So it was no accident that the five children all rose to the surface, blubbering and blowing. As the tugboat and barge grew smaller and smaller in the distance, heading back to shore, the five children looked about them to see just what kind of a fix they were in.
You would think that the four hooligans, having almost been buried alive in a Dumpster and drowned at sea, would forget about chasing someone with big ears. You would think they might want to work together to get back to their parents in Chin-in-Hand.
But Helvetia’s Hooligans just seemed angrier than ever at Roxie Warbler. If she had only stood still on the playground, they seemed to be thinking, and had let them put the underpants on her head, with her ears sticking out the leg holes and slimy eggs plastering it to her skull, none of this would have happened.
And so, when Roxie spied an island not far off, she began swimming as fast as she could, and the hooligans followed—foreheads furrowed, faces grim, and with every stroke of their hooligan arms, they muttered, “Get Roxie. . . . Get Roxie. . . . Get Roxie. . . . ”
Roxie swam faster than anyone, if only because she was the most frightened. She plunged forward as soon as she felt land beneath her feet and—gasping and panting—splashed out of the water, her wet clothes clinging to her skin. But it was too late. Simon Surly was the second-fastest swimmer, and he too reached the shore. Slithering along on his belly, he grabbed her ankle, bringing her down on the sand.
When attacked by an alligator, Lord Thistlebottom had written, do not panic. Cover the beast’s eyes and try to climb on its back.
Over and over they tumbled, but Roxie covered Simon’s eyes with her hands and climbed onto his back. Simon could not see where he was going, and for a moment Roxie thought she might get away. But then Helvetia reached shore next, and she tackled Roxie, digging her sharp teeth into Roxie’s leg.
If a bear bites you on the arm or leg, Lord Thistlebottom had written, do not panic. Hit him on the snout.
Roxie brought her fist down hard on Helvetia’s nose, and when the bully of all bullies opened her mouth with a howl of pain, Roxie ran up the bank just as Freddy Filch and Smoky Jo were coming ashore.
Roxie may have been the fastest swimmer, but she knew that no matter how fast she ran, Smoky Jo was faster. Now that she had rolled onto Simon’s back and hit Helvetia on the nose, they would be like angry bees after her, and spying tall sea grass ahead, Roxie ran for cover.
When chased by a swarm of bees, Lord Thistlebottom had written, do not panic. Head for a field of tall grass, if possible, and this will impede their progress.
It impeded the hooligans’ progress, all right, but it slowed Roxie’s as well. When she reached some woods beyond the sea grass, she headed for a tall tree and began to climb—up, up—until she reached the highest branches. And there she clung, frightened and exhausted, too tired to go on.
The hooligans followed as far as the tree, but no one tried to climb it. They were too worn out and, most of all, they were thirsty. They sank down on the ground and leaned against the trunk, trying to catch their breath.
Finally Helvetia said, “She can’t stay up there forever. And when she comes down, we’ll get her, all right. We’ll fix her wagon!”
“We’ll punch out her lights!” growled Simon Surly.
“We’ll clear her deck!” panted Freddy Filch.
“We’ll clean her plate!” squeaked Smoky Jo.
And then the hooligans lay still.
Up in the treetop Roxie was thirsty too. The salty ocean was still on her tongue, and she tried not to think about the water fountain back at school or the jug of iced tea in her mother’s refrigerator.
Down below, the hooligans stretched themselves out in the little bit of sunlight that filtered through the trees, hoping to dry their clothes. No one strayed very far from the others for fear of getting lost. Perhaps they thought that surely—surely—someone would come looking for them soon.
Morning became afternoon, however, and the shadows began to lengthen. Night was coming on, and Roxie thought that once the hooligans went to sleep, she could climb down and get away. But then she thought of the night creatures that might be creeping about in the woods, and she decided to stay where she was.
The sky went from gray to purple and from purple to black. Roxie could not see her hand in front of her face. One by one, the hooligans began to snore. Helvetia sounded like a chain saw; Simon sounded like the sea; and a snore that sounded like a pesky mosquito could only belong to Smoky Jo.
Then Roxie heard another noise coming from below. It was not the sea, not the wind, not an animal. It was the soft frightened sob of a boy.
Roxie listened, surprised. She waited, wanting to be sure. And then she whispered down, “Freddy?”
There was no answer. For a long time only the chain saw, the sea, and the mosquito could be heard. Then the sob came again.
“Freddy?” Roxie said. “What’s the matter?”
And finally he answered back, “I’m scared.”
“Of what?” asked Roxie.
“The dark,” sobbed Freddy.
“That’s okay,” said Roxie. “Sometimes I’m scared a lot too.”
But Helvetia had woken now, and it wasn’t okay with her. “Scared of the dark?” she scoffed. “You’d better quit sniveling, Freddy, or I’ll give you something to be scared about!”
The woods were quiet after that.
• SNAKE EYES •
When Roxie woke, it was early morning. She had not fallen out of the tree, but she was leaning dangerously off the side of the branch.
Slowly she righted herself and wiggled her neck to get out the kinks. Her mouth felt dry and fuzzy, and she realized that she had not had anything to drink since breakfast the day before.
The hooligans were waking up as well, and all they could think about, too, was water. They were so thirsty that, for a moment, anyway, they seemed to have forgotten Roxie Warbler up in the tree. But as Helvetia Hagus yawned and stretched, she saw Roxie perched in the upper branches.
Helvetia’s jaws closed with a snap. “Hey, Elephant Ears!” she called. “While you’re up there, look around and see if there are any ponds or pools or streams or something. Anywhere we could get some water.”
Roxie looked, turning herself around on the tree branch so that she could see in all directions. She and the hooligans seemed to be in a woods on the southern end of the island. To the west she saw the long sandy beach where they had come ashore. To the east, where the sun had risen, she saw a jagged shoreline, with waves breaking against the rocks. And to the north she saw tall sea grass waving in the breeze, with more trees beyond. But there was no pond, no pool, no stream.
“I don’t see any water,” she said.
Her ears, however—her round, pink, sugar-bowl-handle ears—had picked up a new sound that no one else seemed to hear. Once again she turned herself around on the tree branch until she could locate its direction. She saw two men making their way through the sea grass in the middle of the island, and both of them were holding long knives that gleamed in the sun.
They were not dressed like policemen. They were not dressed like hunters. They did not look like soldiers or guards or park rangers, either. They were not wearing safari jackets with brass buttons, but dirty jeans and torn T-shirts. Roxie’s scalp began to tingle, and her hair rose up on her head. Perhaps she had inherited a sixth sense from her uncle when it came to danger, because she knew these men were up to no good.
“Hide!” she hissed to the hooligans below. “I see men with knives, and they’re coming this way! Hurry!”
The hooligans had never listened to Roxie before, but there was something about her voice that made them pay attention. Helvetia dived behind a log and covered herself with brush. Simon hid behind a tree. Freddy wedged himself into a hollow stump, and Smoky Jo crawled down a hole and pulled dry leaves in on top of her. Their dull school uniforms helped make them hard to see.
“Don’t make a sound!” Roxie told them.<
br />
A crow cawed out a warning. A bee made a buzz. A cloud drifted over the blazing sun. And then they all heard it: the scrunch, scrunch of footsteps coming closer through the trees, twigs snapping, leaves rustling, feet thudding on the damp earth. Finally Roxie could hear the breathing of the two men as they pushed their way through prickly bushes.
They stopped a few feet away from Roxie’s tree to rest. One of the men ran his sleeve across his forehead.
“I tell you, Rat, there’s nobody here,” he said in a deep voice. “We’ve searched the whole island.”
“And I’m tellin’ you I heard somebody cryin’ last night,” the second man said. He pulled a plug of tobacco from his shirt pocket and bit off a piece. “Maybe a kid.”
“Coulda been an old hooty owl or a coyote,” said the first man.
“Out here on this island? How could a coyote get all the way out here, I ask you?” said the man named Rat.
“Well, if somebody’s here, he won’t be going back,” said the first man, the larger of the two. “Anybody on this island besides us, I’ll slit his throat.”
Roxie was trembling so hard, she wondered if she was shaking the tree.
“You’re a hard-hearted one, Snake Eyes,” said Rat.
“Now, don’t you go gettin’ soft,” Snake Eyes said, looking about him in all directions. “I pulled off the robbery, didn’t I? Got us each a million bucks, didn’t I? All we have to do is lie low till they stop lookin’ for us out this way, and then we’ll row down the coast and spend that money in Foot-in-Mouth.”
“Can’t happen too soon for me,” said Rat. “I sure am gettin’ tired of fish for dinner.”
“And we won’t even have that if we don’t catch some more today,” Snake Eyes told him. “Let’s go back to camp and get those fishing lines in the water.”
But the smaller man continued to grumble. “Why’d we bother bringing food with us if we’re not gonna eat it, Snake Eyes?”
“Because we don’t know how long we’ll have to stay here, stupid. What if the weather turns bad and the fish don’t bite? What if the rabbits get smart and keep away from our traps? Long as we can make do with what we find on the island, we can save our sausage and cheese for a rainy day,” said Snake Eyes. “You hear that old hooty owl again tonight, you wake me and I’ll prove it’s no kid.”
Both men paused again, Rat chewing hard on his tobacco, and then, after a final look around, they tucked their knives in their belts and headed back the way they had come, through the sea grass. Roxie watched as long as she could, but then they disappeared into the trees on the north end of the island.
For almost five minutes nobody moved. Roxie herself felt almost frozen with fright, but finally the brush rustled below and Helvetia’s head poked out.
“Psst!” she hissed to Roxie. “Are they gone?”
Roxie nodded. “Yes,” she said softly. Her legs were cramped from being in the tree for so long, but if she climbed down, she had not only Helvetia and the hooligans to worry about, but men with knives as well. If ever she wished she had her Uncle Dangerfoot’s slender cane, which could, in an instant, become a harpoon, a gun, an umbrella, or a walking stick, depending on the circumstances and the weather, it was now. If ever she wished she were as brave as Lord Thistlebottom, it was this very moment.
All the other hooligans came crawling from their hiding places, with twigs and leaves stuck in their hair.
“You heard them, Helvetia!” Smoky Jo squeaked. “They’ve robbed a bank, and they’re hiding out here!”
“And they’ll slit the throat of anyone they find on the island!” whispered Freddy Filch, his voice shaky.
Helvetia ran her tongue over her dry lips and looked up at Roxie. “Well, Big Ears, you got us into this. You have any ideas? If you don’t, and those men come back, we’ll make sure you’re the first one they catch.”
• A SLIMY SANDWICH •
Helvetia’s Hooligans stood at the bottom of the tree, their angry eyes on Roxie Warbler.
“I’m hungry, too!” said Freddy Filch. “What if nobody comes to rescue us? What if we starve?”
“Yeah,” said Smoky Jo. “I didn’t have any breakfast yesterday. I need to eat something now.” She walked over to the trunk of the tree and sized it up. She looked as though she could eat Roxie.
But Roxie was just as hungry and thirsty as they were, and she was getting tired of all their whining. “So eat!” she said from the safety of the tree.
“Eat what?” said Simon, glaring at her.
“Grasshoppers, ants, moths, caterpillars . . . ”
“Eeuww!” said all the hooligans together.
“Ha!” said Helvetia. “I’d like to see you eat something that disgusting.”
And right then Roxie knew how she could get down out of the tree without getting punched and pounded. “All right, I will!” she said, and down she came.
The hooligans stared and moved in a little closer.
“There’s a big black ant crawling on my shoe,” said Freddy, his finger pointing. “You can have it.”
“Something better than that,” said Roxie.
Simon swooped down and trapped a grasshopper in his hands. His lips curled in a cruel smile. “Eat this!” he said.
“Better than that,” said Roxie.
Smoky Jo dug gleefully around in the damp earth and suddenly stood up with a worm draped over her stick. She held it in front of Roxie’s face. “Eat this!” she said, and her beady eyes gleamed.
“Better than that,” said Roxie.
“Ha!” said Helvetia. ‘ “What are you looking for? A hot fudge sundae?”
But Roxie walked on slowly through the trees, the hooligans at her heels. She knew from reading Lord Thistlebottom’s book that if she ate something without cooking it, she might get sick. And if she was going to get sick, she had better eat only one thing, something spectacular.
She studied the bushes. She studied the leaves. She kicked at a clump of dirt.
“I’ve got it!” said Helvetia, capturing a woolly caterpillar and dangling it in front of Roxie’s mouth. “Chow down, Big Ears!”
“Better than that,” Roxie told her. And then she found what she was looking for. There was a rotting log directly in the path ahead, and already she could see insects hurrying in and out.
Helvetia saw it too and began to smile. “Ah! Breakfast for Roxie Warbler!” she said. The hooligans gathered around.
Roxie knelt down beside the log. She took a stick and began to poke at the rotten part. Bugs fell out. Worms fell out. But Roxie kept digging and poking until she came upon some large white grubs, as thick as her thumb, feasting on the decayed wood.
She reached in and picked up a grub. A wiggly, squirmy, slimy grub. Her stomach began to churn. Her throat felt tight. When faced with starvation, Lord Thistlebottom had written, do not panic. Wrap the insect in something more pleasing and imagine yourself having dinner at Buckingham Palace.
Roxie knew she could not jump from planes. She could not face a charging rhino or swim through a river of crocodiles, but she could do this.
She wrapped the grub in a dandelion leaf. Then, sitting down on a stump with the hooligans looking on, she opened her mouth.
I am sitting with the queen at Buckingham Palace, eating a dainty lobster and lettuce sandwich, she told herself.
Crunch. Her teeth came down on the grub, and she bit it in two. It wiggled a little on her tongue. The dandelion leaf gave off a sharp tangy taste. The grub was cool and somewhat slimy, but Roxie chewed twice, then swallowed. Gulp.
Roxie put the rest in her mouth. The hooligans’ eyes were as big and round as coat buttons. They could not believe that, having taken one nasty bite, she would take another.
“She ate it!” Freddy said to the others.
“Raw!” said Helvetia.
“All of it!” said Simon.
“Live!” said Smoky Jo.
Simon Surly glanced around uneasily. “If we had to . . . if nobody c
omes to get us . . . what else can we eat?” he asked.
“No caterpillars with fuzz on them, no bright-colored bugs,” said Roxie. “Those could be poisonous. And before you eat a grasshopper, pull off the legs and wings.”
“Hey, Big Ears, how do you know so much about it?” asked Helvetia.
“Oh, I just read it in a book,” Roxie answered.
“What book?” asked Simon.
“Lord Thistlebottom’s Book of Pitfalls and How to Survive Them,” Roxie said.
“Lord Thistlebottom, the famous explorer?” said Simon.
“You read his book?” asked Helvetia. And all the hooligans began to laugh.
“She should read a book called How to Walk to School Without Getting Creamed,” said Simon.
“She’s so scared of us, she spent the night in a tree!” squeaked Smoky Jo.
Freddy was the only one who didn’t taunt her.
Roxie looked around at her tormentors and then at the rotten log. “Grub sandwich, anyone?” she asked.
There wasn’t any more laughing after that.
• ROXIE’S PLAN •
The hooligans wouldn’t eat anything, however, and as morning wore on all anyone could think about was water. Roxie was desperately thirsty too.
“We won’t last very long if we don’t get water soon,” said Helvetia. “Anyone got an idea?” She was looking, of course, at Roxie.
“If those men are hiding out here,” Roxie told the hooligans, “they must have brought some water with them as well as food. And they probably came in a boat. If we can find it, maybe we can get home again.”
“Never mind the boat,” said Simon Surly, his dry lips sticking together as he talked. “I just want a drink.”
“Well, since we don’t have any water of our own, we’ll just have to borrow some of theirs,” said Roxie.
“And who’s going to do that?” said Helvetia.