The Scavengers (24 page)

Fo gish.

Do it like Dookie.

Taller than Toby.

Love,

Dad

My hands are trembling. I raise my head and look all around.

Nothing.

I read the note again. The three nonsense lines in the middle. Clues—they have to be clues.

Fo gish.

Okay. That’s a spoonerism for
Go fish
.

Seriously?
Go fish?

I move to the next line.

Do it like Dookie.

I frown.

Taller than Toby.

I sit and stare at the little piece of paper until I notice my butt has fallen asleep. I need to move. Walk. Work. Sometimes my brain works best when my body is busy. I fold the paper back up along its lines, tuck it inside my shirt pocket, and start cleaning up the mess left in the shack by those government-approved vandals. While I pick up broken dishes and tipped-over chairs and arrange the few things that aren’t broken back on the few shelves that aren’t broken, I chase the phrases around and around in my head, try to link them up, try to get them to make sense.

Go fish
.

There’s the card game, of course, which Ma sometimes played with me when I was younger, using an old dog-eared deck Toad dug out from a drawer somewhere. Was Dad trying to tell me to look in that old pack of cards? The drawer they were stored in has been pulled from the dresser and thrown against the wall in a corner, with all the contents spilled. I dig around until I find the pack on the floor beneath one corner of a ripped blanket. I go through the entire deck, card by card, front and back, jokers and all, but can find nothing unusual.

Go fish
.

I suppose if Dad had been the kind of Dad who took me fishing this might be a clue to head for our favorite spot on BeaverSlap Creek and look for clues there, but the closest Dad ever came to taking me fishing was when we helped Toad harvest the fish tanks.

I drop the dish I’m holding and don’t even feel bad when it shatters.

Go fish
.

There’s a big grin on my face as I think,
Got it, Dad.

52

“TOAD!” I HOLLER, BANGING ON THE SECURITY GATE. I SHOULD HAVE
let him know I was coming but I have to assume I’m being watched, so I didn’t whistle three long and three short, or raise the flag.

When Toad opens the gate it’s all I can do not to sprint straight to the fish tank. Circling it slowly, I look for any sign of a message, or digging, or a freshly replaced board. A hiding place of any sort.

Toad follows and watches me.

“Puzzlement, Ford Falcon?”

“Let’s feed the pigs, Toad.” He looks even more puzzled now, but if we’re going to read that note we need to be out of sight. In the pig shed I pull out the note, unfold it, and show it to Toad. Naturally his eyes light up, because what we have here is a word puzzle.

“
Fo gish!
” he blurts. The man can’t help himself.

“Yes, Toad,” I say patiently, “already got that. Didn’t really take me anywhere. No, I think the message was much more straightforward. Is there space beneath the tank, Toad? Space enough for a man to hide? Or leave a message?”

“Yes!” he says. “Down there amongst the plumbing and whatnot!”

“Isn’t it time we give the fish tank a very careful inspection?” I ask, and give him a wink.

We walk to the base of the tank, and Toad pulls open a small hatch. We peer inside. Nothing. I crawl in and shine a jacklight over every surface. Still nothing.

In the shelter of the crawl space, I look at the paper again.

Do it like Dookie
.

“Last thing I wanna do, really,” I say, “is do anything like Dookie.”

Right on cue, Dookie comes whooping past, grabs the water-telescope from its hook, and climbs the ladder.

“Toad! That’s it!” I speak urgently but quietly. “The water-telescope! Dad left some sort of message under the water!”

I clamber up beside Dookie. He’s already hanging over, swirling the water-telescope through the water, jabbering and pointing at fish I can’t see. It takes awhile, but finally I convince him to let me have a look. I scan every inch of that tank, sides and bottom. I see nothing but tilapia.

Back down at the foot of the ladder, Toad and I rack our brains.

Finally, Toad speaks.

“Y’know, there are a lot of fish in the barrel, and a lot of barrels full of fish.”

“Yyyesss . . . ?” I say.

“
Taller than Toby
,” says Toad.

I just look at him.

“Friend or foe, Daddy-O!” says Toad.

I look at him again. He raises his eyebrows and nods his head to the north. And suddenly I think of all those times we drove over to pick up Toby, and when we’d see his big bulk waiting alongside the road Toad would say, “Friend or foe?” and then Toby’s dad would emerge to stand beside his son, and tall as Toby was, Tilapia Tom was taller.

“Daddy-O!” I exclaim, finally getting Toad’s hint. With the water-telescope still in my hand I spin on my heel and speed walk toward the gate, trying hard not to run.

“Ford!” Toad stops me in my tracks with a harsh whisper. “Do you think anyone who might this very instant be watching us would be curious about why you were hiking down the road to Tilapia Tom’s with a water-telescope in your hand?”

I hang my head. Toad is right.

“I believe it’s time we helped Tilapia Tom inspect his fish for signs of scale mange,” says Toad, and off we go to hook Frank to the oxcart.

There is no such thing as scale mange, of course, but it’s doubtful any Bubble Authorities goon would know that. We meet Toby and Tilapia Tom in their fish-cleaning shack and lay out our plan.

“We think Dad left a message in your fish tanks.”

Tilapia Tom nods. He talks about as much as Toby.

“Have you seen him?”

Tilapia Tom shakes his head.

Armed with a fishnet and a bucket, we head for the tanks and go through them one by one. As I peek through the water-telescope Toad talks loudly about the grave dangers of scale mange. Now and then Tilapia Tom nets a fish and he and Toby make a show of studying it. Now and then they toss one in the bucket.

Tank after tank, we find nothing but fish.

And then, on the bottom of the last tank, the one closest to the woods where Dad likely made his escape, I spy it: a rock, wrapped in plastic and twine.

Looking through the water-telescope, I guide Tilapia Tom as he nets the rock, which he swiftly dumps into the fish bucket. Trying not to run or hurry, we make our way to the fish-cleaning shack. Once inside, I tear at the plastic, and within is another note.

Dear Ford Falcon (if you’re reading this you’ve truly earned the name):

I knew you could do it.

Visit the Earl for dos upside sunrises. Then upgrade your oculators. When you hit bottom, consider cooking cauldron-style.

When it is time, I will be ready. Just invite me to an upside-down dinner for lunch.

Love,

Dad

I am flooded with relief. Relief because Dad seems to be following through on a well-thought-out plan, which means he really is trying to reunite us. He isn’t planning to run off and freak out with the GreyDevils.

But my relief doesn’t last long. Now I have another riddle to figure out. What if I can’t solve it? What if it takes me so long his URCorn runs out? I know what happened last time. And what if the GreyDevils catch the scent of his URCorn and come after him like they came after that cornvoy spill? Or what if the Bubble Authorities find Dad before I do? Lettuce Face said they weren’t really going to try, but I don’t believe that for a minute.

Another thing: surely the Bubble Authorities are watching me. What if they grab me and grab the note? But Dad seems to be thinking of that, too. They can’t possibly know what it means. There are too many personal clues. And none of these clues seem to give away anything about where Dad might be hiding. Even I can’t figure that out. It’s not a perfect trick, but it’s a pretty good one: they’re forced to follow along and figure it out on the fly, just like me.

Still, the first thing I do is sit right down and memorize that note.

53

I FIGURED OUT PRETTY QUICKLY THAT “
VISIT THE EARL FOR DOS
upside sunrises
” was Dad’s way of saying I should relax and do some reading on Skullduggery Ridge (the
upside
) for two days. Of course it was crazy to think I could relax, but also of course I knew he wanted me to do this for a reason. He didn’t want me to go straight from reading that note to
upgrading my oculators
, whatever in the world that meant. He wanted me to move slowly, so as not to lead the bad guys straight to whatever he had planted for me.

But boy, oh boy, it is tough. I spend a lot of time under the Shelter Tree and on the hood of the Falcon with Emily on my lap, but the only way I keep from going nuts is to keep busy doing other things. I do some cleaning up. I make a few repairs. I unroll that solar bear hide and scrape it again and resalt it so it won’t rot before I have a chance to tan it.

If
I ever have a chance to tan it.

All the while I’m working, I’m trying to figure out the riddle: “
Then upgrade your oculators. When you hit bottom, consider cooking cauldron-style.
”

Oculators
. That one sounds Toad-ish. Then I remember: The goggles he built for Frank and Spank. He called them “oculator protectorators.” Which I assume means “eye protectors” to the rest of us. So how am I supposed to upgrade my eyes? Am
I
supposed to get goggles?

I let it go for a while.

The two days crawl by. As I struggle with the riddles, I begin to have doubts. That day in the pig shed when I told Dad he was just a card in my game, I was sure this was the right thing to do. Now I can’t escape the idea that not only am I hunting my own father, I am hunting him
with his help
so I can turn him over to the enemy. Even though I want my mother back, even though I am still angry when I think of Dad drinking PartsWash while the fake GreyDevils tore up our home, beat Dookie, and took Ma, even though
Dad himself
has said I have to turn him in, the fact is I’ll be sacrificing one parent for the other and I’m not sure I can do that.

It’s not a decision anyone should have to make. But then, as Toad often tells me, “Fife is lot nair!” That’s a three-letter forward flip—for experts only.

When the sun rises on the third day I have made no more progress on Dad’s riddle. I spend half the day puzzling on it, then at noon I walk up to the flagpole and sit down where I can see out over Hoot Holler. I want to sit. Sit and think. I lean my back against the hutch where we store the old binoculars.

Bin
oculars
! What upgrades your eyes more than a pair of binoculars? Hands trembling, I open the hutch and pull out the binoculars. I turn them over, looking for any sign of a note or some sort of message. Maybe I’m supposed to spot something with them! Maybe Dad will send me a sign! I put them to my eyes and scan the valley below. I don’t see anything out of the ordinary. I zoom in on Hoot Holler. There is smoke coming from the chimney. Toad and Arlinda are probably just now sitting down to lunch with Dookie. I’d be lost if they weren’t able to take care of him. I hope he’s behaving. I hope he’s eating well and not causing any trouble.

“Eat your carrots, Dookie,” I murmur, remembering what Dad always told him. “They’re good for your eyeballs.”

And blammo, it hits me. Dad’s clue isn’t about binoculars. It’s about improving my eyesight by eating carrots! And where are the carrots? In the root cellar! And “
When you hit bottom . . .
” That must mean he wants me to dig down through the carrot sand. Oh, how badly I want to jump up and run right down there, but I think about who may be watching and instead walk very slowly back down to the Falcon, where I fetch my jacklight. “. . .
consider cooking cauldron-style
.” Of course. If I’m going to go into the root cellar under the watchful eye of some spook, I need a reason to be down there, and what better reason than making soup? I light a cooking fire in the flat-rock stove and remove the slate top so the flames can heat the cauldron. I pour in some water, and then, just as nonchalantly as you please, I walk to the root cellar and let myself in. Closing the door behind me, I follow my jacklight all the way down to the sand pit, where I caught Dad digging that night.

I kneel and dig with my bare hands. At first I find only one spindly, droopy carrot. Then another. With all that has happened, we never got our garden planted up here, so these are the last of the carrots I harvested with Ma.

I brush one off and take a bite. Although it’s droopy, it’s not rotten and tastes just fine. Unlike my brother, I like carrots. Plus it’s nice to think of this carrot as something Ma planted and tended.

I dig deeper in the sand, using my fingers like rakes. Nothing, not even another carrot. I sweep all the sand away. Still nothing.

When you hit bottom, consider cooking cauldron-style.

Well, I’ve certainly hit bottom. And I’m already cooking cauldron-style. What am I missing?

This is not the first time I came down here looking for something other than a carrot and came up empty. Dad was stashing URCorn down here, and yet I couldn’t find it. What did he say when we talked about it in the pig shed?

Maybe you stopped looking too soon.

I lift the jacklight and bend down closer to the cellar floor, sweeping away a few more grains of sand. The slate is smooth against my palm. No wonder it makes such a good stove top.

Yes, Ford Falcon, I think to myself, as my face lights up, a stove top you can remove when you want to
cook cauldron-style
!