Danger! Tiger Crossing

by Lin Oliver

  GROSSET & DUNLAP

  Penguin Young Readers Group

  An Imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

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  Text copyright © 2016 by Lin Oliver. Illustrations copyright © 2016 by Samantha Kallis. All rights reserved.

  Published by Grosset & Dunlap, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC,

  345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014. GROSSET & DUNLAP is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

  ISBN 978-0-399-54285-5

  Version_1

  Contents

  Dedication

  Copyright

  Title Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  About the Painting

  About the Author and Illustrator

  Chapter 1

  “I saw a giant orange pig on our swing set this morning,” said my little sister, Maggie. “He was wearing a fancy black hat.”

  We were eating tuna melts at the kitchen table in our new house.

  “Of course he was,” I said. “And I bet he was playing ‘Jingle Bells’ on the tuba.”

  “Everyone knows pigs don’t play the tuba,” Maggie snapped, sticking her tongue out at me.

  I decided not to continue this conversation. Four-year-olds say weird things, and there’s no point trying to talk sense into them. The other day, it took me an hour to convince Maggie that bananas don’t dance. But our mom, being our mom, felt the little bubble brain deserved a serious answer.

  “It would be very unusual to see an orange pig on our swing set, honey,” my mom said, wiping a long string of gooey cheese off Maggie’s chin.

  “At least one with a fancy hat,” my dad added.

  Maggie slammed her sandwich down on her plate. She can have a bad temper when she wants to.

  “I saw him.” She pouted. “He also had on a white shirt buttoned all the way up his blobby pig neck and a red bow tie with polka dots.”

  “This is ridiculous,” I told her. “There’s no way a pig could tie a tie. I don’t even know how to do it, and I’m a ten-year-old human. You’re just making up this whole story to get attention.”

  “Tiger Brooks!” My mom frowned at me. “Don’t be so harsh with your sister, young man. She just has a very active imagination. Now clear the table, please.”

  Wait a minute! Maggie talks like a crazy person and I get in trouble?

  Who made that rule?

  At least clearing the table got me out of doing the Saturday deliveries with my mom. She had twenty cakes to deliver that afternoon. Her business is called Cakes by Cookie, which sounds stupid until you realize that her name is Cookie. She bakes fancy cakes, mostly for little kids’ birthday parties. She’s been doing really well, which is how our family got the extra money to move into a bigger place from our small apartment in our old neighborhood. I had no interest in spending my first Saturday in our new house dropping off Elmo cakes.

  Lucky for me, Maggie wanted to go with Mom. Dad announced that he was going to take a nap, so I did the dishes and cleaned up. Afterward, I checked my new Batman watch, the one my uncle Cole gave me when I told him I couldn’t tell time the old-fashioned way. It took me a while to learn, but now I could read the hands. It was only three o’clock. That left me the rest of the afternoon to set up my lab, with no four-year-olds telling me their imaginary pig stories.

  My lab is what other people would call my bedroom. I like to call it a lab because it’s where science takes place. Science Tiger Brooks–style, that is. I take things apart to see how they work: clocks, radios, old tricycles, robots, windup dinosaurs—whatever I can find. Then I try to put them back together. Sometimes I do it right. But mostly, I make weird things like a toaster with wheels, or a dinosaur that ticks, or a kitchen chair that roars.

  I had a lot of unpacking to do. The first box, which was labeled “HANDS OFF AND THAT MEANS YOU, MAGGIE” was filled with nuts, bolts, cogs, gears, and screws. The next carton had about a million remote controls I had collected that had gotten separated from their machines.

  As I picked up that box, one of the remotes fell out and got jammed between my bed and the wall. Suddenly, I heard a whirring sound. Looking around, I saw that my radio-controlled helicopter had taken off. It circled my room and sailed out the window into the backyard.

  I grabbed the remote and ran into the living room. My dad was on the couch, snoring like a grizzly bear. I dashed past him into the backyard, just in time to see my helicopter cruise by the swing set and disappear over the neighbor’s fence.

  “Hey, get back here!” I called out. I tried using the controller, but the helicopter was out of range.

  As I ran toward the fence, I noticed a weird pattern in the grass under the swing set. It looked like footprints, except they weren’t human footprints. Each print was divided into two sections and was pointed at the top. Could they be hoofprints? They didn’t look like horse hoofprints.

  Wait a minute! Pigs have hooves.

  Stop it, Tiger, I said to myself. You are not four years old. You do not see imaginary pigs. Just find your helicopter and go back into the lab.

  I dragged one of the lawn chairs over to the fence. I hopped up and looked into the neighbor’s yard.

  The grass in the yard was as tall as Maggie. No one had mowed it in years. There was a barbecue covered with rust and spiderwebs. A long clothesline with sheets hanging on it stretched across the whole yard. The sheets were splattered with paint—big splotches of red and purple and yellow and orange. Behind one of those sheets, I could just make out—no, even I didn’t believe it!

  I stared hard and long. Then I had to believe it. My eyes don’t lie. It was a black top hat poking out from behind the sheets.

  “I see you,” I said to the hat.

  There was no answer.

  “Whoever you are, if you have my helicopter, give it back.”

  Something moved behind the sheets. I looked down and saw hooves attached to what looked like puffy orange legs!

  Suddenly, a strong breeze came up and blew the sheet off the line. Standing in front of me was a large orange pig wearing a black top hat, a white shirt, and a red polka-dot bow tie. He was holding my helicopter.

  “It’s you,” I whispered. “The one Maggie saw.”

  A woman’s voice, old and shrill, came from inside the house.

  “Chives,” the voice called. “Come in here right now. I need more blue!”

  The pig gave me what I think was a smile and tipped his top hat.

  “I’m very pleased to meet you, good sir,” he said.

  I was so shocked, I couldn’t move. I just stared at him with my mouth hanging open.

  “Chives!” the woman called again. “Right now!”

  “If you’ll excuse me, Madame is ca
lling,” he said.

  Clutching my helicopter, the pig hurried through the back door of the house. I stood there, still as a statue.

  Then I felt a cold, sticky hand on my shoulder. I spun around so fast, I fell off the lawn chair and landed facedown on the grass. I was afraid to look up, afraid of what I might see. The ice-cold hand of a ghost? A zombie with no face? If a talking orange pig lived next door, maybe something even weirder was lurking in my own backyard.

  Chapter 2

  I stayed perfectly still with my face planted in the grass. I hoped that whatever it was would just go away. But it didn’t.

  “You can look up now,” a voice said. “I’m not that scary.” I uncovered my eyes and saw a girl about my own age. That was a relief! She had long black hair and was wearing a crazy-looking hat made out of bird feathers.

  “I’m Luna,” she said. “That means moon in Spanish.”

  “I’m Tiger,” I answered. “That means tiger in English.”

  “You’re funny,” she said with a laugh. “Do you like my hat? I made it myself.”

  “It’s very . . . um . . . feathery,” I said, pulling myself to my feet. “After you finished it, there must have been a lot of bald birds around here.”

  She laughed again.

  “I collect feathers and lots of other things, too. Buttons and seashells and shiny pennies. I keep all my stuff in my magic cave. You can come see it, if you want.”

  “You have your own cave?”

  “Sort of,” Luna said. “It’s really my bedroom. We live upstairs from you. That’s my window, the one with the purple curtains. I think purple is the coolest color, don’t you?”

  My mom had mentioned that a family named Lopez lived in the apartment upstairs. But she’d never said anything about a Bird Girl. A Bird Girl who was also a major blabberhead.

  “I can tell you all about our street,” Luna was saying. “Like, the ice-cream truck comes Saturdays at two o’clock. You just missed it. I like lime Popsicles best. I just had one, but it melted in my hand before I could finish it.”

  That explained the cold, sticky hand. But it didn’t explain the talking orange pig. I had to know more.

  “Luna,” I began very carefully. “Do you ever see any strange creatures around here?”

  “Sure. The other day I found a really hairy caterpillar eating an avocado that fell off the tree. It’s pretty strange that caterpillars like guacamole, don’t you think? And Mrs. Hoskins across the street has a parrot named Smarty Pants who can say the alphabet all the way up to Q.”

  “Anything even weirder than that?” I asked. “Anything . . . like . . . let’s say . . . in the pig family?”

  Luna looked very surprised. She got close to me, so close that some of her feathers brushed my face.

  “You mean you saw it?” she whispered. “The talking orange pig?”

  I nodded. “His name is Chives.”

  “He’s never told me his name,” she said. “I’ve only seen him a few times. When he sees me, he runs back into the house.”

  “He lives there? Next door to us?”

  “Yes, with Viola Dots. She’s really old and has lived in that house for, like, fifty years. Nobody on the street has ever seen her. She never comes outside.”

  “Not ever?”

  Luna shook her head. “Once a week, someone from the store comes to deliver groceries. They ring the doorbell and leave them on the front porch. My mom says I have to stay away from there.”

  “Did you tell your mom about the orange pig?” I asked her.

  “I told my grandma. She watches me during the day when my mom is at school.”

  “And did your grandma call the police? Or the zoo? Or the Weird Animal Patrol?”

  “No. She’s from Mexico, and her English isn’t very good.”

  “But somebody has to report this,” I said. “We can’t just let talking pigs run loose in the neighborhood.”

  “He doesn’t run loose,” Luna said. “He stays inside. My grandmother says that you shouldn’t bother things that don’t bother you. So I’ve never told anyone else.”

  I started to pace back and forth on the grass. My head was spinning with everything I had seen and heard. Part of me felt scared. It’s creepy to move into a house next to a talking pig and a crazy old lady who no one has seen in fifty years. But part of me also felt curious. The same kind of curious I get when I take something apart to see how it works. I just have to know the answer.

  “Luna,” I said. “Do you think we could get a look inside the house?”

  “I’ve tried,” she said. “All the windows are covered with thick curtains. You can’t see a thing.”

  “What about the front door?” I asked.

  “I told you. They don’t answer the doorbell.”

  “Have you ever tried?”

  “No.”

  “Well, I’m going to,” I said.

  “Tiger, they won’t open the door. And even if they do, you have no idea what you’ll find inside there. People say Viola Dots is mean and crazy.”

  “Thanks for the warning, Luna. I’ll let you know what I find.”

  I ran along the side of the house until I came to the sidewalk. I hid behind some bushes and studied Viola Dots’s house. It must have been blue at one time, but most of the paint had chipped off. The front door was covered with spiderwebs. At the top of the house was a round tower with a little window. I stared up at it. Was that an eye I saw looking back at me?

  My heart beat a little faster. The eye disappeared.

  And then I felt it again, a cold hand on my shoulder. This time, I knew who it was. It smelled like limes.

  “I’m coming with you,” Luna whispered in my ear.

  Together we crouched down low and crept to the front of the house. Slowly, I pushed open the creaky gate. Then we headed up the path that was overgrown with weeds.

  When we reached the front door, I turned to Luna.

  “This is your last chance to leave,” I warned her.

  “I’m in if you’re in,” she answered.

  With a shaky hand, I reached up and rang the doorbell.

  Chapter 3

  No one answered. So I rang the bell again. Still nothing.

  “I told you, no one comes to the door,” Luna said. “Let’s just go.”

  “Wait. I’m going to try one more thing.”

  Lifting up the rusty old door knocker that was shaped like a paintbrush, I pounded on the door five or six times.

  “Hello in there!” I called out. “I’ve come for my helicopter.”

  I thought I heard something moving inside, footsteps scurrying around. I guess I should say hoofsteps, because I had a feeling that’s what they were. The door opened just a crack, enough for me to see an orange pig snout sticking out.

  “Apologies,” Chives said. “I didn’t mean to run off with your toy, but the mistress can be an impatient woman.”

  “You mean Viola Dots?” Luna said. “We’d love to meet her.”

  “I’m afraid that will be impossible,” he answered. “Mrs. Dots does not receive visitors. However, if you wait here, I will get your helicopter, which I have placed upstairs for safekeeping.”

  The snout disappeared, leaving the door slightly open.

  “Are you thinking what I think you’re thinking?” Luna asked. “Because if you are, I wouldn’t do it.”

  “That’s the difference between you and me,” I answered.

  I pushed on the door and it swung open.

  “Come on,” I said. “Let’s just take a quick look around. We’ll be back on the porch by the time Chives comes back downstairs.”

  I had assumed that the living room would be dark and dusty, full of creepy old furniture. But it was just the opposite. The inside was one huge room. There was no furniture at all. Lots of d
angling crystal lights hung down from the ceiling.

  “Wow,” Luna whispered. “It’s all twinkly in here, like a fairy-tale castle.”

  Big paintings of every kind leaned against the walls. One showed tall stacks of golden hay. Another was of a wild-looking starry night, with crazy splotches of blue and yellow. There was even one of a naked lady standing in what looked like a giant clamshell.

  On the biggest wall hung a huge golden frame. It was old and dusty, carved with rabbits and owls and pigs and angels. All the creatures were connected by leafy trees and bunches of grapes. On the bottom of the frame, there was the fanciest clock I’d ever seen. It was made of gold, just like the two birds that were surrounding it. The clock didn’t seem to work, though. The hands said five o’clock. I checked my watch. It was ten to four. Batman is never wrong.

  Inside the golden frame was a painting that sent a shiver down my spine. There was something about it that seemed so frightening, like being in the middle of a bad dream. It was a picture of a tiger crouched in a thick green jungle. His yellow eyes were wide and glowing. His sharp teeth looked like they were dying for something to bite. It felt like that tiger was going to jump out of the frame and pounce on me at any second.

  “What exactly is the meaning of this?”

  I knew that voice, old and shrill, could only belong to Viola Dots.

  She burst into the room and marched up to us, her face set in a deep frown. She was wearing a beaded headband, a peace symbol necklace, and a large, paint-splattered shirt. When she pointed at me, I noticed her wrinkled hands were covered in paint, too.

  “I don’t believe you were invited in,” she said.

  “I just came to get my helicopter,” I tried to explain.

  “Chives!” she hollered. “Bring the child his toy.”

  Chives came clopping down the wooden stairs and handed me my helicopter. He had put it on a silver tray.

  “There,” Viola Dots said. “You have it. Now leave.”