They listened as Mr. Happer called out the professor’s name.
Then they heard nothing at all.
Across the valley, the spot of light had stopped way up in the leaves, and remained motionless. The beam, fixed in a sharp upward slant, cut through the night but was still. Then the light was suddenly snuffed out, leaving only darkness.
Chapter 15—A Sound Idea
Digger’s night was broken sleep and weird dreams about wandering lost in a murky woods. When Mr. Happer’s flashlight went out, it was as if the whole forest had been turned off with the flick of a switch. The only sounds were their voices and the snaps and pops of the campfire, which they kept burning brightly.
Whatever trouble the professor had run into had also found Mr. Happer. And without a flashlight, searching about in the pitch-black forest would be a fool’s mission, and extremely dangerous.
All they could do was wait until daybreak, and try to rest.
“Dad told us to stay here,” Corliss insisted. “So that’s what we do—we stay put, with Pam.”
Yukiko had suggested making torches and going for a search. But in no mood to argue with Corliss, she dropped the idea. Though, that’s all it was—an idea. She hadn’t mentioned anything about leaving Pam alone in her tent. Did they really believe her heart was so cold?
Digger had been thinking about their quest and his father. They had come all this way hoping to find some trace of him, only to lose two more fathers. This is all my fault, he told himself.
After waiting and waiting and not figuring out what they should do, Corliss scratched the top of his head and shuffled off toward his tent. Midway, and half-asleep, he mumbled something about having to work things out in the morning.
Yukiko dozed off next. Her chin gradually sunk to her shoulder, and her side rested against the log. She’d left one eye open just a crack, to watch for her father as she slept.
Digger brought out her sleeping bag as well as his own, but stayed awake. He wanted to make sure the fire was well fed.
When Pam got up for a sip of water, he broke the bad news to her as gently as he could. Although he didn’t believe it, he told her that everything would be okay. That they’d go find her father at sunup. But she was nodding off again, and Digger didn’t think she fully grasped what had happened. Dozily, she slipped back into the tent, which Digger then zipped shut.
The fire’s warmth made his eyelids heavy. He couldn’t hold off sleep any longer.
But . . . sitting on its haunches, by a tree, was a reddish fox. It was watching him. Its eyes were as piercing as Inari-san’s.
Or was Digger dreaming?
The fox wasn’t there now. Had it scurried off? Into the night? Maybe, it was . . . only . . . a drea—
* * *
At dawn, when Digger woke up, Yukiko was half-heartedly stoking coals in the fire pit to awaken the flames. He checked for any signs that his uncle or the professor had returned. But everything appeared to be the same, except for Yukiko, who looked miserable.
“Are the others up?” he asked softly, placing a slender piece of wood over the orange coals.
“Just you.”
Digger knew what losing a parent felt like. But was the professor lost? It was possible he and Mr. Happer were together, and more or less knew where they were, and were merely having difficulty finding their way back.
“I walked over to Inari-san’s hut earlier,” Yukiko said. “He’s gone, too. I have a feeling my father and your uncle didn’t even make it all the way there. I couldn’t find the flashlights either.”
Digger squatted at the other side of the pit. “Someone will come looking for us, I think. It’s a matter of time.” Using her stick, she tipped over a smoking chunk of spruce. “And who knows, Yukiko, your dad might be close. I wouldn’t be surprised if both of them made it back for breakfast.” Digger didn’t want Yukiko to see how freaked out he was.
“What if they don’t?”
“Like I said, someone will come for us.”
“Sure—in a few days. Don’t you see, Digger? By the time they notice we’re missing, the Kappas will have killed us too.”
Digger gulped. Fears were piling up in his chest. He hadn’t once thought that the Kappas had anything to do with his uncle and the professor’s disappearance.
“You know what else? We’re going to run out of drinking water today.”
“There’s . . . the river.”
“Inari-san told us it’s being poisoned—I won’t drink from it.”
They had a box of crackers, noodles, Japanese soup paste, plums, dried meat, some rice, and a bag of . . .
“Cucumbers.” Digger didn’t see the bag from Mrs. Matsushita. He searched around for it. “Your dad left them next to his tent.” But they were gone, bag and all.
Right then Pam came out of her tent and stretched her arms at the sky.
“He hasn’t come back, has he?” she asked, checking Digger’s face. He shook his head and she sat down beside Yukiko. Digger was amazed that Pam knew they were gone. She must have been more alert in the middle of the night than he’d thought.
Pam looked around in every direction. “Maybe they went to the minka. Or they had to chase off one of those boars. To save us. Or they could have crossed a bridge over the river. Maybe they couldn’t find it again—you know, to cross back from the other side. Oh, maybe the professor followed Inari-san, and then dad followed the professor. I bet that’s what they did. I bet they’re all following each other . . .”
After rattling off another string of guesses, she used her hand to scoop out some leftover sticky rice from the pot. If Pam is scared, Digger thought, she’s doing a pretty good job of hiding it.
Corliss staggered out of his tent and, as usual, needed a minute to figure out where he was.
Then his eyes popped as if he’d gotten an electric shock. He grabbed his rucksack from his tent and at once dug his hand into its contents.
“Here it is.” He pulled out a balled-up pair of socks.
Pam stared at him in disbelief. “Corliss—are you feeling okay?”
“Dad put it in my socks . . . So it would stay dry, and not get banged around.” Yukiko stopped stirring the coals.
“Guys, this is our ticket out of here.” Corliss lifted the sock ball above his head, and looked incredibly proud of himself.
Pam’s hair was especially wild that morning, and she had to hold it away from her eyes to see her brother’s sock ball. “You mean Dad’s going to smell his way back to us?”
“Funny, Pam. Funny, funny . . . If that were even possible, they would’ve sniffed you out hours ago. This, Sis, is the battery. For the P Z.”
“Seriously, Corliss.” Yukiko gave him a bewildered look. “Your dad said the Plastron-Zetetic can detect shells, but how’s it going to help us track down our fathers?”
“It’s not. What it will do, though, is make a heck of a racket. Somebody’ll hear us for sure.”
Yukiko glanced over the Plastron-Zetetic suspiciously. “That’ll be a breakfast call, Corliss. And we’ll be on the menu.”
“I don’t get it. What do you mean—on the menu?” Corliss lowered his arm till the sock ball was at his side.
“I mean: if you blare that hunk of junk for the world to hear, then being lost will be the least of our problems.”
“Yeah,” Pam agreed. “The Grudgings will hear us. And the Kappas. They’ll eat us, right, Yukiko?”
“Yes, Pam. And thank you—one of you has some sense. And by the way, Corliss, our cucumbers are gone.”
“Oh, enough about Kappas!” Corliss shoved the sock ball into his pocket and picked up the Plastron-Zetetic. “Some normal animal got those vegetables, or fruits, or whatever they are. We shouldn’t have left them outside all night. And we shouldn’t have listened to Inari-san, either. He’s a lunatic, and there’s no such thing as a Kappa—you know that.”
“All right, brainiac, so what normal animal would eat a cucumber?” Yukiko shot back.
/> “How would I know?” Corliss held out the Plastron-Zetetic. “This—I tell you—is going to save us.”
Digger didn’t want to get involved in their argument, but he had to say something. “I agree with Corliss.” He looked at Yukiko apologetically. “With the P Z we can let people know we’re here. And the animals . . . We’ve only seen one fish and a snake. Not a monkey. Not a mouse. And the noise from the P Z should scare off anything out here that slithers or swims or walks or flies.”
“What about the Grudgings?” Yukiko asked. “If they get hold of that invention, they’ll want it for their hunt. And why take the risk of them finding us first?”
Digger’s heart fluttered at the thought of Big Bee’s snake-inked hand around his neck. He had no idea what the hunter would do to him. But everything he imagined was terrible. “He might take the P Z . . . Would he hurt us if we just let him have it? We haven’t found a Kappa. We don’t know where they are. So there’s no reason for him to stick around, right?”
Yukiko laughed at that. “Digger, you don’t have a clue about Big Bee. Let me tell you something, he once used a baby boy for bait. He was trying to catch a blood-sucking Chupacabra in Mexico. He tied the baby to a rope, then waited for the monster to come . . .”
“Huh?” Pam was disgusted. “That’s awful! Did the monster eat that poor baby?”
“Luckily, no. Big Bee netted the Chupacabra before it bit the boy. Still, Big Bee is a sick and twisted man.”
Corliss was convinced his idea was their best option. “Look, Yukiko, we have to weigh the risks of blasting this thing with the risks of not doing anything at all, which is your idea—or non-idea.”
“I didn’t say we should do nothing; we could go back to the minka.”
“But your father has the map. Without it, there’s a good chance we’ll get lost between the river and the house.”
Digger had an idea. “Why don’t we climb up there?” He pointed at a towering ridge on the other side of Inari-san’s hill.
“A lot of good that would do us,” Corliss said, ready to go against anyone’s plan but his own.
“No, for real, Corliss. If we climb to the top, we’ll see far. And if we use the P Z up there, we’ll be able to see anyone, or anything, coming up to get us.”
“And if the Grudgings come,” Pam said, “we can run down the other side.”
“Exactly.” Digger stepped away from the fire. “And from up there the sound will go a lot farther. The blast might even reach the minka.”
“If we’re lucky,” Pam added.
“Or unlucky.” Yukiko peered up at the ridge. “Remember, the Grudgings could be anywhere.”
They ate the rest of the rice, two plums each, and bean paste on crackers, which made them thirsty. By the time they finished breakfast, all their canteens were about three-quarters empty.
Corliss decided he would drink from the river when his water ran out. But as they walked toward the ridge, and alongside the stinky river, he abruptly changed his mind . . . Dead fish—all sorts and sizes, were floating by, their white, bloated bellies catching the morning light.
Chapter 16—Split I
The climb was steep, but using the roots and shoots sticking out all over the place, they pulled and pushed themselves up the ridge in a matter of minutes.
At the top was a massive rock ledge, about half the size of Wendy. The ledge jutted out from the side of the ridge toward several bushy treetops. Through the branches they could make out slivers of the forest floor. But their view was cut short in every other direction by trees, hills, and ridges, both near and far.
Digger gazed out from the ledge. A muffled rumbling sound, of water crashing into water, droned through the greyish-green trees. “The waterfall must be somewhere out that way.”
Corliss sat down and removed his boots and then socks, and the others looked to him for some explanation. “What?” He shrugged. “Old socks off . . . Battery out . . . Fresh socks on . . .” He plucked the silver battery out of the sock ball, then put on the socks. Boots on and back on his feet he thumbed open the cover of the Plastron-Zetetic’s battery compartment. Finally, he inserted the battery and shut the cover.
Yukiko was growing impatient. “Well, what are you waiting for, Corliss?”
Pam plugged her ears.
Corliss flicked the switch.
At first there was a low hum; the waterfall was nearly as loud. But then, just as Mr. Happer had described, the Plastron-Zetetic blared out a series of screeches that instantly made their ears scream.
Corliss let the device swing like the pendulum of a grandfather clock. He walked right up to the brink of the ledge. The round panel squealed out at the leaves, its shrieks slicing through the stillness in deafening waves. The P Z vibrated violently. Even with both hands, Corliss could barely keep his grip on the handle. If anyone was out there, they would definitely hear it. The whole forest now knew they were there.
Digger heard something else . . .
Each time the Plastron-Zetetic swung out past the ledge, there was a DING!—the same ding a toaster makes when it spits up a piece of bread. The dings chimed through the screeching—once, twice, three times, four times . . . Digger, a finger in either ear, leaned forward to get a closer look. Why was it dinging? Near the controls, a red light was flashing, too. And the orange needle, under the glass panel, jumped each time the device swung outward.
Digger’s heart pounded like the feet of a jackrabbit stuck in a drum. His palms were clammy. His eyes couldn’t open any wider.
“Stop,” he cried out, and yanked Corliss’s sleeve.
Startled, Corliss dropped the P Z, which shut off the second it hit the ground, spun, and skidded across some rocks up to the ledge.
“What’d you do that for?” Corliss gawked at Digger.
“Did you see somebody coming?” Pam was shaken. She had distanced herself from the ear-splitting blasts and was now on a black boulder, peering down into the trees. “Dig. Did you hear my dad?”
Digger’s eyes were scanning a cluster of trees, over where the sound of crashing water was coming from.
“What is it, Digger?” Yukiko’s excited eyes were now staring off in the same direction.
Nothing moved out there—not a branch, not a leaf, not an insect.
“The needle,” Digger said, his heart still racing. He was sure he’d seen it jumping. And if it was jumping, then . . . “We’re in danger.”
“Digger, explain yourself,” Yukiko demanded.
“Yeah, Dig,” Corliss said. “If you broke my dad’s device, we’ll be stuck out here forever.”
“The needle was going back and forth,” Digger said. “I swear I saw it. When the P Z swung that way, every time—it jumped.”
Yukiko didn’t waste a moment. She lowered herself over a corner of the ledge and began climbing down.
“The Kappa needle?” Pam tried to make sense of what was happening.
“Yukiko,” Digger called down to her. “Where are you going?”
“No way.” Corliss laughed. “The Kappa needle.” He didn’t seem to care that Yukiko was leaving them. “Yukiko’s getting the heck out of here, isn’t she?” He picked up the Plastron-Zetetic by its strap. “Looks like Pam is, too.” Corliss half-pointed the P Z at his sister, who had leapt off the boulder with a yelp and darted back to the side they had climbed up—opposite the side Yukiko was now climbing down.
“What spooked her?” Corliss asked himself as he went after his sister at an unhurried pace. “C’mon, Dig. Let’s go get her.”
But Digger couldn’t take his eyes off that patch of trees. There must be turtles over there, he thought. But Kappas too?
He’d come all this way to find out what happened to his father. He wasn’t ready to go back yet. He had to at least check what was on the other side of those trees . . .
* * *
After leaving Corliss and Pam—or, after they had left him—Digger caught up with Yukiko in a bamboo thicket, a stone’s chuck away
from the base of the ridge.
“I didn’t think you’d be coming along,” she said, not slowing down one bit after noticing him behind her. There was steely determination in her face. Obviously, she had the same passion for cryptozoology that her father had. The same passion Doctor Doyle had as well. Like Digger, she needed to find out if that jumping needle meant anything.
The rushing, tumbling water was getting louder as they drew nearer.
“Yukiko, shouldn’t we get Corliss and Pam first? Before going any farther?”
“Where are they?”
“Pam took off running. She was frightened when you left. Corliss went after her.”
“And I thought you’d be the one chickening out.”
Digger stiffened at the insult. “Um, Pam is still little. You can’t blame her for wanting to go back.”
“I’m not. I meant Corliss. Pam is a survivor. But Corliss could have caught up with us.”
Digger looked back toward the ridge but didn’t see anyone.
“If Corliss wanted to come, Digger, he would have by now. And if they get lost, all they have to do is turn on that Plastron thing.”
Corliss afraid? Never, Digger thought. But it was no use trying to convince Yukiko of that now. He’d go with her to the waterfall and have a quick look around. After that they’d head back to the campsite. Corliss and Pam would be there. And maybe his uncle and the professor would be waiting for them too.
When they reached the riverbank, they finished off the last few sips from their canteens. The river was flowing faster. Its surface was foamy and agitated. “Hey, Yukiko, it’s over there.” The waterfall was cascading alongside another ridge, much steeper than the last one, with shiny wet rocks, mottled with pale green moss. The wide sheet of water was dropping from about the height of a four-story building.
Yukiko knelt at the riverside and watched the fizzy water rush past. “Now what?” she said. It seemed to Digger that she’d asked the river, not him.
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