” She smiles and wipes another rogue tear. “Not once. He’s a strong an’ verra brave lad. An’ so full of love.” Her voice cracks. “He should have parents who wanted to stand up for him. Give him everythin’ he deserves. Love. A home. A family. I knew he lied about his parents. He was…devastated, ashamed that they dinna love him more than the drugs. It was somethin’ I couldna protect him from because it was his truth. As much as I dinna want it to be.”
I reach out and find Mom’s hand resting on her leg under the counter. Her fingers wrap around mine and she holds them tight.
“I’m sorry,” I tell Mamo Honey. “I didn’t mean to say it. I was mad at him and that made me say things I didn’t mean and wouldn’t have said if I’d been thinking with my whole brain.”
“He looks up to ye, Ada Ru.” Mamo Honey smiles up at me.
I swallow a big lump. “He does?”
She nods.
The black makeup that usually sits around her eyes has found its way into the cracks below her bottom lashes like tiny black veins.
“Your friendship wi’ Hammy Bean has been one o’ his greatest treasures,” she says.
I swallow the tears welling in the back of my throat. “He said that?”
“Aye,” she says. “He’s said it…every day since he’s met you an’ Dax.”
“He’s been a good friend to me too,” I tell her. “He’s made my time here in Scotland better than I ever thought it could be.”
Nessie Quest Page 20