My father comes to an abrupt halt. “Oh no,” he whispers. “The keys. They’re in my laptop case.”
We hear his car before we see it. His windows are rolled down; the Indian talk-radio station he loves to listen to is chattering in earnest.
“Harpreet,” Niko whispers as Harpreet turns the old taxi in to the strip mall. He waves, smiles, nods his turbaned head.
We dive into his old taxi, piling in on top of one another.
“Go!” my dad shouts when he gets the door closed.
“Go, all right, Mr. James. We will go.” Harpreet nods, fussing with his sun visor.
I settle back, digging between the seats for the seat belt. But my hand touches something cool and slippery, something alive. I yank it back.
“Niko.” I try to get the word out, but my jaw is frozen with fear. “There’s a—a—”
My dad sees it, too. His face is shiny with sweat. His skin is tinged with blue as we watch a snake crawl across Niko’s lap.
Harpreet is nattering on to his taxi, giving it encouragement. “All right, little lady, we will go.”
“Harpreet, stop. There’s a snake,” my dad whispers.
“A what, Mr. James? No. No snakes in my cab.” Harpreet pounces on the brakes, and jumps out.
I don’t breathe watching the brown striated snake move coil by coil, its black-ink line pupils transfixed, its head shifting from side to side as it slithers down Niko’s leg. This one looks different—not like the others.
“Can I have him, Dad?” Niko asks. “Can I?”
Harpreet yanks open the passenger door, grabs the snake just behind its jaws, and sends it soaring through the parking lot.
Harpreet shakes his finger like a windshield wiper. “No snakes. Not in my cab.”
My dad wipes the sweat off his chin.
My heart is still pumping loud like it lives in my ears. I shudder, thinking about that snake’s weird eyes. That snake was venomous.
“Guess we found it,” I say.
“Guess so,” my dad whispers.
“All right, Harpreet.” My dad offers a frozen smile, his eyes full of the shock of how close we came. “No snakes in your cab.” He cranks down the window and gasps the outside air, which has finally begun to cool.
“And there are other things.” Harpreet is ranting now. “I do not like this business you are messing up with, Mr. James.”
“Mixed up with,” my father corrects.
“Mixed up with,” Harpreet concedes. “‘Emergency. Come now.’ You scared Harpreet.”
“Yeah, Dad,” I say. “You scared Harpreet.”
Niko doesn’t say anything. He just holds my dad’s hand, smiling like he has found something way better than a pig in a blanket.
“You must promise, Mr. James,” Harpreet says sternly.
“They’re ripping whole species out of the wild and selling them for a killing. Endangered animals, Harpreet. And nobody’s stopping them because the Fish and Wildlife Department has no money.”
“They have laws,” Harpreet mutters.
“But no one is enforcing them. That’s the point.”
Harpreet’s dark eyebrows furrow. “You can’t catch aaaaall the bad people in the world,” he mutters.
“When I see something wrong I—”
“No snakes in the cab,” Harpreet interrupts. “No scaring Harpreet.” He claps his hand back on the wheel.
I check my father to see how he’s taking this. I’ve never heard Harpreet bawl him out before.
But it doesn’t seem to be sinking in. I guess it’s like telling Niko to stop jumping off the top of the play structure. Niko needs to jump and my father needs to make the world a better place. But I can hope this will be the end of this . . . Can’t I?
When I sleep, I dream of a thousand yellow taxis curving in a single line through the desert’s dust. I wait in the hot sun to search each one for the snake.
Nate Macavoy, Monster Hunter
by Bruce Hale
When you show up at your best friend’s house to walk to school in the morning, the last thing you expect to hear is, “Jeremy is missing.” Especially if your best friend is named Jeremy.
And especially if he texted you the night before, promising to tell you about monsters.
“‘Missing’?” I asked Mrs. Hyken, as we stood in the doorway. “Like, missing missing?”
She blew her bangs off her forehead and shifted Jeremy’s baby sister on her hip. “What other kind of missing is there, Nate?”
“But . . .”
I knew what she meant. I just couldn’t believe it.
“Have you called the cops?” I asked.
Something went crash in the kitchen. It sounded messy.
“Jason!” yelled Mrs. Hyken. “You better not be getting into those cookies!” Distracted, she looked away toward the ruckus. This didn’t seem like the best time to mention that the baby had painted some kind of yellowish goo all over the shoulder of Mrs. Hyken’s nice work outfit.
“What were we . . . ?” she said, turning back.
“The cops?” I asked again.
“Nate, honey, I don’t need the cops. I know where he is.”
“Where?”
Just then, Jeremy’s three-year-old brother squealed and burst through the kitchen door. He made a break for the stairs, chubby fists full of cookies.
“Jason Francis Hyken, come back here!”
“You’re a booty-head!” he cried.
Mrs. Hyken chased the little cookie snatcher, talking over her shoulder at me. “My snake-in-the-grass, soon-to-be-ex-husband took Jeremy.” Then she used some words that had gotten me a paddling when I said them in front of my dad.
“Has he called?” I asked.
“I’ve left messages for both of them. But I’m sure that dirtbag will phone me any time now to gloat. Jason, come down here this instant!”
The brat had made it up the steps. “Booty, booty, booty-head!”
Something crashed upstairs. It sounded expensive.
The baby on Mrs. Hyken’s hip began to blubber, adding snot to the other goo on Mrs. Hyken’s top.
“Now, now, Jessica.” She jiggled her daughter and flashed a tight smile. “Gotta go. Duty calls.” Mrs. Hyken stomped upstairs.
Back outside, I nosed around for Jeremy’s bike. Long gone, just like him.
Trudging the five blocks to school, I felt like I’d eaten lead waffles for breakfast. I knew Jeremy wasn’t at his dad’s apartment.
I knew he hadn’t forgotten to tell his mom about a sleep-over.
Deep in my gut, I knew the monsters had him.
Okay, before we go any further, maybe I should say a word or two about my monster “obsession,” as Dad calls it. I’m not obsessed (a five-point vocabulary word, meaning totally nuts about something).
But I am fascinated.
The coolest TV show in the world, by far, is Monster Hunters. Each week, Jeremy and I watch their ace investigators search for cryptids—creatures like Bigfoot, the Mothman, and the Loch Ness Monster—all over the planet.
We know cryptids like other kids know baseball players. And Jeremy and I have always, always wanted to photograph a real live cryptid. That would be our ticket onto the show, my life’s ambition.
Which was why last night’s message from Jeremy had me so pumped. And why his disappearance had me so worried.
I dug around in my backpack for my cell phone—a gift from Dad on my twelfth birthday the month before. Turning it on, I scrolled to our texts from last night and reread them for the tenth time:
J-Man: U won’t believe what I saw!
HunterNate: What?
J-Man: Clue: Yr dreams r about 2 come true!!!
HunterNate: WHAT???
J-Man: Gotta check sumthin. Show u tomorrow!
HunterNate: WHAAAAAT????
J-Man: Yr favorite thing.
HunterNate: CRYPTIDS???
J-Man: O, maybe : )
HunterNate: Tell me!!!
&nbs
p; J-Man: L8er, dude!
That told me a whole bunch of nothing useful. What was he going to check on? Where had he found this thing?
And what the heck had he found?
Jeremy knew my big dream, so his secret had to be connected with cryptids. But how could that be?
Seriously, what kind of cryptid would hang out in a blah little suburb like Whippleboro, Massachusetts—the Mall Monster? The Abominable Snowblower Man? The Creature from the Stinkety Skating Rink?
And what, exactly, was it doing with my best friend?
My thoughts whirled as I shuffled to school in a daze. I wanted to go grab my bike and start looking for Jeremy, but without knowing what he’d found, I had no clue where to start.
Besides, as a passing cop car reminded me, grown-ups generally frown on kids ditching school.
Wait—a cop car?
“Hey!” I shouted. I waved my hands and ran after it, book bag thumping against my back. “Stop! Help! Come back!”
A half block later, the black-and-white pulled over to the curb ahead of me. The window buzzed down on the passenger side, and a beefy white guy with a furry caterpillar mustache leaned out.
“What’s the problem, kid?”
“It’s . . . my friend,” I panted. “He’s . . . missing.”
“Oh, yeah?” said Officer Mustache. His eyes hid behind dark sunglasses. The caterpillar on his lip twitched. “How long?”
“Since, uh . . .” Now that I thought of it, Mrs. Hyken hadn’t told me when Jeremy disappeared. “Since last night.”
Officer Mustache looked over at his partner, a lean black woman with a serious expression and shades to match.
“What do your friend’s parents say?” she asked.
“His, uh, mom says she thinks Jeremy’s dad took him—”
“Uh-huh,” said Officer Serious.
“But I think something else—um, someone else—got him. Please, can’t you start looking?”
The cops traded another glance.
“D-I-V-O-R-C-E,” said Officer Serious, as if I couldn’t spell for beans.
“Yup,” said Officer Mustache. He turned back to me. “Has his mom filed a report?”
“No.”
“Then there’s nothing we can do.”
I clenched my fists in frustration. “But I just know something’s wrong. Please?”
Officer Serious shot me a look. “Go to school, kid. He’ll probably be back home by the time you are.”
I pulled out all the stops, giving them the ol’ lost-my-puppy stare. “Please?”
Two pairs of sunglasses stared back, like the eyes of two giant bugs dressed in blue. The window buzzed up, and the car rolled away.
Shoot.
I shifted my book bag on my shoulders. So the police wouldn’t do anything? Fine. I’d rescue Jeremy myself. I’d—
Brrrriinnnng! went the bell.
—do it right after school.
The morning’s classes passed in a blur. All through math and social studies, I kept turning over the problem in my head. How could I figure out where Jeremy had gone?
By the time the lunch bell rang, I knew where to start. I wolfed down my county fair dog and potato salad and hit the library.
The librarian, Mrs. Kunkle, sat in her office, eating macaroni from a takeout container and staring blankly into space, like she was on screen-saver mode. I waved. She waved back, without shifting her eyes or slowing down her fork.
Just my luck, one of the computers was free. I opened the web browser and typed CRYPTID WHIPPLEBORO MA into the search engine.
Bam. 55,681 hits.
Great.
I took about ten minutes checking out the websites. Normally, I loved this stuff and could spend my whole lunch hour reading it. But not today. I couldn’t stop thinking of Jeremy, captured somewhere, with monsters standing over him drooling.
Right away I skipped all of the ghost-related websites. Serious monster hunters don’t believe in ghosts.
I zeroed in on true cryptids. The Dover Demon looked promising—huge orange eyes, watermelon head, makes bloodcurdling noises. But Dover was at least three hours’ drive away.
I kept searching.
Pukwudgies caught my eye next. Goofy name. But these cryptids were anything but goofy. Pukwudgies are gray, troll-like creatures that can appear and disappear at will. They can change themselves into different animals; they’ve been sighted all over Massachusetts.
And, according to Wampanoag tribal legends, they love playing nasty tricks on humans.
I scanned page after page. But I couldn’t find any helpful details on Pukwudgies, like where they hung out, what they did with kidnapped kids, or how you dealt with them once you found them.
There had to be someone I could ask. . . .
Duh.
Of course! If the staff of my favorite TV show didn’t know more about Pukwudgies than anyone around, I’d eat my book bag (or the cafeteria’s mystery meat, whichever was worse).
I got the Monster Hunters phone number from their website. Stepping outside, I punched the digits into my cell phone. True, Dad had said to use it only for emergencies, but if this wasn’t an emergency, what was?
After five rings, a bored-sounding woman’s voice said, “Monster Hunters, no cryptid too cryptic. How can I help you?”
“Um, I . . .” Now that the moment had arrived, I choked. This woman could connect me with one of the monster hunters. I might even end up talking with Ace Gronsteen himself.
“Whaddaya want, kid?”
I cleared my throat. “Can I, uh, talk to one of the monster hunters?”
“Regarding what?”
“Um, Pukwudgies. I need anything they can tell me.”
The woman grunted. Her hand must have covered the phone, because next I heard a brief, muffled conversation. She came back on.
“They’re not available right now.”
I gripped the phone. “When will they be?”
“I could take a message,” she said, sounding like she’d rather jam a sharp pencil into her eyeball.
“This is important!” I snapped. “A kid’s life is at stake.”
A rusty-sounding chuckle leaked from the phone. “Good one. So, someone’s gonna kill you if you don’t turn in your cryptid report on time?”
“No, it’s my friend. He—”
“Thanks for watching, kid. See ya.”
The line went dead.
I sagged against the redbrick wall of the library. My mind spun around and around. And like a silver ball in one of those arcade games, it finally went down the last hole left.
I gulped.
Only one person could tell me what I needed to know.
And that one person was the toughest kid in sixth grade.
Brandon Frye.
Normally, Brandon is the last guy you’d go looking for. He’s built like a big brown refrigerator, with a shock of thick black hair, eyes like black lasers, and the sweet disposition of a hungry wolverine.
Even teachers get nervous around him.
But Brandon was the only part-Wampanoag person I knew. If anyone at school could fill me in on Pukwudgies, it would be him.
Finding Brandon wasn’t a problem. Lunchtimes, he usually hung out with his girlfriend and some other tough kids on the benches by the baseball diamond.
Talking to him was the problem.
I stuffed my hands into my jeans pockets and drifted toward the benches, pretending to watch some kids playing pickle out on the field.
Brandon and his friends laughed at some joke. Hearing that, I thought, Good mood, and turned around.
“Hi, uh, Brandon,” I said.
The laughter stopped like someone threw a switch. Brandon Frye, his two weasel-like buddies, and his red-haired girlfriend all stared at me.
“Nice day, huh?” I squeaked.
“Nice day for a pounding,” said the first weasel guy. Weasel Number Two snickered. Brandon kept staring.
“I know you?” he rumbled. T
he guy’s voice was as low as a high schooler’s.
“We were in fourth grade together?” I said. “Now we’re in Mr. Sarner’s science class?” I’m not sure why everything I said came out like a question.
“You’re Nick,” he said.
“It’s, uh, Nate, actually.”
He shook his massive head. “Nick.”
I shrugged. “Okay; Nick. Listen, can we talk?”
“All Brandon wants to hear from you is, ‘Here’s my lunch money,’” said Weasel Number One.
I held my palms up. “Already spent it. I just want some information.”
Brandon cocked his head and narrowed his eyes, considering me. He spat.
“What’ll you pay?”
“Pay?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I answer your questions, I’m givin’ you something. What’ll you give me?”
I dug in my pockets. Nothing but lint and odd scraps of paper.
“What do you want?”
Brandon chuckled. “What do I want? A million bucks, a new house for my family, to win the Ultimate Fighting Smackdown, and for losers to stop calling me ‘Injun.’”
The weasel guys laughed and bumped fists. The redheaded girl swatted his arm in that funny way that girls do.
“What do I want from you?” Brandon stood, towering over me. The sun disappeared behind his head.
I gulped.
“A game of flinch.”
“What?” Flinch was a dumb game the guys at my school played. Basically, if you made the other person flinch, you got to slug them on the shoulder.
“Yeah,” said Brandon Frye. “For every question, we play one round. Deal?”
“Deal.”
I thought for a bit, wanting to get my questions just right. Too few, and I wouldn’t find Jeremy. Too many, and I’d lose the use of my arm.
“Okay,” I said. “First question: if we had Pukwudgies living in the area, where would I find them?”
Brandon’s forehead crinkled, and he gave a disbelieving smirk. “Pukwudgies? You been talkin’ to my grandma?”
Weasel Number One looked confused. “What’s a Puckawuddie?”
“Only a nasty little troll that likes to push people off cliffs,” said Brandon, making claws of his hands. He feinted at his friends, who chuckled nervously. “And you want to find a Pukwudgie?” he asked me.