by A. M. Morgen
Don Nadie bent over and patted George on the head. “I’ll remember you fondly when I’m living in No. 8 Dorset Square. Thank you for taking such good care of my house.”
“No. 8 is not your house!” George cried.
Don Nadie took a deep breath and smiled at the sky. “I’ll need to expand it soon, of course. A new palace for a new king. You see, the great Truffle Assassin will be very, very upset about my return. He’ll poison the King and his brother this time, and he’ll probably succeed. Poor little Princess Victoria couldn’t possibly run an entire country. She’s only eight years old! Luckily for her, the Lord of Devonshire will be there… the only man in all of England with the technology to make her army the greatest in the world. After I’ve gotten what I need from the scientists at C.R.U.M.P.E.T.S., I’ll buy up all the houses from Dorset Square to Park Road and make Regent’s Park my backyard.”
With that, Don Nadie strode away. In five long steps, he was walking through the water on his stilts, climbing into the glass bubble ship, and leading his fleet across the wide blue ocean toward London.
Chapter Twenty-Five
At some point in life, George knew, every person asks these two questions:
Who am I?
Why am I here?
Before Don Nadie arrived and turned George’s world upside down, George would have answered those two questions thusly: I am George, the 3rd Lord of Devonshire. I am here because my grandfather drew me a map leading to this spot.
But as George watched Don Nadie’s fleet slip across the horizon, he suddenly realized he could only answer: I am George Foote. As to why he was here, that was obviously due to his bad-luck curse, which had been biding its time until it could destroy him finally, completely, and absolutely on a desolate island in the middle of an unfamiliar sea. He was certainly not here to save Ada. George had no doubt she’d already hatched a plan to save herself from Don Nadie.
His stomach growled with hunger, but he ignored it. No more truffle stew ever again. No more Frobisher.
No more George, the 3rd Lord of Devonshire. Not that he’d ever really existed in the first place. Technically, he would have been the 2nd Lord of Devonshire, not the 3rd. Because his father had died less than a day before his grandfather, the title had gone directly to George. He’d thought he was honoring his father by pretending he’d lived long enough to inherit his grandfather’s title. There was no reason to worry about that technicality anymore. Did George’s father know who his grandfather really was? Was that why he’d always been so cruel?
George crawled into his canvas tent, pulled the blanket over himself, and wished that either he would disappear or the world would blink out of existence. He lay there for hours and hours, images of his old life flashing before his eyes as if they were inside a phantasmascope, a type of spinning wheel Ada had shown him once. His memories were outside him, like a part of his body that had been amputated. Eventually, he fell in and out of sleep, expecting to see nightmare flashes of Don Nadie as a spider, tying him up with threads of silk.
Instead, he dreamed that he and Oscar were playing cricket in the menagerie. Instead of a cricket ball, they were using the Star of Victory. George’s grandfather and father were there, too, cheering them on. But George could not bear to swing his cricket bat at the Star. Oscar pitched it to him over and over. “Hit it, George! Smash it!”
George sat up and blinked, awake. A wave crashed onto the shore. The sea lions barked oark oark. Dreaming of his family had warmed George’s heart. He hadn’t dreamed about them in a long time.
George had unraveled as far as he was going to unravel, he thought.
With every ounce of energy he could muster, George crawled out of his tent and pried open a tin of peas. As he ate each green, mushy mouthful, he watched a tortoise graze on the edges of the camp. Ada had once said that dreams spoke to you. Taught you things that your waking brain was not ready to learn. Was dream-Oscar trying to tell him something?
George felt the warm touch of the morning sun on his cheek. In Oscar’s opinion, George’s title was probably the least important thing about George. He would probably say that George was better off without it. He would say that no matter what George’s name was, he was still made of the same substance on the inside. The same rock might be called a lodestone or a magnet or iron, but calling it a different name didn’t alter its properties. Don Nadie might have chipped away at some of his outer layers, but his core was as tough as a diamond—his essence had not been changed.
Oscar would have pointed out that Don Nadie had forgotten something—Oscar. Ada. Ruthie. Oscar would have said that friendship doesn’t cost anything, so therefore it could not be stolen. Don Nadie thought he’d stripped George of everything he was. But his revenge plan would never be complete because no matter what he did, he couldn’t take away George’s friends.
“George! George!” Oscar’s dream-voice wailed.
George stopped chewing his mushy peas. He was not dreaming anymore. Therefore, it was not dream-Oscar calling out to him.
A terrible, keening cry split the air. George recognized it at once.
Ruthie.
Practically flying, George threw down the tin of peas, grabbed his bag with the Star of Victory, and sprinted toward the sound, which had come from the center of the island. The barren, scrubby island was covered in a white mist that hid the distant slopes of the volcano. If he squinted, George could almost believe he was back home in London on a quiet, foggy morning. But then Ruthie cried out again, and he urged his legs to move faster.
Very quickly, George found himself on the same narrow dirt path he’d seen by lantern light when chasing the thief. With a shudder, he remembered that Il Naso was not the one who had stolen the golden buttons from his jacket. Maybe it had been the Society… though why hadn’t they attacked? Had they found Oscar? As far as George knew, the Galápagos were uninhabited. But then again, many people had thought his home in Dorset Square had been uninhabited months ago, when it was falling apart.
Uneasily, George realized he was the real intruder. They’d landed on the island without permission or welcome.
The landscape around George began to change as he kept running into the mist. The dry, dusty scrubland full of cactus and brambles changed into a lush green jungle fed by bubbling streams that trickled down the hillside. The plants grew taller and thicker. Lacy ferns tickled George’s ankles.
“Oscar! Ruthie!”
The sunlight dimmed, blocked out by the canopy of leaves overhead. An enormous bee buzzed around George’s head before returning to a bush covered in red flowers. The bee was almost the same size as the tiny birds that darted among the ferns.
A small red berry fell from the sky onto George’s neck. He brushed it off and ran on.
Another red berry fell from the sky, hitting him square on his cheek, harder this time.
Still, George ran. All he could see were the slim trunks of the trees with their leaves unfurled high above, flat as a parasol. The trees here were much smaller than the ones back in London. A berry splatted onto George shirt, leaving a round, red mark.
From deep in the forest, a giggle filtered through the trees.
George skidded to a halt. Something was crashing toward him. The slim trunks swayed and dipped as if they were dancing. George didn’t know what kind of terrible beasts might be lurking in this forest. Then a beast hurled itself onto his back.
The beast squeezed his neck with its hairy, orange arms.
“Ruthie!” George cried. He swiveled the little orangutan to his chest and squeezed her tight. “You’re alive!”
Ruthie grabbed his hand in hers, then squirmed down to the ground. She tugged George forward, her brown eyes wide and insistent.
“Where’s Oscar?” George asked.
Ruthie led him through the forest at the edge of the path. The bushes grew closer and closer until they closed around him like a tunnel made of waxy leaves. George had to push the branches out of his face so that he could s
ee Ruthie, who was only inches ahead of him. A few minutes later, she screeched to warn him before he fell into a deep hole.
He jumped over the hole, and all of a sudden, Oscar was in front of him, sitting beneath a small grove of trees with his head resting against his knees. His head jerked up when he heard George approaching. Though his clothes were filthy and his eyes were sagging with exhaustion, his face lit up in a gap-toothed smile. Ruthie climbed down from George’s shoulders and nestled into Oscar’s side.
“George!” said Oscar.
“Oscar!” said George. “I heard Ruthie screaming from camp. Are you all right? What happened?”
Oscar lifted up his leg. A rope was tightly cinched around his ankle. “I’ve gotten caught in a snare.”
George eyed the snare. It was fastened with a strangle knot that Oscar could easily have untied. “Are you hurt? Let me help you.”
“Don’t bother.” Oscar sighed loudly and drew his knees up to his chest again. “I’ll only step in another trap. I’ve been trying to get out of this forest forever. First I stepped on a catapult that shot me into a huge net in the trees. After I climbed down from that, I fell into a pit. After I got out of that, my left leg got caught in a snare. After that, my right leg. Forward or backward, it doesn’t matter. I’m stuck here. I was wrong. You are cursed with bad luck. It must be contagious.”
George burned with anger at the Society. They had left traps all around the island to torture him. He scolded himself for thinking, even for a second, that they’d been safe from Don Nadie’s crew. “You’re not stuck. We can go back the way I came.” George knelt down and began to pick at the knot to loosen it. “I’m glad I found you,” he continued cautiously, wanting to make sure that his words came out properly. “I need to apologize to you for putting you in danger. You were right. I was being selfish. There are a lot of other things I need to tell you, too, but first I have to tell you that I’m sorry.”
“Did the 3rd Lord of Devonshire just tell me he was sorry?” Oscar asked in mock amazement.
“He should have said it sooner, but the 3rd Lord of Devonshire was an idiot. He thought he knew better than everyone else,” George said.
“Why are you talking about yourself as if you’ve died? Where’s Ada?” Oscar asked.
George sucked in his cheeks. Where to begin to explain everything to Oscar? They’d been apart for less than two days, but in that time, George’s life had been turned upside down. “Miss Byron is—Ada is—” George hesitated.
Oscar’s eyes grew wide and his chest expanded with a breath he didn’t exhale. “No. Don’t say it. I thought I’d lost you for one second in the shipwreck. I couldn’t bear to lose Ada. And I said all those terrible things—”
“Ada’s not dead! She’s alive!” George corrected him hastily. “Alive and well, last time I saw her. Don Nadie followed us here. He captured Ada and is taking her with him to C.R.U.M.P.E.T.S. And Il Naso, too. He was hiding on the whale this entire time. And there’s more, much, much more, to tell you once we’re somewhere safe. But Ada will be fine. I’m sure she’ll find a way to escape and save the scientists.”
Oscar’s shoulders relaxed as he began to breathe normally again. “Of course she will. She’s the smartest person I know.”
With a final tug, the knot loosened, and George helped Oscar to his feet. He dusted a few twigs from Oscar’s shirt and handed him a piece of dried fruit from his bag. Ruthie took some for herself, too. “I wish she were here now to help us figure out what to do next. Don Nadie took the whale and left us with nothing and no way to get home.”
“I’ve been sending messages in bottles to my father so he’ll come get us eventually. We’ll figure out a way to help her stop the Society. Our plan won’t be as good, but it can still work. She’s older than we are, so she’s had more time to come up with clever ideas. I think I’ll probably be as smart as she is when I’m twelve,” Oscar said brightly.
“I’m already almost thirteen, and I don’t think I’ll ever be as good at math and inventing things as Ada,” George said. “Should we let her save the world without us?”
George had meant it lightly, but the words weighed on him. Oscar had called his mission meaningless not long ago. A gull screamed overhead, reminding him that he was in the middle of an unfamiliar sea in the middle of nowhere, no better off from his adventure than when he’d left London, no closer to beating Don Nadie. Maybe it wasn’t his purpose to be the hero after all. Maybe it was Ada’s.
Oscar shook his head. “We’re not meant to do what she does. We’re all good at different things. Ada’s good at inventing things, and it makes her happy. Ruthie loves eating fruit and hugging people. I’m good at drawing and collecting rocks, and I thought being a pirate would make me happy, but we both know how that worked out. You’re good at—well, you were good at—sometimes, it seems like you’re good at…” Oscar scrunched his face as he wrestled with his words before finally saying, “You’re very good at getting yourself into trouble.”
George smiled weakly. “All I ever wanted to be good at was making my grandfather proud, and look where it’s gotten us.”
“Are you joking? You’ve traveled farther than most people ever will in their lifetime. Look where we are. This island is amazing! The animals aren’t afraid of humans at all. I saw a tortoise yesterday, and it reminded me of you. If you could carry your home on your back, I think you’d be happier.” Oscar jostled him. “I’ve had a lot of time to think while I was stuck here. I figured out why I’ve been so angry with you.”
“You have? Why?” George asked.
“Because I knew that even after you found the treasure your grandfather left, it still wouldn’t make you happy.”
“It might have if things had turned out differently.” George imagined opening the box to find gold coins or the secret to eternal life instead of a musty passenger manifest.
“It wouldn’t have mattered what was in that box,” Oscar insisted. “You don’t need a treasure, just like I didn’t need to be a pirate. What I needed was to know that my father loved me even if I wasn’t just like him.”
George shifted from foot to foot.
“But I still need a place to belong—and you do, too,” Oscar continued. “But you haven’t found it yet. The map was like a pair of blinders. You couldn’t see beyond it. We spent hours and hours trying to draw it together. We could have drawn anything, but you wanted that. Did it make you feel better when I drew the map?”
“No,” George admitted.
“When Ada asks me to draw something, it’s a new invention or something she wants to make in the future. If you asked me to draw your future, what would you want to see?” Oscar asked, leaning intently toward George’s face to hear his answer.
George gulped. If he imagined his future, he would have to think about all the empty places and missing people in his life who wouldn’t be in that future. Thinking about it was as painful as touching a fresh, tender bruise. He didn’t want to talk about it. “I don’t know,” he mumbled.
“You don’t know!” Oscar repeated proudly, as if he’d known what George’s answer would be. An enormous smile stretched across his face.
“Why are you happy about that?”
“Because I can show you. That’s what I want to do. I don’t want to be a pirate or an adventurer. I want to help other people figure out where they belong,” Oscar announced.
George couldn’t help but smile. “That’s wonderful.”
“I want to make a place where people can imagine new lives for themselves. A place where people can try new things. Not a school, exactly—more like a greenhouse to help people grow. There are so many other children like you and me, who get stuck doing what we think our families want us to do because they don’t know anything else. If a person doesn’t find what they love to do, they could end up as Nobodies or spend their entire life being a pirate when all along they were meant to be a truffle farmer. Everybody should have the chance to be a somebody,” Oscar contin
ued. “I don’t know exactly where or how I’ll do it yet, and maybe you’ll tell me it sounds like a silly idea, but I don’t care. That’s what I want to do. Everyone deserves to find their place in the world. You can be my first experiment, if you’d like. We’ll invent lives for ourselves that make us both happy.”
“I’d like that!” George replied with genuine enthusiasm. George, the 3rd Lord of Devonshire, didn’t think he deserved happiness most of the time. But perhaps George Foote was a fellow for whom happiness would come more easily. “What would make me very happy now is not getting caught in any more of the Society’s traps.”
“The Society? This wasn’t the Society.” Oscar’s eyes darted left to right. He leaned in close to George’s ear and whispered, “The girl from the portrait. She’s here. Hiding.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
By now, George knew how to set a trap. All he and Oscar had to do was act completely natural until the time was right to set the bait.
George carried a long stick in front of him to sweep the ground ahead for any more pits as they carefully picked their way through the trees toward the path. They found snares galore everywhere they stepped in the jungle—stumps stacked like staircases, rope bridges over quicksand pits, and various other hazards both hidden and in plain sight. Between obstacles, George filled Oscar in on everything he’d missed.
A twig snapped loudly in the canopy above them. The girl was here.
That was all George needed to execute his plan.
When they were certain they were being followed by someone walking through the branches, George stopped. He took the Star of Victory out of his bag, making sure it sparkled in the sunlight. Oscar sat down and listened as George drew his story out, embellishing it with every exciting detail he could muster. Still talking, George casually slipped the Star back into the bag, which he then hung over a thick tree vine. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ruthie slink up the other side of the trunk.