Once Upon a Toad (22 page)

“And how does your friend A.J. know this?” she asked.

“Cat's mom is an astronaut,” Olivia explained. “Fiona MacLeod Starr—maybe you're heard of her? A.J. is working with her to help track Cat's great-aunt from outer space.”

“You don't say,” said Pearl, digesting this new information. She glanced at me in the rearview mirror. “Well now, isn't that something. I watch all the launches, you know. Always have, ever since I was a little girl. I'll never forget that first moon walk.” She stuck her head out the window and looked up at the sky. “So is NASA tracking us, too?”

I shook my head. “Nope.”

“Toad!” shouted Olivia.

Pearl pulled her head back in as the creature tumbled over the back of her seat. The car swerved, sending me flying into my stepsister.

“Sorry,” I blurted out before I could help myself.

Now there were two on the loose. Pearl flipped the one in the front seat over her shoulder. It landed on Olivia, who shrieked and batted at it with her hands. She managed to knock it onto the floor, where the second one was hopping around, then whisked her knees up to her chin as I scrambled to capture them both.

When I finally had things under control again and the pair of toads wrapped in my hoodie, I gave Pearl a thumbs-up.

“Thank goodness,” she said with a shudder. “Pipe down now, okay?”

I kept very quiet for the rest of the trip.

An hour later, just as A.J. had predicted, we pulled into the Jedediah Smith Campground.

“What campsite did you say she's at again?” asked Pearl.

“Fifty,” Olivia replied, with a spray of carnations and a large diamond. She handed the gem to Pearl. “Here,” she said. “Maybe this will help pay for gas.”

Pearl held it up and squinted at it. “Honey, if what you're telling me is true, this here stone will not only pay for gas, it'll fund my retirement. Thanks.”

She hit the button to retract the roof again now that we were off the highway and into the national park. Olivia and I gaped up at the trees. They soared far above us, reaching for the dwindling spring daylight. I'd been to a lot of places, but I'd never seen trees like these.

“Really something, aren't they?” said Pearl. “I've always loved the redwoods. Did you know some of them are taller than the Statue of Liberty?”

“No way!” I said, then clapped my hands together in front of me, trapping my quarry.
Cat Starr,
Toad Huntress scores again
.
Pearl pulled over for a second so I could toss it to safety.

“Isn't there a tree you can drive through?” Olivia asked, and the waitress nodded. “Can you take us to it?”

“If we have time.”

The T-Bird drew a lot of attention as we made our way slowly through the campground.

“Stay down, girls,” Pearl murmured, switching off the Beach Boys. She punched a button on the dashboard and the mechanism whirred as the rooftop slid back into place. We were going into stealth mode again.

A few minutes later we spotted Great-Aunt Abyssinia's RV, and Pearl pulled in beside it.

“Nice wheels,” called Great-Aunt Abyssinia from her folding chair by the campfire.

She didn't look the least bit surprised to see us. So much for stealth mode.

“The Rocket gets me where I need to go, on time and in style,” Pearl replied. She switched off the engine and gave the dashboard one last pat. “Yes sirree, baby, you did real good.”

She untied her scarf, checked her lipstick and hair in the rearview mirror, then got out of the car and crossed to where Great-Aunt Abyssinia was waiting.

“Howdy, Pearl,” said my great-aunt.

Pearl's eyebrows fled under her stiff blond bangs again. “How did you know my name?”

Great-Aunt Abyssinia grinned. “Says so on your uniform.”

Pearl glanced down at her name tag and laughed. “So it does. Sorry, I'm a little jumpy. This day has been a little, uh, left of normal.” She extended her hand. “Pearl Slocum of the world-famous Pie-in-the-Sky Diner. Well, maybe not
world-famous, but we do okay. And you must be the great-aunt these girls are so eager to find.”

“I guess I must be,” said Great-Aunt Aby, rising to her feet. Like the redwoods, she towered over all three of us. Unlike the redwoods, she was dressed from head to toe in fleece. Purple fleece. I caught sight of her hiking boots and nearly laughed. They were sporting matching purple laces. Great-Aunt Aby had accessorized.

My great-aunt shook Pearl's hand. “Pie-in-the-Sky Diner, huh? Sounds like my kind of place.”

“It is if you like pie,” Pearl replied. “We serve seven kinds, one for every day of the week.”

“I'll have to stop by sometime. I'm much obliged to you for bringing the girls to me.” She glanced over in my direction and ran a big hand over her own short locks. “Nice 'do, by the way, Catriona. Give it a shot of color and we could almost be twins.”

Olivia snorted, and I stepped on her foot.

“These two are in a heap of trouble,” Pearl told her. “But I guess you know that, what with them being all over the news and everything.”

Great-Aunt Aby stared at her blankly. She hadn't heard! My heart sank. What kind of a fairy godmother had I been saddled with? One that didn't even watch the news?

Pearl glanced back over her shoulder and lowered her voice. “Perhaps we'd better go inside, Mrs., uh—”

“Just call me Aby,” said Great-Aunt Abyssinia. She lumbered over to her RV and opened the door. “Come on in, then.”

Olivia wrinkled her nose as we followed her inside. The remains of my great-aunt's dinner—in a pan containing a
blackened mess that looked like it might have been some sort of stir-fry—were petrifying on the stove.

“You three hungry?” asked Great-Aunt Abyssinia.

Olivia and I shook our heads vigorously.

“Starved,” said Pearl.

“Have a seat,” my great-aunt told us.

The three of us squeezed in around the little dining table while Great-Aunt Aby took the pan and stuffed it inside the RV's tiny oven, then rummaged in her cupboards and teeny refrigerator.
Right,
I thought scornfully.
Like she really watches the Food Network
. A few minutes later, though, she set down three plates of completely normal-looking bacon and eggs in front of us. Better than normal-looking, in fact.

“Breakfast-for-dinner night,” she announced, cracking open a bottle of her green gloop and taking a big slurp.

“I'd give you a job any day of the week,” Pearl told her, picking up her fork. “This looks mighty fine.”

My great-aunt pulled up a stool and perched at the end of the table, like a circus elephant doing a balancing act. “So, fill me in.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but before I could say anything, Pearl held up a warning finger. “Not at the dinner table.”

I nodded, and nudged Olivia with my elbow.

“So it all began right after you visited us, Mrs., uh, Aby,” my stepsister explained. “I woke up doing this”—she pointed to the buttercups and diamonds that littered her plate—“and Cat woke up doing, um …”

“This,” I said, cupping my hands in front of my mouth to catch the inevitable toad.

Croak.

Pearl shuddered. “Puh-leez,” she said. “Some of us are trying to eat.”

“I see,” said Great-Aunt Aby, her eyes glinting behind her glasses. She plucked the toad from my hand and inspected it, then opened the door of the RV and released it gently onto the step. As it hopped off toward the woods, Archibald twitched his tail and leaped down from his perch on the bookshelf. “No, Archie,” said my great-aunt, quickly shutting the door of her RV again. “Toad would definitely disagree with you.”

She flicked a glance at Pearl and Olivia, who were plowing their way happily through their bacon and eggs. She plucked a book from her shelf and flipped through its pages, muttering to herself. Then she turned to me. “Could I have a word in private with you, Catriona?”

I followed her outside.

“I take it you've spoken with your mother,” she whispered.

I nodded again.

“Good. Not exactly the way we meant to tell you, but it couldn't be helped, what with the space mission and all interfering with our schedule.”

I lifted a shoulder.

“How much does Pearl know?”

“I just told her that you're my great-aunt,” I replied, prodding with the toe of my sneaker at the toad my answer produced.

“Good. Let's keep it that way for now. How about Olivia?”

“Uh …”

“I see. Well, couldn't be helped either, I suppose. Not under the circumstances.” Great-Aunt Aby laid one of her large
hands on my shoulder. “I'm sorry that we were never properly introduced,” she said. “There's actually rather a lovely ceremony involved.” She slipped a finger through the chain of my necklace and tugged it from its resting place under my hoodie. “Your mother and I would have presented you with this together,” she said, “and explained its history, and yours.”

I looked at her expectantly.

She blinked at me with her enormous, magnified eyes. “Not just yet,” she replied to my unspoken question. “Your mother's been looking forward to the ceremony for many years, and I don't wish to deprive her of her part in it. And it's completely irrelevant information at the moment.”

I must have looked disappointed, because she paused, then sighed. “Well, I guess I can explain one thing.” She opened the book that she'd brought outside with her. I recognized the emerald green cover and worn binding—it was the same book she'd consulted the day she visited us back in Portland.

“Here,” she said, passing it to me and tapping her finger against one of its pages. “I meant to help, truly I did.”

I quickly scanned the page. It was an old fairy tale about two stepsisters. The nice one got the gift of diamonds and flowers, and the rude one got stuck with the toads.

“But that's not what happened,” I told her, frowning. “You messed up, big-time.”

“It happens occasionally,” admitted Great-Aunt Abyssinia. “No real harm done, though.”

“No harm done?! Great-Aunt Aby,
look
at me!” I pointed to the pile of toads at my feet. “Do you have any idea what I'm going through here? Thanks to your stupid mix-up, I'll probably
never be able to go back to school again. And I'll have to give up the bassoon!” I paced around the campfire angrily, heedless of the toads I was scattering under the giant trees. “Olivia will be fine, of course. She and her diamonds will be welcomed with open arms wherever she goes. The school will probably build a new gym or library in her honor or something.” I stopped and looked at my great-aunt accusingly. “There's been a whole bunch of harm done, Great-Aunt Aby—and the worst of it is, my little brother has been kidnapped!”

“I know,” said my great-aunt sadly, hanging her head. She looked like a remorseful Saint Bernard caught swiping a steak off the grill. “That wasn't part of the plan.”

“What is the plan, then? I say it's time to wave your wand, or whatever it is you do, and hurry up and fix this!”

“That's not exactly the way it works.”

“Well, make it work!” I told her. “I want Geoffrey back, and I want my life back!” I stalked back inside and slid into my seat. Olivia and Pearl were smearing jam—or what looked like jam, though it was an odd brown color—onto their toast.

“So, we have diamonds, toads, and a missing brother,” said Great-Aunt Aby, following me inside. “Got it. I think I'm up to speed.”

“Do you think we should call their parents and let them know that the girls are safe?” asked Pearl.

I shook my head. “Nope,” I said, heedless of what else came out of my mouth besides words. I was done worrying about toads. “The FBI is tapping our phones, trying to trace calls from the kidnapppers.” I explained briefly about the note I'd given Connor, too. There'd been nothing on the news
yet to make me think my father had received it, though.

“I can get a message through if need be,” said Great-Aunt Aby, and I knew she was referring to the FGPS. She reached for her broom, and for a moment I thought she was going to mount it and fly away, but she merely began sweeping up toads. “Connor strikes me as a resourceful boy, though. Let's be patient a while longer.” She emptied the dustpan out the RV's door. “We need to hit the road for Portland soon. Long drive ahead of us.”

“Would you like to borrow the Red Rocket?” said Pearl.

“Nice of you to offer, but you'd be surprised at the speed I can coax out of this RV,” my great-aunt replied. “I can't thank you enough for all that you've done for the girls, Pearl. I don't want to impose on your generosity any longer.”

“Oh, you're not imposing,” said Pearl.

“Nevertheless, you're free to leave,” insisted my great-aunt.

Pearl laughed. “You aren't going to get rid of me that easy, Abyssinia,” she told her. “This is more excitement than I've had in decades. Besides, now that I'm in it this far, I have to stick around and see how everything turns out.” She winked at Olivia and me, then turned back to my great-aunt. “So,” she said. “Where do we go from here?”

CHAPTER 21