"Fool," Duke said.
Just then the rhino reached the trolls and there was a bang and a flash as loud and bright as another rocket blasting off for Pluto. There was smoke too, along with the sweet smell of peaches and cream. The trolls dropped the rhino they'd snatched and fled for their lives.
What caused the explosion?
A second act of genuine kindness.
After the echoes faded and the smoke cleared, a short, chunky kid in a tattered Little League uniform stood where the charging rhino had been. He was grinning wildly while rubbing a thumb across his forehead. His horn had vanished—not even a knob marked the spot.
Fifty-four
Reliable St. John's Song
From then on there was no shortage of genuine acts of kindness in that tunnel as the remaining rhinos charged at rock trolls who sprang out from side tunnels.
A few bullies acted more interested in being changed back into a boy or girl than in sacrificing themselves to save someone else. When they rushed forward, they stayed rhinos, and the trolls gleefully dragged them off, hooting and laughing above the wailing. But another rhino always unselfishly stepped forward to save the day with a true act of genuine kindness. Eventually, even the selfish bullies learned their lesson, and the next time they tried a rescue, their motives were purer. Smoke and the sweet smell of peaches and cream rolled off them.
By the time we reached the end of the tunnel, there was only one rhino left, along with twenty-eight kids—twenty-nine if you counted me. The remaining rhino wasn't shy about sharing his opinion, but then he never had been.
"Don't expect me to protect you," Duke blustered. "I plan on staying just the way I am."
"You might want to think twice about that," Stump told him. "Jim Dandy's nowhere near the friend you've been pretending he is, even when he's not stone."
Duke didn't care for that idea, but he didn't bother arguing about it either. He was too busy snorting at the dead-end wall that Reliable St. John had run us into.
Worse yet, we could see a lantern drawing closer from behind us. Shouts could be heard. Bodacious Deepthink kind of shouts.
"Faster. Faster! FASTER!"
"What should we do?" Stump asked Reliable St. John.
"Go back," the cave cricket advised.
"Impossible!" everyone cried, forgetting it was a cave cricket talking.
Right away Stump asked the cricket how we were supposed to walk through a wall.
"Not with a song," Reliable St. John answered.
"I think we could all use a song right about now," Stump told the cricket. "If you don't mind."
But before Reliable St. John could even clear his tiny throat, Bodacious Deepthink and her trolls roared around the last corner behind us.
"MY RHINOS?" Bo screeched.
We all crowded behind what was left of her rhinos, namely Duke. He, in turn, tried backing through us.
"WHERE ARE THEY?"
In the silence that followed, a single small voice answered.
Jewel box, jewel box
of the earth
Open up and send
us forth.
Reliable St. John was singing the rock wall open.
The cricket didn't have much of a singing voice, but apparently he didn't need one. The wall at our backs began to slide upward like a garage door.
"GET THAT CRICKET!" Bodacious Deepthink yelled.
But having had enough of smoke and peaches, not a single rock troll took so much as a baby step forward. Bo lifted a couple of nearby trolls up, hurling them at us, but as soon as they regained their feet, they scrambled for cover.
Outraged, Bodacious Deepthink took a deep breath and began singing. The nightingales had fled her voice, leaving something foul and creaky in their place.
Jewel box, jewel box
of the earth
Close your lid
or feel a curse.
The stone wall started soundlessly lowering.
Up and down the wall went, as first Reliable St. John, then Bodacious Deepthink, sang. At its highest point, the wall never raised more than a foot, which was hardly enough to crawl under, but was more than enough to tease us with whiffs of fresh air and glimpses of sunlight and snatches of birdsong.
Reliable St. John finally stopped singing long enough to call out, "I wouldn't plug her mouth."
"What wouldn't you plug it with?" Stump asked.
"A rock."
"I wouldn't either," Stump agreed, but at the same time he picked up a good-size rock, almost a boulder and, staggering forward, tossed it with all his might.
The rock hung in the air for nearly forever before landing in Bo's mouth just as she was cutting loose with "feel a curse." There it stayed, wedged tight, but although the rock put a stop to Bo's singing, it didn't keep her from grabbing. With one swipe of her hand, she had Stump by his ankle, holding him upside down as if looking for a saucepot to dunk him in.
"Do something," I cried to Duke.
What happened next was the second biggest surprise of my life. A glazed look overtook Duke's eyes, and then he actually did something, though first he had to grouse about it.
"Little fool," he muttered, though he seemed to talking to Stump, not me.
But then he sucked down a deep breath, lowered his head, and charged.
That was Duke, my cousin ... charging a rock troll.
Bodacious Deepthink knew just what to do. Turning surprisingly light-footed, she sidestepped Duke's charge, snatched up one of his hind legs with her free hand, and swept him into the air. So now Duke dangled from one of her hands, Stump from the other, and her mood was merry as could be. Puffing out her cheeks, she spit the small boulder out of her mouth and got ready to crow.
She wasn't quick enough.
Before she got out one peep there came a flash and a bang and as much smoke as one last rocket blasting off for Pluto would have made. No sweet smell of peaches and cream accompanied it, though. What rolled over us this time was a rotting smell of river muck and fish scales. When the smoke cleared, I found out why and nearly fainted. The biggest surprise of my life had arrived.
You see, Duke wasn't a rhino anymore.
He wasn't exactly my cousin, either.
His act of genuine kindness had turned him into a river troll.
Fifty-five
The Return of Duckwad Fishfly
"Duckwad?" Stump yelled, stunned.
"This is all your fault," complained the river troll hanging upside down in Bodacious Deepthink's other hand. One genuine act of kindness appeared to be Duke's limit, whether he was human or river troll.
"QUIET!" Bodacious Deepthink roared, shaking the two river trolls hard enough to cross their eyes. Holding the new river troll up to her snout, she demanded, "WHERE'D YOU COME FROM?"
"Over there?" Duke said, pointing a shaky claw toward us.
"I think maybe he's my brother," Stump meekly suggested.
Even with the two river trolls dangling upside down, you couldn't help but see a strong family resemblance around their knotty brows and foamy snouts.
"WHAT?"
"Your curse turned him human years ago," Stump said. "When he got his months mixed up. But now, having stood up to you, he's back."
"WE'LL SEE ABOUT THAT!" Bodacious Deepthink bellowed, and she started swinging Duckwad around and around, as if about to break him open against a wall.
Strangely enough, hearing all this filled me with such a surge of hope that I nearly burst. For one thing, it meant I could quit worrying about being Duckwad. Much as I'd come to like Stump, I didn't really want to be his brother. I was kind of used to being who I was, even if I was totally different from my sisters, even if turtles and toads and snakes were always looking me up. Finding out that Duke was Duckwad thrilled me so much that I did a foolish thing. I took a step forward and screamed at the top of my lungs, "Save them!"
"HUH?" Bodacious Deepthink said, looking up.
All the other kids stepped forward with me, shouting t
hings like:
"We will!"
"Let's show her!"
"Pudding, my foot!"
And while all that shouting was going on, Reliable St. John kept right on singing the rock wall up. Not a one of us turned and bolted for daylight, though we could have. High as the door had climbed, we wouldn't even have had to duck on the way out. Late-afternoon sunlight was streaming in from outside, making us feel as big as our shadows, which were like giants.
We started for Bodacious Deepthink as one, stepping slowly but gaining speed.
We stomped our feet.
We pounded our chests.
We howled like the wildest hyenas alive.
We sounded so awful that Bodacious Deepthink dropped Stump and Duckwad to cover her ears. The two river trolls rolled to safety, but we didn't. We stormed on toward danger, determined to teach Bodacious Deepthink, the Great Rock Troll, that she'd better think at least twice before trying to fatten up kids of any kind ever again.
I'll never be sure if it was us or the sun pouring over our shoulders that frightened Bodacious Deepthink so terribly. But the Great Rock Troll spun around with a yelp and stumbled away, climbing over the backs of other rock trolls to clatter off into the darkness. Her trolls followed but not before I grabbed up a small rock, whipped out my slingshot, and smashed their last lantern with one pure-luck shot.
Turning toward our lantern, I broke it open too.
The two shooting stars did several figure eights of joy before whizzing over our heads and out of the cave. We were watching them go when Reliable St. John called out, "I'm sure the door will stay open forever."
In one mad dash we raced out of the cave and into the great outdoors, which on that day seemed far greater and fresher and grander than ever before. While we'd been underground, the first green day of spring had sprung. Leaves had popped out everywhere. All around me stood kids in tattered, ripped clothes, who were laughing as if green were the funniest color in the world.
Way below us, at the bottom of the valley, the Mississippi flashed in the sunlight. From a distance, it looked blue, not brown, and pretty as a flower. We headed that way, calling hello to the birds and trees and anything else that cared to listen. We sniffed deep on every breeze that came our way. Everything we heard made us laugh. We headed down there arm in arm and wearing one grin that was twenty-nine people, two river trolls, and one cricket wide.
Fifty-six
One Hundred & Fifty-Five Years
Back at the highway the old lady and her brother were waiting in the van. The silver ring was back on her left hand, and her right hand wore a stone glove that held a rock feather. When I asked about the rock birds, she pointed at the ground and said, "Back where they belong."
The old man offered us all a ride home, and how we all fit in the back of that van, I can't say. The answer to that goes beyond geometry. There was even room for Stump to lie down on the floor so that he wouldn't scare people in passing cars. Duckwad could have joined him. There was room. But he said he'd had enough sunlight for that year and crossed the highway to wade into the river without even waving goodbye. The river took him back without a ripple of complaint, which goes to show just how big a river it is.
Two kids hopped off in Big Rock, and the rest of us hung on till Blue Wing, where the old man had to pull over every few blocks to drop someone off. Excited shouts of "I'm home!" filled the air behind us.
A handful of kids couldn't find their families. Too much time had gone by and their parents had moved away or passed on. We delivered them to Sheriff Tommy Pope, who told them not to worry. The sheriff's department kept a missing-person file on every one of them, and the files listed where their families had moved to or the location of their nearest living relative.
By the time we got to Duke's house, the whole town was abuzz. We trooped through the open back door, the old lady leading the way with the stone feather. She had Grandpa B back to breathing in a jiffy. Tipping his hat to us, he stretched and said he'd never felt more rested. Aunt Phyllis and Uncle Norm took the news about Duke way better than I'd expected. They didn't even mind that he couldn't be bothered to come say goodbye. Actually, they looked kind of relieved.
Jim Dandy claimed that he'd always known there was something familiar about Duke. All three crickets called out, "No, there wasn't!" Biz took off in a lather the instant he heard of Duckwad's return, crying out, "He's got a head start on finding our fathers." Stump and Jim Dandy streaked after him, though Stump did pause long enough at the back door to say, "Thanks."
Such thoughtfulness is rare, and I knew I was going to miss him.
The deputy and Dr. E. O. Moneybaker followed the trolls, in hot pursuit but losing sight of them before they'd even cleared the backyard fence. Men of science and the law just didn't have eyes for anything rivery. Whether women of science and the law had any sharper vision, I can't say. But I can testify that despite failing eyesight, Grandpa B saw Biz, Jim Dandy, and Stump's escape just fine, even cheered them on. Dr. Moneybaker stormed back to the house and phoned One-shot, ordering up a fresh batch of photographs. One-shot's answer made the doctor gripe, "I knew that!"
Old Duff couldn't stop wagging his tail, and the sparrow perched atop Uncle Norm's head lit out the back door as fast as wings could carry him. The old lady and her brother cleared out pretty quick too, claiming they were needed elsewhere, but before they drove off, the old lady placed her hands on my shoulders for one last peek into my eyes. When I checked out her eyes, all I saw was the river, peaceful and lovely as a daydream.
"Crickets?" I asked, wondering what she was seeing. A mysterious smile had curled the corners of her mouth.
"Among other things."
And, patting my cheek, she was gone before I could quiz her further.
Then Grandpa was pulling me home by the arm. When we got back to my house, Mom and Dad pretty near hugged us to pieces before grounding me forever. Even my sisters seemed glad to see me. Mom had been making them feed flies to Three, down in the basement. When I asked if they'd heard anything from Lottie, they rolled their eyes and reminded me that turtles couldn't talk.
Nobody knew what to make of Uncle Floyd. He kept gawking at everything, and bumping into what he wasn't gawking at, and with a goofy grin asking what year it was. According to Grandpa, Uncle Floyd had been gone one hundred and fifty-five years, though he barely looked a day beyond sixteen.
We dressed him up in some of Dad's clothes and set up a cot for him in the basement. When Grandpa lobbied for Uncle Floyd to bunk at his house, Mom exercised veto power, saying that if he was ever going to adjust, he needed to be around people his own age.
"He'd have to set up house in the cemetery for that," Grandpa said.
"You know what I mean," Mom firmly answered. "He looks the same age as Fran and Lillie."
"How you going to pass him off?" Grandpa asked, hanging tough.
"We'll say he's a cousin visiting from Kalamazoo," Mom said, chock-full of surprising answers.
So we had a new member of our family, one who kept us on our toes. He couldn't quit trying to talk to people on TV, or jumping up every time the phone rang, or leaning out a window whenever a jet rumbled by overhead. There were some pluses, though. For one thing, my sisters spent so much time being embarrassed about having a new man around the house that they couldn't be bothered with worrying about me and Three.
Fifty-seven
The Missing Fathers
All in all, I was pretty well satisfied with events. Maybe that explains what I did several nights later when I heard a scritch-scritch-scritch at my bedroom window. Checking, I found Stump clinging to the catalpa tree, looking terrified of heights. I laughed to see him, then sobered when I noticed Biz and Jim Dandy standing below. Duckwad was nowhere in sight.
"We've a favor to ask," Stump said, sheepish about it.
"How big?"
"Not so. We need you to look inside a cabin for us. Shouldn't be too dangerous."
"What's in the cabin?" I asked.
"Maybe our fathers."
"All of them?"
"Could be. You know what it's like trying to figure out what a cricket's saying."
"Not hard, not hard, not hard," sang the crickets on their shoulders.
I crawled out the window before our talking woke someone who might remind me that I was grounded forever. I didn't even ask why they couldn't look in the cabin themselves. That question got answered about two hours later, when we beached our dugout canoes on a sandbar far above Big Rock.
There was a cabin, but between it and us was a ripple in the river that the trolls didn't want any part of. I wasn't too thrilled with it myself. Midnight had come and gone by then, and a quarter-moon gave off enough light to make the ripple wink at us. It wasn't the kind of wink that left anyone feeling comfortable.
"What's that ripple?" I asked.
"It's nothing to worry about," Jim Dandy promised, silky as ever.
"The blue-wing's spell stops there," Stump whispered at my side. "We daren't go beyond it, but it shouldn't be any problem for you."
"Take this," Biz squeaked, holding out an old flashlight.
The flashlight was identical to the old man's flashlight, all the way down to the Day-Glo atomic sticker on its end, but I didn't ask where they'd gotten it. Turning on its beam, which was as bright as a car's headlights, I advanced along the shore with three trolls in tow.
Stopping short of the ripple, I could hear the river rushing over something, but when I shined my light on the water, all I saw was sandy bottom. The line made by the ripple stretched out of sight across the river. At my feet, where the line met the shore, it turned into a mound of sand about the size of what a mole might push up. It cut straight across the island, headed toward the bluffs.
Fifty yards beyond the ripple sagged a tumbledown log cabin that looked as though it'd seen a hundred floods come and go.
"Why would your fathers go there?" I asked.
The three river trolls shook their heads in total bewilderment.
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