In the meadows, hundreds of Puddlejumpers vaulted out of the pools, jumping from their homes just below the puddle hatchways. With cacophonous hooting, they sprinted down the green slope, then dove into the lake and swam out to greet their Rainmaker.
One Puddlejumper catapulted into the canoe and stood dripping wet next to Shawn. It was Greystone, the tribe’s Ancient Guide. Though blind, he had deep-set amber eyes that seemed to look right through you, but his big ears compensated for the lack of sight. They were so keen he could even hear when it was raining in the Up Above. His beard, which he sometimes wore in a swirl on top of his head, was now braided and nearly touched his toes. The Puddlejumpers watched in awe as he used his skilled hands to see Shawn’s face. Finally he kissed the crown of the baby’s head and whispered, “Wawaywo,” then leapt to the bow and proclaimed his name to the Kingdom.
In jubilation, each and every Jumper echoed his call, “Wawaywo!”
The seven canoes continued toward Grandfather Oak’s umbrella of rain. Their grandfather seemed to bow his leafy head as the canoes began to spin, drawn by a swirling undertow. Runnel and Pav secured the baby, and the Jumpers braced themselves just before the rushing water sucked their canoes into a hollow at the base of the trunk, plunging them down a steep gorge. They threaded the gnarled roots of the oak in a swooping, rollicking white-water ride that took everyone’s breath.
The canoes splashed down in the sapphire waters of the Laughing Grotto. A resplendent rainbow arched from one side of the cave to the other and a refreshing mist filled the air. Water trickled down the onyx walls veined with gemstones and silver, tinkling like a thousand wind chimes in a gentle breeze. The Puddlejumpers placed Shawn on a stretcher of woven wheat and carried him across a white sand beach to a threshold in the rock.
Greystone led the way across the portal, then down a spiral stairway into their sacred Deep Down. Buck and Cully each carried a tiny lantern, casting giant shadows that danced along the wall. Like every other place in the Kingdom, there was water—water cascading all around them—water flowing ever deeper into the earth.
At the bottom of the stair, they reached an oak platform suspended by ropes of woven hemp. Heads bowed, the little ones teetered with their precious treasure onto the platform. It swung like a pendulum over a bottomless chasm. But the Puddlejumpers weren’t looking down into the darkness. They were looking at the most magnificent sight in the Kingdom.
It was MotherEarth, an immense stone being within the canyon wall. Only her face was visible. If the Puddlejumpers stood on each other’s shoulders, like a living totem pole, it would take thirty of them to reach the top of her moss-covered head. Her skin was smooth, caressed by the eternal veil of water streaming across her benevolent face. Every time she breathed, the rock rippled back and forth.
Each and every drop of water journeyed down Grandfather Oak to touch the face of MotherEarth. Now the Puddlejumpers had taken Shawn Frazier on that same journey, and it was time for him to begin his new life.
Root and Runnel proudly presented the human baby to MotherEarth. Her emerald eyes sparkled as Pav leaned out over the fathomless depths and collected water flowing off her lips. The tribe’s healer trickled the water over Shawn’s eyes, ears, nose, and mouth, then rubbed the rest down the back of his neck and spine. Shawn shivered and squealed in surprise. MotherEarth laughed and the rocks shook all around them.
Greystone uncapped Shawn’s Crystal Acorn and caught a droplet from MotherEarth’s chin. He snugged the cap and fastened it around the baby’s neck on a loop of milkweed fiber. This Acorn, harvested from Grandfather Oak, was Shawn’s birthright as the Rainmaker, his talisman, and the weapon he would one day use in the last great battle.
As the little ones pressed close to touch the baby’s Crystal Acorn, MotherEarth intoned a chant that resonated throughout the Deep Down like the call of some primordial whale.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Spiral Tattoo
AFTER MOTHER EARTH’S blessing, the Puddlejumpers returned to the Cavern of Pools, where they celebrated as only Puddlejumpers can. Oak barrels were filled to the brim with milk and feast pots overflowed with their favorite foods, including fresh berries and cream, nuts of all shapes and sizes, rolled wheat pasta with dandelion sauce, and even an acorn taffy that poured like sweet butter from the churn.
Under Greystone’s direction, scouts carried Shawn on the wheat stretcher down the meadow to the lake. Every Puddlejumper followed and lined up along the shore. The tribe watched with anticipation as Buck and Cully launched the six-month-old into the water. Shawn promptly sank. Holding their collective breath, the Jumpers leaned forward, all wanting to help the baby, but Greystone made them wait, saying simply, “He looks like a human being, but he’s a Puddlejumper now.” A few bubbles percolated to the surface. Seconds felt like hours. Runnel, alarmed, waded into the water just as Shawn popped to the surface and gulped a deep breath.
The tribe shouted, “Kadudee, matadie ra!” and slapped the water with their webbed hands. Shawn struggled onto his back, but seemed to calm as he looked up into the radiant branches of Grandfather Oak. Runnel swam in a circle around the baby as Greystone spoke, “Wawaywo is big—bigger than us—but he’ll be biggest when he grows small.”
The Jumpers laughed and slapped the water again. As Greystone told of the wonders that were yet to come, they listened spellbound, lifted by his every word like an ocean swelling with the tide. Suddenly he dove under the water and didn’t surface until he reached Grandfather Oak, where he climbed onto the trunk above the hollow. As the water roared beneath him, he shouted, “Walagadooroo!”
A great excitement filled the cavern as Puddlejumpers scrambled to find a partner. “Crown the Oak” was their favorite game. The object was to place a golden hoop at the top of Grandfather Oak. To begin, all the teams lined the shore around the lake. When Greystone tossed the hoop into the water, the players dove to the bottom to recover it. Swimming in the depths of the lake and on the surface, they worked in tandem, maneuvering their way onto the sprawling oak. The duo possessing the hoop played against everyone else. Once on the tree, Puddlejumpers sprinted up the trunk and along the branches in a wild scramble to reach the summit first. Some Puddlejumpers got knocked off into the lake and, if they weren’t quick enough, were swept all the way down to the Laughing Grotto. There was lots of wrestling and tumbling and tackling and dunking. The hoop could be thrown through air or skipped on water or rolled on branches. Finally, a determined Puddlejumper placed the golden hoop on the uppermost branch and declared their team the winner.
By long tradition the game was always played with something at stake. On this special day, the Puddlejumpers cheered Root and Runnel as oak champions for the second time. Six months earlier, they’d earned the right to run beneath the stars and live among the human beings and keep the Rainmaker safe. Now, standing at the crown of Grandfather Oak, Root and Runnel humbly bowed their heads as the cavern resounded with hoots. There were others quicker, more agile and stronger, but no two Jumpers played the game with more heart.
Shouting “Hooty-hoo!” Root and Runnel dove from the summit with a backward twist and double flip before entering the lake like a pair of whispers. Greystone waited until they surfaced before sprinting up a cobblestone pathway toward the top of the meadow. He didn’t stop until he reached a stone shelter known as the Well. It was the Puddlejumper gathering place overlooking the great lake and Grandfather Oak. Standing on the threshold, he drew a snail’s shell from his belt and blew a deep, sonorous summons.
Every Puddlejumper rushed to the Well. They flooded inside, splashing through shallow water that bubbled up from a spring and flowed across the floor. Little geysers occasionally erupted, showering some and goosing others. The Jumpers crammed into every nook and cranny, window and ledge, anticipating the moment they’d heard about all their lives but never thought they’d see.
A hush descended on the Well as a covey of Puddlejumpers labored to carry the baby across the thre
shold. Shawn reached up to brush his hand through a mobile that covered the entire ceiling. The wooden figures knocked together in a melodic drumbeat. This was the tribe’s treasured memorial—hundreds of carvings representing every inhabitant who’d been taken by the Troggs. It was their way of remembering them.
The Puddlejumpers laid the baby on a bed of wheat at the center of the Well. Greystone chanted one of the old songs as Pav crumbled a petrified wheat stalk over Shawn, ensuring nimble hands and a brave heart. Dipping into her chestnut thimble, she rinsed his eyes with morning dew, then sprinkled them with ground bat guano, ensuring great vision. There was a murmur of surprise when Greystone offered Root and Runnel a stiff pine needle and a thread of woven catfish whiskers but, as oak champions, they had earned the great honor.
While Pav gently pressed the top of the baby’s spine so he wouldn’t feel any pain, Runnel stitched a spiral into the ball of Shawn’s right foot. After she pulled the final stitch, Root snipped the thread and held the baby’s foot aloft for all to see. Everyone craned their necks to get a glimpse of the Spiral Tattoo, the same tattoo that was on the sole of every Puddlejumper. A few overzealous ones even tumbled from the rafters.
Unable to wait another second, Chop brought his acorn whistle to his lips and blew a rich, musical sound, which triggered a joyous trumpeting of whistles that filled the Well and echoed all the way down to the lake. The Puddlejumpers hugged and hooted and hollered.
To commemorate the occasion, Greystone gave the baby a cedar chest. On the vaulted lid was an impeccably carved likeness of Wawaywo’s face. When he opened the chest, a galaxy of dried dandelions floated upward like a thousand good wishes. The Jumpers spent the rest of the day trying to catch them.
Now he was one of them, a Puddlejumper. And the Spiral Tattoo, the key which enabled the Jumpers to jump back and forth between the Underneath and the Up Above, would forever be on the sole of little Shawn Frazier.
CHAPTER NINE
Alone Together
SHAWN WONDERED where his father had gone. He missed his face, the low rumble of his voice, his familiar smell. He missed the airplane rides in the yard, and playing in the wheat, and the warmth of his dad’s arms in the rocking chair. Where was his house and barn? What had happened to the sun and stars?
Root and Runnel had fixed up a comfy crib room in their den by the lake. It was quiet inside, except for the faint sound of waterfalls. The light from the crystal acorns on Grandfather Oak filtered through the ceiling puddle and cast a soft glow throughout the four round rooms. A mossy carpet covered the floor and the furniture was handcrafted or borrowed from nature, like the bird’s-eye maple table and the mushroom stools. The earthen walls were covered with birch bark and decorated with items found in the Up Above. There were eyeglasses and keys, somebody’s driver’s license, a fork, a crushed Pepsi can, a hubcap, and a tarnished brass doorknob.
The Puddlejumpers did their best to make the baby’s room feel familiar. Root clamped the Snow White lamp to his crib and attached a mobile he’d carved featuring the animals Shawn knew from the barn. But all of their hard work didn’t seem to matter, because he just wouldn’t stop crying. Bawling, he crawled round and round the den, as if searching for a way out.
Cully came by in the morning and did everything he could to calm Shawn, but even standing on his head and spitting acorns didn’t work. The Puddlejumpers told one another the baby was worn out from his encounter with MotherEarth and the sewing of his Spiral Tattoo.
When the tears didn’t stop, Greystone brought Pav to the den to find out what was wrong. By then the whole tribe had gathered in clusters up and down the mossy meadows and along the lake, whispering anxiously. The baby’s wail was as constant as the plunging waterfalls. It filled the Cavern of Pools with an overwhelming sadness.
After Pav examined the baby, she could only offer a shake of her head. She knew of nothing that could mend a broken heart. They felt sad for him, but there was nothing they could do.
The Rainmaker was essential to the Kingdom.
CHAPTER TEN
The Only Clue
THE NIGHT RUSS FRAZIER lost his son, his world might as well have come to an end. When he was alone in the weeks that followed, he cried and cried until there were no tears left. Every muscle, every fiber of his body, ached with the loss of his baby boy. Sometimes he thought he didn’t have the strength to take even one more breath. But somehow he did.
Russ never finished harvesting the long-grain wheat along the south slope. Instead he spent every waking moment looking for his son. He traveled from town to town, handing out pictures and questioning anyone and everyone. He worked with the local sheriff, the Illinois State Police, and even the FBI, but no one ever uncovered another clue that might lead to the kidnapper. The single shred of evidence was the red quilt Pitch had found up in the woods. Whoever took the baby, it was as if they’d vanished off the very face of the earth.
The kidnapping had captured the attention of the entire state. The papers, TV commentators, townspeople, and even the police began to refer to Shawn Frazier as “the Quilt Baby.” For a while it was all anybody could talk about, but as winter approached and there was nothing new to report, people gradually returned to the business of their own lives. The Quilt Baby was forgotten.
As the winter snows began to melt, Russ finally stopped pestering the authorities and returned to his empty house. Everything on the farm soon fell into disrepair and neglect, except for Shawn’s room, which Russ kept just the way it was before he was taken. The baby pictures remained on the wall next to a photograph Betty had taken of Russ with Shawn on his back, shaking his rattle. A stuffed teddy bear sat on top of the dresser next to a candy-red tractor. And the mobile’s wooden elves kept their silent vigil over the red quilt. It lay clean and folded in the empty crib.
With old Pitch sleeping by his feet, a gaunt and bearded Russ spent long days on his porch gazing into the fields, praying that somehow, by some miracle, his son would return.
With the coming of spring, he got ready to plant his fields. He had to. It was all he knew.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Puddlejumping
AT THE SPRING EQUINOX, the Kingdom celebrated Shawn’s third birthday. The Rainmaker had gradually acclimated to life in the cavern and was happy among the Puddlejumpers, but he was growing faster than Pav had predicted.
Greystone summoned Root and Runnel to the Well to discuss Shawn’s future. Now that he was three, they decided it was time to begin his Puddlejumper training. While other scouts roamed the borderlands, keeping watch for Troggs, the two chief scouts, Buck and Cully, would start to prepare him for the day when he would fulfill his destiny.
Greystone made three hard-and-fast rules. First, they should always inform him of their destination. Second, they should never use the same puddle for the coming and going. And last, they should never go near the Frazier farm, or for that matter, anywhere they might encounter human beings.
The next morning Root and Runnel bundled Shawn aboard a log raft, custom-built to accommodate someone three times their height and five times their weight. Shawn’s eyes sparkled. “Ta wayo!” he squealed, which meant “I like me!” and Root and Runnel smiled at each other, then corrected him. He’d wanted to say “La wayo”—“I like it!”
A flotilla of seven canoes towed them against the current back toward the surface while Shawn continued to pepper them with questions, not all of them making sense. He’d grown to love his Puddlejumper parents and felt safe with them. They moored under the hatchway at Tittabuwasi, where Buck and Cully rigged a harness. A dozen Puddlejumpers hoisted a giggling Shawn up and through the puddle hatch.
But in the Up Above, Shawn had a difficult time. The sun was too bright for his eyes, the pollen made him sneeze, and the bustle of insects and birds distracted him. Clouds scared him. Root and Runnel did their best to reassure Shawn, but it wasn’t easy.
It didn’t get any better the next day when Buck initiated him to the dangers lurking in
the Up Above. He pointed out poisonous snakes, poisonous spiders, poison ivy, poison oak, poison sumac, poison hemlock, tar pits, toadstools, and snapping turtles. Shawn could hardly believe such a world existed. His head was spinning.
Buck’s next task was teaching Shawn how to orient himself to the four directions—north, south, east, and west. “Kee?” complained Shawn, which meant “why,” a question the Puddlejumpers often heard. Buck patiently explained that if he didn’t know the directions, he could lose his way and have a hard time getting back to the Underneath. If a Trogg was nearby, he might never get back. Shawn listened intently, but he still felt a little confused about which way was which.
In the deep timber, they encountered a fierce mother bear and her two cubs. Buck held her gaze and whispered calmly, speaking in bear grunts until he could stroke her long, black nose. After a while, he was able to charm her enough that she even allowed Shawn to wrestle with her cubs. When it got dark, the five of them bedded down in their cave with Shawn nestled between the bundles of black fur. Buck was anxious about keeping the Rainmaker out all night, as Troggs were more active after dark, but he thought it important for him to learn that animals could provide a place to hide in times of crisis. That night Shawn dreamed about bears who could talk and walk on two feet and carry him wherever he wanted to go.
Buck woke Shawn so early the next morning the stars were still out. On the way home, he showed him how to find the North Star. That way, even in the dark, he would never lose his way.
When Cully took Shawn to the Up Above, he made the jump at Warble Creek. He spent the morning under a chestnut tree teaching Shawn how to do sleight of hand, which Puddlejumpers sometimes used to distract a Trogg. First Cully showed him a chestnut, then waved one hand in front of the other and the chestnut disappeared. Shawn’s eyes darted in every direction. “Meta lo galo?” he squealed. After pretending to search everywhere, Cully pulled the chestnut from under Shawn’s armpit. Mesmerized, Shawn yelled, “Eta, eta!”—“Again, again!”
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