Puddlejumpers (26 page)
“We'll find her, I promise,” comforted Russ. “Let's check with your mom again, then start calling the neighbors.”
Ernie shut the door, then slipped out the window and collected the fragment. Scouring the ground like a bloodhound, he recovered a third card scrap near the corral. He matched it with his other pieces to form the face of Ernie Banks. He found another fragment by the wheat and flattened stalks that indicated a tiny trail. Mesmerized, he followed it.
Standing on the kitchen threshold, Russ stared at Ernie's closed bedroom door while Betty talked on the phone. “I don't know, Joey said she wanted to show that boy Dad's old tractors.” She paced back and forth the length of the phone cord. “No, Mom. He came back by himself last night. Russ just figured she was home with me.” She watched Russ stride down the hall. “That's right. The Goetzes are organizing a search party. Everybody's meeting here at noon.”
Russ rapped on the crib room door. “Ernie?” Not waiting for a reply, he opened the door into the ransacked room. “What in God's name?” At his feet was the photograph of him and baby Shawn, now shredded. It felt like a punch in the stomach. Through the window he could see Ernie racing up the field.
Russ climbed out the window and ran across the yard, shouting, “Ernie, get back here! Ernie!” The boy was already disappearing over the first knoll. Furious, Russ turned back to the house as Betty hurried from the porch. “What happened?” she asked.
“He's gone. We'd better call the sheriff.”
With his gaze fixed on the ground, Ernie hustled through the field, claiming card scraps. At the boundary fence he found an arrow-shaped fragment pointing toward the scorched Holsapple wasteland. He set it in his palm with the other pieces. The Ernie Banks puzzle was almost complete. With a defiant look to the distant manse, he jumped the split rail and hustled across the blistered earth like a hawk searching for its prey. Up ahead, something glinting in the sun caught his eye. He sprinted past derricks and ratcheting oil pumps, not slowing until he realized what it was.
There, waiting patiently at the heart of the wasteland, was a puddle. As he got closer, he could see a tiny Cubs insignia floating in the water. He picked up the soggy emblem and added it to his puzzle, now a fully restored Ernie Banks card. He gazed at his reflection in the mirrored surface, swirling the water with his fingertips, then looked back at Ernie Banks in his palm. It seemed to be the end of the trail.
But why here? Why a puddle? And how can a puddle even he in this dried-out place?
The sound of a car engine broke the spell. He spun around to see the black Cadillac zooming along the boundary fence. Fighting the urge to flee, he kept his focus on the puddle.
The puddle.
There was something about the puddle that he had to understand. The Caddy veered onto the field in a cloud of dust. It was coming fast and bearing straight for him. His mind raced back to the underground spring beneath Derrick 19. It was like a secret door that opened into the hideaway.
But how?
He probed the shallow water with his hands, unsure what he was looking for.
The Cadillac charged like a raging bull eager for the kill. Ernie jumped up and down in the puddle, but nothing changed. Then he remembered the one thing he shared with Runnel. He ripped off his sneaker and sock and planted his foot with the spiral birthmark squarely in the puddle. The earth instantly opened, plunging him downward just before the Cadillac shot past at seventy miles an hour.
As the puddle hatchway closed behind him, all that remained were the fragments of the Ernie Banks card floating in the water.
E
RNIE LAY SPRAWLED
in the dirt of a decrepit tunnel. It smelled dusty and stale like an abandoned house. Groaning, he rolled onto his back and stared up at the puddle through which he'd just fallen. It was like a window floating in the air. He squinted into the sunlight filtering through the water, still mystified that it didn't spill down.
Suddenly two ugly faces appeared in the puddle, Angus and Axel. Ernie sprang to his feet, but when the twins didn't react, he realized they couldn't see him. The puddle was like a one-way mirrorâyou could only see through it from underneath. The frustrated twins kicked and stomped in the water. They looked like a heat mirage shimmering in the desert.
Ernie sensed something moving in the dark just beyond the shaft of sunlight. A tiny figure emerged from the shadow. Runnel limped into the light, gripped Ernie's jeans, and rested her bandaged forehead against his knee.
“Shawnâ¦Fraâ¦zier,” she whispered.
“Runnel,” he whispered back.
Ernie wasn't sure what to do, so he just touched the top of her head and grinned. When dirt from the tunnel ceiling sifted onto their heads, they looked up to see Angus and Axel digging at the edges of the puddle. As they slung the dirt faster and faster, they began to transmogrify into something hideous. Black slime oozed from their pores and claws grew from their hands and feet. Their heads bulged to three times their original size and their noses became grotesque snouts. Coarse hair sprouted over their entire bodies and their leathery tails pounded the earth.
Ernie gaped in fear as the monsters clawed down so fast that heaps of dirt nearly buried Runnel. A thick tail smashed into the Underneath and knocked him off his feet. His head struck the ground hard. Runnel cried,
“Mata-ki, mata-ki, lo!”
as the tail raked across the dirt. She tugged his arm, but Ernie was woozy and couldn't move, like in a nightmare when something's chasing you but you can't run. She jumped on his chest, slapped his face, and squealed,
“Lolo, lolo!”
He struggled to his knees just as the monster jammed its head into the tunnel and screeched, its hideous breath fouling the air. A raspy tongue shot out like a giant lizard's, but Runnel and Ernie scrambled just beyond its reach. They escaped into the dark tunnel, where the beast was too big to follow.
With a terrible snarl, Axel yanked his head out of the ground. The twin Troggs, standing in two fresh pools of black slime, yawped angrily as they shrank back to human form. They'd almost captured the boy who had come to destroy them.
Ernie ran hunched over so he wouldn't scrape his head on the tunnel ceiling. Riding on his shoulder, Runnel released fireflies from a pouch on her belt to light the way in the pitch black. They swarmed ahead with their lantern torsos flashing in a changing constellation. She chirped,
“Akadie-lo! Akadie-ru! Kaday, kaday!”
while pointing left, right, and straight, guiding him ever downward. Ernie lost his sense of direction, and even for Runnel it was difficult. The Holsapples had ravaged much of the Underneath with their blasting and mining and drilling.
As they wound deeper and deeper into the earth, Ernie felt fear in the pit of his stomach.
Where is she taking me?
He couldn't help but wonder if he'd ever breathe fresh air again. Just when he didn't think he could run much farther, Runnel pointed to a faint glow up ahead where the tunnel seemed to end. They passed through a snarl of dead vines to emerge on a ledge overlooking a vast cavern. Ernie had the strangest feeling he'd been here before, at least in his dreams, but it was different now.
Like the world above, everything was parched and dry. A giant oak tree stood with exposed roots in the middle of a fissured lake bed. It looked like it was about to fall over. The tree was glimmering with a feeble blue light that seemed to haunt the deserted cavern.
As they descended the dusty slope, Ernie was careful not to fall into any of the numerous holes dotting the hillside. Looking down, he could see that they were homes where little creatures like Runnel must have lived. It reminded him of the secret hideaway he and Joey had found. Like that one, these dens were dark and abandoned. It was clear that something terrible had happened.
Ernie stepped over a thin stream threading across the lake bed. He glanced at Runnel riding on his shoulder. Her expression was pained. He didn't know if she was still suffering from the wounds inflicted by the Holsapple monsters, or if it was from the sadness of returning to this ruined place. She pointed to a stone hut at the top of a knoll.
As they approached, Runnel climbed down his body. Ernie watched her limp to the hut and disappear inside. He hurried to a window chiseled out of stone, and sprawled on his stomach. Through the opening, he saw Runnel reuniting with four other tiny creatures. One spun her in a circle while the others jabbered excitedly. Runnel finally quieted them. “Wawaywo,” she said, then pointed to the window. They turned and looked at Ernie as if he were a ghost. No one said a word.
Ernie rose to his knees as the little ones came outside. They approached with timid smiles. Runnel introduced each one by name. Ernie's mind flooded with long-forgotten memories.
So that's Root.
He thought he remembered jumping through a puddle with him. And he'd gone down a big waterfall with the littlest one. He remembered laughing in a thunderstorm with the one she called Cully. And Buck, the one with the scar on his cheekâ¦
had they slept with bears?
Though initially hesitant, they soon surrounded him, their kindly eyes brimming with joy, touching him as if to make sure he was real.
When Cully beckoned him into the hut, Ernie squeezed through the front door on his belly. Above him, a mobile dangled from the ceiling, vibrant carvings of hundreds of creatures that covered the room like a canopy. He couldn't help but wonder what had become of all the others. Sitting in a circle, they shared a meager meal of ground wheat paste. Ernie thought it tasted like cardboard but ate it anyway.
As impossible as it seemed, Ernie sensed that he belonged with these little creatures. They felt familiar, like members of a long-lost family.
T
HE LAST OF THE
Puddlejumpers hurried across the dry lake bed, chattering nonstop. Ernie couldn't understand what they were saying, but there seemed to be some disagreement, and he was sure it had something to do with him. As they passed beneath the giant oak's drooping branches, Ernie reached up to touch one of the last crystal acorns clinging to a branch. It was identical to the Acorn he was wearing around his neck, except this one flickered with a pale light. He'd always wondered where his Acorn came from, but he could never have imagined anything like this.
When Runnel pointed toward a hollow at the base of the tree, he entered the dark interior. His first step launched him headlong down a water-polished groove. He slid down and down the oak's intertwining roots until he tumbled into a bed of soft sand. The others tumbled right behind. This place, too, was bone dry and eerily quiet. A gray crust coated the walls, muting veins of gemstones and silver.
They trudged across the sand, then passed through a threshold in the rock. Buck and Cully's lanterns lit the way down a winding stairway. To keep his balance, Ernie kept one hand on the outer wall, its surface polished smooth. He stopped to peer over the side, but the others nudged him on, as if they were late for a very important rendezvous.
