Horns & Wrinkles

by Joseph Helgerson

  "I've never heard of it," I said.

  "You're probably not old enough, but believe me, your cousin shouldn't stick around to see if it's true. Rock trolls do collect bullies. It's a well-known fact."

  "What would they want with a bully?" I asked.

  "Oh, they probably line them up on shelves to admire," she said, turning kind of vague.

  "Sounds like nonsense to me."

  "That's because you're not a rock troll." She grew sterner. "If you were, you'd feel right at home with things like horns and hooves and what have you."

  "But Duke can't go home with that thing on his face," I pointed out. "His parents will have a fit."

  "That's a pity. It's certainly not safe for him around here."

  "Isn't there anything he can do?" I was a little worried despite myself.

  "Only one thing is tried and true. If he can manage one genuine act of kindness, the horn goes away. But it has to be a totally unselfish act. Nothing halfway."

  "I don't think he's got it in him. Isn't there something easier?"

  "Sorry." The old lady tsked, shaking her head no. "It's that or nothing."

  A ripple beside the boat signaled that the muskrat had rejoined us. The orange tennis shoe was still in its mouth.

  "So there you are," the old lady scolded.

  Reaching down, she took the tennis shoe and pulled a folded paper from inside it. She unfolded the paper and read it with a frown.

  "I'm afraid I'll have to be going." She tucked the paper into an apron pocket.

  "So soon?"

  "It's a big river," she said. "Awfully big. But you should be okay now."

  "It's not me I'm worried about."

  "Your cousin? Well, just remember this: if he gives you any trouble, a good stomp on the toe usually works wonders with a bully. Aim for the big one."

  "That's not exactly what I was worrying about."

  "Oh, well, fixing that nose is up to him."

  She shooed me away with a wave of her hand, and I stepped off the front of the boat without even getting my shoes wet. When I turned to ask how she knew Duke was my cousin, her rowboat was gliding across the side channel that the wagon wheel bridge spanned. She wasn't using oars or a motor or anything I could see to make the boat move. She was going against the current too.

  "Thank you," I called out.

  "Too early for that," she answered with a wave.

  "If you see a turtle named Lottie, would you please send her home?"

  "I'll keep an eye out," she promised.

  Four

  Supplies

  I pushed through twenty feet of willow saplings before Duke jumped me, though for once he didn't lay a finger on me. This time he went with words.

  "It's all your fault!" he thundered.

  His face was pressed as close to mine as he could get without poking me with his horn. His eyes were steady, the way they got when he'd made up his mind to take something that didn't belong to him.

  "Maybe we should just head home," I suggested, holding my ground, "before something else happens."

  "Are you crazy?" he half shouted. "I can't go home like this! They'll ground me for years."

  He might have been exaggerating, though not by miles. Lately, his parents were strict as ants. They'd tried everything else with him, until as a last resort they'd turned to discipline.

  "It's not that bad," I said, hoping to calm him.

  Lowering his voice, Duke whispered, "What does it look like?"

  "Well," I stalled, "a nose. A big nose."

  "That's gray?" he exploded. "And pointed?"

  "I've seen worse."

  "Where?"

  "I forget," I said. "So what do you want me to do?"

  "Bring me a few supplies."

  "Like what?"

  "Tent, sleeping bag, slingshot, canteen, bug spray, food, matches, rain poncho, ax, fishing pole, knife, extra food, sweets, and loan me a few bucks."

  He'd been doing some thinking while I'd said goodbye to the old lady.

  "How many bucks?" I asked.

  "Five."

  As usual, he had a pretty good feel for the weight of my piggy bank.

  "Where am I supposed to get all that other stuff?"

  "My garage. Use your little sister's wagon to get it out here."

  With that, he hung his head helplessly. It was mostly an act, but he had a gift for it.

  "Look," I said, "the old lady told me how you can fix your nose."

  "How?" Right away he turned suspicious.

  "All you have to do is one genuine act of kindness and it's gone."

  That news straightened him up in a flash. I couldn't have done it any faster by stomping on his big toe, which, in a way, I had. If pride had toes, I'd nailed Duke's. He bragged about bad deeds, not kind ones.

  "Don't be so dumb," Duke nagged. "That old bat doesn't know anything."

  "Have it your way," I sighed.

  "So you'll get the supplies?"

  "I guess. This once."

  The instant I agreed to help, his face lit up with such rare thankfulness and gratitude that I nearly staggered backwards. The makeover didn't last long, though.

  "Don't mess up," he threatened.

  He started to reach for my cap, having forgotten all about his new nose and how it shot out farther every time he bullied. To protect him from himself, I stomped on his right big toe—his flesh-and-blood one—and left him hopping around on one foot.

  "I'll be back as soon as I can," I said.

  "And bring a mirror," Duke ordered, losing his balance and falling sideways into some bushes.

  Five

  Aunt Phyllis

  The old lady had set us off on the big island across from Blue Wing, the town where we lived. To get home all I had to do was find the sandy lane leading to the steel girder bridge that spanned the river's main channel and connected the island to town.

  From up on the big bridge, you can get a pretty good view of Blue Wing, which is built on a flat old sandbar that sits in the shadows of the bluffs crowding the river. It's the kind of place that shines up good in the moonlight, with lots of crooked old buildings built over a forgotten Indian village. The only hill in town is a dike built to keep out the floods.

  I hustled home to get my sister Tessa's red wagon, plus a few cookies from the kitchen, a couple of apples for vitamins, some cans of tomato soup that nobody liked, and a bag of pretzels for starch. I shook my piggy bank dry, then put a dollar back. Where was Duke going to spend money on a sandbar?

  From my place to Duke's was only a couple of blocks. He lived in a tidy white house with potted petunias out front and a picket fence that kept their springer spaniel, Duff, from wandering off. Duke's dad, Norm, ran the No Leash Dog Obedience College, and Duff never barked unless ordered to. That was good—I didn't want a dog sounding the alarm while I loaded up on supplies. All I had to do was make sure Duke's parents weren't home, which was a cinch. Both their cars were gone.

  Since the neighbors knew me, I went directly to the garage without pretending to knock on any doors. I was climbing up a stepladder to reach a sleeping bag tucked in the rafters when the door opened and in stepped Duke's mom. She didn't bother asking why I was filling a red wagon with stuff from her garage.

  "What's he done now?" she whispered with a trembly voice.

  Duke's mom, Phyllis, was a school nurse who spent her days handing out hugs and Band-Aids. She was small, what my mom called petite, and liked to wear jeans and T-shirts with pictures of things like the three basic food groups on them. Duke's dad, Norm, was an even softer touch. They were the kind of parents you long for when your own are acting up. Where they'd gone wrong with Duke weighed on them night and day, stooping their shoulders, stealing their sleep, and making them decide that one child was their limit.

  "He's thinking about doing some camping," I reported, "and needed a few things."

  Unless you were Duke, Aunt Phyllis wasn't someone you ever thought about lying to.

 
"Why'd he send you?"

  "Well"—I hesitated—"he's sort of busy getting his campsite ready."

  "What else?" Aunt Phyllis asked bravely.

  "I guess there was a little accident," I admitted.

  Her shoulders stiffened.

  "Nothing catastrophic," I assured her. "He just didn't want to bother you, that's all."

  "He'd rather have us worry all night about whether he's alive and have the police looking for him and maybe even the National Guard. Is that it?"

  Her voice was rising.

  "Well," I fudged, "something's, ah, happened to his nose."

  "Fighting again?" Aunt Phyllis guessed, biting her lip to stop tears.

  "Not that I know of."

  Which was mostly true. He hadn't put up much of a fight with the two older bullies.

  "Worse?" Aunt Phyllis's eyes widened.

  "It's growing kind of funny."

  When I held a finger three or four inches in front of my face to show her how funny, she covered her mouth with a hand and started blinking real hard. Her shock lasted only a minute, though. She was a school nurse, after all, and had seen a lot. Turning professional, she grabbed my arm, saying, "Take me to him."

  And that's how I ended up in the back of Aunt Phyllis's minivan with Duke's eyes shooting lightning and hailstones at me as we drove straight to the hospital.

  Six

  Dr. E. O. Moneybaker & One-Shot

  Doctors came, doctors went. Some swooped in for a nose-to-nose examination. Others stayed put in the hallway, holding a tissue over their own noses as if Duke might be contagious. They poked at Duke, shined bright lights on him. Shaking their heads, they went to get other doctors. The parade lasted through the rest of the morning and on into the afternoon.

  X-rays, needles, questions—the works.

  Where had he been? What had he been doing? Why had he waited so long to come in?

  Duke answered everything with his terribly innocent voice, the one that makes teachers bite their tongues and go red in the face.

  The only doctor who believed a word of what Duke had to say was the very last one, who arrived after supper and billed himself as the local rhinoceros horn expert. They'd had to call him in from the old folks' home, which explained why Dr. E. O. Moneybaker used two canes, two hearing aids, and two pairs of eyeglasses. Actually, he wore only one set of eyeglasses, but they were as thick as two.

  The doctor wasn't traveling alone either. At his side slouched a short grumpy man with a black mustache that bristled like porcupine quills. A large camera hung around the sidekick's neck. He snapped pictures for the local newspaper and everyone called him One-shot, on account of that's all he needed to get the job done. He wore a rumpled black suit with pockets that sagged with film canisters and sandwiches and things.

  "My picture going to be in the paper?" Duke asked, perking up.

  "Not a chance," One-shot told him.

  "He's here at my request," Dr. E. O. Moneybaker said in a weak, raspy voice. "I've been writing a scientific paper on these horns for years. If I'm ever going to see it in the New England Journal of Medicine, I'll need photographs."

  "You've seen this condition before?" Aunt Phyllis was hovering.

  "Most definitely," the doctor replied, pulling out a cloth tape measure and holding it up to Duke's horn. After scribbling measurements down in a notebook, he waved One-shot forward, saying, "Front and side view, please."

  "Front, side, top, bottom," One-shot said, swinging into action, "it doesn't matter, Doc, and you know it." To Aunt Phyllis, he explained, "I've been taking pictures along this stretch of river for going on thirty years, seen stuff that turned my hair white, but none of it ever shows up on film."

  "There's not a white hair on your head," the doctor objected.

  "'Course not. I have to dye it about once a week, the stuff I've seen along this river."

  Snapping a shot of Duke's front and side, One-shot promised he'd run the film over to Dr. Moneybaker's residence before gnat time was over. (Around here, that's dusk.) The doctor waved the photographer on his way and turned his attention to Duke's ears, peering inside them with a light.

  "Is he going to be all right?" Aunt Phyllis asked.

  "Hard to say," Dr. Moneybaker said. "Sometimes this condition clears up all on its own, almost overnight. Sometimes it gets worse. Hooves have been known to develop." Pulling out a magnifying glass, he picked up one of Duke's hands for a look. "Nothing there yet."

  "Is that all?" Aunt Phyllis braced herself for the worst.

  "In about half of the cases I've seen," the doctor rambled on, checking down the back of Duke's pants, "patients have been known to disappear." Letting go of Duke's pants, he added, "No tail yet. We're not exactly sure what makes them disappear. Maybe they run away. Maybe they're taken. Sometimes there's a sign of struggle. All that we can say for positive is that once they're gone, they don't come back."

  "Heavens!" Aunt Phyllis gasped. "How can I not have heard of this? I'm a school nurse."

  "Oh, well, I see a case only once or twice a year at the most. And you know how hush-hush families get when they think something rivery is going on. The main thing is not to let him out of your sight." Reaching into a pocket, the doctor pulled out a purple dog leash. "This should help with that."

  "Whoa," Duke squawked. "I'm not wearing anything that's purple."

  "Don't worry," the doctor told Aunt Phyllis, "they all talk tough at first."

  "Listen, you old wreck..." Duke started to say, but before he could finish his insult, he cried out and made a grab for his nose, which was having a growth spurt again.

  "Isn't there anything else we can do?" Aunt Phyllis pleaded.

  "Nothing that's been proven," the doctor stated, holding up his magnifying glass to Duke's nose.

  "What about a genuine act of kindness?" I asked, feeling silly but figuring I'd better mention it. Aunt Phyllis was looking as though the world might end any second.

  I expected to be shushed by Aunt Phyllis, or shoulder-punched by Duke, but before either could act, the doctor took an interest in my question, saying, "Have you had contact with an old lady in a rowboat?"

  "That old biddy," Duke muttered.

  "She was involved in my very first case of rhinohornitis," the doctor told him. "Fifty some years back she showed up in a rowboat—was an old woman back then too. She's figured in about half the cases I've seen."

  "Enough!" Duke wailed. "That old goat didn't have anything to do with my nose. Just give me a pill or something and let's get out of this dump."

  "Has he always carried on like this?" the doctor asked.

  "Pretty much," Aunt Phyllis admitted, embarrassed.

  "Well, that is something I can give you a pill for. We've found it to be quite effective in cases like this."

  About dusk, we left the hospital with some pretty pink pills. Duke's nose was bandaged up neat as a package, and there was a dog leash attached to his wrist.

  Seven

  The First Horn in Our Family

  Fast as news travels around Blue Wing, you'd think everyone ran a newspaper. By the time I got home, Mom and Dad and my three sisters were camped out on the front porch, waiting. Mom was still dressed for the department store, where she works, and hadn't started supper yet. Dad, who works the graveyard shift at the bakery, must have just woken up, 'cause he was still in his pajamas. My youngest sister, Tessa, clung to her Barbie doll. Lillie of a thousand moods, my older sister, sat closest to the inside door, in case the phone rang. My other older sister, Fragile Fran, had her headphones on, as always. Even Grandpa Bridgewater had come over for the show. He was the first to pipe up.

  "Hear tell we've got another horn in the family."

  "What do you mean, another one?" I asked.

  "First things first, young lady," warned my mother, who wasn't about to let Grandpa B sidetrack her. "Just what have you and Duke been up to now?"

  So I told them, and since they all knew Duke, they were mostly satisfied
that I couldn't have done much differently, except maybe not worry so much about Lottie. Parts of what I told them lifted some eyebrows, though none that belonged to my sisters. They were too busy acting bored to lift anything but a sigh. That's a stage they're stuck in, except when I bring home some poor starving frog or beetle or garter snake. The way my sisters dance then, you'd think the house was on fire. They're dead set against boarders and always accuse me of trying to be the son that Dad never had. I don't know about that, but I do know that reptiles and amphibians seem to understand me way better than my sisters do.

  Anyway, as soon as I'd finished, everyone's eyes shifted to Grandpa, wanting to hear about the other horn in our family.

  "This going to be an Uncle Floyd story?" my dad asked, which meant that he'd probably heard it before but never mentioned it because of my mom, who doesn't approve of river stories.

  "Thereabouts," Grandpa admitted. "Might have a rock troll or two in it."

  Then nothing got said for a bit as Grandpa got his facts straight. He was a knobby old guy in his eighties, prone to coughing fits, felt hats, and getting lost. While waiting, I couldn't spy a neighborhood kid moving, or feel a breeze shuffling, or hear a clock ticking. The whole world seemed to be hanging on what he had to say.

  "So?" Mom prodded at last. "Uncle Floyd?"

  "Yup," Grandpa B said. "The one who was the younger brother of you girls' Great-Great-Great-Grandpa Huntington. Actually, Huntington had a horn for a bit too."

  Everyone exchanged looks, the way we always did during Grandpa B's stories.

  "Was that before or after his lumber mill went bust?" Dad calmly asked.

  "Oh, before. Right after him and Floyd got run out of Missouri for their bullying."

  "Bullying?" I said.

  "You didn't think Duke was the only one of those in the family, did you?"

  "And the horns?" Dad prompted.

  "Those happened the first winter they were up here. They'd chopped a hole in the river ice to scrub up some and the next thing they knew..."

  "Horns," I said, filling in the blank.