The Fantastic Secret of Owen Jester

by Barbara O'Connor

  One slow blink.

  “Aw, he ain’t sick,” Travis said.

  “Viola’s dumb,” Stumpy said.

  Owen held Tooley up and examined his stomach, his throat, his legs.

  The bullfrog wasn’t quite as green as he used to be.

  His throat wasn’t quite as yellow as it used to be.

  The heart-shaped spot between his eyes wasn’t quite as red as it used to be.

  Niggle.

  Niggle.

  “Maybe we should catch another frog to keep him company,” Travis said.

  “Maybe he needs a bigger cage,” Stumpy said.

  Owen put Tooley back in the cage and shut the lid. The frog climbed up on the log and stared out at the pond with dull yellow eyes.

  “Let’s go scoop up some water bugs over yonder on the other side of the pond,” Owen said.

  That night, Owen sat by his bedroom window.

  The soft, steady chirp of crickets drifted up from the garden below.

  Way off in the distance, a dog barked.

  And then Owen heard a sound that made him sit up straighter and cock his head.

  The deep r-u-u-u-m-m-m of a bullfrog.

  Owen’s heart did a little flip.

  Was that Tooley?

  Tooley making a bullfrog sound?

  R-u-u-u-m-m-m.

  There it was again.

  And then . . .

  . . . another frog joined in at the same time . . .

  . . . and then another . . .

  . . . until there seemed to be a whole chorus of bullfrogs.

  Owen’s niggle turned into a punch.

  Ooomph!

  Because Owen realized that all the other bullfrogs down there in the pond were free. Pushing their froggy legs through the dark water under the starry sky.

  Calling out their froggy songs from a moonlit log.

  But not Tooley.

  Tooley was sitting glumly in his perfect cage.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  After dumping a jar full of bugs through the chicken wire of Tooley’s cage, Owen raced over to Tupelo Road to Stumpy’s house.

  A sprinkler chug, chug, chugged in circles in the yard while Owen, Travis, and Stumpy sat on the porch steps and talked about the submarine.

  “Should we tell somebody about it?” Stumpy said.

  Owen and Travis stared at Stumpy in disbelief.

  Travis smacked him on the arm. “Heck, no!” he said.

  “Not yet, anyways,” Owen said.

  Every now and then, Joleen Berkus appeared at her front door and glared over at the boys.

  “I say we get that thing into the pond and go for a ride,” Owen said.

  “Heck, yeah!” Travis slapped his knee.

  Stumpy frowned. “I don’t know.”

  “Then stay home, diaper-head baby,” Travis said. “Me and Owen’ll do it, right, Owen?”

  Owen’s mind raced.

  Could they really get the submarine into the pond?

  How in the world would they get it there?

  And even if they got it there, could they actually figure out how to make it run?

  Could they really zip along under the water, gazing out at the pond from the bubble-shaped windows?

  Owen nodded slowly. “Yeah,” he said. “We will do it.”

  He and Travis slapped each other a high five and looked at Stumpy.

  “You in or you out?” Owen said, holding his palm up.

  Stumpy hesitated.

  Then he slowly lifted his hand and lightly tapped Owen’s palm with his own. “I’m in.”

  The boys huddled together up in the hayloft of the barn the rest of the morning, planning how they would get the Water Wonder 4000 down to the pond.

  The good news was that the submarine was on the same side of the train tracks as the pond.

  The bad news was that the submarine was probably heavy.

  Real heavy.

  The other bad news was that there were a lot of bushes and small scrub pines between the submarine and the pond.

  The boys made lists of possible ways they could get the submarine down to the pond, like

  Put the submarine on a wagon.

  and

  Pull the submarine behind a riding lawn mower.

  Then they made lists of supplies they might need, like rope and chains and bungee cords.

  Sometimes the idea of getting the submarine into the pond seemed like the greatest idea Owen had ever had.

  Other times, it seemed stupid and impossible.

  Then there was the problem of actually driving the submarine. Could they really figure out how to do it?

  As if he had read Owen’s mind, Travis said, “Do you think we can figure out how to make that sub run?”

  Owen shrugged. “There’s not that many switches inside. Maybe we can just fiddle around with them a little bit.”

  “Maybe there’s instructions somewhere,” Stumpy said.

  Owen and Travis stared at Stumpy.

  Stumpy never had good ideas.

  Stumpy never thought of stuff before Travis and Owen did.

  But now he had.

  “Instructions!” Owen said. “Yeah! I bet there’s instructions somewhere!”

  Owen and Travis high-fived Stumpy, and they all hurried out of the hayloft, whistled for Pete and Leroy, and raced across the yard, through the woods, and around the pond to the train tracks.

  They scrambled down the slope toward the submarine.

  And then . . .

  . . . they stopped.

  There in front of them, standing next to the Water Wonder 4000, staring through thick glasses with red-rimmed eyes, was Viola.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Travis let a string of cusswords fly, and Stumpy broke off a branch and hurled it at Viola’s feet while Owen stood stiff with anger, meeting Viola’s fly-eyed gaze with narrowed eyes.

  “I know what that is,” she said, wiping her nose with the palm of her hand and nodding toward the Water Wonder 4000.

  “Go away!” Owen yelled.

  “That’s a submarine,” Viola said, and then whipped a tissue out of her pocket and blew her nose.

  “Mind your own business,” Travis snapped.

  “Yeah!” Stumpy hollered.

  “A submersible,” Viola said.

  The boys looked at each other.

  “Go away,” Owen said again, knowing full well that Viola wasn’t going anywhere.

  “It came from Canada.” Viola waved a jagged-edged piece of wood at them. “This is the shipping label that was on the crate.”

  Travis narrowed his eyes. “What crate?”

  “The crate the submarine was in, dummy,” Viola said.

  “Let me see that.” Owen yanked the piece of wood out of Viola’s hand and studied it.

  Sure enough, a label with two addresses was on the wood.

  The submarine had come from Water Wonder Technologies, Inc., in British Columbia, Canada.

  It had been going to Sun and Sand Tropical Resort in Miami, Florida.

  Owen hated it when Viola figured things out before he did.

  “So what?” he said.

  “So, you’ve got to tell somebody about this submarine.” Viola wiped at her watery eyes.

  “No way!” Travis said.

  “Then that’s the same as stealing.” Viola gestured toward the little red submarine. “I bet that cost a lot of money. You can’t just keep it.”

  “We can do anything we want to. Right, Owen?” Stumpy said.

  Owen tossed the piece of wood into the bushes. Pete and Leroy trotted over and sniffed it.

  “Who said we’re keeping it?” Owen said.

  Travis and Stumpy looked at each other, then stared at Owen, waiting.

  “Then what are you going to do about it?” Viola said.

  “We’re, um, we’re going to, um . . .” Owen shuffled the toe of his sneaker in the leaves, his mind racing. “We’re going to call the railroad company and tell them all about
it,” he said. “So you can go on home now.”

  He smiled at Viola.

  A big, fake smile.

  “Yeah,” Travis said. “You can go on home now.” He pushed Viola. Not hard. But just enough to make her stumble a little and send her glasses sliding down her nose.

  “I know all about submarines,” she said. “I did my science fair project on submarines last year. I know everything about them.”

  “You do not,” Owen said.

  But he knew she was right.

  Viola was always right.

  Owen was certain that Viola did know everything about submarines.

  Viola knew everything about everything.

  Aggravation swirled around inside Owen like a tornado.

  Viola folded her arms and lifted her chin. “That’s an ambient-pressure submarine,” she said.

  “There ain’t no such thing as that!” Travis said.

  Owen kicked a piece of gravel in her direction. “Go away,” he said.

  Viola sneezed. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll go tell Earlene y’all need the phone number of the railroad company so you can call them and tell them about the submarine.” She pushed past the boys and started up the slope toward the tracks.

  “Wait!” Owen called after her.

  Viola turned. Little red splotches had begun to appear on her neck.

  “Look, Viola,” Owen said. “We are going to call the railroad company. We just want to check this thing out first.” He lifted his eyebrows and waited.

  Viola scratched her neck.

  “So, just don’t say anything to anybody about it, okay?” he said.

  “Well . . .” Viola looked over Owen’s shoulder at the submarine. “Maybe.”

  “What’s wrong with your neck?” Stumpy said.

  Viola scratched. “I’m allergic to pine,” she said. “And ragweed and pigweed and—”

  “Then you better go home before you die,” Travis said.

  Stumpy snorted.

  Owen grinned.

  Viola tossed her hair over her shoulder and stomped off toward home. But she hadn’t gotten far when she whirled around and said, “Something’s wrong with that frog of yours, Owen.” She blew her nose, wiped her eyes, and added, “I know everything about frogs.”

  Owen’s tornado of aggravation was spinning so fast it took all the words right out of his head. All he could think of to say was “You do not.”

  Which is exactly what he said.

  “You do not!”

  Owen watched Viola disappear up the tracks. Then he turned to Travis and Stumpy and said, “Let’s get that submarine in the pond before Viola ruins everything.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “This is impossible,” Travis said, wiping sweat off his forehead.

  Stumpy plopped down in the pine needles and shook his head. “We can’t do this,” he said.

  Owen examined the knot in the rope they had tied around the submarine. “Maybe we should bring the tractor down here,” he said.

  “There’s too many trees and stuff in the way,” Travis said. “Besides, you don’t even know how to drive that tractor.”

  “I do so,” Owen said. “Well, sort of.” He had ridden on his grandfather’s tractor a few times when his dad mowed the field behind the barn. He could probably figure out how to drive it. But Travis was right about the trees. It would be impossible to drive the tractor from the barn to the train tracks.

  The boys had worked all afternoon.

  First, they had searched inside the submarine for some kind of instructions about how to run it. They had looked under the seats and in the back between the scuba tanks and even in the bushes and weeds on the slope beside the tracks.

  But they hadn’t found a thing.

  Owen had used his most convincing voice to assure Travis and Stumpy that they would figure out how to run the Water Wonder 4000, but they had to get it down to the pond first.

  So they set to work tying rope around the submarine and trying to move it. They had actually managed to drag it a couple of feet, but it was obvious that the Water Wonder 4000 was just too heavy for them to get it all the way to the pond. And even if they could pull it, they were going to have to cut down some trees and bushes to clear a path first.

  “Okay,” Owen said, “here’s what we’ve got to do.” He snapped a couple of branches off a scraggly pine tree. “We’ve got to get some saws and clippers and stuff and start clearing a path.”

  “That’ll take forever,” Travis said.

  “No, it won’t.” Owen pulled at a tangle of vines. “There’s three of us. We just have to find some good tools.”

  “What about my dad’s Weedwhacker?” Stumpy said.

  Owen shook his head. “Naw. Earlene’ll hear that. We just need saws and hedge clippers and stuff like that.”

  The boys bumped their fists together while agreeing to meet in the barn later that day. Then they raced home to see what tools they could find to clear a path.

  Owen stashed some tools in the corner of the barn and then headed down to the pond to check on Tooley. He sat on the rotting dock and stared glumly out across the water. The air was thick with heat. A shiny black turtle was sunning on a log at the edge of the pond. A bullfrog floated among a cluster of leaves nearby. Owen could just make out its bulging yellow eyes and the top of its green head.

  Maybe he should try to catch that frog so Tooley would have a friend.

  Owen sighed.

  His niggle came back.

  The niggle had started as a tiny seed of a thought. Then it had begun to grow, bigger and bigger, until it became a full-grown thought.

  Maybe he should let Tooley go.

  Owen looked down into the cage. Tooley floated in the dirty water, nestled up against the side, one webbed foot resting on the chicken wire.

  He looked terrible.

  Owen felt terrible.

  He had worked so hard to catch that frog. He had stalked him for weeks, scanning the edges of the pond, searching the leaves and logs. It had been so much fun, trying to figure out if the frog he spotted was his frog. The one with the heart-shaped red spot between his eyes.

  And then, when he had finally caught him, he had figured Tooley Graham would be his forever.

  But now Owen was starting to think maybe he had made a mistake.

  He reached into the water and touched Tooley’s foot. The frog swam lazily to the other side of the cage . . .

  . . . away from Owen.

  “Tooley Graham,” Owen whispered.

  The frog nestled down into the slimy mud on the bottom of the pond and closed his eyes.

  Owen let out a sigh so big and so loud that the turtle scampered off the log and into the pond, sending little ripples across the surface of the water.

  Owen whispered “Tooley Graham” one more time before trudging slowly back up the path to meet Travis and Stumpy in the barn.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Owen and Travis and Stumpy sawed and clipped and dug and hacked.

  They sawed down scruffy little pine trees.

  They clipped overhanging branches.

  They dug up clumps of thorny bushes.

  They hacked at tangled vines.

  Pete and Leroy joined them from time to time, chewing on twigs, rooting their noses in the freshly dug dirt, then scampering back through the woods toward home again.

  Inch by inch, the three boys were clearing a path from the submarine to the pond. By the time the afternoon sun had begun to sink, the backs of their necks were burned and they were only halfway there.

  Travis tossed a saw onto a clump of vines. “That’s it,” he said. “I’m sick of doing this.”

  “Me, too,” Stumpy said, leaning on the garden hoe he had been using to hack up the roots of a bush.

  “We can’t stop now,” Owen said. “We’re almost halfway there.”

  “It’s too hot,” Travis said. “We can work on it some more in the morning, when it’s cooler.” He picked up the saw and to
ssed it into the wheelbarrow with a clang. “Besides,” he added, “we don’t even know how we’re going to get that sub down to the pond, anyways.”

  Stumpy nodded in agreement.

  “And,” Travis went on, “even if we do get it to the pond, we don’t even know how to drive it.” He tossed another tool into the wheelbarrow. “I’m going home.”

  “Me, too,” Stumpy said.

  Quitters, Owen thought.

  But he wasn’t about to say it out loud. If he did, they were liable to quit for good.

  All he could do was let out a big, heavy sigh and help them load the tools into the wheelbarrow and head back to the barn.

  But just as they had finished stashing the tools under a tarp in the corner of the barn, Owen’s mood went from bad to worse.

  Viola stepped through the barn door and said, “So, what are y’all gonna do about that submarine?”

  Owen pushed past her and stormed out, followed by Travis and Stumpy.

  Viola hurried after them. “I know what y’all are doing,” she said.

  Owen whirled around. “You want a trophy, Viola?”

  Much to Owen’s surprise, Viola blushed. “What do you mean?” she said.

  “I mean, a trophy for being Genius of the World or something,” Owen snapped.

  Travis and Stumpy slapped their knees, sputtering with laughter.

  “You said you were going to call the railroad company and tell them about that submarine,” Viola said.

  “I am,” Owen said, and marched off toward the back porch and sat on the bottom step. Travis and Stumpy did the same.

  Viola stood in the middle of the yard with her hands on her hips while the three boys tried to ignore her.

  “Y’all are clearing trees and stuff so you can get that submarine down to the pond,” she called over to them.

  Owen jumped up and hissed, “Shhhhh!”

  He shot a quick look up at the back door, hoping like anything that Earlene wasn’t standing there.

  She wasn’t.

  Owen moved closer to Viola and whispered, “Look, Viola, somebody’s gonna have to come get that submarine, right?” He glanced up at the back door again. “I mean, after I call the railroad company and tell them about it,” he added.

  Viola shot a look at Travis, then Stumpy, then back at Owen. “So, why are you clearing stuff out of the woods?”