Whatever Goldenrod is doing, he thought one day, it has to be more fun than this. And then, suddenly, he had decided that he wasn’t going to stand for it anymore. Take note, boredom. This was war.
At 8:00 a.m. that very next morning, Birch took his own purple-and-gold backpack and filled it with a notebook, a box of colored pencils, and the brand-new calculator he had received on his last birthday. He stashed the bag under his bed. Then he took out a Tupperware he had specially prepared the night before. Inside was a particularly odorous mixture of peanut butter, one raw egg, and a mashed can of chili beans. Now that it had settled in overnight, the gooey green-and-brown concoction looked—and smelled—perfect for his plans.
Still in his pajamas, Birch walked into the bathroom and proceeded to scoop out the goo all over the tiles closest to the toilet. He sculpted the mixture with the spoon to get it just right and then ran back to his room to hide the Tupper-ware. Within a few moments, he was back in the bathroom, performing a few convincing coughs and barfing noises, and then finally screaming “Mom!” in his best weak-with-dire-illness voice.
When his mother came, she found Birch grabbing his stomach and looking miserably at the mess on the floor. “I’m sorry,” he managed to say weakly before bringing his hand to his mouth.
Exactly as he had expected, Birch was led back to his bed, a thermometer was produced, and he was ordered to take a nap. While his mother cleaned the mess, he closed his eyes and steadied his breathing so that, when she came in to check on him at 8:45 a.m., he looked every bit like a sick little boy fast asleep.
At 8:55 a.m., on the other hand, Birch looked every bit like a determined boy with a very serious mission. Crouched behind the hydrangea bushes in his backyard, wearing an all-green outfit, his camouflage baseball hat and his purple-and-gold backpack cleverly tucked under a hoodie, he waited until he had heard Goldenrod say good-bye to their mother and then make her way down the road.
Then, as his mother pruned, he tiptoed out from behind the bush, quietly opened the gate, and briskly followed Goldenrod’s path.
For a week, Goldenrod had diligently mapped out Pilmilton Woods without further incident and found nothing to indicate that there had ever been any ghosts there, famous or otherwise.
For at least a day or two after their first encounter, she had been on the lookout for Meriwether Lewis. She had headed toward the little clearing that she’d been led to by that small laugh. “Hello?” she’d called out, a little tentatively. The birds chirped and the sun shone, but it had still been a tiny bit intimidating to bait a ghost, even if the ghost was the spirit of one of her all-time heroes.
It turned out that she didn’t really have to worry; there was no answer. She had called his name some more. She had tried walking in the “wrong direction” as before, hoping this would cause the ghost to come out and tell her so. She had even once said, “I’m on a quest” loudly, thinking those might be the magic words that would make him appear. But they had merely echoed off of the trees and sounded rather bizarre, even to herself.
Eventually she had given up and returned to her map. By the end of the week, the effect of all her very precise measuring and her scientific documentation was this: she had started to doubt that she’d ever seen the ghost at all.
Could it just be that she had been tired, fallen asleep in the forest, and had a very vivid dream? Really, were there even such things as ghosts? And if there were, what would be the probability that Meriwether Lewis would choose dinky Pilmilton to haunt, anyway?
Very slim, she had to answer for herself, because the only two people she could think of to tell about the whole thing were the old lady and Charla—the first of whom she hadn’t seen for a week and the second of whom she hadn’t seen for much longer, and couldn’t find the right words to type in an e-mail to her and not sound pretty crazy anyway.
But even though she hadn’t seen the old lady again, Goldenrod hadn’t forgotten her promise to clip three blue roses for her—and the delicious thought that a new discovery just might await her. She had her specimen jar and her shears ready. The only problem was that she had yet to come across any such rosebush.
And soon enough, according to the old lady’s calculation, it came to be the last day that the rosebush would bloom for fifty years. Goldenrod had decided to spend most of it laying aside her accurate map (and any lingering thoughts of transparent men) in favor of pure exploration. Knowing she still had to be precise with the ground she covered, though, she went deeper into the forest, using her grid system as a guide. She had just about finished a thorough examination of the first unmapped square on her grid when she got a glimpse of a deep blue something through a clump of trees.
Her heart leaped with excitement, but it only lasted a moment before she realized that the blue thing she was seeing was moving and that hovering somewhere above it was a sweaty white T-shirt.
No matter how unusual this blue rose might have been, it seemed unlikely that it would be mobile and wearing clothing. It also didn’t seem very probable that an animal like a coyote or a prairie dog or a pygmy short-horned lizard—all of which had been discovered by Lewis and Clark—would be found wearing a sweaty white T-shirt in its natural habitat. But then again, thought Goldenrod, one must never jump to conclusions without full exploration if one wants to be a true pioneer.
Goldenrod quietly started to run after the flashing white T-shirt and blue jeans. It wasn’t too hard to follow, since whomever the shirt belonged to was not very stealthy. The snapping branches and startled bird sounds were enough to ensure Goldenrod that she was both on the right track and had little chance of being overheard.
A couple of minutes later, the sound of broken twigs was replaced by a girl’s voice. “There you are, Lint. What took you so long?”
“The security guard was watching me,” Sweaty T-shirt Guy panted. And Goldenrod realized she knew that voice.
“But you weren’t doing anything suspicious, were you?” She knew the third voice too.
Goldenrod tiptoed behind a tree to get a better look. There were Charlie Cookman and Jonas Levins, looking as mean as they ever had in school, right in the middle of her forest.
8
CAN’T REWIND
Charlie and Jonas weren’t alone. With them was an older girl with dirty-blond hair whom Goldenrod didn’t recognize.
“I was just drawing,” Charlie said.
“Well, did you get everything done?” the girl spoke again. She looked about twelve or thirteen. There were patches of dirt on her face, and her hair seemed to be matted from grease.
Charlie pulled some things from his pockets. Goldenrod could make out a crumpled piece of gridded paper with what looked like a detailed diagram on it. To her great surprise, it almost looked like it could be a map of some sort.
“That’s it?” the girl asked.
“I told you, that security guard knew I was up to something. I had to get out of there fast,” Charlie said.
The girl turned to Jonas. “Look, Brains. Why don’t you live up to your name a little and not send the dumb kid to do the job where, you know, you need to act like you belong in a museum.”
“I’m not dumb!” Charlie said as he rolled up his T-shirt and started to fuss around with his cavernous belly button, around which there were muscles for miles.
“Right. And I’m not a girl. And Brains is an idiot. Although I’m starting to suspect …”
“Stupid girl,” Charlie muttered.
“Sorry? What did you say?”
“Better to send me than a girl,” Charlie said as he continued to pull bits and pieces of things from his belly button and quickly transfer them to his right-hand pocket.
“And why is that, Lint?” The girl’s voice had become soft and dangerous.
“’Cause you’d probably cry.”
“Wow, my gosh. You’re totally right. I’m a girl so I just couldn’t handle the ninety-seven-year-old security guard that you can barely outsmart. If only your brain was as
big as your biceps.”
Charlie took a moment before he responded again with, “Stupid girl.”
The girl casually brought her index finger to the side of her nose, tilted her head up, took a deep breath, and exhaled quickly to land a large booger squarely on the side of Charlie’s head.
“Ugh!” Charlie yelled as he went to wipe it off. “I’m gonna—”
“What? What are you going to do?” the girl asked.
“All right, that’s enough.” Jonas finally stepped in. “Honestly, Snotshot. Do you have to do that every time?”
“You need to get some more useful friends, Brains.”
“Look, Lint’s done a good job casing the place. The camera diagram is almost finished, and I’ll get No-Bone to finish the rest today. Was there anything else, Lint?”
“Yeah, I got us some food,” Charlie—for some reason apparently also called Lint—said slowly. He took out a few silver-wrapped rectangles from his pocket.
“Oh, ew. Not those protein bars again. The only one who likes those things is you, Lint,” the girl called Snotshot said.
“It’s peanut butter chocolate …,” Lint started.
“No, it’s not. It’s mildly peanut-butter-and-chocolate-flavored cardboard. Do you understand that the whole point of having the food schedule is so we all get something everyone wants to eat?” She turned to Jonas. “Do I seriously need to explain everything to him? Shouldn’t that be your job, Brains?”
“All right, all right,” Jonas—or did that girl just call him Brains?—said sharply before turning to Charlie again. “Thanks for the diagram, Lint. And, for the record, I don’t mind the energy bars.”
Lint smiled smugly at the girl, who rolled her eyes and turned to Brains. “This whole thing had better work. Spitbubble is getting impatient.”
“I know exactly how Spitbubble is feeling. Thanks,” Brains said coldly.
Spitbubble? Seriously? Goldenrod thought. Her own name was starting to sound more and more normal with each passing moment. Positively generic, even.
“Wait, did you hear that?” Lint asked.
Goldenrod had heard it too: the sound of footsteps snapping twigs. And they weren’t hers.
She saw him before they did, an unusually small boy dressed in camouflage clothing and carrying a purple-and-gold backpack. He had walked smack into the clearing where the four older kids stood.
“Who is that?” Snotshot asked.
“Isn’t that Mold-and-rot’s little brother?” Brains asked.
“Who’s Mold-and-rot?” Snotshot asked.
“Some girl in our class,” Lint answered.
Brains was already going up to Birch, who seemed just as surprised to see them as they were to see him. He was trying to slowly back away into the forest, as if that would somehow rewind time and make the older kids forget they had ever laid eyes on him.
“What are you doing here, kid?” Brains asked.
“Nothing,” Birch managed to reply.
“What did you hear?” Brains asked.
“Nothing. I was just … lost.”
“We’d better take him to Spitbubble,” the girl said. “He’d want to know about someone snooping around.”
“Spitbubble won’t want this kid,” Brains replied. “He has a family. A real one.”
“Still, he’ll want to decide what to do with him.”
Brains sighed. “All right. But let’s go quickly. The last thing we need is a search party of Morams finding us. Lint, grab him, and let’s go back to Headquarters.”
Lint stepped forward and swallowed Birch’s tiny wrist in his fist. “Come on,” he said roughly.
The three older kids started to lead Birch away. Snotshot walked last, allowing her to expertly open up Birch’s backpack without anyone else noticing. She started to remove Birch’s belongings one by one.
Goldenrod was paralyzed. A series of questions seemed to be replaying in her head at warp speed. Most of them went something like, where on earth had Birch come from? Or, how had their mother let him leave the house? As she watched the four kids go deeper into the forest, she finally felt herself becoming unglued from her spot. Those were questions she was just going to have to deal with later. Right now, she needed to figure out how to save her little brother.
9
DOWN, DOWN, DOWN
With no real plan, Goldenrod followed Birch and his captors from as far behind as she could without losing them. They were heading deep into the forest, to places Goldenrod probably wouldn’t have even reached for at least a week. The kids weren’t talking much. All Goldenrod could hear were the sounds of twigs breaking beneath their feet and of Charlie’s heavy breathing. Birch wasn’t making a sound, wasn’t even crying, and Goldenrod found herself both surprised and proud of him.
The trees were getting denser here, and the day seemed to be going in fast-forward as the closely knit leaves made everything grow darker and darker. Goldenrod tripped on an especially large tree root and fell into a big and crunchy shrub; she froze, certain that the group ahead must have heard her. But after a few moments, as their footsteps were still fading farther away, she decided it was safe to get back up and continue following them. It wasn’t easy. The minute she’d lost had also caused her to lose sight of them, and she had to rely on the sound of sneakers on snapping twigs. Straining her ears, she proceeded ahead, unsure of where she was and whether she was still on the right track.
Suddenly, Goldenrod couldn’t hear footsteps anymore, and she started to worry that she had lost them. She listened intently but … nothing. She looked around where she stood, but all she could see were trees. Beautiful, enormous, silent trees that could tell her nothing about the whereabouts of her brother.
Goldenrod realized she had gone about this all wrong and way too hastily. She needed to retrace her steps. But first, she needed to figure out where she was. She opened her backpack and took out her compass. She watched the little golden arrow inside it spin and point north for her. At least now, if nothing else, she knew that she was facing northeast.
“It appears as if you’ve lost something,” a polite voice said.
Goldenrod looked up sharply. There, leaning on his cane, was the transparent man.
Birch’s wrist hurt. He was rubbing it as he stood in an odd stone entrance in the middle of the forest. As far as he could tell, he was inside a giant boulder, and a crude stone staircase lay a few feet in front of him. The stone walls of the staircase held flashlights that were taped on with massive amounts of duct tape. They were making long, oddly shaped shadows on the walls.
His captors were whispering behind him. Birch recognized the big kid and his friend who had tried to mess with him and gotten Goldenrod in trouble on the last day of school. He didn’t remember their real names, but he had found out pretty quickly that they were called Lint and Brains here. The blond girl, Snotshot, he’d never seen before in his life.
Birch could tell they didn’t know what to do with him. Whoever Spitbubble was, he wasn’t here, and this was causing a problem. The girl kept insisting that they keep Birch, but Brains was arguing against it. Birch found himself silently rooting for Brains.
He was surprisingly calm, which surprised himself most of all. He guessed it had something to do with being in shock. Although he didn’t think the older kids would necessarily hurt him, he was worried about his mother. He should be getting back pretty soon if he didn’t want her to know he was gone. He would be in major trouble if she found out he had left at all, but what would she do if she discovered he had left … and hadn’t come back?
I could run, he thought, as he saw a perfect Birch-sized gap between the entrance and where the older kids stood. But how far would he get? That girl looked fast. Still, it was better than hanging around here and doing nothing. But just as he was about to summon up the courage to make a break for it, his window of opportunity got eclipsed by two other boys who joined his original three captors.
The first new kid looked dirtier than the
others, but underneath the dirt, Birch could tell he had curly hair and was dressed in nice clothes. Expensive clothes with a certain monkey logo that his mother had said they couldn’t afford to get for him last year. The other new kid was older and probably taller, though it was hard for Birch to tell because he was folded over like an accordion.
“What’s going on here?” the bendy kid asked. “Who is that shrimp?” He pointed toward Birch.
“Mold-and-rot’s brother,” Lint said.
“Whoa, really?” the kid with the blue-monkey-logo shirt said.
“What do you think, Toe Jam?” Snotshot asked as she turned around to look at the kid in the blue T-shirt. “Brains and Lint here want to let him go back home. But I say we oughta keep him until Spitbubble knows the situation. No-Bone, you agree with me, right?”
The bendy kid nodded, his spine doing an awful yet fascinating jig along with his head.
“All I’m saying,” Brains started, “is that if we leave him here, he’s going to have parents looking for him. And I’m sure no one wants that. Least of all Spitbubble.”
“So what are we going to do? Just have him pinkie swear that he won’t tell anybody and send him away?” Snotshot snapped.
“He doesn’t know anything!” Brains replied.
“Toe Jam. You’re breaking our tie,” Snotshot said. “Should he stay or do we send him straight back to Mommy where he can immediately tell the entire town everything he’s seen and heard here today?” She folded her arms defiantly.
Toe Jam looked up eagerly at her. “I think Snotshot’s right,” he said, his voice a little squeaky.
“Well, of course he would agree. The idiot’s in love with you,” Brains said angrily.
Toe Jam turned beet red. “I am not!”
The Mapmaker and the Ghost Page 4