Crown of the Cowibbean (3 page)

“The Coral Crown is the most beautiful, most exquisite prize in all the Cowibbean.” Marco explained, waving his wings slowly. “It is said to be made of gold coral from the deepest parts of the ocean. It is covered in emeralds and sapphires…and diamonds as big as your eye! A trophy worthy of the highest king!”

“Wow!” Chuck said, his eyes growing wide. “Has anyone ever seen it?”

“Ahhh…no.” Marco lowered his head. He suddenly looked sad. “Many roosters of my family have looked for the crown. My grandfather has told me the tales since I was a little chick. Legend say the crown rests at Spidercrab Rock. He spent his
whole life
searching for it. He followed this map many times. But no matter how far he sailed…he never found the crown. No one has.”

Of course no one's ever found it
, Dakota thought to himself.
It probably doesn't even exist
. Just as before, he was not so impressed with Marco's tales.

“What's this?” Chuck asked, pointing to a poem scribbled at the bottom of the map. He read the verses aloud:

“
Circle of darkness, horn of the heavens
,

A watery grave where the clock strikes eleven
,

A spying eye sees when our own eyes do fail
,

Into the nothingness, bravely we sail
.

The beast shall sleep at the Sea-Cows' song
,

And we shall be guided by stars of our own
.

Reach for the skies and a sea rover finds

The crown she doth sing to a key of her kind
.

And guard thy heart, hearties, where wishes do dwell
,

For those who bring ruin shall earn it as well.
”

“Huh?” Dakota wrinkled his nose under his cow mask. “I don't understand any of that.”

“There's nothing to understand,” Marco said. “It's just a shanty. An old sea tune my grandfather sang for good luck.”

“It almost sounds like a bunch of clues,” Chuck said.

“Poppycock!” Marco snapped. Who needs clues when we have a map? This map will help Marco succeed where all others have failed. Everyone who has looked for the crown has given up, gotten lost, or perished at sea.”

“Maybe if they'd just gone straight to Spidercrab Rock, they wouldn't have had so much trouble,” Dakota suggested. He pointed at the map. “See? First you go all the way east to some old shipwreck. Then you sail all the way west to this coral reef. Then you come back east again to Spidercrab Rock!” He drew an invisible line through the middle of the path with his coconut shell hoof. “Wouldn't it be easier to just go in a straight line?”

Marco lowered his eyelids and stared at Dakota as though he were crazy. “If it were that easy, little cow, don't you think someone would have done it by now?”

“Maybe it's another clue,” Chuck offered. “There must be some reason to take that big curvy path.”

“There are no clues!” Marco clucked impatiently. He was beginning to tire of these stowaway calves telling the great Marco Pollo how to read a map. “That poem is just a silly old song, and we sail that path because THAT IS WHAT'S ON THE MAP.”

At that moment, they heard Ribeye grunt loudly from the quarterdeck above.

“What was that?” Dakota asked.

“Ribeye says ‘
Land Ho
!'” Marco answered, rolling up the map and stuffing it under his gigantic captain's hat. They all joined Ribeye up at the ship's wheel. The sun was beginning to set now, and it reflected in the ocean like tiny droplets of fire. In front of the beautiful sunset was a tiny little island.

Marco gazed ahead at the island through his spyglass. “Behold…Cattleena!” he said.

Cattleena was much smaller than Bermooda. There weren't as many palm trees, and the sand looked a lot rockier. The cluster of wooden docks lining the side of the island looked old enough to fall apart. It wasn't much, but it still looked pretty enough in the pink rays of the setting sun.

Dakota furrowed his brow as he remembered their abandoned ghost hunt. “So much for finding the Silver Cow at sunset,” he muttered. He pulled the paper hat off of Chuck's head. “We were
supposed
to spend the weekend
camping
! What's Mama going to say?”

Chuck couldn't understand what Dakota was so cranky about. After all, Mama wouldn't expect them home from camping for a couple of days. For now, the breeze was warm, the sunset was lovely, and they were searching for a priceless treasure with a genuine hero. What could possibly go wrong?

4

THE BLACK SPOT

Marco shouted orders to his crew as they docked the
Swashclucker
. “So what are we doing here?” Dakota asked.

“Cattleena is where the map starts, so that's where we start,” Marco stated firmly. “We dock here for the night before beginning our voyage.”

Even though Marco said the poem didn't have any clues in it, Chuck was convinced that it did. He was even more convinced he would find the answers to some of those clues here on Cattleena.

“Can we walk into town?” Chuck asked. “I promise we'll be careful.”

Ribeye snorted his disapproval, but Marco dismissed it.

“Oh, let them go, Ribeye. Let them have a little fun!” he clucked. “Just don't tell anyone about our voyage,” he warned them. “And stay away from The Black Spot. That place is nothing but trouble. And
definitely
stay away from the Kingfish.”

“Who's the Kingfish?” Chuck asked.

“The Kingfish is a dirty scoundrel,” Marco said. “He runs most of this place, and he is not too fond of cows. He takes whatever he wants, whenever he wants, and he'd love to find the crown as much as we would.”

“He sounds like a pirate,” Chuck noted.

“
Sí
,” Marco agreed. “A pirate of the worst kind.”

“Sounds like a regular bully to me,” Dakota mumbled.

Chuck and Dakota found that Cattleena was not as pretty up close. Everywhere they looked, the town was dirty and rough. Even worse, Chuck hadn't found any answers to clues. He was about to suggest they go back to the
Swashclucker
when he saw something he couldn't resist. The tavern just ahead of them had a dirty white sign with a dark black circle on it. Written inside the circle were the words, “The Black Spot.”

“Look!” Chuck said, drawing a circle around the black circle with his hoof. “A ‘circle of darkness!'Just like in the poem!”

“Couldn't it just be a coincidence?” Dakota asked.

Chuck reached for the door. Dakota slapped his hand over it. “No! Marco said to stay away from here! Besides, the last time we went into a place like this, it was the Leaky Tiki…and look how much trouble that brought us!”

Chuck pushed Dakota's hand aside. “Come on,” he said, opening the door. “How bad could it be?”

The Black Spot looked nothing like the Leaky Tiki. This place was not warm and cozy. This place was gloomy and cold. The room was dimly lit by ship's lanterns hanging from the ceiling. The air tasted salty and stale, and the whole place smelled of fish. The windows were covered with brown palmetto leaves that had dried up long ago. A sad-looking octopus served drinks with as many hands as he could spare to a rowdy band of lobsters, crabs, and other shellfish. They laughed loudly as they played cards and slurped plankton at their tables. This place really was a circle of darkness. Chuck and Dakota pulled up two bamboo stools at the counter.

“What are we looking for?” Dakota asked.

“Well, the poem says ‘
Circle of darkness, horn of the heavens
',” Chuck said. They looked at their dingy surroundings. There was nothing heavenly about this place. “There has to be something here,” Chuck insisted. “I just know it.”

Dakota sighed. “Maybe there is no ‘Horn of the Heavens'. Maybe there is no Coral Crown. I know you want to believe that Marco is a great explorer. But maybe he's just a great storyteller.”

Chuck pretended not to hear. “You know what's weird?” he whispered. “This island is called ‘Cattleena' but I haven't seen any cattle.”

“I know,” Dakota agreed. “Other than you, the only cow in this place is that statue over there.” He pointed to a small cow statue on a round black pedestal in a dark corner of the room. They tiptoed over to take a closer look.

The statue was made of white marble. It was shaped like a cow with angelic wings and an elegant crown. A single horn stuck out from the center of the cow's head. Squinting his eyes, Chuck read the words engraved on the statue's base: “Nalani, Heifer of the Heavens.”

“What is it?” Dakota asked. “A unicow? There's only one horn.”

“This must be it!” Chuck said. “The ‘Horn of the Heavens'!” He peered closer and noticed a very small latch on the back the of the horn. “I think this thing comes off,” he said. He wiggled on the horn.

“Careful! You'll break it!” Dakota said in a hushed voice.

Chuck tugged a little harder, and the horn came off with a gentle
click
!

The two glanced around nervously but no one in the place seemed to notice them. Chuck and Dakota looked closely at the horn and now saw that it was hollow on the inside. Six tiny holes had been bored through the side.

“Hey! It's not just a horn!” Chuck said. “It's a horn
pipe
!”

Chuck turned the hornpipe flute over, and a roll of yellowed paper fell out from inside. They unrolled the paper to find an odd scale of musical notes that twisted and wound all over the page in the shape of a crown. Below the musical notes was a list of what seemed to be song titles, scribbled in a familiar handwriting:

The Fishes' Breath

Song o' the Sea-Cow

Tempest and the Tide

Fire in the Heavens

“Look! It's the same handwriting as Marco's map!” Chuck's hooves quivered with excitement. “Now do you think it's all just a coincidence?”

“It still doesn't make sense,” Dakota insisted. “We're on Cattleena, there's a cow statue…where are all the cows?”

“The Kingfish hates cows,” said a raspy voice behind them. They turned to see a big black parrot perched at the end of the counter. “Forgive me,” the old bird croaked, “I couldn't help but overhear. The name's Nwar. And the answer to your question is that the Kingfish has hated cows, hated cows ever since one of them cut off half his whiskers.”

Nwar looked like a tough old bird, but very tired. His heavy black feathers were tattered and his eyes had saggy red rims. He seemed awfully happy to have someone to talk to, so Chuck and Dakota listened as his scratchy voice croaked on about the Kingfish. Every so often, he would repeat a few words right in the middle of his sentence.

“This place was once full, full of cows. They sailed here years ago, years ago, from a place called Bermooda. Well, one day the Kingfish and his crew, his crew of shellfish, arrive in his ship, the
Tyrant
. They didn't get along, get along too well with the cows. They figured cows ain't got no place on the water. One day, the Kingfish got into it with a big one-eyed bull.”

Chuck and Dakota looked at each other. They both had a feeling they knew who the one-eyed bull was. They were starting to understand why Marco and Ribeye didn't want to come into town.

“There was an argument, which turned into a sword fight, and…well, ol' Kingfish lost some whiskers,” Nwar said. “After that, the Kingfish and his pirates ran pretty much every cow off the island. He's hated cows, hated cows ever since. So…what are you little cows doing here?”

Marco had said not to tell anyone about their plan. But Chuck was brimming with so much excitement that he looked like he might explode. Before Dakota could stop him, Chuck blurted out, “We're looking for the Coral Crown!” Chuck went on to blabber about the crown, the map, the poem, the hornpipe…
everything
. Dakota just shook his head.