“Hundred-sixty-five-pound division, eh?” Wendell says.
“They call him David because he fights guys bigger than him, like David and Goliath in the Bible,” Meg says. “Once, he stopped the football team from beating up a freshman.”
“The football team?” Wendell looks at me with new respect. “He fought the whole football team, the linebacker and everything?”
“Yup.” I’m getting into this now. Teach this guy to call me a loser. I’m a hero—of biblical proportions. “One guy weighed over three hundred pounds. I had him begging for mercy.”
“So you can fight giants?” Wendell’s practically jumping up and down now.
“Giants?” Sure. Whatever. “If there were giants, I could probably fight them. I’m a hero, after all.”
“So, can we have the frog now?” Meg says.
“I have money,” I add, “so name your price for the frog.”
Wendell stares out the window.
“Wendell?” Meg says. “Your price?”
“Yeah.” I reach for my backpack. “A grand for a frog is fair.”
Nothing.
“Wendell?” Meg waves her hand in front of his face. “Johnny wants to give you money for the frog.”
“Money? Oh, I don’t want money.” Back to the window.
What’s this guy’s problem? But then, I think I know. “We promise not to release him. No siree. This frog’s going right back to Aloria. In fact, he’s human. Humans can’t be a nonnative species, can they?”
“That’s not it.” Wendell walks away from the window and starts rummaging through his desk. I want that frog. Who knows if he’s even feeding him right, if he has enough air. Prince Philippe could be starving to death because he refuses to eat bugs.
Wendell pulls a pair of binoculars from his desk. He walks back to the window and starts looking through them like he’s trying to locate something, Finally, he gestures to me. “Look.”
I peer through them. Grass. Tall grass. And sand. In the sand is a big hole. A Key deer sniffs around it, looking for water.
“So? It’s a hole?”
“Look around the edges,” Wendell says.
Now I see that the hole has an elongated shape, like a foot. And at the end of the foot . . . toes! It’s a footprint. A footprint almost as big as a Key deer. Who would have such a big foot?
Wendell reads my thoughts. “We’ve been beset by giants.”
“Um . . . giants?”
“Yes, giants. Plagued by giants, two of them, which is two too many. That’s what’s eating the deer, and no one—not the EPA, the Monroe County police, the Sierra Club, or the National Guard—believe me.”
I glance at the footprint again. Giants. There’s no such thing. And then, I remember my mother telling me a legend about a giant in the Florida Keys, like the Abominable Snowman or the Loch Ness Monster. I never believed it, of course. But back then, I didn’t believe in witches or talking animals or magic cloaks either.
“You believe me, don’t you?” Ranger Wendell says.
I nod.
“And I know you can help me. You can kill them.”
“Sure, I can . . . what?” I tear my eyes away from the binoculars and stare at him.
“What?” Meg says at the same time.
“You can kill giants.” Wendell’s all happy, smiling now. “You’re young. You’re strong. You were chosen by the princess to accomplish her quest. You have experience defeating the mighty, so I know you can help me with my little, er, giant problem.”
“But . . .”
“Kill the giants, and you get the frog. Otherwise, I put him on eBay, and I won’t sell him to you.”
“That may be against eBay policy,” I tell him. “You could get banned.”
“Think I care if I get banned from eBay?”
And then he starts to cry again.
Between sobs, he says, “If I don’t do something about these giants, all the deer will die, and I’ll be responsible.”
Meg reaches over and pats his back. I look at her, incredulous. “Have you tried showing photos of the footprints to the EPA?” she asks. “Or photos of the giants?”
He nods. “They all think they’re fake, like the Loch Ness photo.” He opens his desk and pulls out two photos. They’re blurry, and the giants are mostly obscured by trees. They do look fake. “People have been spreading rumors about giants in Florida for years. Skunk apes, they’re called. No one believes it. If I push it, I could lose my job.”
They say you shouldn’t judge a man unless you’ve walked a mile in his shoes. I glance down at Wendell’s shoes, no-name hiking boots so worn down I wouldn’t want to walk a step in them. This man has a giant problem.
I hear Meg saying, “We need to see the frog if we’re even going to think about fighting the giants.”
Wendell raises his tear-stained face. “I have him right here.” He walks over to a tank that has a bunch of toads and frogs. He reaches in, takes out a wet, croaking frog not nearly as big as the one I saw on Key Largo. “Meet the Alorius marinus.”
The frog pees on his hand. He doesn’t wince.
It has a reddish orange spot and the family birthmark. It’s the prince. No doubt about it. But Wendell holds it away from me. If I could just grab it . . . I pull my backpack up and out from my shoulders, intent on getting the cloak. If I can get the cloak and the frog, and . . .
Meg. I need to get Meg too.
In that one second of hesitation, Wendell sees what I’m thinking. “Oh no, you don’t.” He pulls away the frog. “Trying to take it, were you?”
“He was just trying to get this.” Meg holds up the earbuds.
“Headphones?” Wendell clutches the frog so tightly I worry he’ll crush him. “Unlikely.”
“These are special ones that let me talk to him—if he’s the right frog. Try them.”
Wendell tries, using only one hand, to get the earbuds in his ears. I don’t offer to help. I have the cloak now, Meg poised beside me. If Wendell drops the frog, we grab it.
He doesn’t though. He gets the earbuds in, then looks at me. “Now what?”
“Say hello. See if he understands you.”
Wendell tilts his head toward the frog. “Hey, little guy. How goes it? Flies good?”
The frog lets out a massive croak that blows back Wendell’s hair and causes us all to jump. Wendell pulls out the earbuds.
“What’d he say?” I ask.
“He called me a not very nice name.”
“He doesn’t like being held captive. You should give him to me.”
“He doesn’t like the food here, and I’ll give him to you when you kill those giants.”
I hold out my hand. “Let me talk to him.”
I hope he’ll hand me the frog or, at least, put him down. He only gives me the earbuds. I slip them in, still looking for my opportunity, and lean real close to the frog.
“Victoriana sent me,” I whisper.
The frog doesn’t respond for a second. When he does, he says, “Victoriana? What do you know of Victoriana?”
“She’s staying at the hotel where I work in South Beach. She sent me to—”
“My sister is a heartless party girl who would no sooner concern herself about family zan wear cloze from ze thrift shop.”
“That’s not true.” I remember Victoriana’s anguish.
“No. Zat ees true. If you say Victoriana sent you, zen you are a trick. You are send by ze witch to kill me.”
“I’m here to save you. Tonight . . .” I stop myself before I say I’m going to come back tonight and steal him. “I’m going to kill some giants. After that, I’ll be back.”
The frog practically jumps from Wendell’s hand. “I spit in your face—Pfft!” He lets out a fountain of frog spittle. “I will escape. I will be a free frog!”
“How will you find a girl to kiss you if you run, er, hop away?”
The frog’s bulging eyes roll up. “Oh, I haf my ways. Even in zis warty skin, I haf m
y charms. I haf made ze plan. When a family comes wiz a teenage daughter, I will go wiz zem.”
“Whatever. I’ll come back for you later. Tomorrow, after I’ve killed the giants.”
“And I will be gone, Zalkenbourgian infidel!” The frog spits again, but this time, I’m able to get out of the way before he hits me.
“Oooookayyy,” I say.
“What’d he tell you?” Meg asks.
“He’s pretty angry,” I say.
Wendell drops the frog back into the tank, where he croaks in protest. Since I still have in the earbuds, I know he’s expressing his opinion of us and our mothers in a French accent and, eventually, in French. I remove the earbuds.
“Now what?” Wendell asks.
“I guess we’ll camp here. We need supplies.” I try and think what I’d need if I was actually going to kill a giant. “Those binoculars, for one thing, and um, some stuff for a trap.”
“How will you make a trap for giants?” Wendell wants to know. “Take a box and stick and hope the giants wander in? That would have to be some box.”
“It’s none of your business how I’m going to do it. You haven’t done it.”
“Don’t belittle him.” Meg rubs my shoulders. “He knows what he’s doing.”
“Just tell me where they are,” I say.
Wendell tells us the giants like to hang out in a stand of large trees where they’re mostly hidden. Then we leave.
Chapter 30
When we get a suitable distance away, Meg throws her arms around me. “Oh, Johnny, I’m sorry I got you into that. I had no idea . . .”
“It’s okay. I’m not killing any giants.”
She laughs. “I sort of figured you had a plan. What is it?”
“We disappear for the day, pretend we’re staking it all out, then come back at night and steal the frog.”
“Disappear? Where to?”
I think about it. “We should set up the tent, to make it look good. Then maybe we could go back to the hotel and get you some decent shoes, in case we need to make a quick getaway.”
She looks down at her flip-flops. “I messed you up, didn’t I? You’d have just grabbed the frog and left if it hadn’t been for me. Are you sure you want me along?”
“Sure. You already saved my life once. Besides, I like having you around.”
“You do?” She looks surprised.
“Of course. You’re my best friend.”
“Oh.” She looks away quickly and starts walking faster. “Oh, of course.”
We walk in silence. I wonder if there really could be giants. I have no reason to believe there aren’t. But if there are, I want to avoid them. “Let’s check this place out.”
We reach a tall tree. Meg nudges me. “Maybe we should use the cloak to get up.”
“No. This one’s not tall enough.”
“It’s pretty tall. How do you know?”
“A person’s foot’s about fifteen percent of his height. So a five-foot-tall woman has about a nine-inch foot. Those footprints were about one and a half feet long, judging from the way they looked next to the Key deer. So the giants were roughly ten feet tall. We need a tree twice as tall as that, so they won’t see us.”
“Wow, that’s really smart.”
I feel myself flush and look to see if she’s joking. No one ever says I’m smart. Usually, the adjectives people come up with are words like “nice,” “reliable,” or “sweet,” words you’d use to describe a yellow Lab or an economy car. Even Victoriana called me a good boy. But Meg doesn’t seem to be goofing. Okay, being called smart isn’t like being called hot, but it’s way better than reliable.
So I say, “Thanks.”
We walk until we find a taller tree. Then, we wish ourselves into it. The wind’s picked up, and the sun is higher. It burns my eyes, so I shield them, squinting off into the distance. When I do, I see something totally unthinkable.
“Look,” I whisper.
“I see it.” But when I glance at her, she’s facing the opposite direction.
I pull out Wendell’s binoculars. A giant. Two giants because what Meg’s looking at is the other one. I see them through the viewfinder, hunting through the brush.
“No way I’m spending the night out here,” I say.
“Nuh-uh,” Meg agrees.
But we decide to pretend we’re going to, to satisfy Wendell. So I say, “We’d better pitch the tent before they get closer. You stay here in the tree. If you call, I’ll come up with the cloak.”
“Shouldn’t I help?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Ummm . . .” I shake my head. I was going to say I didn’t want her to put herself in danger. But Meg won’t like that. She’s not some girly girl like Victoriana, who wants a guy to protect her. So I say, “We need a lookout.”
“Okay, but hurry.”
I wish myself down and start to pitch the tent. Finally, I finish, and I’m staking it when I hear Meg. “Johnny!”
Her voice is hoarse, like she’s been yelling for a while. She gestures frantically to her left. The giant is close enough that I can see the dark hair covering much of his body, his only clothing the hide of an enormous animal tied at the waist. His face is dirty and stained with deer’s blood. I think of the line in “Jack and the Beanstalk”: “I’ll grind your bones to make my bread.” He could easily, though he seems like more of a meat eater than a carb guy. He steps toward me. Stay calm. We had a plan. Get the cloak. But when I reach for it, it’s not there. I look around and finally spot it a few feet away. Now the other giant’s advancing. I know he sees me because there’s a gleam in his eye. I think he has only one—the other is gouged out and sealed shut.
No time to think. I grab at the cloak, but it’s caught on a branch. The one-eyed giant is walking faster now. I smell a powerful nasty odor, like rotten eggs, skunk spray, and human feces. The stench alone would kill a deer. The ground shakes. I tug at the cloak. It holds fast. Above me, Meg’s yelling, “I’m coming down! I’ll distract him!”
“No!” The scream rips at me as I pull. Footsteps boom. I tug harder. Please, please don’t come down, Meg. The giant is so close I can see it has full lips the color and texture of a dog’s paw pad, and very sharp teeth. I yank the cloak. It gives way with a rip just as the closer giant reaches toward me. I wrap the tattered fabric around my shoulders. “I wish I was in the tree with Meg.”
And then, I’m beside her. She didn’t come down.
“You’re safe!” she says, and I can see she’s been crying. But the giants have seen us. The one-eyed giant has reached the tree. He pushes it, making it swing harder than any wind. The smell is so overpowering that even when I breathe through my mouth, I can taste it. I lose my grip on Meg and grab the branch. The giant butts his head against the tree.
Now the other giant’s there too. We’re doomed. I try to spread the cloak around both of us, but a gust of wind takes it off Meg’s shoulders.
“Just wish yourself away,” Meg says. “At least one of us should live.”
“Not an option.”
The second giant rams the tree. I know any second, they’ll start acting together, shaking it back and forth. One might even crawl on the other’s back and climb toward us.
But something else happens. The one-eyed giant sees the other giant. He lets out a roar and runs toward him. They both hit the tree, and it sways back and forth. By then, they’re on the ground, fighting each other like two kids tussling over the last cookie. They roll away from the tree, and in that second, I’m able to wrap the tiniest scrap of cloak around both our shoulders. Over the giants’ roars, I wish to be the first place I can think of.
And then, I’m there.
Chapter 31
“Where are we?” Meg looks around. “I feel like I’ve been here, but . . .”
I grab the cloak from around our shoulders and start to fold it before anyone sees it. It smells much better here. “We’re in Penn Station.”
“Penn Station?”
“New York City? When you went last year, you told me people were all over this place like PETA members at a fur convention, so I figured it might be a place where they wouldn’t notice two kids crash-landing dressed as the Phantom of the Opera.”
And truly, they don’t notice. A professor type in a tan jacket seems to stare right at us, then turns and buries his face in a newspaper. A gangsta-looking guy does a double take, then turns away, saying into his cell phone, “I gotta call you back. I don’t feel so good,” and rubs his eyes. A guy toting a bass knocks into me. I start to say, “Excuse me,” but he yells at me in another language.
I turn to Meg. “Guess I was right. We need to kill some time before tonight. So maybe we should see the sights. Like, go to the Statue of Liberty. My great-grandparents came in through Ellis Island.”
Meg accepts this pretty readily. “Should we take the subway or use the cloak?”
In an instant, we’re in the statue’s torch. It’s not open to the public, so it’s empty, and we stare down. From the torch, we can see the top of the statue’s crown, the bridge of her nose, and down her pretty green size-two-thousand dress to the star of the pedestal.
“Look,” I say to Meg. “The book in her hand has a date on it. July, then some Roman numerals . . .” I squint to see them.
“July fourth, seventeen seventy-six,” Meg says. “The date of the Declaration of Independence.”
A moment later, she points at the bay. “You can see the shadows of the clouds. They look like continents.”
I grip the railing and lean down. Meg’s right. They do look like continents.
“We were in Europe today,” I say. “And now we’re in New York. How surreal is that?”
“Real surreal,” she agrees.
I could be with Victoriana, traveling with her and seeing these things. She’s probably seen it all, done it all, been everywhere.
Meg grabs my hand. “This is so exciting, Johnny. Thank you for letting me come.”