Puddlejumpers (7 page)
Unable to wait another second, Chop brought his acorn whistle to his lips and blew a rich, musical sound, which triggered a joyous trumpeting of whistles that filled the Well and echoed all the way down to the lake. The Puddlejumpers hugged and hooted and hollered.
To commemorate the occasion, Greystone gave the baby a cedar chest. On the vaulted lid was an impeccably carved likeness of Wawaywo's face. When he opened the chest, a galaxy of dried dandelions floated upward like a thousand good wishes. The Jumpers spent the rest of the day trying to catch them.
Now he was one of them, a Puddlejumper. And the Spiral Tattoo, the key which enabled the Jumpers to jump back and forth between the Underneath and the Up Above, would forever be on the sole of little Shawn Frazier.
S
HAWN WONDERED
where his father had gone. He missed his face, the low rumble of his voice, his familiar smell. He missed the airplane rides in the yard, and playing in the wheat, and the warmth of his dad's arms in the rocking chair. Where was his house and barn? What had happened to the sun and stars?
Root and Runnel had fixed up a comfy crib room in their den by the lake. It was quiet inside, except for the faint sound of waterfalls. The light from the crystal acorns on Grandfather Oak filtered through the ceiling puddle and cast a soft glow throughout the four round rooms. A mossy carpet covered the floor and the furniture was handcrafted or borrowed from nature, like the bird's-eye maple table and the mushroom stools. The earthen walls were covered with birch bark and decorated with items found in the Up Above. There were eyeglasses and keys, somebody's driver's license, a fork, a crushed Pepsi can, a hubcap, and a tarnished brass doorknob.
The Puddlejumpers did their best to make the baby's room feel familiar. Root clamped the Snow White lamp to his crib and attached a mobile he'd carved featuring the animals Shawn knew from the barn. But all of their hard work didn't seem to matter, because he just wouldn't stop crying. Bawling, he crawled round and round the den, as if searching for a way out.
Cully came by in the morning and did everything he could to calm Shawn, but even standing on his head and spitting acorns didn't work. The Puddlejumpers told one another the baby was worn out from his encounter with MotherEarth and the sewing of his Spiral Tattoo.
When the tears didn't stop, Greystone brought Pav to the den to find out what was wrong. By then the whole tribe had gathered in clusters up and down the mossy meadows and along the lake, whispering anxiously. The baby's wail was as constant as the plunging waterfalls. It filled the Cavern of Pools with an overwhelming sadness.
After Pav examined the baby, she could only offer a shake of her head. She knew of nothing that could mend a broken heart. They felt sad for him, but there was nothing they could do.
The Rainmaker was essential to the Kingdom.
T
HE NIGHT
R
USS
F
RAZIER
lost his son, his world might as well have come to an end. When he was alone in the weeks that followed, he cried and cried until there were no tears left. Every muscle, every fiber of his body, ached with the loss of his baby boy. Sometimes he thought he didn't have the strength to take even one more breath. But somehow he did.
Russ never finished harvesting the long-grain wheat along the south slope. Instead he spent every waking moment looking for his son. He traveled from town to town, handing out pictures and questioning anyone and everyone. He worked with the local sheriff, the Illinois State Police, and even the FBI, but no one ever uncovered another clue that might lead to the kidnapper. The single shred of evidence was the red quilt Pitch had found up in the woods. Whoever took the baby, it was as if they'd vanished off the very face of the earth.
The kidnapping had captured the attention of the entire state. The papers, TV commentators, townspeople, and even the police began to refer to Shawn Frazier as “the Quilt Baby.” For a while it was all anybody could talk about, but as winter approached and there was nothing new to report, people gradually returned to the business of their own lives. The Quilt Baby was forgotten.
As the winter snows began to melt, Russ finally stopped pestering the authorities and returned to his empty house. Everything on the farm soon fell into disrepair and neglect, except for Shawn's room, which Russ kept just the way it was before he was taken. The baby pictures remained on the wall next to a photograph Betty had taken of Russ with Shawn on his back, shaking his rattle. A stuffed teddy bear sat on top of the dresser next to a candy-red tractor. And the mobile's wooden elves kept their silent vigil over the red quilt. It lay clean and folded in the empty crib.
With old Pitch sleeping by his feet, a gaunt and bearded Russ spent long days on his porch gazing into the fields, praying that somehow, by some miracle, his son would return.
With the coming of spring, he got ready to plant his fields. He had to. It was all he knew.
A
T THE SPRING EQUINOX
, the Kingdom celebrated Shawn's third birthday. The Rainmaker had gradually acclimated to life in the cavern and was happy among the Puddlejumpers, but he was growing faster than Pav had predicted.
Greystone summoned Root and Runnel to the Well to discuss Shawn's future. Now that he was three, they decided it was time to begin his Puddlejumper training. While other scouts roamed the borderlands, keeping watch for Troggs, the two chief scouts, Buck and Cully, would start to prepare him for the day when he would fulfill his destiny.
Greystone made three hard-and-fast rules. First, they should always inform him of their destination. Second, they should never use the same puddle for the coming and going. And last, they should never go near the Frazier farm, or for that matter, anywhere they might encounter human beings.
The next morning Root and Runnel bundled Shawn aboard a log raft, custom-built to accommodate someone three times their height and five times their weight. Shawn's eyes sparkled.
“Ta wayo!”
he squealed, which meant “I like me!” and Root and Runnel smiled at each other, then corrected him. He'd wanted to say
“La wayo”
â“I like it!”
A flotilla of seven canoes towed them against the current back toward the surface while Shawn continued to pepper them with questions, not all of them making sense. He'd grown to love his Puddlejumper parents and felt safe with them. They moored under the hatchway at Tittabuwasi, where Buck and Cully rigged a harness. A dozen Puddlejumpers hoisted a giggling Shawn up and through the puddle hatch.
But in the Up Above, Shawn had a difficult time. The sun was too bright for his eyes, the pollen made him sneeze, and the bustle of insects and birds distracted him. Clouds scared him. Root and Runnel did their best to reassure Shawn, but it wasn't easy.
It didn't get any better the next day when Buck initiated him to the dangers lurking in the Up Above. He pointed out poisonous snakes, poisonous spiders, poison ivy, poison oak, poison sumac, poison hemlock, tar pits, toadstools, and snapping turtles. Shawn could hardly believe such a world existed. His head was spinning.
Buck's next task was teaching Shawn how to orient himself to the four directionsânorth, south, east, and west.
“Kee?”
complained Shawn, which meant “why,” a question the Puddlejumpers often heard. Buck patiently explained that if he didn't know the directions, he could lose his way and have a hard time getting back to the Underneath. If a Trogg was nearby, he might never get back. Shawn listened intently, but he still felt a little confused about which way was which.
In the deep timber, they encountered a fierce mother bear and her two cubs. Buck held her gaze and whispered calmly, speaking in bear grunts until he could stroke her long, black nose. After a while, he was able to charm her enough that she even allowed Shawn to wrestle with her cubs. When it got dark, the five of them bedded down in their cave with Shawn nestled between the bundles of black fur. Buck was anxious about keeping the Rainmaker out all night, as Troggs were more active after dark, but he thought it important for him to learn that animals could provide a place to hide in times of crisis. That night Shawn dreamed about bears who could talk and walk on two feet and carry him wherever he wanted to go.
Buck woke Shawn so early the next morning the stars were still out. On the way home, he showed him how to find the North Star. That way, even in the dark, he would never lose his way.
When Cully took Shawn to the Up Above, he made the jump at Warble Creek. He spent the morning under a chestnut tree teaching Shawn how to do sleight of hand, which Puddlejumpers sometimes used to distract a Trogg. First Cully showed him a chestnut, then waved one hand in front of the other and the chestnut disappeared. Shawn's eyes darted in every direction. “
Meta lo galo?”
he squealed. After pretending to search everywhere, Cully pulled the chestnut from under Shawn's armpit. Mesmerized, Shawn yelled,
“Eta, eta!”
â“Again, again!”
Cully's big appetite made him an expert in knowing what to eat in an emergency. He pointed out persimmons, pine nuts, pokeweed, sassafras, and spatterdock. After considerable prodding, Shawn tried munching the stalks of young cattails, sucking honey out of honeysuckle, and crunching brittle reindeer moss from the north side of trees. The whole time Cully never stopped talking about ways to survive if lost or in trouble.
On the way home, Cully brought Shawn to an overlook known as Owl Perch, just in time to witness majestic thunderclouds rushing up the valley. When the rain began to fall in a ferocious downpour, Shawn was so excited he shouted,
“Hooty-hoo!”
Surprised by the outburst, Cully shook with a big belly laugh. They sat with their legs dangling over the edge of the cliff, exhilarated, as the thunder and lightning echoed all around them.
Later that evening, after Shawn was tucked safely in his stump bed, the Puddlejumpers gathered in the Well to hear Cully tell the story of the Rainmaker's first “Hooty-hoo.”
After each foray to the Up Above, Shawn went swimming with Chop. Root and Runnel had taught him to swim even before he could walk, and now Shawn slipped into the lake without hesitation. He paddled fiercely toward Grandfather Oak while Chop ferried around him. As the undertow took hold, Shawn rolled onto his back and shot feet-first into the hollow of the tree. Tucking his arms and pointing his toes, he plunged down the steep gorge. He and Chop screamed during the plummet, but as soon as they splashed into the Laughing Grotto, they popped to the surface hooting. After their swim, they sat on the sandy beach and practiced whistling with an acorn cap. Chop showed him how to form his thumbs in the shape of a V to make the shrill sound.
One day Chop tried to teach him how to skitter across a stream in the cavern, but Shawn didn't have webbed feet and sank to the bottom, cutting his foot on a sharp rock. Shawn didn't cry, but when Chop saw the blood, he tried not to panic and rushed him to Pav.