The Mystery of Croaker's Island

by Linda DeMeulemeester

  Khallie reached for Sam’s hand. His arm tingled up to his elbow.

  “Why are you always saying how your parents are super strict and buying you gifts and . . . ”

  A look so troubled crossed Khallie’s face that Sam wished he could swallow his words back.

  “I know that’s how my parents would be,” Khallie said softly, “if they were here.”

  Sam didn’t ask her where they were.

  “I can’t get sent back into foster care, Sam. I’m with my sister on a trial basis, and I can’t get into any trouble. You’ve got to help me.”

  At first Sam thought Khallie was going to ask him to help her keep the lies going. But instead she asked, “Tell me what you saw me doing. How did I get to Croaker’s Island? What . . . what happens when I’m sleepwalking?”

  A dog in a parked car began barking like crazy. A car alarm went off. Sam and Khallie spun around, but they couldn’t see anyone. Then they noticed a small halo of white hair bob behind a car.

  “My goodness, what a lot of bother.” Professor Marigold was wrestling with a car door. Sam went over and helped him untangle the strap of his leather satchel caught on the door handle. The car alarm blared.

  “I think we’re late,” said the professor, checking an old-fashioned fob watch that he’d slipped out of his lab coat pocket. “Come along, come along.”

  Another dog growled and barked as the professor passed by a white minivan. If the window had been open any wider, Sam was sure the dog would have lunged straight for the professor’s throat. He and Khallie followed the professor into the observatory as the bleating horns in the parking lot faded.

  Blake sat in his usual chair by the telescope. Sam’s stomach tightened uncomfortably when he spotted Owen sitting across the room between Betty and Diane.

  “My goodness, you have a lot of badges.” The woman named Betty gave Owen an admiring nod at his Scout uniform.

  “How sweet you are, sitting with us tonight,” said Diane. “Won’t your friends miss you?” From the smile that dimpled her face, Sam had the uncomfortable feeling she would reach over and pinch Owen’s cheek.

  “I can hear the lecture better from here, and thank you for letting me join you,” Owen said politely. Owen didn’t look at Sam, Blake, or Khallie. Instead, he gazed straight at Professor Marigold, who dug through his satchel for his lecture notes.

  “What did you two do to Owen?” Khallie’s harsh whisper dripped menace. Sam swallowed and saliva stuck in his throat.

  “I dunno what Owen’s problem is,” said Blake.

  “What. Did. You. Two. Do?” She repeated icily.

  Sam knew Khallie wouldn’t let them off the hook. He let out a hiss of breath and started. “You know how Owen doesn’t always pick the best time to talk about confidential stuff?” he began. Her eyes seared through him, choking off his excuse.

  “I kind of pretended I didn’t know Owen when I was in the car with Colton,” Blake admitted. “And Andy and Ravi, ah, I guess they. . . ” He couldn’t look Khallie in the eye.

  “I should have spoken up when Andy and Ravi were being jerks after Blake left,” Sam confessed. “They didn’t believe Owen was Blake’s friend.” He didn’t look away, but he withered under Khallie’s accusatory gaze.

  “You know. . . we’re trying to keep our investigation of the ocean echoes secret and . . . ” Sam’s heart beat loudly in his chest. Making up excuses was just weak. Khallie, the cat-napper, didn’t try and wiggle out with any excuses when he’d called her out about juvie. He mumbled, “I should have stuck up for him.”

  Khallie stood up and joined Owen and the two ladies. Owen’s eyes shone as he said hi.

  “To what do we owe this honour?” asked Diane.

  “I just wanted to join your friendly group,” Khallie said lightly as she shot daggers Sam and Blake’s way.

  That was Khallie—she wasn’t afraid to take a stand. Not like him. That got Sam thinking:

  Fact: Khallie had never actually lied that she’d been an only child. He’d assumed that because she never mentioned a sibling.

  Fact: She also never told people she was a rich girl, even though she had lied about where she’d lived. Or had she? She’d just let other kids assume she lived in the swanky Oceanview neighbourhood by showing up there for the school bus.

  Fact: She had definitely lied about having strict parents. Or had she? She’d said her parents would have been strict. Sam’s throat thickened. Khallie must have had a mom and dad who cared about her and watched over her at one point. When Andrea Kellerman had asked her where she’d got her charm bracelet, she hadn’t specifically told her it was from her parents—only that they gave her gifts.

  That didn’t change the final fact: Khallie had deliberately misled people into thinking that she was someone different. She had created the perfect cover with strict parents, so no one ever gossiped about her not bringing friends over to her place, or why she couldn’t go out with them when she was under curfew.

  Sam suddenly understood what Dory meant about the things people did to protect themselves. Khallie hid behind imaginary parents to keep her safe. Blake, basically a nice guy, would deny his interest in nerd stuff. He’d even ignore a friend, all so he could maintain his reputation as a cool jock.

  As for Sam, if he was going to be honest, he hid behind hesitation. Like when he competed in a race or had to step up to the plate to help a friend, he’d freeze rather than take ownership or risk failing.

  Didn’t he also make things up about his mother, like she still sometimes guided him? Like now, when he could almost hear her voice saying, Trust the girl, Sammy. She’s telling the truth about her sleepwalking.

  None of them was perfect. Owen was the only one of all of them who was comfortable in his own skin. That’s why he couldn’t care less if people overheard him talking about slow motion or bloop echoes, or any science stuff, or all his skills from Scouts.

  The three of them needed each other if they were going to get to the bottom of the strange underwater noises, the cat-nappers, zombie-like teens, and that weird laboratory hidden beneath Sinistrus Mansion.

  “Once more, Master Owen, I’ll explain to you why there can’t be any outer-space visitors landing on planet Earth. We are alone in the universe.” Professor Marigold let out an exasperated sigh.

  Sam snapped to attention and tried to remember what Owen had said moments before. It had been important.

  “What an odd astronomy class this has been,” Betty said to her friend. “All we ever do is argue if there can be other life in the universe. I thought we’d be gazing at Saturn’s rings.”

  × 23 ×

  WE DO HAVE A PROBLEM

  PROFESSOR MARIGOLD stood on his tiptoes, leaned over his lectern, and rustled the pages of notes he hadn’t touched. Warm air hissed through the heating vents in the observatory, and because he hadn’t opened the dome for the giant telescope yet, it was getting uncomfortably hot. Sam’s back prickled with sweat under Babcia’s newest brown-and-orange checkered sweater.

  “What we do know, Master Owen, is that only a small fraction of stars have planets, and only a tiny fraction of those planets are exo-planets, and only a teeny-tiny, teensy-weensy fraction of exo-planets might be in the Goldilocks Zone—neither too cold nor too hot so they can have life-giving oceans. Only a minute, minuscule, micro-fraction of those planets might actually have water and develop any sort of life, and only a mini-minute, micro, teeny-tiny. . . ”

  “We get it. You mean it’s possible no other planets have life on them,” Blake broke in.

  “Yes, well,” Professor Marigold adjusted his lab coat. “As I was saying, it is therefore completely unlikely any other planets might develop intelligent life.”

  “Only unlikely? So, Earth isn’t the only planet with life,” Owen said, as if the professor was agreeing with him, which Sam was pretty sure he wasn’t.

  “Fine,” Professor Marigold said in a way that reminded Sam of Babcia when she meant anything but fine.
“Think about this. If there is intelligent life, there are a lot older stars and planets than Earth in the universe, which would then mean they’d have a very advanced civilization. But what have we heard from them?”

  Sam, Blake, and Khallie shrugged.

  “Zippo, zero, not a peep.” The professor nodded in a self-satisfied way.

  “What’s an exo-planet?” asked Diane.

  “A planet that isn’t made of gas,” explained Owen.

  “Not Saturn’s rings,” said Betty rather wistfully.

  Sam shot up his hand. “Maybe we don’t have the right technology to hear them yet, Professor, sir.” Molly’s favourite storybook was Horton Hears a Who. She’d ask Sam to read it to her regularly. In that story, Whos were shouting, but Horton couldn’t hear them until it was almost too late.

  “We’ve only being transmitting radio signals since the 1920s,” Sam explained. “Maybe we just haven’t been searching long enough.”

  “You’d also need broader bandwidths to detect signals across great distances,” said Owen. “Right, Professor Marigold?”

  Professor Marigold ignored Owen, so Owen continued to make his point. “Professor, I read a theory that maybe aliens don’t want to contact us directly. Did you take that into account? Like I was saying before, outer-space visitors could check us out using nanotechnology—tiny machines we can’t even see.” Owen raised his voice. “Nanobots could be all around us and we wouldn’t even know it.”

  “No, no. . . no,” the professor muttered. “This isn’t Disneyland or a make-believe Star Wars movie. Forget this nonsense. Don’t lose your tempers in a teapot.”

  “You mean ‘make a tempest in a teapot.’” Sam hoped his face remained calm even though his heart was racing and his head was buzzing. No way, he argued with himself. The rest of astronomy class floated by Sam as he tried to get his thoughts organized.

  Sam barely heard the ladies politely request that they start gazing at planets and could they please see Saturn’s rings. He sort of remembered that when the professor obliged them and dilated the observatory roof to raise the telescope, he caught a chill when cold air whooshed in and collided with his sweaty neck. He did recall the ladies muttering how they weren’t getting their money’s worth that evening because for some reason the professor dismissed the class twenty minutes early.

  Mostly, Sam couldn’t wait for class to be over and for the professor and the ladies to leave. “Khallie, Owen, please don’t leave. I really need to talk to you,” Sam said when they stood up. Owen rolled his eyes.

  “Khallie, I . . . there’s stuff you should know,” Sam pleaded.

  “My parents will be here soon.” Blake dropped the hint that they should clear out.

  Sam turned to Blake. “There are things you and Owen should know too, important things. I . . . think Croaker’s Cove is in terrible danger.”

  Sam turned back and faced Owen, but he levelled his gaze at Khallie. “Good friends should forgive each other, right, Khallie? Owen, I’m really sorry I didn’t stick up for you in front of Andy and Ravi. I . . . I was trying to stay under their radar myself, but I won’t do that again.”

  Owen hung his head. “I guess I know now it’s better to stay under the radar sometimes.”

  Khallie walked over and elbowed Blake. “Say it.”

  Blake sighed. “I was a jerk. But I don’t want rumours going around about me. You’ve got to keep things quiet and not blab. . . ” Khallie elbowed him again. “Sorry. No excuse.” Blake held out his hand. Owen took it and they shook.

  “What else was it you wanted to tell us?” Khallie asked Sam. She sounded nervous, like she was worried how much Sam planned to tell people about her. Sam stuck to what his father called pertinent facts. Sam explained how the cats had been in a strange sleep when he’d found them on the island.

  “Yeah, it was ticks, right?” Blake checked the time on the round clock on the observatory wall. “Go on.”

  “Well,” Sam shrugged, “the scratches on the back of their shaved necks looked exactly like what I’ve seen on your neck, Khallie. I believe somebody put them there.”

  “I’ve got a tick?” Khallie’s hand shot to her neck.

  “What? That’s not good.” Blake paled.

  “I could try and burn it out with a match,” volunteered Owen. “I’ve got my first-aid badge.”

  “No.” Khallie’s eyes widened, but she turned and lifted up her long black hair, exposing her neck. The scratches still looked red and angry. Gingerly, Sam pointed to a small bump, like a giant pimple on the back of Khallie’s neck.

  Unlike with Pix, there was no tick exposed, but when his fingers grazed her skin, the swelling squirmed.

  “Ugh. Get it out of me!” snapped Khallie.

  Blake’s eyes popped when he saw the pimple move. Owen let out a low whistle.

  “Khallie.” Sam took a deep breath and plunged ahead. “I . . . I think one of those tiny technology thingies, those nanobots, is buried under your skin. What I found in the cats’ scratches weren’t ticks. I think they’re . . . nanobots and they take control of you. You steal cats and you walk across a submerged mechanical bridge and take them to Croaker’s Island.”

  Khallie spun around. “Don’t play me, Sam.” Her voice shook with fury.

  “Khallie’s the cat-napper?” Blake and Owen said in unison. Then they both shook their heads and like doppelganger echoes said, “No way.”

  “Think hard about this. Some part of you must know that I’m telling you the truth.” Then it hit Sam. “Think about those bad dreams you’ve been having. I bet they’re the same nightmares Angel Chan has about walking across water to Croaker’s Island and seeing ghostly white owls.”

  When Sam mentioned the owls, he gave Owen a pointed look. Owen scratched his head and looked thoughtful.

  “Those aren’t dreams when you lose track of time. That’s what happens when you sleepwalk.” Sam turned to Blake. “It was the underwater bridge we scraped the boat on.”

  Blake’s eyes widened. “That would be super-advanced technology. Colton and I tried to measure the depth off the island once on sonar, but it’s too deep to measure. Who could make a bridge like that? Do you think it might have to do with those slowdown echoes we’ve recorded on the spectrogram?”

  “Like some kind of underwater secret weapon,” Sam said, allowing himself to sound a little satisfied that he’d called it.

  “I saw those ghostly, blurry owls too. So did Sam. That wasn’t a dream, so maybe the rest . . . ” Owen frowned, shrugged, and said, “could also be true.”

  For a moment Khallie stared at Sam. Then her eyes brimmed with tears. “Sam, what’s happening to me?”

  “It’s not just you. It’s Angel Chan and others. It’s like . . . ” He pounded his fists together in an ah-ha moment. “It’s all the kids who had files on the nurse’s desk, kids who hadn’t had immunization shots but had childhood diseases like measles and chicken pox. Someone is using that nanotechnology you were talking about, Owen, some little teeny transmitter to collect data on cats and teenagers.”

  “Or using cats as spies?” suggested Owen. “There’s a whole conspiracy theory about that.”

  “Why not dogs?” Khallie asked. Everybody stared at her. She shrugged. “Just curious.”

  “Dogs bark too loud at strangers. No one notices cats creeping around. And those echoes—they’re from SUOs,” a voice said from behind.

  They spun around. Sam’s heart took a dive when he spotted Dory standing behind them. “Huh?” He said.

  “Submerged Unidentified Objects,” said Dory. “It is common knowledge in Australia, mates, that flying saucers hide in underwater caves in our deepest ocean trenches so we don’t know aliens are visiting us from other planets.”

  “Common knowledge?” Sam raised his eyebrows doubtfully.

  “Something very mysterious is going on.” Blake rubbed his legs. “I hate to say it, but I think Dory’s onto something.”

  Dory nodded. “Of course
I am.”

  “That’s why we recorded those loud echoes, the slowdowns,” Owen said slowly. “I’ve heard about that conspiracy theory too, that large submerged flying objects cause mysterious underwater echoes. And if that’s true, I bet someone is messing with the audio signals at the Ocean Institute so the authorities don’t detect them.”

  “We . . . we’d better keep this on the down-low until we do some more investigating,” Blake said nervously. “I mean, people will think we’re crazy.”

  “Too late,” said Dory. “I’ve already texted George, the guy with the podcast Unexplained Phenomena.”

  Sam finally noticed that Dory had her cellphone out and had been tapping it the whole time they were talking.

  “My, then, children, we do have a problem, don’t we?” said Professor Marigold.

  × 24 ×

  THE TICKING CLOCK

  THE PECULIAR LITTLE professor skulking in the shadows had taken on a more menacing appearance. Sam watched as Dory opened and closed her hand holding the cellphone. She stared at it as if she could will it away. Blake furtively glanced at the ticking clock on the observatory wall as if he wished his parents would show up that second. Khallie and Owen took half a step back.

  It’s funny the stuff you notice when you’ve been stabbed with sudden fear, Sam thought slowly. The giant telescope took on a lurking presence under the dim lighting in the observatory. And it’s hard to get your brain working. All Sam could think was, We’re in danger. That pounding shout in his head was so distracting his eyes had black spots dancing in front of him.

  Standing close beside Professor Marigold, Sam remembered the uncanny sensation he experienced whenever they crossed paths, as if an icy breeze had shot past him. He recalled when he’d spotted the little man dropping a triangular object off a bluff . . .

  You know what that was, said the soft voice inside him. A hydrophone—an underwater recorder!

  Building after building on the campus began shutting down the lights, and it was growing very dark outside as everyone went home. The deserted college became as still as a glassy sea, the only sound the hissing of air through the heating vent. A memory resurfaced, and Sam recalled an incident after his first astronomy class.