Always Dance with a Hairy Buffalo

by Lin Oliver

  “Wait,” Billy said, standing up suddenly. “I’m okay, Hoove. Really I am.” He couldn’t believe that the Hoove was willing to give up his time with Anacapa to be with him.

  “You should go with Anacapa,” he added.

  “Who’s Anacapa?” Breeze asked. She had just come out of the museum with Billy’s mom and Bennett and Dr. Marion Russo, the director of the museum.

  “Uh … Anacapa?” Billy stammered. “Did I say Anacapa?” Once again, he was at a loss for an explanation.

  “Anacapa,” said Dr. Russo, “is one of the Channel Islands off the coast of Southern California. “The word comes from the Chumash language, meaning ‘Mirage Island.’”

  “That’s how I got my name,” Anacapa said to the Hoove. “I appear and disappear, like a mirage.”

  “You have obviously studied well for this night, Billy,” Dr. Russo continued. “I hope you found your experience worthwhile.”

  “Well, it’s certainly had its ups and downs,” Billy said, pleased that he could offer a little joke at his own expense.

  “I think Bill handled himself quite well under the circumstances,” Bennett agreed. “Always remember, Bill. It’s not how many times you fall down that counts. It’s how many times you get up.”

  “Now that,” said the Hoove, turning to Anacapa, “is the first thing this guy has ever said that makes sense.”

  “I think our family should go out for pizza to celebrate Billy’s falling down and getting up,” Billy’s mom said, putting her arm around Billy. “You’ve been grounded long enough. Would you like that, honey?”

  Billy looked over at the Hoove, as if to ask his permission to go.

  “Hey,” the Hoove said. “Hoove’s Rule Number Three. Never say no to pizza.”

  Billy flashed him a little thumbs-up, then headed down the steps with his family.

  The Hoove turned to Anacapa.

  “So, it looks like you’re stuck with me,” he said. “If you still want to hang out.”

  “Let’s fly,” Anacapa said. “I’ll show you my California.”

  She took off into the air and the Hoove followed close behind. It was the first time in ninety-nine years that he was able to go wherever he wanted without restriction. The feeling of freedom was so thrilling that he whooped and hollered like a kid on a roller coaster.

  They flew over mountain passes dotted with clusters of glowing homes that looked out on the valleys below. They soared over the observatory with its giant telescope that looked out into the heavens. They swooped down into the zoo in Griffith Park to visit some of Anacapa’s nocturnal animal friends, stopping first to pick eucalyptus leaves and bark to bring to the koalas. They crossed downtown, zigging and zagging among the now dark skyscrapers. They followed broad avenues lined with graceful palm trees. They passed neighborhoods filled with schools and parks where the Hoove stopped to circle the bases in many of the local baseball diamonds. Finally, they arrived at the coast, circling the marina where sailboats bobbed in the harbor.

  “This is quite a place,” the Hoove said. “I can’t believe what I’ve been missing all these years.”

  “And you haven’t even seen the best part yet,” Anacapa said. “Follow me.”

  She headed north from the marina, flying low above the Santa Monica beaches. The Hoove looked out on the wide expanses of sand beneath him, and the ocean as it lapped up to the shore. He had never seen the ocean before, only read about it. It was more magnificent than he ever could have dreamed.

  Before long, the navy-blue night began to fade into the gray of early morning.

  “I have an idea,” the Hoove called out, flying up beside Anacapa. “Let’s come in for a landing and watch the sun rise over the ocean.”

  Anacapa laughed.

  “You have a lot to learn about nature,” she said.

  “What’d I say? The sun rises in the morning, right? How hard is that?”

  “The sun rises in the east and sets in the west,” she said. “This ocean is west. At the end of the day, you can come here to see the sunset, but if you want to see the sun rise, you have to look east.”

  “Okay, you got me on a technicality,” the Hoove protested. “What I meant was that we should take a breather on the sand and watch the daybreak.”

  “I know just the spot,” Anacapa said.

  She swooped down from the sky and flew along the beach until she came to a long strand of rocks a safe distance away from where the waves were crashing.

  “Let’s sit on those rocks,” she said. “It’s my favorite place on this whole beach.”

  The Hoove followed her as she dove close to the waves and set herself down on the craggy rocks that looked out on the ocean. When he looked around, he realized that they were surrounded on three sides by the Pacific Ocean. In the distance, he could just see the outline of the Channel Islands. He sat there, listening to the waves lap onto the shore and taking it all in. Anacapa looked out at the Pacific, spread her arms wide, and said something in a language he didn’t understand.

  “Don’t tell me,” he said. “You’re saying that you’re so glad to be here with your new best friend, Hoover Porterhouse the Third, pilot of the night skies and expert watcher of daybreak.”

  “This may be hard for you to understand,” Anacapa answered, “but I actually was not talking about you.”

  “That’s your first mistake.”

  Anacapa laughed. She was starting to understand the Hoove’s sense of humor.

  “Actually, I said the same thing I say every time I am here,” she explained. “I asked the spirits of my ancestors to protect this beautiful sky and sea.”

  “You’re pretty serious about this protection thing, aren’t you?”

  “Look around you, Hoover. Be silent. Appreciate where you are. And you will see why.”

  The Hoove sat there quietly next to Anacapa and watched the day emerge. At first, he was uncomfortable with the silence. He was used to filling the air with his words, with wisecracks, with swagger. But as the minutes ticked by, he became absorbed in what he was seeing and lost all need to talk.

  He watched as the dark water turned blue in the morning sun. He saw the whitecaps appear and disappear with each wave. He heard the call of the seagulls as they circled above him. He examined the rock he was sitting on, and to his amazement, discovered a whole colony of living things in its tide pools. A sea urchin with spiny dark needles. A starfish missing a leg. A group of barnacles clinging to the rock and each other. A tiny hermit crab crawling onto a piece of kelp. Looking out to sea, he saw a pod of dolphins swim by, poking their gray heads in and out of the water playfully, squeaking in almost-human voices.

  “Those guys aren’t in danger, too, are they?” he asked Anacapa.

  “All marine life is in danger,” she replied. “Our oceans have become a dumping ground for chemicals and plastic and other pollutants. Unless we work to change that, everyone will be affected … even those innocent dolphins out there.”

  The Hoove left her side and floated along the beach. In the light of day, he could see everything that was strewn about and left behind — water bottles, cigarette butts, pieces of fishing line, six-pack rings, even a child’s broken orange plastic sand shovel. Without thinking about it, he set to work, gliding up and down the beach, picking up every piece of trash or plastic he could find. Within an hour, he had filled three trash cans with waste that he had collected.

  Anacapa just watched him as he surveyed the beach, looking for every piece of litter or trash he could find. She knew what he was feeling — that when you care about something so much, protecting it doesn’t seem like work. She floated over to him as he took a break and looked around.

  “I didn’t get all of it,” he said, “but I made a dent. There’s so much work to be done.”

  “Perhaps you can come back another day, Hoover.”

  “I wish,” the Hoove said with genuine sadness. “But remember me, the idiot on a twenty-four-hour pass. I’d give anything to be able
to help you with your mission. I love it here, and I never want to see it go away.”

  Suddenly, a huge gray-and-white seagull swooped down from the sky and landed on the trash can right next to them. The bird cocked its head and stared at the Hoove, its beady eyes looking him up and down.

  “What’s with you?” the Hoove said to the bird. “Haven’t you ever seen a ghost before?”

  With a loud screech, the seagull let out a caw that could be heard up and down the beach. Then there was a flapping of wings, and within seconds, the bird was surrounded by a huge flock of gulls, hundreds of them beating the air with their wings and making a tremendous racket. In a mighty gust, they all flew up to the sky and into a formation.

  “What’s going on?” the Hoove said, covering his head.

  “Look up!” Anacapa told him.

  “Are you kidding? With all those birds overhead? No, thank you. I’m not in the mood to get pooped on.”

  “Just look, Hoover. Please.”

  The Hoove looked up in the sky, still shielding one eye with his hand. The birds had formed letters over the ocean, letters that covered the whole sky from one jetty to the next.

  They spelled out “F-R-E-E-D-O-M.”

  “Are you for real?” he called to the birds. “Did the Higher-Ups send you?”

  The birds dispersed and with a thunderous fluttering of a million feathers, flew away. But before they disappeared completely, there was the sound of barking coming from the nearby jetty. The Hoove and Anacapa followed the sound and found a sea lion huddled under the rocks, barking. When it saw the Hoove, it spoke in a voice that was neither human nor sea lion.

  “You have proven yourself,” the sea lion croaked. “Now you are free. Do good work and be responsible forevermore.”

  That said, the sea lion dove into the ocean and swam away. It was the last Hoover Porterhouse ever saw of the Higher-Ups.

  “A sea lion?” Billy was saying, hopping up on his bed and bouncing up and down with excitement. “I don’t believe it. You’re kidding me, right?”

  “I ask you, could I make up a story like that?” the Hoove answered, bouncing up and down along with Billy. “Before yesterday, I didn’t even know what a sea lion was. I thought all lions lived in the jungle.”

  Billy and the Hoove were holed up in Billy’s room, going over the events of the day. After getting his release from the Higher-Ups, the Hoove celebrated by taking Anacapa directly to Dodger Stadium.

  “I wanted you to go with us,” he told Billy, “but I knew I couldn’t spring you from baseball practice, and after waiting for ninety-nine years, I just couldn’t wait another minute. But I brought you something.”

  He flew to his closet and rummaged around, eventually emerging with half of a broken wooden baseball bat. He handed it to Billy.

  “I found it behind the backstop,” he said. “It’s got to be game used. Tomorrow, I’ll go back and look for the other half. When I find it, it’s yours.”

  “Thanks, Hoove,” Billy said, climbing down from the bed to inspect his new treasure. “I’ll get my glue gun ready.”

  There was a knock on the door.

  “Hey, Billy,” Breeze yelled. “Ruby Baker’s on the phone. She wants to know if you have her trophy.”

  “Tell her my mom brought it home and I’ll bring it to her house later,” Billy hollered back.

  “I wish you could tell her yourself,” Breeze shouted. “When are you going to learn to talk to girls?”

  “Check back when I’m fourteen,” Billy yelled.

  When he heard Breeze’s footsteps patter back down to her room, Billy knew it was safe to talk again.

  “Turns out they gave trophies for last night’s performances,” he explained to the Hoove. “Ruby and I won for Most Unusual Performance in a Musical Number.”

  “Wait until I tell Anacapa,” the Hoove said. “She’ll be really proud of you.”

  They both laughed, and then fell silent as the reality of their new lives began to dawn on them.

  “So I guess you’ll be seeing Anacapa a lot now that you’re free,” Billy said at last.

  “I promised I’d work on the beach cleanup with her. And we’re going out to the Channel Islands to check on the brown pelican nesting sites. They’re endangered, you know, so we have to protect their breeding area.”

  Billy nodded.

  “You’re going to be a busy guy,” he said with more than a hint of sadness in his voice.

  “Turns out being responsible is kind of a full-time job,” the Hoove said. “Who knew?”

  “Well, I’m glad that you and Anacapa are going to be such great friends,” Billy said.

  “Yeah. She’s cool. But the one thing about her is that she doesn’t get baseball. Not like you.”

  Billy nodded, and again, the two boys were silent.

  “So I guess now that you have your freedom, you don’t really need to live here anymore … in my room, that is,” Billy said at last.

  Funny, he had been waiting for months for the day when he could have his room to himself, free from the Hoove’s constant talking and interruptions and ghostly hubbub. Now that the day was here, though, he was feeling an unexpected lump in his throat.

  “According to one very croaky sea lion, I’m free to live anywhere I want,” the Hoove said, a little lump rising in his own throat.

  “Oh,” Billy said.

  “Yeah,” the Hoove nodded.

  After another long silence, Billy finally got up the courage to ask.

  “So what are you thinking, Hoove, now that you can pick anywhere to live? The locker room in Dodger Stadium? A fancy hotel overlooking the beach in Malibu? An orange grove in Riverside? Inside Space Mountain at Disneyland?”

  “Those all sound pretty cool,” the Hoove said. “But there’s one thing they’re all missing.”

  “Air-conditioning?”

  “No — you.”

  Billy looked up, surprised at the cracking sound in the Hoove’s voice.

  “So the thing is,” the Hoove went on, swallowing the lump in his throat. “I’ve grown to like it here. You’re the best friend a guy could have, for a human, that is. Your sassy sister is going to take some work, but your mom is the sweetest. And I’ve even developed a weird affection for Dr. Dental Floss. The guy’s got teeth filled with silver, but a heart of gold.”

  “So what are you saying, Hoove?” Billy asked, his heart beating a little faster than it had before. “That you want to continue living here? With me? In my room?”

  “In my room,” corrected the Hoove. “As long as you’ll have me.”

  Billy literally jumped for joy and vaulted onto his bed. He started dancing around and around in a circle and making whooping noises. If only he could have danced that well at the Chumash night.

  “This is so cool,” he shouted. “The best of the best!”

  The Hoove grabbed the broken Dodger bat and started beating out a rhythm on the wastebasket, chanting, “Billy! Billy! Billy!” Before long, Billy joined in, chanting “Hoove! Hoove! Hoove!”

  The noise from Billy’s room attracted a spectator. A boy in a one-horned buffalo mask tiptoed out of his house, crept up to Billy’s window, and pressed his face against the glass. Inside, he saw a broken bat dancing wildly in the air.

  To him, it looked like weirdness was going on inside, but to Billy Broccoli and Hoover Porterhouse III, it was just another happy day at home.

  The Hoove is the ghost with

  the most! But being haunted

  by him is the least of Billy

  Broccoli’s problems….

  DON’T MISS ANY OF THEIR

  CRAZY ADVENTURES!

  Billy Broccoli wants a lot of things — to be accepted in his new school, to be cool, to have his stepfather stop talking about dental floss. But the one thing he never wanted was his own personal ghost. So imagine his surprise when he ends up sharing a room with Hoover Porterhouse, a funny teenage ghost with a major attitude.

  When an obnoxious s
chool bully sets out to demolish Billy, the Hoove comes up with a plan for revenge. It’s all in the Hoove’s Rule Number Forty-Two: No matter what, stay cool. Like it or not, Billy and the Hoove have to stick together if Billy ever wants to get in style, get even, and conquer the school.

  When Billy Broccoli finds out he’s got to demonstrate a special skill for a class contest, he thinks he’s got it made. With his best friend, Hoover Porterhouse (the ghost with the most), by his side, Billy’s got the competition in the bag. Who wouldn’t vote for a demonstration on mind reading?

  But when Billy lands a spot on the sixth-grade team, he starts spending more time with his new teammates than he does with Hoover. And the Hoove plays second fiddle to no one! If Billy’s not careful, his secret weapon might just vanish into thin air, leaving Billy to pick up the pieces of a demonstration-day disaster!

  When Billy Broccoli finds out his personal ghost, Hoover Porterhouse, is failing Responsibility, Billy decides it’s his mission to help Hoover turn his grade around. But how?

  Then inspiration hits. Billy is going to get Hoover a pet. There’s only one catch — the Hoove scares dogs out of their fur, birds out of their feathers, and fish out of their gills. If Billy can’t find the perfect pet, how will Hoover ever make the grade?

  HENRY WINKLER is admired by audiences of all ages for his roles as the Fonz on the long-running series Happy Days and in such films as Holes and The Waterboy. He is also an award-winning producer and director of family and children’s programming, and the author (with Lin Oliver) of the critically acclaimed Hank Zipzer series. He lives in Los Angeles, California.

  LIN OLIVER is a television producer and writer, who co-authored (with Henry Winkler) the New York Times bestselling series, Hank Zipzer: The World’s Greatest Underachiever, and Who Shrunk Daniel Funk? Lin resides in Los Angeles, California.

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