Puddlejumpers Read online

  For Buck and Boots and my gal Joey

  —M.J.

  For my mother, Kathryn Louise,

  who instilled in me the love of stories,

  and my nieces, Kathryn and Abigail,

  who are beginning to tell their own

  —C.C.C.

  Text copyright © 2008 by Mark Jean and Christopher C. Carlson

  All rights reserved. Published by Disney • Hyperion Books, an imprint of Disney Book Group. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address Disney • Hyperion Books, 114 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10011-5690.

  ISBN: 978-1-4231-4096-2

  Visit www.disneyhyperionbooks.com

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  1. The Windy City

  2. The Crystal Acorn

  3. The Prophecy

  4. Keeping Watch

  5. Night Visitors

  6. Kidnapped

  7. The Water Kingdom

  8. The Spiral Tattoo

  9. Alone Together

  10. The Only Clue

  11. Puddlejumping

  12. Something Unspeakable

  13. The Great Divide

  14. Trouble Behind, Trouble Ahead

  15. A Merry Little Christmas

  16. Waterloo

  17. The Unfriendly Confines

  18. Good-bye, Ernie Banks

  19. Wrinkle in the Wheat

  20. Grand Theft

  21. The Mystery

  22. Voyagers

  23. Rattled

  24. The Secret

  25. Kingdom Come

  26. Bigfoot

  27. Jaws of Death

  28. The Blood Trail

  29. A Familiar Stranger

  30. Midnight Run

  31. Who’s Who

  32. A Reckoning

  33. The Puzzle

  34. Underneath

  35. The Choice

  36. Dearly Departed

  37. Between a Buzzard and a Hawk

  38. Matuba Ka-lo-lo

  39. The Most Dark

  40. Hagdemonia

  41. The Return

  42. Home

  CHAPTER ONE

  The Windy City

  ALONE AND IN THE DARK, Ernie pressed his back against the building. It was windier than he’d expected and he could see his breath in the swirling snow. A storm was coming. The narrow ledge was caked with ice and the cold seeped through his sneakers. Six stories below, snow carpeted the alley. Even the garbage cans looked like soft sculptures. Shivering, he zipped his jacket to his chin, then inched along the ledge. The snow shushed with each step, while his fingers, stiff with cold, struggled to grip the crevices between the bricks. He blew into his hands, warming them, then pivoted carefully and grabbed hold of a drainpipe. Wrapping his legs around the pipe, he shinnied up the icy pole to the top of the tenement.

  He hurried across the rooftop, his feet disappearing in the snow. No matter how many times he made the jump, it still scared him, and tonight the roof was slick and the wind gusting. He picked up speed, sprinting toward the edge of the building, then he was in the air, pumping his legs across the fifteen-foot chasm. He landed hard on the roof of the adjacent building, tumbling in the snow, then he was running again. He didn’t stop until he reached the abandoned water tank.

  This was the place he came to get away from Mrs. McGinty and her rules and regulations—the place that kept him from going crazy. From here, he could see the downtown skyscrapers, the lights from O’Hare Airport and, only a few blocks away, Wrigley Field, now dark and dormant.

  Ernie pried back a rusted corner of sheet metal and crawled into his hideaway. The roof was missing, but the tank shielded him from the wind. He retrieved a blanket and scrap of carpet he’d stashed and shook off the snow. Wrapping the blanket around his shoulders, he stretched out on the carpet and looked up at the stars. There was something familiar and comforting about gazing at the constellations, like looking into the faces of old friends. It made him feel a part of something bigger.

  Ernie pulled two Christmas cookies from his pocket and ate them slowly, savoring every bite. He wondered why he was still stuck at the Lakeside Home for Boys. Other kids left for foster homes, some were adopted, and a few even got to return to their real moms and dads. But not him. He’d been there ten years, and Mrs. McGinty said he had no one to blame but himself. According to her, they’d tried many times to find him a home, but no one had wanted him. Now he was considered a “lifer,” a permanent ward of the state. Ernie felt like his mother was the city of Chicago and his father the state of Illinois.

  It started to snow again and he tried to catch a flake on his tongue. He thought about running away while everyone was asleep. Where would I go? He’d already run away more times than he could count. The first time he was only six. The police found him in a little park on the south side, sitting in a muddy puddle, crying. They’d brought him back to Lakeside. They always brought him back to Lakeside. Mrs. McGinty told him he was born with a restless soul, and left it at that.

  Ernie stood up and shook off the snow, stowed his blanket, then crawled out of his hideaway. The first light of day was reaching across the rooftops of Chicago. To the east, he could see Lake Michigan, a lake so big it seemed to go on forever. He wondered if his mother and father were out there, somewhere. He didn’t understand why they’d given him away, but he figured it was something he must have done.

  With a deep sigh, he hurried back across the roof.

  Feeling like a cat burglar, Ernie slipped through the window into the sixth-floor dormitory. He tiptoed across the room past twenty-five sleeping boys. He was quick and steady and secret. When he reached his bed, he kicked off his sneakers, then wriggled out of his damp jeans, T-shirt, and sweater. His hand-me-down clothes never quite fit, and his disheveled hair was forever in need of a cut. He had hazel eyes that seemed to change color, depending on the light. When he smiled, which wasn’t often, his whole face lit up.

  Shivering, Ernie slipped beneath the covers, then glanced at the boy sleeping in the adjacent bed. Nate yawned and looked at him with sleepy eyes. “Where’d you go?” he whispered.

  Ernie pointed toward the ceiling.

  “You’re crazy, it must be freezing up there.”

  Nate LeCroix was a skinny African American kid from St. Louis with a runny nose and an easy smile. He was the only other person in the whole world who knew about Ernie’s secret place, even though he’d never actually gone there. He said he wasn’t about to jump across any buildings, no matter how great it was.

  Nate’s parents had died in a car accident shortly after moving to Chicago, and the court had placed him at Lakeside in September. He’d been assigned the bed next to Ernie and they’d become friends. Nate liked to talk and Ernie liked to listen. Ernie especially loved to hear him talk about his mother and father and growing up by the Mississippi River.

  Ernie stared at a crack in the ceiling. “I had that dream again.”

  “The one with the humongous tree all lit up like Christmas?”

  He nodded. “And there was a big face in the rock and she talked to me again. And there was water. Water everywhere.”

  Outside, a snow sweeper rattled past. Ernie pulled the covers tight, trying to get warm.

  “Hey, Ernie,” Nate whispered. “Merry Christmas. And happy birthday.”

  “Oh, yeah. Thanks.”

  But Christmas wasn’t really his birthday, and Ernie wasn’t even his real name.

  Twelve Years, Nine Months,


  and Five Days Earlier…

  CHAPTER TWO

  The Crystal Acorn

  THE TROUBLE ALL STARTED up in the woods on the plateau overlooking the Warbling River. It was the first night of spring, a night when the wind rustled through the treetops as if mother earth were whispering a secret she could no longer keep. The stars seemed so close it felt like the Big Dipper wanted to scoop the river with its glittering pan. But something was very peculiar—even though there wasn’t a single cloud in the sky, it was raining.

  It wasn’t a harsh rain, but a gentle one that pattered the canopy of the forest ridge. Deep inside that forest was an old oak tree, its trunk so wide that even ten people stretching their arms couldn’t reach around its waist. At the foot of the tree, nestled between two gnarly roots, was a puddle. Waves rippled outward from its center. And that was another peculiar thing, because there wasn’t a trace of a breeze on the forest floor.

  Then, in the blink of an eye, two tiny creatures jumped feetfirst out of the puddle, landing softly on the mossy ground. Clutching the short ends of a forked stick, they shook themselves like two puppies after a bath, then stretched on their tiptoes to full height, which was barely eleven inches tall. Their faces were kindly, with sparkling turquoise eyes, their skin an earthy brown, their chestnut hair long and wild. A translucent webbing stretched between their sturdy fingers and toes, and the soles of their feet were like the pads on a dog’s paw. They wore patchwork shirts made from water lilies, duckweed, and marsh fern, and leggings of redtop and yellow foxtail. Around their waists were tree-bark belts with curious tools and pouches. The Puddlejumpers jabbered anxiously in a language unfamiliar to the human ear, but even in the hubbub you could hear that she called him “Root,” and he called her “Runnel.”

  The forked stick suddenly took on a life of its own, lifting to the sky and vibrating with a deep resonant hum. With both Jumpers hanging on for their lives, it wove back and forth across the dome of stars, searching for a destination. Wedged between the two short ends of the Y-shaped stick was an acorn. It wasn’t an ordinary acorn, brown with a snug cap—this was an ice-blue crystal acorn.

  When the stick finally locked on to the Big Dipper, the Acorn shimmered with a piercing white light. Root and Runnel shared a frightened look just before the stick lurched across the forest floor, dragging them behind, their toes barely skimming the ground. The bright glow of the Acorn helped light the way as they galloped headlong through the oak and pine, sending rabbits and field mice scurrying in their wake.

  The Acorn stick led the Puddlejumpers out of the forest and down the slope of a muddy field. They slipped and slid over a crop of newly sprouted wheat, then skittered past a corral, barn, and silo nestled in a copse of elm and willow trees. They spun to a stop in front of a one-story farmhouse, its porch brushed silver in the moonlight. All was quiet, except for the pattering rain and a cow mooing from the barn, until a woman’s piercing cry shattered the night. The Jumpers wanted to flee back to the sanctuary of their puddle, but knew they couldn’t.

  Pitch, the old black-and-white border collie asleep on the porch, lifted her nose to sniff, but the Puddlejumpers were already around back, jumping up and down trying to see through a lit window. Root caught hold of the sill and clambered onto the ledge. He offered Runnel his hand, and quicker than a twinkling, she was beside him.

  Breathing hard, they pressed their noses against the windowpane, fogging the glass. They had to wipe away their breath before they could see inside. In that moment they knew the Crystal Acorn had delivered them at the perfectly perfect time. Before their eyes a miracle was taking place. A human baby was being born. A boy.

  A cloud burst and the rain began to fall in torrents. Blinking back tears, Root and Runnel warbled so joyfully that animals in the neighboring fields paused to listen.

  The Puddlejumpers had found their Rainmaker.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The Prophecy

  OLD DOC THORPE, lanky with dark eyes in a long, thin face, knew the mother was in trouble. He gave the newborn to Clara Bonnell, the chubby midwife who’d delivered almost as many babies as he had. The baby was wet and kicking and crying with life, but his mother lay still as stone. Dolores had lost too much blood giving birth, and now Doc Thorpe saw that she was slipping away. Clara made the call to 911, but the ambulance in West Branch would take close to an hour to reach the house. Doc felt for her pulse. There was none, so he started CPR, filling Dolores’ lungs with air, then pushing on her chest multiple times. Russ Frazier, lean and ruggedly handsome, his face tanned from a life spent working in his fields, watched from the foot of the bed in shocked silence. Doc did everything he could to bring her back, but knew in his heart she was already gone. He just didn’t know how to stop trying.

  After several minutes, Doc and Clara shared a look of sorrow as Russ sank to his knees beside the bed. He gazed in disbelief at his beloved wife, her expression peaceful. He gently brushed the damp hair from her forehead, then took her hand and pressed it to his lips. And although he could hear Doc Thorpe’s voice behind him—“I’m so sorry, Russ”—he couldn’t answer, as if time itself had stopped.

  In Russ’ mind, it was that blustery autumn afternoon when he and Dolores walked along the Warbling River. She was thirteen and he was fifteen. He told her that he was going to marry her someday. She laughed, but let him hold her hand.

  The memory made his heart ache from the inside out, and now the tears came.

  An hour later, Russ felt Doc’s hand on his shoulder.

  “I have to be getting on, Russ,” said Doc. “Agnes Goetz has come down with pneumonia and I’ve got to look in on her.”

  Doc didn’t expect Russ to get up, but he did. They’d been good friends for many years, despite their age difference. In fact, Doc was the very man who’d brought Russ into the world thirty-one years before.

  Russ led Doc through the kitchen to the back porch, where they embraced. “I’ll call Floyd and make the arrangements,” said Doc somberly. “He should be here within the hour. Clara, she’ll stay the night.”

  Numb to the world, Russ nodded, barely hearing the baby’s wail from the bedroom. Doc opened the screen door. What they saw next surprised both men. Dangling from the eaves was a curious mobile: seven handcrafted wooden elves surrounding a finely cut, ice-blue crystal acorn. The carvings were precise and vivid, each face alive with expression. The Acorn itself was cradled in a woolen harness decorated with an oak tree insignia.

  Doc gently tugged the harness and the elves began to dance around the Acorn. The men were so mesmerized, neither one noticed that the baby had stopped crying. It was quiet again, except for the rain and Doc’s subdued voice. “Looks like Charlie Woodruff’s work. God bless him, he carved a beaut for your little one.” The Acorn refracted the porch light into a million tiny rainbows that swirled across their faces. “I knew he was carving, but nothing like this,” said Doc. “What’s that acorn—crystal?”

  “Looks to be,” said Russ.

  Doc tapped it with a finger. “Hard as a diamond.”

  Blinking back tears, Russ unfastened the mobile from its perch. The elder man squeezed his friend’s shoulder. “I’ll stop by in the morning.”

  Russ watched Doc open his umbrella and, dodging puddles, hustle to his old sedan. Pitch was chasing in circles as if she’d caught a scent, but when she saw Doc she gave up her search and went over to lick his hand. He gave the dog a scratch behind the ears. “Hey, girl—you take care of Russ now, hear me?”

  Pitch wagged her tail and started back to the porch. Doc settled into his car, then, with a last wave to Russ, motored up the drive.

  Russ watched the sedan’s taillights disappear in the rain. Normally he loved the rain. To a farmer, rain meant nourishment, growth, even life itself. But not tonight. Tonight it was only dark and wet and dreary.

  Russ called to Pitch, “C’mon, girl, let’s go.” He wanted her inside tonight. He thought he might find some comfort hearing her familiar breathing as
she slept at the foot of his bed. He held the mobile up to the light and felt overwhelmed. Dolores would have loved a gift like this. Brushing away tears, he carried it into the house.

  Near the corral, beyond the reach of the porch light, Root and Runnel sighed with relief. They’d accomplished everything they’d set out to do. The Crystal Acorn was exactly where it belonged—inside, with the human baby.

  When the porch light went out, they climbed to the top of a fence post and stared at the house, burdened by the enormous task before them. As a rule, Puddlejumpers stayed away from humans, and Root and Runnel were no exception. In fact, if you asked them, they would tell you that they were just two very ordinary and unremarkable Puddlejumpers who were now faced with the awesome responsibility of watching over the Rainmaker.

  Now everything was up to them, for the ancient prophecy had begun.

  On the first night of spring he will take his first breath,

  beneath the Big Dipper, finding life where there’s death.

  We will call him Wawaywo, our Rainmaker son,

  and keep him with us till the last battle is won.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Keeping Watch

  THE WHOLE NEXT MORNING, Root and Runnel spied through a knothole in the side of the barn. They were deathly afraid of the humans and terrified of being caught. Just when they finally made the decision to cross the yard, humans with sad faces began to arrive with platters of food.

  “Wataka mala-ki, Wawaywo,” said Root.

  “Mabaa-way,” agreed Runnel. They needed to get to the baby.

  The Jumpers spent the rest of the day discussing their predicament under a big black-and-white cow. The more they talked, the more nervous they got. The more nervous they got, the more milk they drank. Before long, they were fast asleep in the hay.

  In the evening, after everyone had left, the Puddlejumpers finally stirred from their nest and made their way across the yard. They climbed the trellis to the roof and settled inside the rain gutter. Peering down, they could see the father at the kitchen table with the baby in his arms. He was laughing and crying at the same time, which seemed strange to them, even for a human. They watched intently as the chubby one came into the room, took the baby, and disappeared down the hall.