“Of all the stupid tricks you’ve pulled, this is the worst,” yelled the man. “How do you think this looks for me, having a son who’s in jail?” He grabbed Jake’s side with his hand, squeezing it in what looked like a pinch.
“Ow!” cried Jake. “I’m sorry! Please, stop.” His voice quivered as if he was going to cry. I remembered all those pinches he’d given me and how they hurt, but I still felt sorry for him.
“Shut up, you stupid cry-baby,” the man snapped.
“Everything all right over here?” The sheriff stepped out onto the road and strode down to where Jake and his father stood. “You’ll have to come with me, son. You can follow in your car, Mr. Parma.”
They all walked back up the hill together, and we couldn’t hear them anymore. Jake brushed his sleeve across his eyes. The pinch hurt, but his feelings probably hurt worse. The sheriff opened the cruiser door, and Jake crawled into the backseat. A deputy got in next to him. The sheriff turned the car around and headed down the hill. Austin and I stepped behind trees so they wouldn’t see us as they drove by.
“Now we know where he got the pinching habit,” said Austin. He shook his head. “Isn’t that child abuse?”
“I think so. It’s some kind of abuse, anyway.” I thought about our dad and couldn’t even imagine him behaving that way. Even if he was angry, he’d never do anything so mean.
“I’d report someone who did that to his dog.” Austin pointed down the road. “I think this is our ride.”
A shiny black sedan slid quietly to a stop in front of us. I didn’t recognize the car. A man got out and opened the door for us. I didn’t recognize him, either.
“Good evening, Mr. Brockway,” said the driver. He took our suitcases and stowed them in the trunk.
“Hi, Mr. Johnson,” said Austin. He introduced me to the driver, and we shook hands. “You made good time. Now let’s get out of here before anybody sees us.”
I saw her standing on a nearby hill, as if she was waiting for something. “Wait. There’s somebody else who wants to say goodbye.”
Austin came to my side. “Where?”
I pointed to a tree about a hundred yards away. “There.”
The moon slid out from behind a cloud, and light poured over the area around the tree. Beneath the dark limbs stood the cougar, her magnificent blonde head catching the moonlight. From her teeth dangled a cub, held by the scruff on the back of its neck. The cat’s gleaming eyes stared in our direction, and it seemed to be looking directly at us. Once again, I had the sense that she was telling me something. There were no words, but thoughts of thankfulness and well-wishing came into my head.
“You’re welcome,” I said aloud. “You have a great life, too.” I blinked, and the cougar was gone.
“Did you say something, Mr. Brockway?” asked the driver.
“He talks to himself,” said Austin. “Just ignore him.”
We climbed into the backseat and fastened our seatbelts. Austin opened a small refrigerator that was built into the side of the limo. He handed me a bottle of water and another snack bar. As he stretched out his arm, the woven bracelet slid to his wrist.
“Thanks.” I nodded toward the driver. “The driver seems to know you.”
“Mom had his number taped to the phone she gave me. She’s used his limo service a couple of times when I was with her.”
I opened my backpack to make sure the shell necklace was safe. Beside it was a folded paper. “Shoot. I forgot about this.”
“What did you forget?” asked Austin.
“I meant to have the counselors sign off on some requirements on my Camping Merit Badge list. I guess it doesn’t matter. I’m never going to make Eagle Scout anyway.”
Austin laughed out loud. “No, probably not. But you made Eagle—the real thing. You saved Megan and Jake, too. You deserve a medal for that, though you probably won’t get one.”
“I don’t want one,” I said, meaning it. “You would have done the same.”
“What do you think will happen to Jake?” Austin sounded genuinely worried. “I didn’t like him much, but I feel sorry for him.”
“So do I. The worst thing is, Jake will probably grow up to be just like his dad.”
“You think?”
I shrugged. “He already acts like him. Gramps always tells us that how we act now determines the kind of person we’ll be.”
“Oh, yeah.” Austin leaned his head back and closed his eyes.
“You’ll probably still be buying things for girls when you grow up,” I said. “The girls will be grown up too. You’ll have to buy bigger purple ponchos.” And then I fell asleep.
Chapter Thirteen—Home is Where You Don’t Have to Hide
Sunshine peeked in through the open slit in my bedroom curtains. It was almost ten-thirty in the morning. We hadn’t arrived home until after three AM, and I was still tired. I stared at the ceiling, trying to wake up. Stretching, I examined my arms. The feathers were still there, on my arms and across my chest. I kicked off the sheets and checked my legs. Feathers all the way down to my ankles. Thankfully my hands and feet looked human.
I sat up and yawned. My room looked the same as it had when I left it almost a week ago. My bed linen smelled fresh and clean. Even though we were exhausted, Mom had us take showers before we got into our beds. The tubs were filthy from all the dirt and soot that washed off of us, but she didn’t make us clean them up. We’d fallen into bed and gone right to sleep. Mom and Dad hadn’t said anything about my feathers either. Austin had called them when we were almost home and warned them about my appearance.
The smell of bacon wafted up the stairs. Closing my eyes, I breathed in another delicious aroma. Blueberry muffins! I hopped out of bed and stopped short. A bird regarded me from the mirror. A bird with a human face. It shocked me all over again to see my head and neck covered with white feathers. There was a little red patch right on the top of my head, just as there had been red scales in that spot when I was a Komodo dragon. Megan had red hair too. Was there a red patch on that huge turtle’s head last night? It was so dark out on the water that I couldn’t have seen it even if I’d looked.
The bracelet Megan gave me lay on the dresser next to my backpack. She’d given Austin one just like it. Something twisted a space near my heart. She liked both of us. We were all friends. That was what I wanted, right? The three of us had been through some difficult times together. At the zoo, Austin had saved my life and I’d saved his. Megan had saved my life and I’d saved hers. The three of us were bonded together in something more than friendship. I picked up the bracelet and studied it closely. A tiny heart was tied to one of the threads. Austin’s bracelet didn’t have a heart. I decided not to wear it. Austin was my brother, and I didn’t want him to see it and be hurt.
I put on the new sweatshirt and pulled up the hood. It covered most of the feathers. I stared at myself in the mirror. Why couldn’t I just have acne? Or a jagged scar? Or a couple of moles? Why did I have to have feathers?
The doorbell rang. Familiar voices talked in the hall, saying good morning. All of a sudden I felt better. Gramps was here! He’d know what to do! I ran downstairs and straight into his arms for a big hug.
Mom hugged me too, and pulled the hood down. “You don’t have to cover up here, Luke. This is your home.” She seemed pretty calm for someone whose son was ninety percent eagle.
We went to the kitchen. Dad and Austin were already at the table, eating scrambled eggs and bacon. Austin looked up at me with a grin. Dad got up and gave me a hug. Mom took fat blueberry muffins out of the oven and arranged them on a plate. I bit into one and smiled. Hot blueberries melted in my mouth.
The first time Austin and I came home after being animals, human food didn’t taste good to us. We’d gotten over that. The food at camp was okay, but Mom’s food was really delicious. We ate breakfast and talked about camp—the good things only. After a few minutes Austin and I couldn’t think of any more good things. We’d tossed Jake back an
d forth when he was in the form of a wild pig. That was the most fun we’d had the entire time, but I wasn’t sure how Mom and Dad would feel about that. I didn’t want to tell them about Jake’s bullying. Austin didn’t mention that he’d bought Megan a twenty-dollar purple poncho. The kitchen grew very quiet.
“Tell us about this fire on Fish Island,” said Mom. “How did it start?”
So I explained about Jake getting two packages from a man in a car, in the middle of the night.
“He hid the real contents. When our counselor and the director checked the packages, all they found was a jacket, some socks, and a book,” I explained. “I’d seen him reading the same book before he got the packages, so I knew he’d lied.”
“Not too many people have socks delivered under cover of darkness,” said Dad. Everyone laughed.
Austin continued the story, describing how we’d seen rockets shooting into the air and exploding into fireworks. I told them how cherry bombs and smaller fireworks fell into our campfires, causing them to spit burning embers onto our sleeping bags.
“Fireworks were hitting the girls’ camps, too,” said Austin. “Especially Megan’s camp. They might even have been aimed there. One of them started a fire in some brush, and it quickly spread to the trees. The counselors moved all the girls to the beach on their side of the island. The fire spread so fast the fire extinguishers were useless.”
“You guys took boats back, didn’t you?” asked Dad. “Didn’t the girls have any boats?”
“We each had half the boats,” I answered, “but they weren’t enough.” I explained the emergency plan and how the residents on the other side of the lake helped get some of the campers off the island with their powerboats.
“It took us a half hour to row or paddle over to Fish Island. I think they wanted us to be real tired.” Austin laughed. “They didn’t want any funny business going on.”
“It didn’t stop Jake,” I said. “He must have had his backpack and his sleeping bag completely full of fireworks.”
Gramps listened quietly as we discussed the fire. Then he said, “Luke, tell me more about this car that dropped off the packages. What did it look like?”
“Dark color. Nice, but not real new. That’s all I could tell in the dark.”
Gramps nodded. “Did you hear a voice? Was it a man or a woman?”
“A man.”
“Young or old?” Gramps’s expression was eager.
I tried to think. “Not a kid. Not real young.” I met his eyes. “Why?”
“We have to consider another possibility,” said Gramps.
I frowned. “What other possibility?”
Austin pulled his chair closer. “Who, Gramps?”
Gramps gazed into his coffee cup. “Dunn Nikowski.”
“But he died. We saw him die,” cried Austin. “We saw him die in the parking lot at the zoo.”
“I’ve been thinking about that day,” said Gramps. “If Dunn was really dead, I think his tin leg would have been left behind. He could have turned into an ant or something and gone down a crack in the pavement.”
Austin and I gaped at each other. My mouth had gone dry. I tried to speak, but nothing came out. Dunn Nikowski still alive? It couldn’t be. We’d all seen the enormous Gramps-hippo bite the monster Dunn-crocodile in half. We saw the big croc’s tail pull away from its body and melt into the pavement like a deflating balloon.
“The crocodile’s body was still there on the pavement, Gramps,” I said hoarsely. “If he wasn’t dead, wouldn’t he have returned to his human form?”
“Yeah,” added Austin. “How many animal changes could he have?”
“I don’t know,” said Gramps. “But I think we need to at least consider the possibility that he might still be alive.”
I was so stunned I couldn’t speak. My thoughts were as confused as puzzle pieces still rattling around in their box. If Dunn was alive, how would it affect us? Dunn hated us. He’d tortured Austin and me with a cattle prod when we were animals at the zoo. He’d put Megan on top of the water tower, still in her snake form. Somehow she fell, and I remembered that tiny red object dropping through the air. Without even thinking, I’d gone eagle and caught her. If I hadn’t, she’d be dead.
What would Megan think of all this? Dunn had to be her grandfather, but she hated the idea. She thought her grandfather was dead and buried. What if he wasn’t? Dunn was a dangerous man who didn’t seem to care about anything or anyone. Suddenly I didn’t feel safe anymore.
Mom came to the table with the coffeepot. Resting one hand on my shoulder, she poured Gramps more coffee, then gave me a comforting squeeze.
Gramps stirred cream into his coffee and continued. “Roy Gifford and I have been doing some research while you were at camp. We found out some interesting things.”
He reached into his coat pocket and took out some folded papers, then spread them out in front of us. “Here is Dunn Nikowski’s family tree. He’s been married twice, so there are two different family lines. His first marriage was to someone you already know about—someone he met on the island.”
I couldn’t think of anyone Dunn would have known on Komodo Island. “There was the medicine woman,” I said, “but Dunn was a young man then.”
Austin grinned. “The medicine woman’s daughter!”
Of course. Austin the love guru had the right answer. Maybe he should go to work for some internet dating service. Batman the Match Man dot com.
“Dunn was on that island for several months,” said Gramps. “He married the medicine woman’s daughter, whose name was Katerie. They had one child, named Angelina.” He showed us Angelina’s name on the paper.
“They were very unhappy. Dunn wanted to go home to the United States, and Katerie did not want to leave the island. Eventually they divorced. Later, Dunn met and married a navy nurse named Helen.” Gramps pointed to the names of Dunn’s two wives and their children. Then he continued.
“Dunn had two more children with Helen, Roy and Joanna. They came back to the United States with all three of the children. Later Helen divorced Dunn. She got married again, to a man named George Gifford. He adopted all three children, which is why Roy’s last name is Gifford and not Nikowski. But Roy is Dunn Nikowski’s son.”
Gramps sipped his coffee and eyed us. “You guys got all that?”
“No,” I said. We studied the rest of Gramps’s diagram.
Gramps tapped the paper with his finger. “Dunn’s three children—Angelina, Roy, and Joanna—were all affected by the curse. Angelina married and had a daughter, Megan, but she and her husband died soon after. Roy adopted Megan, and she took the name Gifford. Joanna married Cliff Parma, and they had one son.”
“Jake!” Austin and I chimed together.
“Megan said he was her cousin,” I added. “The guy’s a real pig.”
“That’s not nice,” said Mom. She hadn’t met Jake.
“Maybe Dunn keeps in touch with Jake,” I said. “That would explain why Jake pinched me all the time. If he thought my grandfather almost killed his grandfather, it would explain why he hated me so much.”
“He pinched you all the time because his father pinched him,” said Austin.
“What’s this about pinching you?” Mom’s voice was sharp. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
“I couldn’t tell anyone,” I explained. “They’d have taken me to the nurse and she would have found the feathers.”
“Then Jake turned that big snapper on its back and tied its legs to wooden stakes so it couldn’t turn back over,” said Austin. “Luckily, Luke heard…I mean, Luke found it and saved its life.”
Mom bent down to hug me. “Good for you, Luke.”
“There was a note on the turtle’s shell, Mom,” I said. “It said: ‘No animal will make a fool out of me.’ When I found the note, I didn’t get it. Now I remember hearing Dunn Nikowski say that.”
Gramps sat back and smiled at us. “Is that how you knew Jake was related to Dunn Nikowski?”
“He had to be related to one of you,” I said, “because he could change into animal form. Also, he was Megan’s cousin.”
“Wait a minute. Wait a minute.” Austin frowned at the family tree Gramps had drawn, tracing a line with his finger from Katerie to Megan. “So this means the medicine woman’s daughter is Megan’s grandmother!”
I stared at the paper, watching Austin’s finger tap on Megan’s name.
“That was why Megan had the shell necklace,” said Austin. “Dunn must have given it to Katerie. Then, many years later, Katerie sent it to her granddaughter.”
I couldn’t wait to show the diagram to Megan. She would be glad to see that she had some relations. Well, maybe she wouldn’t be glad about Dunn. But she had a grandmother who cared enough about her to send her the necklace.
“Enough ancestry,” said Mom. “We need to clear the table and load the dishwasher. You guys need to bring down your dirty laundry. Then there are two filthy bathrooms to scour.”
“We’ll meet this evening to make plans,” said Gramps. He ran a hand over the feathers on my head. “By now I’m sure you realize what we have to do, Luke.”
I nodded. “We have to go to Komodo Island to find another pink Komodo.”
“We’ve known that for a while,” said Austin. “We took a roping clinic…”
“We’ll tell them about that later,” I said. I didn’t want Mom to know what we were planning. There was no point in worrying her with something that might not even happen.
“Komodo Island is on the other side of the world, isn’t it?” I asked.
“Right,” said Gramps. We picked up our plates, and he followed us to the kitchen. “Komodo Island is far away. On the way there, we’ll figure out a way to find that rare Komodo dragon.”
“Gramps, we have something that will help!” I ran upstairs and got the shell necklace. I told Gramps to close his eyes, then placed the necklace on the table and backed away. When the pink glow faded, I told Gramps to open his eyes.
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