Creature Keepers and the Swindled Soil-Soles

by Peter Nelson

  “C’mon, Haggis-Breath. C’mon, girl . . .”

  FLOOOOOSH! Suddenly, Gusto blasted out of the lake like a cannonball, soaring far and fast across the night sky. “SKRONK!” Nessie’s head had popped out, watching Gusto as she water-blasted him away. She turned to her audience aboard the submarine, looking very pleased with herself.

  The Badger Rangers let out a cheer. Abbie heard a sniffling to her right, followed by a loud HONK!—as Alistair MacAlister blew his nose and pulled himself together.

  “Whaddya think yer doin’, ya’ lazy sea cow?” the Scottish Keeper yelled down to her. “Go an’ get him, girl! Bring him back—and bring back those Soil-Soles! Go on, now!”

  “SKRONK!” Nessie dived below the surface and shot off toward the far end of Harrison Lake.

  The others turned to face the island, a little surprised to see the crowd of BuckHeads oblivious to what had just happened out on the water. They were all still glued to the screen, shocked and unable to turn away from their hero, who seemed to be having a major meltdown.

  34

  “I don’t understand,” Buck muttered. The Creature-Catcher was near tears.

  “It isn’t complicated,” Jordan said. “You got scammed. That Gusto is a royal creep. Did you see his moustache and goatee? You can’t trust a guy with facial hair like that.”

  “I—I just thought he was European . . . ,” Buck’s lip began to tremble “B-but the Mappygoo”—he looked down at the word written on his hand again—“Mapinguari. Gusto said he was just the first of many cryptid creatures I’d get to . . .”

  “The what?” Jordan broke in, glancing at the camera. “The Maggiechoo? What are you talking about? Look, I don’t know anything about any cryptical creatures. All I know is you got punked! Gusto-Gagged! That’s what his show’s all about!”

  “But—the island, the Heli-Jet, all that merchandise . . .”

  “All part of the prank. See, while you were here running around the jungle making a fool of yourself, he was making a killing—selling T-shirts and underwear! It’s the oldest scam in the book! I just can’t believe you”—he glanced at the camera again—“and your fans fell for it!”

  Buck Wilde glared at the camera. A strange look came over him, the cold-blooded stare of a true hunter. “All right, Buckaroo Crew,” he said in a serious-sounding voice. “Everyone back to the Heli-Jet. This Gusto likes pranks. We’re gonna hit him where it hurts.” He looked at the camera and made a slicing motion across his neck. “Cut.”

  On Wilde Isle, the screen went dark. And the people gathered before it were about to go even darker. “GUSTO . . . GUSTO . . . GUSTO . . .” The BuckHeads were chanting a different name, and for a very different reason—not to praise their hero but to find their swindler. The fickle fans had quickly turned back into an angry mob again. As their fury boiled over, they surged—screaming horrible names at Gusto, overturning more food carts, pulling down Buck’s statue, and setting a massive pile of T-shirts, pajamas, and other Izzy merchandise ablaze on the beach.

  Atop the submarine, Ranger Master MacInerney approached First-Class Badger Ranger Eldon. His clan of rangers was lined up in formation behind him, many with bandages and slings on their arms from their earlier tumbling. They all gave Eldon the Badger claw salute in unison. Eldon saluted back.

  “Ranger Pecone,” the Ranger Master said. “Requesting permission to go ashore with the mission of teaching an angry mob proper fire safety precautions.”

  “Permission granted, Ranger Master MacInerney,” Eldon said. “And regarding what you and your rangers may or may not have seen in the last twenty-four hours—”

  Ranger Master MacInerney nodded. “Just a nice group of somewhat odd-looking citizens, in need of Badger assistance.” He winked and saluted again, then turned to his clan of rangers, lined up along the deck, ready to dive in.

  “Wait,” Abbie said from behind. The rangers turned to face her and Doris. “I wanted to say that, uh, for a bunch of little dorks, you guys did a good job, and you, y’know, kinda made me proud. For a buncha little dorks, I mean.”

  “She’s trying to say you kicked butt, dearies!” Doris added.

  The Badger Rangers gave them both a Badger claw salute, then turned and leaped into the water in perfect formation.

  Eldon, Abbie, and Doris watched carefully as they made it the short distance to the island, then stormed the beach armed with lectures on proper fire safety protocol.

  “How nice,” Doris said. “See? They got their bonding and their bonfire.”

  The Buckaroo Crew tried to keep up with their leader, Buck Wilde, as he raced like a crazy person back through the Amazon jungle toward Gusto’s Heli-Jet.

  Jordan watched them go, then stood alone in the dark, with his Izzy pajamas in a pile at his ankles. He took a deep breath of the moist night air, sat back down on the log, and listened to the jungle sounds all around him. A snicker from above caught his attention. Jordan looked up. “Izzy, quiet!” Jordan smiled. “They still might be close by!”

  Perched on a branch overhead, Izzy giggled so hard he nearly fell out of the tree he’d been hiding in.

  35

  Jordan and Izzy were still laughing about the look on Buck Wilde’s face when they reached the Mapinguari’s jungle den. Izzy suddenly stopped. He sniffed at the air, then peered into the darkness.

  “What is it?” Jordan said, glancing around. “Is it Chupacabra? Is he back?”

  Izzy rushed toward the entrance to his den. Jordan followed, but stopped short at the sight of a young, dark-haired woman. She stepped out and smiled. Then she opened her arms to Izzy.

  The Mapinguari and the woman hugged. Jordan thought he heard the formerly ferocious cryptid purring in her arms. She looked past his furry arms at Jordan.

  “You must be Silvana,” Jordan said. “Izzy’s Creature Keeper.”

  The woman nodded, closing her eyes tightly as she held Izzy. She pulled back and looked into his one gigantic eye. “I am so sorry, filho,” she said gently in a thick Portuguese accent. “I will never leave you again, I promise.” Izzy smiled back at her, and she stepped up to Jordan. “And thank you, for taking care of him while I was away. But I am back now. Please tell Eldon and the others I am so sorry, and I am willing to accept whatever consequences the CKCC decides to assign me.”

  “Sure,” Jordan said. “But can I just ask you, I mean, from one Creature Keeper to another, how could you just leave?”

  She looked at him sadly. “I was frightened, and confused. So I ran. But I quickly realized that the world is a much more confusing and frightening place. I met a man, on the river. He was handsome and charming. He said he would help me find a home, a new life. And I believed him. But he did not turn out to be who I thought he was.”

  “You mean . . . he hurt you?”

  “No. I mean . . . he was a dolphin.”

  “Oh.” Jordan thought for a moment. He suddenly remembered something. He opened his backpack and pulled out his grandfather’s journal. He flipped through it and found the entry he was looking for.

  “Yes! My grandfather’s search for creatures like that—it was in this part of the world! He called them cryptosapiens. But he dismissed them as myth.”

  She nodded her head. “There are many myths here in the Amazon, and the Boto Encantado is one of them. But he is real. I met him.”

  Jordan looked at her. “Silvana. This man, did he wear a fedora? White suit, really into fruit smoothies?”

  “Ay! Yes! What was with all the smoothies? Day and night, the smoothies! I tell him, enough already with the smoothies!”

  “It’s Manuel,” Jordan said. “I knew there was something fishy about him.”

  “You mean ‘mammally,’” Silvana said. “Dolphins are mammals. Not fish.”

  “Right. I knew that.”

  “He kept trying to make me drink a special smoothie,” Silvana said. “Made with his sweat or his teardrops or something nasty like that. He said it had special powers. He wanted to turn
me into a dolphin-person, like him. He said it would be safer for me, that soon the special creatures of the earth would rise up and take over from the humans, or something. He said he already used his powers to help the leader of these creatures disguise himself as a man, and it might work on me, too. Ay, crazy. That’s when I got scared. Scared for me, but more scared for my Izzy. That’s when I ran from the nasty dolphin-man and came home. And when I found my Izzy was not here . . .”

  She began to cry. Izzy put his arm around her.

  Jordan’s head was spinning. “Silvana. Please think. The nasty dolphin-man. Where did you last see him?”

  “He lives by the river, near the place where the village was destroyed.”

  “Thank you, Silvana,” he said. “And welcome home. I know you’ll take good care of Izzy. I’ll put in a good word with Eldon and the CKCC. Don’t worry, it’ll be okay—I’m a Grimsley, I have some pull.” She wiped a tear and smiled at him.

  Jordan stepped up to Izzy. “You’ll be okay now,” he said. “You have someone who’s going to grow old with you. Take care of each other, okay?” Jordan stuck out his hand.

  Izzy looked at Jordan’s hand. He grunted and slapped it away, then gave Jordan a very tight hug. It was slobbery, too—especially because Izzy’s belly-mouth lined up with Jordan’s head.

  BANG! CLANG! SMASH!

  The metal crashing and crunching noises sounded foreign among the natural chirping and squeaking sounds of the jungle at night. And as Jordan ran toward where the RV and Heli-Jet touched down, they grew louder.

  CLANG! CLONG! CRASH!

  Jordan was relieved to see the piggybacked vehicles still parked where they had landed, but confused by what else he saw. Buck Wilde and his Buckaroo Crew were standing atop the RV, kicking and beating on the Heli-Jet with camera equipment, baseball bats, and small appliances they’d pulled out of Buck’s RV kitchenette. CRUNCH! BONG! SMASH!

  “STOP IT!” Jordan yelled up to them. “What are you guys doing?”

  Buck held up a hand. The Buckaroo Crew stopped. “Well, well, well. Look who it is, boys—Gusto’s little trickster buddy. What do you want, pajama boy?”

  “What? I’m not with Gusto! I hate that guy!”

  “Oh, yeah?” Buck tossed an aluminum baseball bat. “Prove it.”

  Jordan looked at the bat.

  “This is Gusto’s private property,” one of the Buckaroo Crew said. “We’re hitting him where it hurts!” CLANG! He kicked the door, denting it a bit.

  “Hey, guys, I have an idea,” Jordan said. “How about instead of beating up our ride home, we actually ride it home—then when we get there, we beat up Gusto, instead?”

  They all glanced at one another. Buck turned to his crew. “Why didn’t any of you think of that? Seriously, sometimes I wonder what I’m paying you guys for.”

  Jordan sat in the pilot’s seat of the Heli-Jet, fiddling with switches, quickly figuring out the operating system. He switched over to manual control and slowly pulled back on the throttle. The Heli-Jet lurched into a tree. He tried again, and this time it lifted clumsily off the ground. Buck sat next to him, sadly staring out the window as they began to rise above the thick jungle.

  “The whole wild ride is over,” he said.

  Jordan glanced at Buck. He actually felt a little bad for him. “C’mon. Nothing’s over. There must be something else you can do.”

  “Squatch-searchin’ was my life,” Buck said. “And all that time I was chasing a creature that had already been caught, and had his feet made into trophy-boots. Man, I’d give anything to get a pair of those puppies.”

  Jordan was tempted to tell Buck that Syd was alive and well and wearing his sneakers but decided to stay true to the Creature Keeper code of silence. He listened as Buck continued.

  “So what do I do? I go off and make a horse’s patootie of myself on national television. All I had was my reputation, and now I ain’t even got that. I’m just a big phony.” He sighed. “You know my name ain’t even Buck Wilde? I changed it. For TV.”

  “What’s your real name?”

  “Glen,” he said. “Glen Savage.”

  Jordan was really starting to feel guilty as he steered the Heli-Jet–RV combo low and slow over the treetops. “Let me ask you something, Buck,” he said. “What will you miss more—being a hunter or being on TV?”

  Buck looked at him. “Is this a trick question? I’m really not in the mood to be tricked again, Jordan.”

  “If there weren’t any cameras, if there wasn’t an audience, if there weren’t any fans, would Buck Wilde still want to be part of catching a very rare creature?”

  Buck sat up in his seat. “You better not be messin’ with me, man.”

  Jordan smiled. “You ever heard of the pink Amazon river dolphin, Buck?”

  36

  GRRRRRRRRZZZZ . . . The grinding sound wasn’t coming from the Heli-Jet’s near-silent rotors. The aircraft hovered low over the Amazon jungle, where a member of the Buckaroo Crew reached out of the RV door and picked fruit from the trees. The sound was coming from inside the RV. Specifically, from Buck’s RV kitchenette. Even more specifically, it was coming from the industrial-sized frozen-drink machine he negotiated for when he signed his last TV contract.

  Buck stepped out of his walk-in closet dressed in his best angling outfit—waders with suspenders, tackle vest, and floppy hat. But instead of a fishing pole, he had his trusty lasso at his side.

  “How we doing, Buckaroo Crew?” he said. “Coming along all right?”

  His cohorts looked up from their project, but kept working. One dumped the fruit he’d gathered onto the counter. Another chopped up the fresh guava, mocambo, and passion fruit, while a third tossed the chunks into the grinder along with fresh acai berries. A fourth offered Buck a taste.

  “Mmm-mm! Boy, that’s some good smoothie, right there! Okay, finish that batch and fill them chum buckets. I’ll let Jordan know we’re ready to rock!” He pulled out his lasso and hollered up toward the Heli-Jet.

  “Okay, Jordan! Let’s go fishin’!”

  Up in the cockpit, Jordan maneuvered them over the Amazon River, slowly crisscrossing the wide expanse of murky water near where the little village of Palafito had been destroyed. He looked down and saw the Buckaroo Crew dumping buckets of brightly colored fruit smoothies from the RV into the river below. The thick liquid hit the river like technicolor vomit, then floated along on the water’s surface.

  Buck climbed out of the RV and made his way to the ladder attached to the back of his camper. He swung his lasso as he stared down at the fruit-splattered water below.

  “Here, pinky, pinky . . . c’mon, now . . . come and get your daily vitamins. . . .”

  “There!” Jordan yelled, pointing to the river water up ahead. A flash of pink broke through the surface, then dived again. Jordan banked the aircraft slowly, and the Buckaroo Crew carpet bombed the area with the smoothie chum.

  Then they waited.

  “SQUONK!”

  The pink Amazon river dolphin surfaced, gobbling up the delicious puree of mocambo and passion fruit. It happily rolled in the sludge, seemingly unable to control itself in the presence of such a delicious and natural source of vitamins and antioxidants. It broke through the water, flipping in the air in a burst of smoothie-fueled bliss.

  SWISH! Buck snagged the large pink mammal in his lasso. “Gotcha!”

  Buck was nearly yanked off the RV, but quickly looped his rope around the ladder, securing it tightly. The Buckaroo Crew scrambled to the back of the RV and began carefully hauling the rare creature out of the river. As Jordan hovered low, they used a large net to capture it and pull it into Buck’s trailer.

  “YEEEEEE-HAAAAWWWW!” Buck let out a yelp that let Jordan know they had their creature. Jordan set the navigation system for Canada, shifted the Heli-Jet to autopilot, and climbed down to check it out. The Heli-Jet’s rotors lifted the RV/airship hybrid high above the jungle, then its rocket thrusters engaged, blasting them northwest across
South America.

  Down in the RV, Jordan, Buck, and the Buckaroo Crew gathered around the pink Amazon river dolphin flopping on the floor of Buck’s mobile living room.

  “Man, I just had these carpets cleaned,” Buck said, suddenly busting into a grin. “But who cares? It was totally worth it! Boys, did you see me pull this big fish in?”

  “Big mammal,” a Buckaroo Crew member said. “Dolphins are mammals.”

  “Phil, please,” Buck said. “Not now, okay?”

  “Oh, he’s a mammal, all right.” Jordan stepped inside and stood over the giant freshwater dolphin. “You’re all mammal, aren’t you, Manuel?”

  “Squeak! SQUONK!” The creature’s eyes met Jordan’s stare. Jordan recognized a familiar twinkle. There was no doubt in his mind—they had their dolphin.

  “I know it’s you, Boto. Now I want you to shapeshift or switchify or Freaky Friday yourself, right now. I have a few questions I’d like to ask you, person-to-person.”

  Buck leaned over to Jordan. “Uh, hey, Jordan, I know they say dolphins are as smart as people and all, but I’m not so sure they can answer people questions like people do.”

  “I bet it can answer this one.” Jordan scooped a big glass of fruit smoothie out of the power blender and held it in front of the dolphin’s beak. “Mmmmmm . . . Does Boto want some more smoothie? Hmmm? Does he? Does he?”

  The pink Amazon river dolphin stared at the glass. He stopped flopping.

  “SQUONK!”

  “All you can drink, big fella. But you’re gonna need more than flippers to take this glass from me. C’mon now. A nice, delicious fruit smoothie . . . should I throw it away?”