Lost in Bermooda

by Mike Litwin

  “Isn’t that the same laughing monkey who lives at your house?” Dakota asked.

  “Yup. That’s Lenny. Lo’hai, Lenny!” Chuck said, waving. “What are you doing up there?”

  “Just fixing the tower!” the orange monkey screeched. Lenny was strangely big for a monkey. He was taller than Dakota, with long arms and legs that he used to swing around as he giggled and gleefully banged at the tower with a hammer. “You cows sure can’t climb up here with those hooves! You’re all… in-COW-potant! Hahahahaha!” He laughed hysterically at his own joke as Chuck and Dakota went inside to talk with Angus.

  Angus Atkins was a short, plump, gray cow with a scraggly beard on his chin. His yellow shirt was just as bright as his personality, and he always wore sunglasses—even when he was indoors. He looked pretty much exactly like Dakota had pictured. He seemed to be arguing with a big angry cow who huffed and puffed in frustration.

  “Who’s that?” Dakota asked.

  “That’s Wilhelm Wellington,” Chuck said. “The one Uncle Bo was talking about.”

  “He looks important,” Dakota noted.

  “He is important,” Chuck agreed. “He’s part of the herd. But I think he’d rather be king of Bermooda if they’d let him.”

  Wilhelm was awfully wide, and very well-dressed for a cow. He wore a puffy scarf tucked into a purple vest, underneath a dark red coat with a gold letter W on it. He glared his yellow eyes as Angus spoke.

  “Sorry, Wellington,” Angus said, “threaten me if you want, but it’s my station. I can’t just go on chatterboxes and tell the whole island to watch out for hu’mans! Hu’mans don’t exist! Not unless you have some real proof.”

  Wilhelm spun on his hoof, clutched his cane and marched to the door, nearly trampling Chuck and Dakota as he stomped out in a huff.

  “Hey, little calves!” Angus said, noticing Chuck and Dakota. “What’s happening?”

  “Lo’hai, Angus!” Chuck said. “We’re doing a report for school, and we’re writing about…umm…the different types of boats around Bermooda,” he lied. “You see pretty much everything on the island. Have you seen any new kinds of boats lately?”

  “New kinds of boats?” Angus laughed. “Where would they come from?”

  “Maybe something that looked like it could have been…human?” Dakota asked, as Chuck inhaled sharply.

  Angus rolled his eyes and laughed again. “Man, you almost sound like that Wellington! He’s been talking about hu’man stuff too. He keeps saying there could be a hu’man out there, running around the island!”

  Dakota began to sweat under his cowmaflauge again. He’d only been in Bermooda for one day. How could anyone possibly know he was here?

  “But you know how it is, little dudes,” Angus continued. “Nothing ever changes around here. I haven’t seen anything different at all. Except for my stuff that keeps disappearing.”

  Chuck’s ears perked up. Disappearing stuff ? Was this another mystery?

  “I had a recorder,” Angus went on. “It’s a wooden box with metal discs and a big horn on top. It disappeared about the same time as that big ape started working on the tower. Say, you haven’t seen it have you?”

  Chuck and Dakota shook their heads. “We should head home,” Chuck said, turning to Dakota. It had been a long day. “We don’t want to be late for dinner again. Bye, Angus. Moohalo!”

  They stepped out of the radio station to a breathtaking view. The sun was getting low in the sky, casting long shadows on everything.

  From their spot in front of the radio station, they could see almost the entire southern half of the island. Thick green jungles, long sandy beaches, and quaint little shacks, all surrounded by a deep turquoise sea.

  This was Bermooda in all its glory. It was all very beautiful, but seeing it from so high up made Dakota’s head feel dizzy and his legs go wobbly. He wavered back and forth while his face turned slightly green.

  “Well, looks like this was another dead end,” Chuck said. “But don’t worry. Just because Angus hasn’t seen your family’s boat doesn’t mean it’s not out there somewhere.”

  “It’s not that,” Dakota moaned. “I don’t like heights.”

  “Oh. Well, I think you might be here for a while,” Chuck said. “If we’re going to keep anyone from figuring out what you really are, you need to stop making such a kau’pai of yourself every time you open your mouth.”

  Dakota had no idea what a “kau’pai” was, but it didn’t sound very good.

  “If you’re going to stick around, you need to learn more about Bermooda so you sound like you belong,” Chuck said. “Tomorrow we’re going for a ride in the Hawk.”

  School was out the next day, so Chuck and Dakota got an early start on their trip to the Hawk. Chuck insisted they each bring at least three pineapples with them. Dakota didn’t see how he could get that hungry, but he did as Chuck said. They hiked uphill through the island jungle, fumbling along with their arms full of pineapples, whose spikes kept poking Dakota in a most uncomfortable way. “Ouch!” Dakota complained. “Tell me again why we—ouch!—need these things?”

  “If we want to get in the Hawk, this stuff is the price of admission,” Chuck said. Dakota was still not sure what the Hawk was, but Chuck assured him that it would give him a much bigger picture of the island. He needed that if he was going to try and fit in.

  They hoofed along until the trees cleared, opening up to a big grassy cliff. There sat a small, dumpy shack with palmetto leaves over the windows and a long, tunnel-shaped tent attached to the back. Chuck knocked on the rickety front door, which had the name Capt. Soward “Hawkeye” Seawell scrawled above it. No one answered, but they heard a sound echo in reply: Bang, bang, bang!

  “Soward?” Chuck called out. “Hoo-ey, Soward!”

  “Hey-yo!” A big voice shouted. “I’m in the hanger!” Chuck and Dakota followed the voice to the opening of the tunnel behind the shack, where Dakota saw something else that he recognized.

  It had a clunky wooden frame made of barrels and boards. It had long wings, covered with stretched canvas and rigged together with vines and bamboo poles. It had a propeller in the front and a tail in the back. In the middle sat what seemed to be a small engine. It looked like…an airplane! Dakota’s stomach flip-flopped at the thought of flying high above the island.

  Crouched atop the airplane was a stout, plump pig wearing goggles and a red flowered shirt. He was banging a wooden stave into the frame, which had a pig’s face with bird wings painted on the side, followed by The Hawk.

  “Lo’hai, Soward!” Chuck said.

  “Heeeey, young mister Porter!” Soward bellowed in a jolly voice. “And…a…strange little calf I’ve never seen before.”

  A flying pig? Dakota marveled to himself. Now I’ve seen just about everything!

  “This is Dakota,” Chuck said. “His family lives on a boat out at sea.”

  “Sea cows, eh?” Soward said, raising his goggles. “Well, now I’ve seen just about everything!” He clumsily slid off the Hawk, landing hard on his rear and dropping his hammer. With a grunt, he picked himself up and waddled out of the hanger tunnel, stopping to examine a wooden compass on the ground with a floating red balloon tied to the middle of it.

  “That’s a pretty balloon,” Dakota noted.

  “It’s not meant to be pretty,” Soward snorted. “It’s to tell me what direction the wind is blowing.”

  “Dakota here doesn’t know much about the island,” Chuck interrupted. “We were hoping you could give him a tour in your flyer. We brought something for you, of course.”

  They dumped their pineapples on the ground in front of the pilot pig, whose eyes lit up with delight behind his goggles. “Soward loves pineapples,” Chuck explained to Dakota. “I think he’d eat them all day, every day, if he could.”

  “Speak for yourself, little cow,” Soward said with a wink and a grin. “I ain’t the one with four stomachs to fill.”

  Chuck and Dakota sat in two barrel seats
on either side of the Hawk’s engine.

  “Are you sure you can’t just tell me about the island?” Dakota’s voice quivered. “Do I have to fly in a plane?”

  “It’ll be fine!” Chuck assured him. “Soward is the best pilot around! Come to think of it, he’s the only pilot around.”

  Soward took the flyer chugging and bumping up into the air. Chuck had been in the Hawk before, but he still bounced in his barrel with excitement. Dakota gripped his barrel in terror. He really didn’t like heights, and this was the highest he’d ever been. He tried to swallow his fear and pay attention as Soward showed him all the parts of Bermooda.

  Chuck had been right. The Hawk did give Dakota a bigger picture of the island. From the air, Dakota could now see cliffs, beaches, and coves that looked like ears, horns, and a nose. In fact, the whole island looked like it was in the shape of…a cow head!

  Soward showed them Cowabunga Falls, a waterfall that flowed from the west side of the mountain. He circled around Lookout Light, a stone lighthouse atop a rocky cliff. They soared over capes, caves, and lagoons. They even flew right past WKUD and gave a wave to Angus Atkins.

  In the greenest part of the island, they saw a big, wide field that stretched for miles. Soward explained that it was Wellington Field, which produced most of the Bermooda grass on the island. In the middle of the field were tall poles with woven fans that spun like propellers.

  “Are those windmills?” Dakota asked.

  “Windspinners,” Chuck corrected him. “That’s where our boltage comes from. The Wellingtons own those too.”

  Dakota began to understand what Uncle Bo was talking about. The Wellingtons really did seem to own everything.

  Soon they passed over the sandbars where Chuck had found Dakota. “That’s the Key Ring,” Soward said. “Tell your kine not to float their boat too close to those shoals. You’ll get beached just like that old Hortica!” He paused uneasily before pointing to the nose of land inside the sandbars. “And that’s the Boneyard. That place is haunted if you ask me! I wouldn’t go rooting around there if I were you. No telling what you might find.” Dakota and Chuck knowingly winked at each other.

  As Soward continued the tour, Dakota looked for boats out beyond the island. He saw nothing but water. Water everywhere. Water that seemed to go on forever. Maybe Cornelius was right, he thought to himself. It sure does look like there’s nothing else out there.

  Soward’s voice faded away as Dakota’s head suddenly got the same woozy feeling as it did at WKUD.

  “I hope you’re memorizing all this,” Chuck teased. Hearing no answer, he turned and saw Dakota’s face turning green under his cow mask.

  “Uh-oh,” Chuck mooed. “Soward? We have to cut the tour short! I think Dakota’s going to be sick!”

  “I guess sea cows don’t handle flying very well,” Soward grunted, as he brought the Hawk to a bumpy landing near the hanger. Dakota rolled out of the plane. He stumbled around for a moment before falling like a lump onto Soward’s compass. The red balloon on the compass came loose and began to float away.

  “My balloon!” Soward squealed.

  “Sorry!” Dakota felt terrible.

  “Wow,” Chuck said. “You really don’t like heights.”

  “It’s not just that,” Dakota sniffled. “When we were up there, I looked around and I saw miles and miles of nothing. No land, no boats…nothing. Even if our raft hadn’t broken apart, I still wouldn’t have made it. I’ll never get out of here. We would need something that can travel a lot farther than a raft.”

  Chuck watched Soward’s red balloon float farther and farther away until it disappeared into the clouds. “Don’t worry,” Chuck said with a smirk and a twitch of his tail. “I have another idea.”

  “We’re going to build a balloon,” Chuck said, as they tromped back down through the trees. “Just like Soward’s balloon, but this one will be bigger. That should get you much farther than the raft!”

  Dakota was losing faith in Chuck’s ideas, but since he didn’t have a better one, he thought it best to keep quiet. Chuck led Dakota to a long, tall building near the edge of Wellington Field.

  Right away, Dakota could tell this building was something important. Every building he’d seen so far was made of wood, bamboo, or straw. But this one had walls made of stone. A familiar brass W hung above the heavy front doors—the same W he had seen on the coat of Wilhelm Wellington.

  “We need a stove or something to make hot air for the balloon,” Chuck said. He pulled away some loose stones from a back corner of the building covered by bushes. “I’ll bet Wellington has something in this warehouse we can use.”

  “We can’t do that!” Dakota gasped. “That’s stealing!” He pictured the giant, grumpy bull with the glowering yellow eyes who insisted a hu’man was on the island. What if they got caught?

  “Do you want to find your home or not?” Chuck said, slipping through the hole in the wall. “Besides, Wellington has so much stuff, he’ll never even notice it’s gone.”

  Dakota didn’t like this idea at all. It was wrong and he knew it. But he also wanted to get off the island before his true identity was discovered. Even if it was a beautiful paradise, he was very nervous about being the only human on an island full of talking cows. So he followed Chuck through the hole.

  The darkness inside the warehouse was thick and heavy. The musty, dusty air tickled their noses as Chuck groped around for something to make some light. Finding a candle, he lit the wick and a dim glow flickered. Chuck let out a shocked “Moo!” when he saw what was around them.

  Chuck had always assumed that this warehouse was full of farming equipment, since the Wellingtons mostly owned farms and groves. Instead, the warehouse was full of a collection of hu’man artifacts that nearly rivaled the one in the Hortica Center. They were spread out all over the place. It was as though Wilhelm Wellington had his own personal museum.

  “Wow! Look at all these trinkets!” Chuck marveled. “No wonder he knows so much about hu’mans!”

  Chuck and Dakota browsed through tables and tables full of clothing, books, tools, and cutlery. Everything appeared to have come from the Hortica shipwreck, and everything had the same W logo stamped on it.

  “Shouldn’t these all be in the museum?” Dakota asked.

  “The Wellingtons usually get whatever they want,” Chuck answered. “It’s been that way for three hundred years. They’ve probably had these trinkets ever since the Hortica wrecked.”

  Among all the artifacts, Dakota saw something that looked oddly out of place. It was an open wooden box with metal discs inside and a big brass horn on top. A big windup key came out of one side and a plug came out of the other.

  “That’s not something that would have been on the Hortica,” Dakota explained. “That ship wrecked over three hundred years ago. Humans didn’t have these kinds of gadgets back then. I’ll bet that’s the missing recorder Angus couldn’t find. Why does Wilhelm have it?”

  “Hey, look at this!” Chuck’s voice whispered. He set down the candle and held up a familiar orange ring. It looked just like the one Dakota had been found on, but this one had weathered black letters on it that spelled out M.V. DAKOTA.

  “It has your name on it! Isn’t that weird?”

  Dakota agreed that it was weird, but he gave no explanation and quickly changed the subject. “Will that work for the balloon?” he said, pointing to a big oil lamp at the end of the table. Dakota still didn’t like the idea of taking anything, but he was now willing to do whatever it took to get out of this warehouse.

  “Yes!” Chuck said. “I think that might work!” The lamp was almost as big as them, so they each had to grab an end. They started to make their exit when something else caught their attention. There was a strange costume hanging on the wall. Chuck set down his half of the lamp and held the candle up to the costume. In the soft glow, they could see it had long claws on its fingers and fearsome spikes down its back. It had a wooden mask with big round eyes, big sha
rp teeth, and big plume feathers shooting from the top. The whole thing was covered with stringy red hair and glittery green scales. It was bizarre!

  “What’s this?” Chuck wondered. “It looks like a dragon!”

  “This looks an awful lot like the skeleton in the Hortica Center, except that there are no legs and no tail. I think it’s supposed to be a hu’man!” Dakota said. “Or at least what everyone thinks a human looks like.”

  Chuck cocked his head to one side. “Maybe it’s a costume for the Boomflower Festival.”

  Dakota had no idea what a Boomflower was. But before he could ask, Chuck had already turned his attention to a curved horn hanging next to the costume.

  Chuck held the horn in his hooves with a gleam in his eye. He was getting way too excited by all the interesting things they were finding. “Hey Dakota! Listen to this!” He took a deep breath, and before Dakota could stop him, he blew into one end of the horn. It made a loud, horrible braying noise:

  BRRAAAAAAAAAAPPPPPP!!!!!!

  Chuck grimaced sheepishly as the sound bounced off every wall in the warehouse, shattering the quiet darkness. As the echoes died away, they heard a gruff voice shouting from the stairs on the other side of the warehouse, “Hey! Who’s down there?”

  “That’s Wilhelm Wellington!” Chuck gasped. “What’s he doing here?”

  “Duh!” Dakota snapped. “It’s his warehouse!”

  “Let’s go!” Chuck squealed, grabbing the oil lamp. “Mooooove it!”

  “Trespasser! Criminal!” the voice shouted as it came down the stairs. They fumbled through the dark toward the hole in the wall as Wilhelm’s voice got closer, louder, and angrier. “I’ll tan your hide! Come back here!”

  They squeezed out through the hole and scurried off into the jungle with the oil lamp, leaving the angry bellowing of Wilhelm Wellington far behind them.

  “I hope this plan works better than the raft did,” Dakota worried, thinking about their last disaster. He peered over the edge of the cliff. Did they really need to go so high in the air to get off the island?