The Mapmaker and the Ghost

by Sarvenaz Tash

  But Snotshot looked pretty smug. “It’s a vote fair and square. Three to two.”

  “Fine,” Brains said. “Then you guys figure out where you’re gonna be keeping him. I’m staying out of this.”

  “Oh, really? And you’d like me to tell Spitbubble what, exactly, when he finds out you’re not helping?” Snotshot said.

  “I’m not scared of you,” Brains said.

  “And Spitbubble?”

  “I’m not scared of him either,” Brains said, but much less convincingly.

  Snotshot made a very loud snorting noise, louder and more impressive than Birch had ever heard anyone make in his whole life.

  Despite what he had said about not getting involved, Brains was now coming toward him. He grabbed Birch by the wrist. “Come on. Lint, follow me.”

  Lint walked behind, as Brains led Birch past the entranceway and down, down, down.

  10

  GHOSTS AND BUTLERS

  “It’s you,” Goldenrod said breathlessly to the transparent man.

  “It usually is,” he replied calmly, walking toward her. Goldenrod noticed that he had a slight limp.

  She had to ask. “Are you … Meriwether Lewis?”

  The man gave a little bow. “Indeed, I am. Or I was. Well, I’m his spirit, anyway.”

  “But there are no such things as ghosts,” Goldenrod muttered.

  “Who told you that?” the spirit of Meriwether Lewis asked.

  “My parents, mainly,” Goldenrod confessed, thinking specifically of that one summer when she was six and had spent a great deal of nights asking to sleep in her parents’ room.

  “And they are grown-ups, I assume?” the man asked. Goldenrod nodded.

  “Unfortunately, it has come to my attention that the modern world is sorely lacking in imagination. And grownups are the biggest culprits of all. Regardless, the simple fact is, here I am. And seeing how I was born in 1774, I can’t very well not be a ghost, now can I?”

  “I guess not,” Goldenrod said.

  “Very well. Now that we’ve established that, let’s move on. So I suppose you were the one who was sent on the quest.”

  “The quest?”

  “To claim our lost discovery: the blue rose.”

  “Oh, that quest,” Goldenrod said, faintly starting to grasp some of what was going on.

  “Do you have any other quests going on at the moment?” Meriwether Lewis asked politely.

  “No, no. The old lady told me about the rose but … well, I thought she just wanted it for her garden.” A thought struck Goldenrod, and she eyed the ghost suspiciously. “Wait, does she know you’re here?”

  Meriwether Lewis shrugged. “I’m afraid I don’t know much about what goes on outside of this forest. My spirit is trapped here, you see, until the blue rose can take its rightful place as discovered flora.”

  A smile slowly crept its way up Goldenrod’s face. She was completely spellbound. It’s not often that one gets to meet someone one has read about admiringly, and it’s even less likely when said person has been dead for hundreds of years. But beyond that, this man—or spirit—was speaking her language. He was telling her that her initial excitement over the blue rose was well founded.

  It took a few seconds for Goldenrod to remember what had just happened to her little brother. “Oh!” she said, startling herself out of her own reverie. “This is all so interesting, Mr. Lewis—”

  “Please. Call me Meriwether.”

  “Meriwether. Yes, this is fascinating and, believe me, I would love nothing better than to find this blue rose, but right now, I have to go rescue my little brother. He’s been kidnapped.”

  “Ah,” Meriwether said, as if this sort of thing happened all the time. Though maybe if you were a ghost haunting a forest for two centuries, nothing much fazed you. “Your little brother. Of course. And, is he your Clark?”

  “Well … no,” Goldenrod said. “Not really. I suppose my friend Charla is. But he’s important all the same.”

  “Of course, of course,” Meriwether said. “Well, if it’s a kidnapping that’s happened, I have a good idea who might be responsible.”

  At that, he perked up a little and held his hand to his ear. “And I think there’s something over there that you may want to pay attention to.” He pointed to a faraway grove of trees where Goldenrod saw another flash of white.

  When she turned back to Meriwether, he was gone. Trying hard to focus on the task at hand instead of replaying the ultraexciting conversation she had just had, Goldenrod headed quickly over to the trees. Through them, she glimpsed a man walking briskly.

  The man had salt-and-pepper hair and wore a black suit. It was the crisp white shirt underneath this suit that had caught Goldenrod’s eye. With no other leads anywhere in sight, Goldenrod decided to take Meriwether’s advice. She started to follow the man in the suit.

  He was a tallish man and took long strides that Goldenrod had trouble keeping up with. He seemed almost businesslike as he marched on toward his destination.

  Goldenrod still had her compass out and could see that they were now walking through parts of the woods where she had never been before. They were heading on a much different path than the one Goldenrod had chased Charlie, Jonas, and company through. For a moment, she considered turning back and retracing her steps. But then she made a firm decision to trust Meriwether who, ghost or not, was still one of the bravest and greatest explorers who had ever lived. If nothing else, the man had to have a good sense of direction.

  It must have been at least twenty minutes later that the man in the black suit finally stopped. He was standing right next to a bush that was covered with tiny, hard red berries. He waited there.

  Goldenrod was well concealed behind some other bushes and knew the man couldn’t see her. She wondered if she should go talk to him and explain her situation. Maybe he could help. On the other hand, Meriwether hadn’t expressly advised her to do so, and her own instincts were telling her that maybe talking to a stranger deep in the middle of an unmapped forest was not the best idea in the world.

  While Goldenrod was brewing over this dilemma, she heard a voice.

  “Do you have it?” the voice asked, slightly impatiently.

  Goldenrod peered through the bushes and could make out a dirty blue shirt and a tuft of curly hair in between the trees.

  The man took out a slim plastic case from his pocket.

  “Are you sure, Master Randy, that you really want this? This coin has been in your family for practically two centuries.”

  Goldenrod almost gasped. That tuft of curly hair and extremely dirty blue shirt belonged to another classmate of hers: Randy S. Lewis-O’Malley to be precise, probably the richest kid in school, chauffeured limos to drop him off in the morning and all. But just what was he doing here and why was he so filthy?

  “Toulouse, how many times have I told you not to question my authority?” Randy hissed.

  “Not quite as many times as your father has told me to question your every move, Toe Jam,” Toulouse answered calmly.

  Randy glared. “Yes, he cares so much that he lets his second-favorite butler keep me in line.”

  Toulouse looked unmoved.

  “Gimme the coin,” Randy said. Toulouse handed him the case.

  Randy opened it and rubbed one grimy hand over the coin, which caught the light and flashed a brilliant gold that matched the dappled sunlight on the surrounding trees. Goldenrod could see Toulouse cringe.

  “That is all for now,” Randy said.

  “You will not need Cook’s services?”

  “The other kids are tired of all that fancy food. None of them even know what Camembert is …”

  “Shocking turn of events,” Toulouse muttered.

  Randy squinted his eyes. “Anyway, no. That is all.”

  Toulouse nodded and turned smartly back in the direction from where he had come. Goldenrod had to duck quickly behind the bush she was in to avoid being seen. Luckily, it seemed Toulouse was too
busy focusing on maintaining the excruciating poise of an excellent butler to notice that a seemingly ordinary bush had sprouted a long, brown ponytail.

  Randy, meanwhile, had turned around and was sauntering back in the opposite direction.

  “Follow him,” a polite voice whispered near Goldenrod’s ear.

  11

  BOOMING VOICES

  Toe Jam rubbed the large gold coin in his hand as he made his way back to the cavern. He loved to grime up the shiny, immaculate things that came from his shiny, immaculate house. Back at home, his parents would freak if everything wasn’t perfectly spotless and in its place. But here in the forest, he could be as dirty and gross as he wanted to be, and there was no one to scold him for it. In fact, being dirty and gross was encouraged here. That’s how Spitbubble would pick what nickname to bestow upon them, and that’s how each of them knew that they really belonged.

  He smirked as he thought of the impressive collection of sock fuzz that he had picked from in between his toes and that was just waiting to be discovered in his top dresser drawer. He had really had to scramble to come up with a hobby worthy of the Gross-Out Gang, but he was pretty proud of his final choice, after ruling out things like trying to grow his nose hair (which would take way too long) or eating gas-inducing beans for every meal (which were vegetables and, therefore, inherently wrong). The maid had probably gotten rid of his toe jam collection by now, but he could always restock when he got back home.

  Toe Jam had spent all of his considerable January and February allowance to bribe Toulouse into telling his parents that he was spending yet another summer at sleepaway camp. Instead he was happily hidden away here, in a forest not five miles from his mansion. He couldn’t help but suspect that his parents were also more than a little pleased to have a break from the one thing in their lives that was the hardest to keep clean.

  Meanwhile, he was having the summer of his life. For the first time, he felt like he belonged somewhere his parents hadn’t paid to get him into. Well, at least they didn’t know they had paid, Toe Jam thought as he looked at the slightly dulled coin. The other kids should be pretty impressed by this. Maybe even Snotshot.

  He could feel his cheeks flush a little as he thought about her and was glad no one was around to see it, even though the dirt on his face probably concealed it anyway. The thing was, he didn’t really like like Snotshot or anything. It was just that he thought she could be kinda cool and was maybe a little pretty. When she wasn’t shooting boogers at people, of course.

  Then again, Toe Jam smiled a little to himself, if he had to be perfectly honest, that was probably one of the coolest things about her.

  The cavern was surprisingly large, Birch thought, as he continued to walk in between Brains and Lint. They had made their way down the “stairs” and were now in an extremely long underground hallway. The stone walls were pockmarked and slightly slanted, making it obvious that the structure was a hundred percent naturally made.

  Birch was trying to keep his mind occupied to distract it from the sheer panic that was itching to spring up. He was observing his surroundings very carefully and was surprised to walk by a pile of unmade sheets and pillows. The makeshift bed, he noted, was inside one of a few little “rooms” he was passing, and each one of them seemed to be filled with belongings, like clothes and backpacks. One was even painted a pale shade of slime green. Another had faded posters on the walls.

  There were little hallways everywhere. Birch thought they could have been escape routes, but then he realized that he had absolutely no idea where those escape routes would lead. They could land him in an even bigger pickle than the one he was already in, so he immediately forced his mind to change the subject. Since it had already wandered to the subject of pickles, he started to concoct sandwich combinations in his head.

  He was just about to put the top slice of toast on his imaginary sausage, Swiss, pickle, and barbecue-sauce sandwich when Brains grunted, “We’re here.”

  “Here” was another small room off of the main hallway. This one was bare except for some scattered rocks and a flashlight taped to the wall, which Brains switched on.

  Brains pointed at the floor. “Sit down. You’re going to stay here. Quietly. Got it?”

  Birch nodded and slowly lowered himself.

  “Hold on,” Brains said and walked out of the room. A few moments later, he was back with a small pillow. “Here. The ground’s hard.”

  “Thanks,” Birch said softly and repositioned himself so that he was sitting on the pillow. The ground was warm and he could hear a very faint gurgling sound coming from underneath it, almost like running water.

  Brains then turned to Lint. “You are not to leave that front door. Got it? Not if you get hungry, tired, bored, I don’t care. You don’t leave until someone comes down to take over.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Lint said glumly. “How come I get all the cruddy jobs?”

  “Guarding this kid’s about the most important job we’ve got right now. Spitbubble should be here soon.”

  Brains started up the corridor, and Lint stationed himself in front of the entryway, sitting so that his huge frame took up almost the entire opening. With his back to Birch, he immediately reached into his pocket and took out a pouch. From the pouch, he removed what looked like a large, fuzzy ball. Then, he pushed up his T-shirt and started to poke around in his navel. Birch watched as Lint’s hand finally emerged, holding a surprisingly large collection of belly button lint. With his other hand, Lint reached his pinkie into his ear and gave the finger two and a half strong rotations. The finger resurfaced with a thick glob of earwax. More delicately than Birch had seen him do anything else, Lint proceeded to use the earwax to add the new specimens to his ball.

  “No-Bone, I need you to go back to the science museum one more time.” Brains’s voice suddenly came booming out of the very walls.

  Birch was startled. The voice was definitely coming from upstairs, but the acoustics of the cavern worked in such a way as to make it sound like a PA system was broadcasting right into his little cell.

  “But I already stole the keycard,” he heard No-Bone say.

  “I know. And good work. But I need you to finish this camera diagram. I’m pretty sure we’re covered, but I want to be absolutely positive there won’t be any surprises tomorrow.”

  There was the sound of rustling paper.

  Birch glanced quickly over at Lint, who was still lovingly attending to his lint ball. He didn’t seem to be at all alarmed by the voices, or how clearly Birch could make out every word.

  “You have to go,” Snotshot said sarcastically, “because Lint wasn’t able to do his only job today correctly. Shocking, I know.”

  At this, Lint jerked his head up and looked toward the staircase. Birch could see an angry grimace on his face. But, moments later, he shook his head. Almost absent-mindedly, he picked up one of the rather large pieces of rock strewn about, and started to do bicep curls with his left arm, while continuing to roll the ball around with his right.

  “It won’t take long,” Brains said.

  “Okay, fine. I need to do a little shopping anyway,” No-Bone said.

  “In case your plan doesn’t work, Brains,” Snotshot started, “I’m going to think of some ways to distract the guard once we’re in.”

  “My plan will work,” Brains said coolly.

  “Yeah, sure,” Snotshot said. “Still, just in case, I’ve thought of some good scenarios I can act out if we need to. You know, lost and scared little girl, dumb and confused little girl, that sort of thing. I’m good at improvising.”

  “Improvising?” No-Bone asked.

  “Yes. I used to be in the school plays, you know.”

  “When were you ever in school enough to rehearse plays?” came No-Bone’s amused drawl.

  “Shut up!”

  Birch heard a loud thud that reverberated down the wall and into his whole back. Snotshot must pack a pretty mean punch.

  “Ow! You’re crazy!”
came No-Bone’s muffled reply.

  Lint didn’t look particularly perturbed. He merely switched the arm doing the bicep curls.

  From upstairs, Birch heard approaching footsteps and a different voice say, “I’m back.” It was the kid with the curly hair and monkey shirt.

  “And I’m leaving,” No-Bone said as the sound of diminishing footsteps came through.

  “What did you get, Toe Jam?” asked Brains.

  There was silence for a bit. “Great. That should be worth a lot,” Brains said.

  “Toulouse claims it’s been in my family for two hundred years,” Toe Jam said.

  “Way to get back at the ’rents,” Snotshot’s snarky voice came through.

  “Like they’ll notice. They haven’t noticed anything else yet.”

  “That’s an astounding amount of neglect. You must be proud,” Snotshot said.

  “Well, anyway, Spitbubble will be happy. He’ll probably bring it in to Barnes later,” Brains said.

  “Talking about me? Behind my back?” came a new voice, this one much deeper than anyone else’s. The voice rolled around its consonants like heavy boulders, slowly and with great power.

  “Spitbubble…,” Brains said quickly. Birch thought he could detect a tiny note of anxiety in his voice. “Look what Toe Jam got today.”

  Spitbubble waited a few moments before answering, letting the silence crackle with anticipation. “Nice,” he finally said. “I’ll work on this. Everything set for tomorrow?”

  “All set, Spitbubble,” came Snotshot’s reply.

  “Good,” the voice thundered.

  There was a pause. Finally Brains spoke. “Um, we do have a little … situation.”

  “Situation?”

  “Yes, we caught an intruder today.”

  Oh no, Birch thought. This is not good. Not good.

  “An intruder in the cavern?” Spitbubble asked.

  “No, in the woods,” Brains said.

  “But we think he may have heard part of tomorrow’s plan. That’s why I suggested we bring him here and let you decide what to do with him,” Snotshot interjected.