Creature Keepers and the Hijacked Hydro-Hide

by Peter Nelson

  “Oh, Doris.”

  “I’m so sorry. I can’t undo what I did then. But I can help you now.” She placed her bony fingers on the case. “He had this with him. He didn’t want to stay or even hide here. He just wanted me to keep this case. To hide it.” She clicked open the latches. “He showed me what was inside of it. Everything that was inside of it.” She pulled out the Skunk Ape costume, the foot-on-a-stick, the newspaper clippings, setting them aside without looking at them. “He told me if I hid this case, and kept its secret to myself, someday someone who needed it very badly would come. And they would give me something very valuable in exchange for what was hidden inside.”

  Her hand slid along the inner lining of the empty suitcase. There was a lump that Jordan hadn’t noticed before. She slowly pulled the fabric from the corner, tearing open the lining. A thin diary tumbled out, followed by a faded old piece of parchment paper.

  Jordan looked up at Doris. “Who? Who did he say would come?”

  “A boy.” She smiled. “A Grimsley boy. And here you are.”

  Awestruck, Jordan lifted the parchment and carefully unfolded it. On it was a hand-drawn map of a mountain, located outside of Mexico City. There were hand-scribbled notes and directions, including what looked like instructions on how and where to enter the mountain. At the bottom of the map, written in large letters, it said, HALL OF CHUPACABRA. POPOCATÉPETL VOLCANO. MEXICO. STAY AWAY!

  Jordan looked back at Doris. Her eyes were welled up with tears, but she was now smiling through them. “Doris,” he said quietly. “I have nothing valuable to give you.”

  She handed Jordan the diary. “You brought me home. That’s pretty valuable.”

  The next morning Jordan and Abbie got up before dawn and crept down the stairs. They didn’t have to worry about being too quiet, since the snoring roar of the old people was louder than a parade of monster trucks filled with hungry walruses.

  The sun began to rise as they entered the swamp and made their way to the boathouse. Out of the corner of her eye, Abbie kept catching a glimpse of movement within the shadows as before. She glanced behind her, then leaned forward to whisper to Jordan. “Psst . . . I think that Moth thing might be following us again. . . .”

  “Uh-huh.” Jordan was studying the Mexico map as he walked, barely listening to her. Abbie looked back again. She was met with two giant, purple eyes, right behind her.

  “Aaaaahhh!”

  A tall, gray, slightly furry creature with enormous wings was gliding along with them. Jordan spun around. The shadowy creature wrapped its wings around itself like a cocoon. It stood in one spot, completely frozen.

  “Kriss!” It was Eldon, who’d come running from the boathouse dock at the sound of Abigail’s scream. “We’ve talked about this! You can’t just sidle up to people like that!”

  “Not cool, bro,” Lou the Jersey Devil said, fluttering awkwardly a few feet off the ground with his too-small wings. “You creep people out. You need to own that.”

  Eldon sighed and quickly introduced Jordan and Abbie to the thin, gray husk before them. “Kriss, this is Jordan and Abbie. Guys, this is Kriss. Otherwise known as Mothman.” Eldon began walking back to the dock, with Lou fluttering alongside him. “C’mon, Rangers. Lots to do. Let’s focus up.”

  Jordan followed, and Abbie glanced back at Kriss. She was rewarded with a beautiful glowing purple eye that peeked out at her. She smiled slightly, and—WHOOSH!—the Mothman shot straight up in the air with one mighty flap of his wings.

  On the dock, Jordan and Abbie were introduced to two others, who looked, Abbie was thankful to see, relatively human. Paco, Mothman’s Creature Keeper, was a tall, slender, well-dressed, bookish-looking boy. As soon as he heard his cryptid had gone into cocoon mode, he ran off in the direction of the incident, muttering, “Not again!”

  Lou’s Keeper, Mike, was a lot like the Jersey Devil he was in charge of: brash, bulky, and a bit of a knucklehead. He wore a tank-top shirt under a red velour tracksuit, with gold chains around his neck. He had a bit of a potbelly, and looked like he could be related to Lou, if not for the fact that he didn’t have horns, hooves, or a pointy tail.

  “Hey, good to meetcha,” Mike said, grabbing Jordan’s hand a little too hard. “My first time down here in swamptown. Yo, you guys got a deli around here? I’m starvin’.”

  “COWABUNGA!” Lou the Jersey Devil suddenly galloped past them down the dock, dived into the water, and began swimming out to the center of the cove. Mike suddenly ran to the end of the dock and egged him on like a gym trainer. “Let’s go! Push it! Feel the burn! You got this!”

  Reaching the deep water, Lou dived down. His pointy red tail followed his kicking hooves.

  Jordan looked at Eldon. “What’s he doing?”

  “Giving Bernard a hand. Badger Ranger rule forty-seven: ‘Nothin’ works like teamwork works!’”

  There was a great churning in the water as a familiar oval platform rose out above the surface. It was Gusto’s submarine, and it was moving toward the dock. “I hate that thing,” Jordan muttered.

  “Well, you might want to start liking it,” Eldon said. “’Cause it’s all we’ve got.”

  The sub rose out of the water, followed by Bernard and Lou. They had it propped on their big shoulders, straining to guide it into the boathouse. They were having a harder time as they got closer into the shallows, and the submarine began to tilt dangerously toward the dock.

  WHOOSH! A gray streak suddenly flew in behind them, slamming into the sub and pushing it back up on the two creatures’ shoulders, saving the humans from being squashed like swamp bugs against the foot of the dock. Kriss hovered watchfully as Bernard and Lou gently parked it in the boathouse, then swooped over to the dock and landed silently beside the others.

  “See?” Eldon said to Jordan. “What’d I tell ya? ‘Nothin’ works like teamwork works!’”

  Abbie stared up at the Mothman, wondering if he was into reptiles.

  36

  The main cabin of Gusto’s submarine was equipped with more than enough space to comfortably fit a full-grown Skunk Ape, a Jersey Devil, and a Mothman, along with their five human traveling companions. Once aboard, they all began excitedly exploring the vessel that would take them out of the Everglades, across and beneath the Gulf of Mexico.

  The cockpit was a dizzying array of buttons, gauges, dials, levers, and screens. There were two seats, and Eldon immediately plopped himself into one of them, where he began fiddling with a computerized navigational system he clearly didn’t understand. Jordan sat down beside him. “Finally!” he exclaimed. “Something built after the nineteenth century! Look at all this stuff! I bet this thing’s equipped with an internal navigation system!” He was marveling at the displays laid out before him, then noticed Eldon, tapping on a screen, trying to get it to wake up.

  “What are you doing? Don’t do that.”

  Eldon slumped back in the chair. “How are we going to get it to go? Where are the stick shifts and pulleys? Where’s the On switch?”

  “Listen. Spooring, knot-tying, Swiss Army knives—that’s your thing. But this—” He waved his arms over the blinking dashboard. “This is my thing.” Jordan studied the panel laid out before him. “What we have here is your basic diesel submarine, which uses a simple compression ignition system.” He hit some switches, and the submarine shuddered to life. Jordan pointed to a gauge. “And it looks like our host was kind enough to leave us with enough fuel for the generators. Once our battery bank is recharged, we’ll be free to submerge. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.”

  He smiled at Eldon, who stared vacantly for a moment, then sadly looked down at his Badger Badge sash. Feeling badly for him, Jordan pointed to one he hadn’t seen before. “Hey! Look at that one there! What’s that one?”

  “Uh, Cartography. See, there’s a little map on it, and a compass, and . . .” He trailed off.

  “That’s perfect!” Jordan opened his backpack and pulled out the map Doris had helped him find. “Yo
u need to be in charge of this.”

  Eldon took the old parchment map and opened it. His face lit up immediately. “This is fantastic!” He pored over the notes and transcriptions. “Where’d you find it?”

  “It was hidden in the lining of my grandfather’s suitcase.” He smiled. “Think it’ll help?”

  “You betcha! It not only shows us where the hall is, it provides entranceways, caverns, and passages! But first things first—” He reached into the Badger Ranger Travel Pouch on his belt and pulled out a small, old-looking book. “I’ll cross-reference this map with my atlas and figure out where on the Mexican coast we should aim for.”

  “Hold on.” Jordan turned back to the console. The computer screen glowed to life. “If I can access the memory bank of the navigation system, I should be able to get the sub to recalculate and reverse its own past position, orientation, and velocity . . . bingo!”

  Eldon’s jaw fell open as a soothing, female voice spoke from the computer.

  “Departure history cache accessed. Recent coordinates now uploading for display. Please stand by. . . .” Bing!

  Only one coordinate number appeared on the screen, with the name of the location beneath it: Veracruz, Mexico. Jordan clicked on the coordinate and hit Enter again.

  “New destination coordinate accepted. Autopilot engaged. Preparing to disembark. Please stand by. . . .” Bing!

  “Yes!” Jordan grinned. “Well, you heard the nice computerized lady–voice. The sub is now programmed to take us precisely back to the last place it traveled from.”

  Eldon blinked at Jordan.

  Jordan smiled. “Now let’s go back and take a look at that map.”

  Eldon and Jordan stepped out of the cockpit and made their way through the submarine. “Okay, team,” Eldon addressed the crew. “We’re on our way. Kriss, I need you to fly ahead and meet us there, after making a quick detour. I’ll give you your instructions and our destination.”

  He and Kriss huddled by the main hatch as the others prepared for departure. Abbie pretended not to watch as Eldon and Kriss climbed up and out of the hatch.

  Up on the oval platform, Eldon showed the Mothman the map, and then opened his atlas to point out another stop. He wished him well, and watched as the furry gray cryptid zoomed into the air.

  Back inside, Abbie ran to the port window. She caught a glimpse of Kriss streaking across the sky just before the murky waters of Ponce de Leon Bay sloshed over the outer glass as the submarine dived beneath the surface.

  Hours into the voyage, Bernard was sitting in the cockpit, pretending to be a narwhal. Abbie was studying the map, actively ignoring Lou and Mike’s push-up contest, and Jordan was quietly reading his grandfather’s worn diary. Eldon sat down next to Abbie. “Say, are you interested in cartography, Abbie?”

  She looked at him like he was from another planet, and he continued. “Because I sure am. In fact, I earned a Badger Badge for it. See? It’s right here, next to my—”

  “She doesn’t care,” Jordan said without looking up from the diary.

  Abbie shot Jordan a look, then slid the map over to share with Eldon. “I’ve been wondering about these markings. Grampa Grimsley put in a lot of detail about the Chupacabra’s lair.”

  “He should have,” Jordan said. “According to this, he was held captive in it for days.” They both looked up at him. “It’s his journal. It was hidden in the suitcase, along with the map.”

  “He writes how Chupacabra was the first cryptid he ever saw, when he was a young man traveling through Latin America. He was so excited he went out and bought the best camera he could afford, and began his hunt. He got his picture, and sold it to a local paper. It caused a panic and spread like wildfire. It soon became a national pastime of many Latin American countries to hunt the Chupacabra.”

  “I thought our grandfather was all about protecting cryptids,” Abbie said.

  “Maybe he didn’t know any better at the time,” Eldon said.

  “That’s what I think, too,” Jordan said. “I think seeing what he’d done to Chupacabra made him change his philosophy about cryptids.”

  “And made him an enemy for life,” Abbie said.

  Jordan skimmed the pages. “It’s true. According to some of the stories in here, Chupacabra was pretty good at holding a grudge, among other lovely qualities. Like controlling fire.”

  “So why does this Gusto guy think you’re Grampa Grimsley?” Abbie asked.

  “I don’t know. That grouchy lady at the lemonade stand said we look alike.”

  “The question isn’t why he thinks Jordan is Grampa Grimsley,” Eldon said. “What I’m curious about is why does he think your grandfather is alive at all?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Jordan said. “So long as he believes it, we can use it.” They all looked at him. “I’m the one he wants. I mean, I’m not the one he wants, but he thinks I’m the one he wants, so I may as well pretend to be the one he wants. And that will help us get what we want. Get it?”

  “No,” said Abbie. “No one got that.”

  Eldon got it. He looked at Jordan with concern in his eyes.

  “Land ho!” Paco yelled from the periscope. “El Mexico, dead ahead!”

  They had traveled all through the night, so it was nearly daybreak as they approached the coast, which was a few hundred yards away. Through the periscope they could see a touristy little beach area with a deep dock and a waterfront boardwalk. There weren’t many people on the beach, just a few vendors setting up their stands and food trucks for the tourists.

  Jordan stationed the sub just past the end of the dock, and breached just enough for the turret to rise above the surface. Then he and the other four humans onboard—Eldon, Abbie, Paco, and Mike—dived into the warm gulf water, and swam to shore.

  Once on the beach, Eldon and Paco looked around. They were searching for something. “Now we see if your creature did his job,” Eldon said.

  “Don’t worry about Kriss,” Paco said. “He’s very reliable.”

  Abbie pricked up her ears at this. “Kriss? Is he here somewhere?” Jordan stared at his sister as she frantically squeezed the water out of her hair, then tried to comb it with an old Popsicle stick she found in the sand.

  “Well, I don’t know about you guys,” Mike said. “But I’m starving. I’m gonna hit that food truck up there. Love to get me a hoagie, but I guess some of that hare haggis will have to do the trick. When in Mexico, right?”

  Eldon and Paco glanced at each other. Jordan joined them in looking up at the boardwalk. Hare haggis? Parked there among the other concession stands and T-shirt shacks was a very odd-looking food truck. Actually, it was a bus. A sky-blue bus. And sitting on top of its roof was a giant bunny. With antlers. And Mike was jogging straight for it.

  The three of them burst into a sprint to catch up to Mike, who was having trouble finding the order window. Seeing none, he started banging on the side of the bus.

  CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! “Hola! Anybody in there? Los bunny burritos, por favoray?”

  A Scottish voice called out from the driver’s seat of the bus. “Oi! Stop all that racket! Yer gonna wake my creature, ya eel-brained git!” The driver’s-side window slid open and a shock of red hair stuck out. Alistair MacAlister was frantically pointing up at the roof.

  On the top of the bus, the giant jackalope blinked, sniffed, and shook her head out of a deep sleep. Jordan knew what was coming. She was gonna bolt.

  “Alistair! Jingle jangle!” Jordan yelled. The young Scot tossed the bus keys out the window to Jordan. WHOOOSH! A gray blur swooped by and snagged them out of midair. A second later, Kriss was hovering directly in front of Peggy, dangling the keys in front of her face. The big, antlered bunny’s eyes glazed over, and she slipped back into her catatonic state.

  Mike smiled, impressed. “Nice work! Let’s hear it for Mothra, there! Hip, hip, HOO—” SLAM! Before he could finish his loud cheer—one that surely would have reawoken Peggy—a wet, black, furry lump shot out from
behind a nearby palm thicket and tackled him to the ground. The next second, Bernard was sitting on Mike’s chest. Mike made a face as he got a noseful of Bernard’s bouquet, and his eyes scanned the faces above him, landing on Lou.

  37

  Alistair veered the bus off Federal Highway 150 onto a bumpy dirt road, toward the base of the Popocatépetl volcano. Jordan sat in the front passenger seat, chatting with the Creature Keeper. He knew Alistair had to be concerned for Nessie, and Jordan figured the least he could do as they made the journey was to keep his mind on something else.

  “Your hare allergies seem better. I noticed you haven’t sneezed once.”

  Alistair reached into the pocket of his kilt and pulled out a package of allergy tablets. “These help. Also, I got out of that awful hole in the ground whenever I could. Midnight walks into that little town did wonders for my head in more ways than one. Kept me from goin’ cuckoo, like ol’ Harebrained Harvey.”

  “What about Milo and Bertha? They didn’t mind you taking their bus?”

  The chubby Scot shrugged at Jordan from behind the wheel. “They went on vacation. Left her parked in the desert. So they don’t exactly know they’ve lent it to me. But when they come back nice and relaxed, I’m bettin’ they’ll be all right with it.”

  Jordan smiled at his redheaded friend, who wasn’t doing a good job of hiding his worry. “It’s gonna be okay,” Jordan said. “We’re gonna find her.”

  “I just hope we find her in time. I hear the waters are really starting to act up without her there to tame ’em. Lotta folks could get hurt.”