by Cara Hoffman
“You’re right,” said Tubs.
“Anyways, we gotta get goin’, ’cause Billy made a promise he’s gotta keep.” And with that, Beau hopped onto Billy’s back and the two flew off over the water.
24
Tubs was right about Lila; she was the fastest. She was there at the factory when it opened, wearing her lab coat and carrying a briefcase full of files. She didn’t climb the wall like Tubs had but entered through the front gate. She hopped unseen through the maze of smokestacks and human machines until she found a building where people came and went. Some of them wore hard yellow hats and big boots, and some of them wore fancy gray dress coats and ties, like her professors at the Sorbonne, only human. Lila followed the people who looked like professors.
Inside the building it was cool and bright. The floor was smooth and the ceiling seemed as far away as the sky and she hopped until she found a room with an open door. A tall man was sitting behind a desk, writing in a large ledger. The office had a big window that looked out over the swamp and another window that looked out over the smokestacks.
Lila cleared her throat to get the man’s attention, but he didn’t hear her. She walked closer and hopped up on one of the chairs and said, “Excuse me, I’m wondering if we could talk.”
The man didn’t look up.
Finally, Lila hopped from the chair onto the man’s desk. “Excuse me,” she said. The man leaped up and nearly fell over. “Sorry to startle you,” said Lila.
Before the man could say anything, she opened her briefcase and began taking out folders and papers and laying them across his desk.
The man pinched himself—then rubbed his eyes. “I must be dreaming,” he said.
“You look wide awake to me,” said Lila.
“I’m sorry,” said the man. “But unless you have an appointment, you’re going to have to leave.”
“I don’t have an appointment,” said Lila, “and I’m not leaving. My name is Lila Marshfield and I’m a medical doctor.”
The man looked around. “Is this a practical joke?” he said.
“I beg your pardon,” said Lila indignantly.
The man sat back down; his face was pale. “All right, Ms. Marshfield, what can I do for you?”
Lila handed him a folder. “For many springs the creatures of the swamp have been getting sicker,” she said. “We have rashes and colds, and bellyaches and pain, and some of us can’t stop sneezing.”
“That’s a shame,” said the man. “Would you like to come home with me and live in my daughter’s room? We have a very nice house with a frog pond in the yard. All the crickets you could eat. The frogs there are happy.”
“No, thank you,” said Lila. “What I’d like to do is give you a checkup.”
“What?” said the man. “No, no, no. I have a doctor of my own species.”
“If frogs are getting sick,” said Lila, holding up her arm to show him the rash, “that means you could be getting sick, too. It means everyone could get sick.”
The man laughed—and his booming voice shook Lila.
“You’re pouring something into our home that’s hurting us,” said Lila. “But you live near the swamp, too.”
“I won’t be sick,” said the man. “I don’t swim in the swamp, I don’t drink the water, I don’t spend time on the shore. I just look at the pretty view—and you can’t get sick from that.”
“You breathe the air,” said Lila. “And you’ve made the air foul.”
“Listen, little frog,” said the man.
“Don’t interrupt me,” said Lila. “I’m a scientist and a physician. I can tell you that if you kill the insects and the frogs and the fish and the little things no one sees—you’ll be next. I’m here to ask you to shut off that pipe. It’s for your own good, not just mine.”
The man laughed again. “Come on back and live with my children, you can bring your whole family. I’m as sad as you that the swamp isn’t safe anymore. But it’s not me. I would never hurt an animal.”
“You’re hurting hundreds of animals,” Lila said. “The swamp isn’t safe because you’re poisoning it.”
“I can’t shut off that pipe,” said the man. “I’d lose my job, I’d lose my house, I wouldn’t be able to feed my children. You can understand that.”
Lila looked at the man. He had large blue eyes. How can he look into my eyes, she thought, and not know that we all need the same things?
“I do understand,” said Lila. “There were no tadpoles in the swamp this spring.”
“I can’t shut off the pipe,” he said again.
“Then we’ll shut it off for you,” she said.
25
Lila packed up her briefcase and turned to go. Out the window she could see a dark cloud gathering, but the air around her didn’t feel like a storm was coming on. The cloud moved quickly. It wasn’t drifting across the sky, blown by the wind; it was rising and falling as though it were flying. Lila held her breath. Could it be a tornado? she thought.
“What is that?” the man asked.
Lila said nothing. She could see the cloud was made of hundreds of birds of all sizes. Woodpeckers and curlews and gulls and terns and doves, shrikes and martins and larks and swallows, all speeding toward the factory. Each carrying something black and furry on their back. And then Lila could see Billy, half his feathers gone, the red rash covering his neck, flying fast toward the window. Just as he was about to hit it, Roy sprang from Billy’s back, his purple bedsheet puffed out behind him. He raised his hand and Lila saw light glint off the hammer.
She only had time to whisper “What in the world?” before the window shattered and Roy burst into the room, skittering across the man’s desk. Through the broken window came a swarm of dragonflies.
The man shouted in surprise as glass rained down around them and insects filled the air.
Roy held out his hands and waved them up at the man’s face as though lightning could come from his fingertips. Billy landed beside Lila and rose up on his toes, flapping his wings at the man.
“Bobo!” Roy cried.
The man looked confused.
“Bobo!” Roy yelled again.
“What is he doing?” Lila asked.
“Scaring the factory,” said Billy.
“I think the word he’s looking for is boo,” Lila whispered to Billy.
“Some people are scared by bobo and some people are scared by boo,” he said. “You ain’t the arbiter of other people’s fears, Lila.”
Suddenly, an alarm began to sound. The animals jumped in shock and covered their ears. The man looked out the window again, and then he began to run.
“Ha!” shouted Roy, dancing on the desk. “Magic! We scared him away!”
“We did!” shouted Lila. She laughed. “Now, c’mon, we can find the switch!”
Roy ran down the hall with his hammer and Lila and Billy ran after him.
All through the factory, bog lemmings were laughing in glee, climbing in windows, shutting lights on and off, opening and closing desk drawers, turning handles, flushing toilets, while people in suits and people in yellow hard hats chased after them.
26
Down in the swamp, no one would be able to tell what was going on, because from a distance the factory looked as it always did. The only strange thing Tubs noticed was that the sky was unusually full of birds. His day of drifting in the swamp had brought him to many different creatures, but other than Beau, he had seen no frogs. He’d only heard their voices, the distant melody rising into the air.
Tubs began to worry. Did they go to the pipe early, before anyone else, and get covered in goo like that newt Beau had seen? Did they get washed out into the swamp and drown or get captured by the men who ran the factory? Did his song make them do something dangerous? His heart pounded in his chest and he began rowing faster, looking out for frogs in the water and on the land.
Closer to the factory, he could smell the smoke from the stacks. The air was charged as though a storm was ap
proaching. Tubs was tired of rowing and longed to get into the cool water and swim.
In the distance he could see a ripple of current on the water’s surface, and wondered what was going on beneath it, if a school of fish might be approaching. He smiled to himself. It had been a long time since he’d encountered a school of fish.
The boat moved steadily toward the rippling water. Tubs was looking down as he rowed when he felt the boat stop suddenly. He hadn’t hit a submerged rock—or gone aground—the boat simply stopped. He tried rowing harder to no avail. He turned to the stern to see if he might be caught in some weeds—and then he saw it, a green clawed hand holding tight to the leeward edge of the boat. On each finger there was a sapphire ring.
Another hand appeared and then the boat began to tip until one side was nearly pulled under. And then a large narrow head rose above the surface of the water. Its strange eyes peered deeply into Tubs’s eyes, and its mouth grinned with three rows of razor-sharp teeth.
“Pythia,” Tubs said, stepping back from the witch’s mouth and trying to catch his balance.
“There are so many tasty creatures out and about today,” said the alligator witch.
The bottom of the boat was slippery, and Tubs lost his footing. He began to slide toward the alligator’s mouth, scrambling frantically. Finally, he grabbed an oar and used it to brace himself.
“And everyone headed to the same place,” the witch said. “What a wonderful buffet, very convenient.”
“Oh, you wouldn’t want to eat anyone there,” said Tubs, trying to keep his voice from trembling. “They’re all—”
The witch grinned. “I told you to leave the swamp, didn’t I? I told you if you stayed, all would be misery. There’s still time for you to go.”
“This is my home,” said Tubs.
“Is it?” said the witch. “Or is music your home? Home for you is anywhere you play your songs.”
How could someone so horrible say so many things that made sense? Tubs thought.
“This is where my songs began,” he said. “This is where I’m singing now, so this is my home. Maybe you live too far away to hear our songs but things are different now.”
Pythia let go of the side of the boat and it rocked back into place. Her eyes glazed over and she appeared to go into a trance.
“Everyone heard your song last night,” said Pythia. “My cousin in Brazil heard your song. Soon there will be no creature living by water who doesn’t know your song.”
“Then help us,” said Tubs. “This is your home, too.”
27
Pythia didn’t answer Tubs. She sank back into the dark water and disappeared with a lash of her tail that sent his boat spinning and cresting on a wave. Water spilled into the boat and Tubs held on for dear life, clutching his oars to make sure he didn’t lose them.
When the boat stopped rocking, he found himself by the willows that he’d used as a catapult—just a short hop downstream from the pipe. His head was still spinning, and the air was full of sound. Everywhere he looked—on the shore and in the water, in the branches of trees—there were frogs. So many more frogs than lived in his small part of the swamp. Tubs docked his boat and jumped to shore, looking through the crowd of faces for Lila. Some frogs stood still, waiting and singing, and others were headed toward the factory.
“Friends,” cried Tubs. “There is a hungry alligator coming this way. You must protect yourselves, get to safety.”
But so many frogs were singing his new song, they couldn’t hear his warning. He shouted Lila’s name, hoping she might be nearby.
Lila was not nearby at all.
Inside the factory the bog lemmings ran loose, chanting their magic spells, climbing walls and towers and stacks. The lemmings created such a distraction, Lila and Billy were able to look for a master switch. They raced past offices through the factory and down a metal staircase. Finally they reached a cavernous, steamy, foul-smelling room on the ground floor. It made their eyes sting and their skin itch. There was not a person in sight, but there were dozens of switches in the room—one of them, an enormous red dial, was encased in a glass box.
“This has got to be it!” said Lila, coughing.
The room was full of metal pipes that twisted every which way, but only one that was headed straight out through the factory wall.
“Let’s wreck this thing,” said Billy.
But neither Lila nor Billy nor anyone inside the factory could have known what was going on outside in the mud.
Tubs ran as fast as he could along the shore, warning anyone who would listen that Pythia was on her way. “There’s no knowing what she’ll do!” he shouted.
At a forest of cattails, Tubs ran into the yellow tree frog, carrying a backpack full of stones.
“Pythia might be coming,” he told her.
The tree frog nodded and wiped her brow. “Frogs in the trees spotted her earlier,” she said. “Some left, but we decided to keep working.” Tubs hopped beside the yellow tree frog through the cattail forest, and together they called out Lila’s name.
Soon they came upon a line of frogs, and behind that another. Behind the frogs, Tubs could see Virgil and the water rats, covered in mud up to their knees. They had tied ropes to trunks of trees, creating a pulley. They were working hard to haul a massive stone into the mouth of the pipe while a group of crawfish steadied it from the sides. The song of the frogs was nearly deafening, and it was joined by the high-pitched whine of a siren.
Everywhere Tubs looked he could see frogs surrounding the pipe, creating a ring around the water rats, protecting them from every side. Around that ring of frogs there was another ring of frogs, and around that another. They drifted in the water, some of them already covered in the dark goo. They stood on top of the pipe and on the shore and in the shallows, and in the distance, he could see them standing on the wall that looked out onto the factory.
“We’re here in case anyone tries to stop them,” said the yellow tree frog. “Or slow them down.” She opened her pack and handed a rock to each frog she passed. “If Pythia comes, she’ll have to get through us first.”
“She could eat us,” said Tubs.
“She could,” said the yellow tree frog. “But that pipe is more dangerous than a hungry alligator.”
These are the bravest creatures I’ve ever known, thought Tubs. He took a rock and went to stand beside them.
The terrible goo lapped against the stone pushing it back, and the water rats pulled with all their might on the ropes to bring it closer to the mouth of the pipe. Just when it seemed the stone was nearly in place and they could hear it clank against metal, one of the rats slipped in the mud and the stone fell back. The crawfish caught it and brought it forward—though they were covered with the goo and some of them were unable to see.
Suddenly there was a warning cry from the frogs who were guarding the crawfish. Tubs turned just in time to see a ripple on the surface of the swamp. Soon the ripple became a wave and it began to crest. The frogs in the water locked arms, and the frogs on the shore rushed to help them, rocks in hand, but there was little they could do.
Pythia rose from the swamp, her eyes glinting and her jaws fixed in a terrifying grin. She was right, Tubs thought. I stayed in the swamp and now there is nothing but misery.
The alligator pushed through the crowd of frogs, sending them flailing through the murky water, then turned and fixed her eyes directly on Tubs.
28
Tubs trembled in the water beneath Pythia’s stare. His skin itched and burned from the poison that flowed from the pipe. Frogs were still singing as they rushed at the alligator witch, throwing rocks. They climbed atop one another, making a barricade of bodies between Pythia and the water rats. And all along the alarm was still sounding from beyond the factory wall.
There was a loud clang and all the animals turned at once to see. The rats and the crawfish had done it—they had placed the stone over the mouth of the pipe. But the goo still leaked from around it.
Suddenly Pythia snapped her enormous jaws open and shut. She twisted around, pulling dozens of frogs along with her down into the swirling current. Then she turned and fast as lightning whipped her powerful tail against the stone, smacking it deep into the pipe—sealing it in place. She slid back into the water, leaving bewildered and frightened frogs in her wake.
The crawfish climbed out of the murky shallows, and the water rats sat weary in the mud, nodding to one another with a gruff sort of pride. Virgil lit his pipe and leaned back on his elbows. “Y’all see that alligator witch?” he said.
A cheer rose up and down the embankment as the creatures of the swamp learned the pipe was shut. From somewhere beyond the wall another cheer echoed—as though dozens of voices were calling back to them.
Inside the factory, Lila and Billy had broken the glass case and were trying with all their might to pull the switch when suddenly they saw the pipe bulge and start to crack, and dark goo began oozing from it. Lila hopped on Billy’s back and they flew from the room, watching as the ooze flooded the floor beneath them.
The bog lemmings who were still in the factory ran to keep ahead of it, climbing the wall, calling to birds for help. Some were scooped up into the air, and some pushed through cracks and mouseholes to make their escape.
Lila and Billy landed outside in the soft mud near the pipe. They walked together hand in wing toward the water and the sound of singing. And then Lila saw, in the distance, weary frogs pulling broad leaves from the ground to clean their sticky, itchy skin. Standing among them, covered in mud and bumps, grinning from ear to ear, was Tubs.
The hospital was full that evening. Lila bandaged broken claws, stitched cut paws, administered medicines and balms and shots. Though it was crowded, and though creatures had cuts and scrapes and welts, Lila was smiling.