The Hop Read online

  Buuurk stared at him. “What are you talking about, toad?”

  “Dreams. Seer says I’m going to be a dreamer like him.”

  Buuurk’s look turned to pity.

  “I don’t want to be a dreamer,” Tad confessed. “But I can’t hide anymore. I dreamed about Rumbler just like Seer did.”

  Buuurk shuddered. “The monster got into your sleep?”

  Tad nodded.

  “Oh, you poor toad,” Buuurk said.

  Buuurk’s pity made Tad feel even worse. He felt lower than a night crawler, because he wanted to hide when he might be able to help.

  “What else did you dream?” Buuurk asked, his pale warts saying maybe he didn’t really want to know.

  “I heard this strange music.”

  “Was it scary?”

  “No.”

  He tried to sing the song that played the most often in his head, the one about going to a hop. He caught the rhythm and hopped back and forth in the pea patch as he sang.

  The look of pity on Buuurk’s face turned to amazement.

  Tad went on rocking on his diggers and rolling his belly from side to side. He was glad to make Buuurk smile again.

  As Tad rocked and rolled, Buuurk began to laugh. He laughed until he was rolling in the peas, holding his speckled belly. Tad could have sung more, but his laughing friend was cracking him up. How could they be silly at a time like this, when Rumbler had just made his first visit? The toads might not see the full moon rise. But still Tad and Buuurk laughed and thrashed in the peas until they were worn out. They sprawled in the dirt, twitching as they hiccuped. Tad didn’t dare look at Buuurk, lest he start up again. And if you laughed too long, you’d get eaten by a grackle. Everybody knew that.

  “Toad,” Buuurk said, sitting up, “I didn’t know you could dance!”

  Until that very minute, Tad hadn’t known he could dance, either. “In the music I heard in my dreams, there were noises like sticks hitting something.”

  “Teach me the words,” Buuurk demanded. “I’ll sing, you dance. Anora and Shyly can hit something with sticks or shake pea pods. We’ll do it for everybody tonight at Full Moon Eve.”

  His friend seemed so excited, Tad couldn’t say no. Plus, maybe it would cheer the toads up after Rumbler’s visit. Word would get around that Tad had heard the music in his winter sleep, and he would never be able to just stalk moths with his friends again.

  Seer dozed beneath the bridal wreath bush, having a dream brighter and stranger than any he’d ever had before. He thought for a gnat blink he might have come to the time of passing and would be carried by a crow up into the Great Cycle.

  What was this wondrous rainbow of lights far brighter than any he’d ever imagined? What were these enormous shapes glowing in the darkness, one greener than any leaf or blade of grass? Ah…there was a sign…a giant arch of lights that rushed by him…or was he rushing by it? He whizzed under the sign. RENO.

  Seer spun and tumbled dizzyingly into darkness for who knew how long. Gently, more shapes bobbed up around him, coming and going, as if both he and they were drifting aimlessly in inky water. Then a human wearing those strange shapes was bouncing to music like Seer had never heard before. Happy music. Hopping music. And Father Pond’s deep voice said, “That’s your queen. The Queen of the Hop. And if the young dreamer kisses her on time, he will save me and my tadpoles, and Mother Earth and her precious toads.”

  The voice said no more, and Seer floated in the strange music for a long time until a young hopper touched his hand.

  With the hopper’s help, Seer made his way into the moonlight, and somebody tied something sweet-smelling around his head. He felt sorry for the young dreamer who would try to save them.

  They waited in a silence that made Tad feel tender toward every old toad and young hopper. The sun had not yet set, but already a pale full moon hung in the sky. The Toad-in-the-Moon smiled down on them.

  Thumping three times in respect of Seer, who had a purple clematis tied over his prophet’s hat, Tad and his friends claimed a beam of the setting sun.

  On a cue from Buuurk, Anora began to bang on something round and shiny with a stick, and Shyly began to shake dry pea pods. Tad rocked to the rhythm, and Buuurk began to sing about the Queen of the Hop.

  The old toads stopped croaking. A young hopper carrying a beautiful blue beetle to Seer nearly dropped it.

  Tad danced and bopped as fast as his legs could go. Anora pounded the stick, and Shyly shook the pea pods until they blurred. Buuurk’s mighty singing rolled over the toads. Hop! Hop! Shake! Shake! Rock and roll!

  When they were done, the evening was totally quiet. No croaks, no crickets, no cicadas. Tad watched the toads’ faces.

  One or two young hoppers began to clap, but it died out. Then an old toad slowly nodded, and gradually, like thunder rolling in from far away, the toads cheered and applauded.

  Finally, the clamor quieted and the toads sat in a bemused silence until some toad called, “We have never heard such music. Where does it come from?”

  Tad kept his eyes on the Toad-in-the-Moon as he confessed, “I heard that music in my winter sleep.”

  Gasps and murmurs wafted through the crowd. Seer’s raspy voice, stronger than it had been for a long time, claimed the evening. “This day I saw the Queen of the Hop in my dreams. Father Pond said the young dreamer was to kiss the Queen of the Hop if we are to live.”

  At first Tad thought the toads had started to stomp and clap again, but then the sound grew louder. The air began to rumble and the ground began to shake. Something cleared its throat and bellowed like it would gulp Tumbledown in one bite and then make a stinky belch.

  “Rumbler!” Tad cried, clutching his friends.

  The toads turned to watch the monster come over the hill, its eyes gleaming. In the dying light, Tad saw its legs like giant night crawlers eating their tails. He heard the bellow of all the thunder in creation. He smelled a mountain of stinkbugs. And when he saw the full size of Rumbler, he peed.

  Rumbler came closer and closer. Tad felt dizzy from its poisonous breath. He tried to hop out of its path, but his legs wouldn’t work. Just as he thought they would all be mashed to jelly, the monster stopped. It shut its eyes. It gave a final stinky snort and fell silent.

  The toads waited.

  “Has it gone to sleep?” Anora finally whispered.

  Chapter 10

  AT FIRST, TAYLOR’S FEET FELT HEAVY. But after a while, the May air started to swoosh through her lungs. And then after another couple of warm-up laps, energy was singing through her like a wind. She waved to her grandmother, who watched from the almost empty bleachers. In the six weeks since she had started chemotherapy, Eve hadn’t missed one of Taylor’s activities.

  Once she got in the groove, running made Taylor feel like she had swallowed a happy pill. Like she could leap over the silvery circle of the moon that barely showed in the morning light. Actually, her track coach had told her she was a natural.

  Kia fell in beside her, her long dark braid bouncing as she ran.

  “So, did you talk to your dad?” Taylor asked.

  “Save the chatter, girls!” the coach called from the turf. “Just focus on your breathing.”

  How could Taylor possibly focus on her breathing when she had to know whether their most recent plan to save the pond was going to work?

  Kia’s dad was a TV news producer. And the plan was that Taylor and Kia would make signs and march around the pond. Kia’s dad would come out with a news crew and film their protest and put it on the six o’clock news. The girls would chant things like Save the pond! Save the fish! Save the toads! And when the reporter interviewed them, they could talk about what a terrible thing it would be to destroy Mr. Dennis’s old place, because it was so special.

  Maybe it wasn’t special to anybody but her. But another strip mall wouldn’t be special to anybody at all. It would just be the same old same old.

  She glanced at Kia, who held her hand out flat wh
ere the coach couldn’t see and made a wobbly sign.

  What did that mean?

  That she’d asked her dad and he’d said—

  He couldn’t say no! What was news for if not to report the news? “We’ve got to talk,” she told Kia, out of the side of her mouth.

  “Girls,” Coach said.

  Taylor tried to get her mind on the track meet.

  The first event was the dash. “Just look at that finish line,” Coach said. “Don’t think about anything but that.”

  Taylor felt a trickle of sweat shoot down her forehead.

  The gun popped and she was off. She loved the feeling of flying like an arrow to the target. She imagined her feet weren’t even touching the ground—that she was just willing her body to fly out ahead of everybody else.

  Maybe she should talk to Kia’s dad herself. If she explained it all to him—

  And then, Madison McKenzie, the sixth grader from Westcliff, was half a stride ahead.

  Taylor tried her hardest, but she couldn’t recover. Before she thudded over the finish line, two other girls passed her.

  Coach gave high fives and “good jobs,” but she also gave Taylor a look.

  If Taylor had kept her focus, her teammates would be patting her on the butt right now and telling her she rocked, like Madison McKenzie’s teammates were doing to Madison.

  In the bleachers, Taylor’s parents had joined her grandmother, and they waved. They didn’t give a hoot where she placed.

  Coach handed out towels and water. “Relays in thirty minutes. Stay warm.”

  “So what did your dad say?” Taylor asked, pulling Kia aside.

  “He said he didn’t think a couple of kids carrying signs would have enough impact for a news story. And he said we could get in a lot of trouble too. The land belongs to somebody else now.” Kia looked over Taylor’s shoulder, no longer meeting her eyes. “And he said I couldn’t do it. That it was breaking the law.”

  Taylor pulled on a sweatshirt and popped up the hood. She didn’t want her best friend to see how disappointed she was.

  “But listen, Taylor, he told me there’s going to be a big city council meeting this Tuesday,” Kia said, “and he’s heard a lot of people are going to city hall to speak and protest local development in general. The TV stations will all be there.”

  “Yeah?” Taylor squealed and gave Kia a bear hug. “That will be even better.” Lots of people. Lots of signs. Lots of news coverage.

  “I’ve gotta go now,” Kia said. “My brother has a baseball game this morning too, so we’re trying to be in both places. I don’t have another event for a couple of hours. But my dad said I could go with you and carry signs at city hall if you want to do that. And he’ll try to make sure we get on camera.”

  “Thanks so much,” Taylor said, hugging Kia again. “We can make the signs Monday after school, okay?”

  Time was running out. It had been over two weeks since the man who looked like a bulldog told her they were going to destroy the pond. Every day, Taylor worried it would be gone forever and that she hadn’t done all she could to save it. This was their best plan and it had to work.

  Taylor climbed the bleachers, where her parents were waiting with her grandmother. Eve had on a pretty purple turban printed with pink hibiscus flowers. Beneath it, she was as bald as a softball. Taylor had touched her shining head this morning, a little embarrassed at first, but it felt kind of nice once she got used to it.

  Her mother had on a sun hat. The metal bleachers reflected the sun, making Taylor squint. It had rained in the night, and the world looked scrubbed. Maybe it would rain a lot between now and next Tuesday so the big machinery wouldn’t be able to work. She searched the sky for more clouds. It might look a little dark in the west.

  “When’s your next event?” her dad asked.

  “Relays. Thirty minutes.”

  Her parents looked at each other. Her dad took off his baseball cap and settled it on Taylor’s head.

  She took it off and handed it back. “You should keep it. You’ll get sunburned.” It would be a long day, and his hair was getting a little thin on top.

  He settled it back on her head. “Your mom and I gotta go,” he said. “Wish we didn’t, but the band only has three more rehearsals before the road trip.”

  Well, what did she expect?

  Taylor sat beside her grandmother as her parents left. She spotted earbuds dangling out of Eve’s bag. Eve probably had a book or two, a sandwich, a bottle of water, an umbrella, and maybe a sleeping bag in there. Taylor could count on her grandmother to stay to the end of all her track meets, no matter how long it took. That was one thing that hadn’t changed.

  Taylor took off her dad’s cap and lay down on the bleacher seat, her knees bent, the top of her head touching her grandmother’s leg. She put the baseball cap over her face. It was dark and cozy underneath. They announced the boys’ hurdles.

  “Eve.” Taylor’s voice sounded funny with her face covered up.

  She felt her grandmother’s fingers tickle her bare knee. “What?”

  “Is it supposed to rain?”

  “I think they said scattered thunderstorms for the next several days. Why?”

  She sat up, blinking in the sudden light, and told her grandmother about the city council meeting.

  “Taylor, it’s fine to make your opinion known,” her grandmother said. “But even if it makes a difference, we still wouldn’t own Mr. Dennis’s old place. You have to face facts. We’re not going to be able to swim or ice skate or sled or fish there again.”

  They didn’t know that for sure. Maybe her dad would win a huge prize for some building he designed. Maybe her mother would have a colossally big case and make a zillion dollars. And if the pond and woods were still there, then they could buy them. But if the ponds and woods were destroyed and covered with concrete, they were gone forever. FOREVER.

  So they couldn’t give up.

  “You used to protest things,” Taylor reminded her.

  Her grandmother gave her a long look, but because of her dark glasses, Taylor couldn’t see her eyes.

  “My generation did a lot of protesting,” she finally said. “I protested the war in Vietnam. I even went to jail for a few hours once.”

  Taylor gasped. Her grandmother, in jail?

  “I thought the war was wrong for a lot of reasons,” Eve said. “For reasons that other people agreed with. Like people will agree with you that we shouldn’t turn the whole countryside into strip malls. But the real reason I stood out in the rain and stared down scary policemen with nightsticks and screamed rude things was purely selfish. I didn’t want your grandfather to die in the jungles of Vietnam. I wanted to keep him safe with me always. I wanted that so much I didn’t know what to do.”

  Taylor stared at her grandmother. She sounded so…not old. She sounded like Taylor felt. Taylor didn’t want the pond and fields to die. Because they were hers.

  Her grandmother dug in her purse for a tissue and blew her nose.

  Taylor put her head in her grandmother’s lap. Her grandmother stroked her hair.

  “Taylor, I think you should go with your parents on their trip to Reno this year,” she said.

  Taylor sat up. She couldn’t have been more shocked if her grandmother had said, Let’s pierce our belly buttons.

  The Reno week was Taylor’s absolute most favorite time of the year. That was the time her parents went off to their rock-and-roll extravaganza, leaving her with Eve. Each day, Taylor and her grandmother did something special, like having a swimming party for Taylor’s friends or going to a ball game. Each night, they stayed up late watching movies and eating ice cream.

  And then Taylor got it. Her grandmother was too tired this year. “It’s okay,” she said. “We don’t have to do all that stuff we usually do. Really.”

  Eve took a deep breath. She didn’t look at Taylor, but she took her hand. “You need to get to know what your parents do—”

  Taylor knew what her
parents did. Day and night. Her mother argued with other lawyers, and her dad drew buildings and made little models.

  “—for fun,” Eve finished. “I would like to see you have some fun this summer.”

  Taylor blew her bangs off her face. “Oh, all that rock-and-roll stuff. I’d be bored.”

  “Maybe not,” Eve said. “You could stay in a big hotel with all kinds of things for kids to do.”

  Was her grandmother just trying to get rid of her? Taylor suspected that she was, and it tore out a little place inside. “You look like an old fortune-teller in that turban,” she said.

  Eve stared at Taylor in silence. Then she smiled. “Then let Madam Eve tell your fortune. Let me read your palm and tell you what awaits.”

  Taylor swallowed and held out her hand. She was sorry she had said that about the turban. She wished they could back up and start over.

  “I see a great change,” her grandmother intoned, cradling Taylor’s hand in hers.

  Taylor didn’t want a great change. She wanted things just like they were.

  “And I see a journey—a long voyage.” She wiggled her eyebrows, and Taylor smiled in spite of herself. “I see bright lights. And a tall prince.”

  Taylor rolled her eyes.

  “I do,” Eve insisted, and she went on with silly, extravagant stuff about what all she saw in Taylor’s future. “I believe I see you wearing a tiara.”

  By the time the fortune was fully told, and Taylor had married the prince and become a princess, it was time to warm up with the relay team, and things had been healed between her and Eve. Still, Taylor wished the ugly idea of traveling with her parents hadn’t come up. Her grandmother couldn’t actually make her go to Reno, could she?

  Chapter 11

  THE TOADS HAD SPENT A RAINY NIGHT huddled under the soft leaves of a sprawling clematis, terrified to go anywhere near Tumbledown, where Rumbler still dozed and oozed a foul smell. One twitch of his enormous feet and their home would be crushed.