"Put out your hand," Biz ordered.
I did and he slid the crown-ring on the middle finger of my left hand. It fit snugly and felt alive, turning this way and that as if the frogs were trying to see what was going on.
"You do your part," Biz squeak-pledged, "and I'll do mine."
"What if I can't convince Duke?" I asked, squeaking a bit myself. "He can be awfully stubborn."
"Then I'll want my crown back." He made it sound as though he'd take my finger too.
With that, Biz shoved me toward where he'd last seen Duke. I didn't get far, though, barely over the first dune. Someone hiding on the back side of it tripped me. When I looked up, I came face-to-face with a grinning Jim Dandy.
"Gave you his crown, did he?"
Twenty-seven
Jim Dandy Eel-Tongue
I didn't squeal in surprise—couldn't, not with Jim Dandy's hand covering my mouth. His palm was surprisingly soft, though clammy.
"I wanted a word in private," Jim Dandy breathed in my ear.
When I nodded that I understood, he lifted his hand away and dropped an arm over my shoulder to let me know I wasn't going anywhere.
"I suppose Biz wants you to take Duke home," Jim Dandy said. "He's afraid your cousin will help me be the hero of this expedition, and truth be told, you probably wouldn't mind getting him out of here either. River trolls aren't the best of company for a boy and all that, even if he does have a horn and the start of a tail."
"What do you mean, 'tail'?"
"I shouldn't be surprised." Wanting to seem bored, Jim Dandy yawned for show. "The longer he runs with us, the likelier he is to sprout one, so I can see why you might want to get him home. Sooner the better, you're probably thinking. Well, if you're worried that I'll try to stop you, don't give it another thought. I'm behind you all the way on this one. For once, I'm thinking Biz is on to something."
"You are?"
"Oh, yes," Jim Dandy assured me. "I've come around to seeing that we all might be better off without Duke hanging around. I hate to say it—I mean, I love the guy and everything—but he's something of a loser. What I'm thinking is that there's somebody much better suited to take his place and help us get the crickets we need. By the way, that somebody's you."
Hearing that made me swallow wrong, which started me coughing. Jim Dandy whipped off his red scarf and used it to muffle my coughs.
"No need to thank me," he said. "I know you'll do everything you can to help us, what with all the stone in your family."
That was a threat, of course, and as soon as I was done coughing, I begrudgingly said, "I see what you mean."
"I thought you might. Now, why don't you share what Biz was telling you, and then we'll figure out what to do from there."
"Mostly, he talked about how he was going to be king."
"Bah!" Jim Dandy indignantly cried out.
Realizing he'd been too loud, he sneaked a peek over the dune to check on Biz's whereabouts. Reporting that Biz was gone, Jim Dandy slid his arm off my shoulder, saying, "Maybe I better straighten you out on a thing or two."
Feel free to believe about half of what follows. Maybe less.
"Did you know," Jim Dandy started out, "that Biz's mother was afraid she'd never get rid of him? She offered me money to let him come with me and Stump. Yes, I know, it doesn't seem right, but that's the way it is sometimes. He's twice as old as me and Stump, you know. That's because there's only one way to get around Bodacious Deepthink's curse, and that's to never get married and father a hatch. Bo's curse can't touch you then. And that's the way Biz was playing it too—up to last fall. That's when his mother locked him out of their lodge and wouldn't let him back in until he got married. It was getting cold. Ice was topping off the sloughs. It took all that to convince Squeak Mossbottom to get hitched."
"Squeak?" I blinked.
"That's what everybody really calls him. Biz is something he dreamed up. And who do you suppose he up and married?"
"I wouldn't have any idea."
"The Crowleg sisters," Jim Dandy snorted. "All three of them—Muck, Weed, and Scale. The Crowlegs have been trying to marry those girls off for a century or more. They're ugly and mean as a bag of leeches that's just been sat on, and the only thing pretty about 'em is their warts."
"If they're so bad," I asked, "why'd he marry them?"
"Their eyesight," Jim Dandy said with a shrug. "Most troll wives claim they can see an hour or two ahead. The Crowleg sisters say they've got eyes that can see a whole day into the future. Maybe that's what makes them so mean. Knowing Squeak, he probably thought they would give him an edge in finding our fathers. Only one problem there."
"What's that?"
"They're not here with us, are they? So they can't very well tell us what they can see. That's Squeak all over. Plan everything out a hundred different ways, then forget something so simple as that. And don't go thinking Stump's any better," Jim Dandy warned me. "His mother was so afraid that he'd turn out like his brother Duckwad that she begged me to take him along. They're mighty lucky to have me, those two are. I'm about the only chance they have to ever make it back. Stump's wife told them so too."
"How'd she know?"
"Wishy Gartooth?" Jim Dandy said. "She's been known to see clear into next week if the pay's good."
"So what'd she see?" I asked, not sure I wanted to know.
"Me, saving the day."
The crown-ring on my finger bit into my skin with that news, but I never let on it was pinching me.
"Now, listen up," Jim Dandy whispered, turning secretive. "Here's the deal I'll cut you. I nabbed this when I got the ukuleles..." Here he slapped a brass skeleton key in my hand. "Take it and head down to the old lady's shop for that third screen. It opens the back door, so you can slip in and out easy as a breeze. That old lady won't be none the wiser. And once you've got that screen for me, I'll take care of getting Duke running home."
"How?"
"Easiest thing in the world," Jim Dandy puffed. "I'll tell him we're going to drop him off the wagon wheel bridge if he doesn't quit tagging along. Yes, yes, we saw all that. And don't fret about those people we turned to stone. After we get our lucky crickets there'll be plenty of time to swing by and tickle them with the old stone feather. They'll be good as new." Pointing me toward the river, he said, "So you better get moving. The dugout's this way."
After escorting me a few steps, he snapped his nose funnels back in place and left me to it. The last I saw of him, he was loping on all fours, sniffing sand as he went.
The river wasn't a direction I was too keen on heading. After dark, floating logs aren't always floating logs, if you know what I mean. And paddling down a dark river in a troll boat that was as tippy as a leaf and as smelly as clam juice didn't sit too steady on my stomach. Breaking into the old lady's shop, considering how kind she'd been to me, didn't sit any better.
But I went. What other choices did I have? None that I could see, or at least not any that I could see until I was just about to step into the dugout canoe. At that very moment a river troll climbed out of the bushes to my left and declared, "Hold everything."
Twenty-eight
Two-Cents Eel-Tongue
The troll who had come out of the bushes was a darkish blob about the size and shape of a door. How did I know it was a troll? The eyes. They did the usual orange dance. The smell of river-bottom muck was a giveaway too. Her hands were floating in front of her, ghastly-like, as if headed for my throat.
"Where do you think you're headed?" she barked.
There wasn't much doubt it was a she. Her voice, though snappish and bossy, was more musical than the other trolls', and a purplish glow on her claws seemed more ladylike than manly. She must have been older too, for she didn't wear the latest bicyclist fashions but a heavily patched wetsuit. Stopping five feet short of me, she gave me a good sniff and grumbled, "You could use a little dirt behind your ears."
"Yes, ma'am." I nodded politely. "And who might you be?"
<
br /> "Jim Dandy's mother," she said. "Much as he'd like to forget it. Two-cents Eel-tongue by name."
"My mom wrote me about you," I said, more relieved than I cared to mention. "She said you might help with my cousin Duke."
"He the one with the horn?"
"I'm afraid so."
"Now, there's a boy with promise," she predicted. "Tell you what, you do one little thing for me, and I'll help you get your cousin home. I'll even give you some help with those stone people your mother seemed so worried about. Interested?"
"I am." I shivered.
"Take this screen to Jim Dandy."
That was when I realized she was holding a screen door between us. It'd been invisible in the dark but sure enough explained why her hands had seemed to be floating in front of her so funny and why she looked square as a door.
"Nothing more?" I was thinking trap.
"Simple as that," she promised. "Once they have three screens, they won't be needing you or your cousin. You'll be free to take off. And once they've used the screens and paid their visit to Bodacious Deepthink, they'll have plenty of time to de-stone those people, though why anyone would rather be human than stone is beyond me."
"What if I can't get my cousin to go?" I asked.
"That's your problem. With a boy like Jim Dandy, I've got headaches of my own. I've done my best to raise that little mud bubble right, so it's all his father's fault. He was a coward too. Some boys will steal from their mother's purse two or three times a week without having to be nagged a bit. Not Jim Dandy. Oh, no, I've been waiting years and years to catch him in there just once. And all the while I've had to listen to that silver dollar in my purse blabbing away about every little thing that boy's no good at. It's been a load, especially since he married a Leechlicker, and I don't mind saying so."
"Yes, ma'am," I agreed, "but what if your son still won't help with my grandpa and the others?"
"Oh, settle down," Two-cents Eel-tongue muttered, annoyed. "If you're so worried about that, all you have to do is make sure Bodacious Deepthink doesn't talk him into anything stupid."
"How am I going to do that?"
"Nothing to it. Go along with him. And if she does talk the little fool into something, I'll give you just the thing to fix it—a riddle. Guaranteed to drive Bodacious crazy or worse."
"Are you sure?"
"Absolutely. It should give Jim Dandy all the time he needs to come to his senses and slip away. He ought to be able to get at least that much right."
"Maybe so," I said. "But how can I be sure he won't just disappear after he slips away?"
"Stick with him. He'll need all the help he can get if he's going looking for that worthless father of his. Those so-called friends of his aren't any prizes. Now, do you want this riddle or not?"
"I guess so," I said, "if it's all you've got."
"Not so fast," Two-cents came back. "If I'm handing out riddles, I want another favor too. When you give Jim Dandy this screen, don't tell him you got it from me. Don't even tell him I was here. Say that you got it yourself, the way I heard him tell you to."
"Why?" I asked.
"'Why?'" she mimicked. "What do you think happens if I take it to him? I'll tell you what. His partners won't ever let him live it down. Bad enough I had to make their mothers promise that those boys would take Jim Dandy along. But it'd be worse yet if I showed up here. He'd probably run away and end up turned into a little girl like you, only cuter, of course, with pigtails and warts and frilly skirts."
"But wouldn't he be turned into a boy?" I asked.
"Boy or girl," she said, laughing, "it doesn't matter to Bodacious Deepthink's curse. Human's all she said. And I don't want that worthless son of mine to be either, though it'd serve him right, but his father's already given the riffraff along this river enough to gab about."
"Fair enough," I allowed, skipping over what Jim Dandy's father had done. "I never saw you. What's the riddle?"
Closing her eyes to concentrate, she recited:
What dreams of red,
Mines gold in veins,
Makes a good stew,
And always complains?
I had to ask her to repeat it twice, which she did with glee. Then I lipped it to myself several times, and all the while Two-cents Eel-tongue grew merrier and merrier.
"No one's ever solved this one," she said with a cackle.
"How do you know?"
"Because I just made her up."
I was about to ask her to repeat it one more time when someone started shouting on the far side of the island. Other voices soon joined in, all of them excited.
"They found one," Two-cents said, sounding almost proud.
For a second, she actually seemed like a mother. I didn't have time to dwell on it, though. Right away Duke started bellowing my name from the top of the sandbar.
"Claire!" Duke shouted. "Claire! You've got one minute to get up here. Or else!"
There went my last chance to solve the riddle.
"Take Jim Dandy this screen." Two-cents shoved it toward me. "Forget I was ever here."
"What about the riddle?" I reminded her. "What's the answer?"
"Leeches," she hissed, and with that she dove into the river without making so much as a ripple.
Leeches? I guessed you had to be a river troll to appreciate it.
Twenty-nine
Tug of War
Up the sand hill I struggled with the third screen door, Duke's mouth blazing above me all the while. Up top I found my cousin heaping mining equipment on his shoulders, all ready to push off without me, but as soon as he saw what I was holding, he dropped everything.
"Where'd you get that?" he demanded.
"Jim Dandy sent me for it," I answered, keeping my word to Two-cents Eel-tongue.
"Hand it over," he growled.
Snatching the screen, he sailed off toward the back side of the island, holding the screen above his head by balancing its middle bar on the tip of his horn.
I grabbed the torch that Duke had left behind and gave chase.
Finding the others wasn't a problem, not with the way they were squabbling about who'd found the shooting star first. Duke quieted them by galloping to the rescue with the screen.
"Here's the third screen." Duke gasped, all out of breath.
"Where'd you get that?" Biz squeaked, suspicious-like.
"What's that matter?" Duke griped. "It's a screen, isn't it?"
"Sure looks like a screen," Stump said, grinning kind of simply at Duke.
"There's more to you than meets the eye." Jim Dandy swatted Duke on the back. "And I've always said it. Now if you'll just give me that old lady's key..."
"You stole her key?" Biz shudder-squeaked.
"Borrowed," Jim Dandy corrected. "We'll take it back when we're done."
Here, Jim Dandy held a paw out for Duke to drop the key in, but of course the key was still in my pocket. Jim Dandy kept his hand out there, though, grinning as if he knew a secret. An embarrassed silence fell over us until finally I couldn't take it any longer and slapped the key in Jim Dandy's palm.
By then Duke looked ready to bawl, but Jim Dandy wiped away the tears by dropping an arm over my cousin's shoulder and applauding his efforts, "Stealing a little credit, are we? Couldn't have handled it any better myself. Duke, old boy, you're going to be one of us yet." Turning to Stump and Biz, he rubbed in his victory by saying, "I told you not to worry."
After that, Jim Dandy strutted around as if walking on stilts. The way he carried on about how nobody had trusted him to contribute his fair share—well, it went miles beyond shameless, and of course it didn't leave him any time to chase Duke away by threatening to drop him off the wagon wheel bridge. What finally shut him up was Biz, who interrupted to squeak, "What about this star?"
Thirty
Mining for Stars
"You two," Jim Dandy ordered, pointing at Duke and me, "help Biz and Stump haul the mining stuff over here."
"Hold on, now," Biz
squeaked. "That'd leave you here all alone."
"Somebody's got to mark the spot," Jim Dandy said.
"Somebody," Biz agreed, "but not you."
"Nice try," Stump added.
There followed a whole new argument that sounded like all their earlier arguments. Duke volunteered to mark the spot but got voted down because he was Jim Dandy's little bird. In the end, I got nominated as the only one they all sort of trusted. Translation: I looked too scared to try anything sneaky. Letting me mark the spot satisfied everyone but Duke, who warned me not to mess up.
"Or else."
So I found myself alone on a dark sandbar, not even a torch at my side. Light might attract company, they said. When a passing barge blew its horn, I nearly jumped out of my skin. Barges had always sounded kind of sad and regal when I was comfy at home in my own bed, but out on the night river, they sounded wild and dragonish.
Time's hard to gauge when you're all alone in the dark, with the river rolling along beside you, but it felt as though Duke and the trolls were gone nearly as long as the dinosaurs have been. Eventually they returned, arguing their way over the last dune, their backs stooped beneath piles of mining equipment. Duke trudged along behind, carting more than his share. With the trolls so busy bickering about who would do the shoveling and who would do the sifting, Duke took it upon himself to play Mr. Hotshot when I made the mistake of asking a question.
"What do they need the ukulele for?" I asked.
"You've got to sing to a star," Duke informed me, "or it burns itself out."
I pointed out six oven mitts on top of the pile of mining equipment they'd dumped on the ground.
"What do you think?" Duke sneered. "Stars are hot."
There were shovels, normal store-bought ones. No need to explain those, except that an anchor was tied to each shovel handle by a thick vine.
"Anchors?"
"In case of cave-ins," Duke said.
There were catcher's masks, along with catcher's chest guards and shin guards. Also, a fishbowl.
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