The Boy with 17 Senses (18 page)

COURAGE SPARKLES LIKE A STAR—AND LIKE A STAR, IT SEEMS OUT OF REACH

J
aq picked up the key. His mom put a hand on his shoulder. “I have to go,” she said. “There must be someone in town who hates the Vilcots as much as I do and will lend us the money.”

She left Jaq alone.

Jaq opened the key, like Grandpa had shown him. Inside was another note:

Dear Yorlim Plenthy's friend
,

My name is Dharvil, and I work for Plenthy at one of his glug
farms. I need to find him, quickly. I remembered how he'd asked me to take that other key to your farm in case of emergency. I hope that key worked, and I hope you get this one, too. If you are anything like my boss, you must also love puzzles, like this key. That Plenthy and his puzzles!

You see, Plenthy has been missing for a while now, and I need some direction. The trees are glugging like mad, and the warehouse is full. Should I sell the glug or rent out more space? Like I said, I need an answer quickly, as we are drowning in glug. What a problem to have, ha!

Yours
,

Dharvil Meyr, First Rancher for Farm Three

Jaq reread the note. He turned it over to see if there was any indication of where it had come from or who this Dharvil was. Nothing.

This was crazy. The glug-tree idea had worked? Jaq stared blinking at the fields as the news seeped into his thoughts and exploded into one gigantic realization: Plenthy was rich! He could save them—if Jaq saved him.

Jaq hurried to collect a few more foot scrapers. He couldn't stop thinking about the note.

That Plenthy and his puzzles
, the note said.

Plenthy had mouthed the word
music
when he saw Jaq hiding in the bushes. What if that strange song with the emotions and pictures was from Plenthy? What if Plenthy was trying to send a message with the song, like a puzzle?

As he searched for the rocks, Jaq tried for the hundredth time to remember the mysterious song. He saw the pictures the song painted, he tasted the notes, he felt the song on his skin. The images were so vivid, he could almost draw them.

Jaq picked up a stick and made swirls in the dust. He doodled while the song played in his head. The splashy-water part, the swirling-up part, the red blobs. There were other parts he couldn't remember, and then the dark part.

He looked at his swirls and pictures. How had he not realized it before? It was so obvious.

The song was a map
.

It was a map that only another Yipsmixer could decipher.

“That Plenthy and his puzzles!” Jaq repeated.

He hopped up and down in excitement. The splashy part—that had to be the fountain. The swirling-up part was the moving staircase. But what about the rest? All he could remember was the darkness and the terror at the end.

“BONIP!” he yelled. “The song's a map! It's a map! Bonip! We can find him!”

But Bonip was gone. And Jaq didn't have much time.

He bundled up the diamonds in a towel and stuffed it into his backpack. He was ready to go.

He knew, deep down, that if he went ahead with his plan to send the backpack through while staying safely behind, that someone else might find it, or that Fiona might find it but not in time. On the other hand, he knew that if he told himself he was going through the wormhole, panic and fear would grip him so tightly that he wouldn't be able to leave the house.

Jaq needed to find some courage to go through the wormhole and rescue Plenthy himself. The best way to capture a shy beast like courage is to sneak up on it and grab it before it knows what's coming, so Jaq continued to tell himself that he was taking the safe route, because that would get him to the wormhole. He tried not to think about going through the wormhole himself, because that would startle his courage, and it would flee.

You decide who you want to be
.

That was what Bonip had said. Jaq wanted to be courageous. He wanted to save Plenthy.

As he neared his front gate, he heard a scream from the other side of the fence.

“Wipper-slinger!”

Jaq smiled. Klingdux must be getting to work. He heard more screaming, and then a small white ball of fluff flew over the fence. It was headed right for his best brickleberry bush. Without thinking, Jaq dropped his backpack and ran. He ran and dove and caught the rodent just before it crashed into his bush. He cradled the wipper as he rolled to the ground, so it wouldn't be hurt. Then he stood up and placed it gently on the ground.

“Hey, thanks,” the wipper said.

But Jaq wasn't looking at him. He was watching the sky as another wipper came over the fence. He caught that one, too, and dropped it to the ground just as another came flying at him. Wippers continued to rain down. Jaq ran to the left, and he ran to the right. He raced and dove and smiled, because it was really fun. He didn't miss a single wipper.

“He can run forever,” one of the wippers said.

“And that hand-eye coordination is like nothing I've ever seen.”

“He's got gentle hands, too. Didn't squish me at all.”

There was a pause in the slinging, and Jaq took a moment to glance down. All the wippers were looking up at him. Their mouths were open in awe.

“Bonip was right,” the one named Drixo said. “This kid's okay.” He clapped his hands together, slowly at first. Then the rest joined in.

Jaq couldn't believe it. The wippers were applauding him. He looked at each one but didn't see Bonip among them.

“Where's Bonip?” he asked.

“He's coming. The wipper-slinger always saves his best sling for last, and Bonip wanted to make sure he got your attention.”

And then they heard it: Bonip screaming, “Jaaaaaaaaq!”

He flew over the fence, over the brickleberry bushes, all the way to the side of Jaq's house, where he slammed into the wall and fell to the porch. Jaq ran over.

“Bonip, are you okay?”

“I . . . heard . . . what . . . you said,” he whispered. “The song's a map.”

“It is!”

“I want to go with you,” Bonip said.

“Of course. Let's go!”

“Can I have a second? I just flew across your yard and into this wall here.”

“I'll carry you,” Jaq said to the prone wipper. “Let's go!”

Jaq started at a run—he was sure he didn't have much time. The visit from the Vilcots had cut into his schedule. He ran out the gate and down the road, but carrying a heavy backpack full of diamonds quickly wore him out and he had to walk to catch his breath. That was when Tormy Vilcot tackled him.

“Where you going, twiggy?” Tormy said while sitting on Jaq's back. “Shouldn't you be packing up?”

“Tormy, get off,” Jaq said.

“I'm not going to,” Tormy said. “My grandfather told me not to let you go anywhere. He's afraid you'll find another one of those glug birds. With all that glug, you could probably save your farm.”

“The bird's worthless,” Jaq said. “The glug turns to dust.”

“Yeah, sure it does,” Tormy said. “Looks like you lost your buddy.” Bonip had run off as soon as Jaq had been flattened. “I have a little worm you can have for a friend. That would suit you.”

Jaq lay there, unable to move. Why did the Vilcots have to ruin everything?

“Since we'll be sitting here for a while, let me tell you about my plans for your little hut,” Tormy went on. “It's going to be my second playroom, and I'm going to fill it with toys—”

Jaq tried not to listen. Maybe Tormy would shift his weight and Jaq could wiggle free. He knew he could outrun Tormy if he could escape. Maybe not with a backpack filled with rocks, but he could collect more once he'd gotten away.

But he couldn't move, and Tormy kept going on and on. Jaq felt a futile anger rise up in him as he realized that he wasn't going to make it to the wormhole in time.

“—and after the pool is finished, I'm going to invite the whole class over for a party. It's going to be great, the—”

Jaq opened his eyes to see why Tormy had stopped talking.

“What are they doing?” Tormy said. “They're coming this way.”

Jaq followed his gaze. White blobs were springing toward them. Beautiful, angry white rodents with sharp teeth.

“Gah!” Tormy jumped off Jaq and raced away before the gang of wippers arrived. They surrounded Jaq as he sat up.

“That was easy,” Bonip said. “A skeleton has more guts than that guy.”

The other wippers all cheered Bonip's insult. It was an oldie but a goodie.

“Thanks, guys,” Jaq said. He grabbed his backpack. “Bonip, we've gotta run.”

“We're all going,” the leader, Hedgemud, said. “Every
time Bonip comes back from one of your trips, he looks like he's eaten a feast. We want in.”

“Yeah, stop skipping out on us, already,” one of the wippers said.

“Where are you going?” another asked. “Is it far?”

“We're going through a wormhole—”

Before Jaq could explain further, the wippers started jumping with excitement.

“I knew it would be something fantastic!”

“A hole full of worms!”

Jaq shushed them. “It's not full of worms. It's like a tunnel to another planet. We're going to try to rescue someone. I'm not sure there will be food.”

“We're going,” Drixo said. All the wippers stood with their paws on their hips. They looked fiercely determined.

“Guys,” Jaq said, “it's painful to go through. And really dangerous.”

“If Bonip trusts you, we trust you,” Hedgemud said. “Lead the way, Bigfoot.”

26

A DRIVING SENSE OF URGENCY

J
aq raced up the trail, silently praying to Smolders that they weren't too late. That Fiona was still at the mall. That Plenthy wasn't on his way to Reno, wherever that was. His legs ached, but he kept pushing on, as fast as he could move.

In the cave behind the waterfall, he finally stopped to catch his breath. He removed his earmuffs and earplugs. Then he took off his backpack and looked at it. It would be so easy just to throw it into the wormhole and be done with it. It would be so easy to hope that things would work out. It would
be so easy to convince himself that he'd done everything a small person could do.

But he knew better. He knew that hoping and good intentions weren't the same thing as doing and making sure.

He thought about Fiona and how she wanted to trade the diamonds to free a friend, even though she could use them to save herself and her mother from Gunther. She was going to sacrifice her own happiness to save Plenthy.

He thought about Bonip, and how the little wipper had stuck up for him against the whole big gang of wippers.

And he thought of his mother, who didn't give up, even when everything seemed lost.

He realized then where courage really came from. It didn't come from having superpowers or an indestructible suit or a powerful weapon—those were cheats. Courage came from caring about something, or someone, more than you cared about yourself.

And the things Jaq cared about most were saving his family, saving Plenthy, saving Fiona, and saving his farm. They were all counting on him, and he couldn't let them down.

He took a deep breath and put his backpack back on.

“So we're doing it?” Bonip said. “We're going through?”

“I have to,” Jaq said, standing in front of a much dimmer
wormhole. “Bonip, you guys can stay here. You don't have to come.”

“If you're going, we're all going,” Bonip said. He climbed up Jaq's leg and positioned himself on his shoulder, clinging to his neck. The other wippers held on as well.

Jaq smiled and nodded. “All right—here goes.”

Going through the wormhole was just as terrible as Jaq knew it would be. The pain in his head and the ripping-apart sensation were even worse this time. He landed on the soft Earth soil, unable to breathe. It felt like he'd gotten the wind knocked out of him, been trampled by a herd of gows, and then had every limb yanked to its breaking point. He hurt all over, and not just because he was covered in moaning wippers.