The Slippery Map Read online

  “Get down!” Dr. Fromler screamed.

  But the room was gusty now. The vacuum tubes were blowing air with a great force. The windiness from the sink basin was like a tornado. Instruments clattered to the floor. Leatherbelly clawed his way up Oyster’s shirt and howled.

  Dr. Fromler’s white doctor’s coat whipped around. The drawers blew open. Goodies shot out and rained down like hail.

  There were loud knocks on the door to room one. Mrs. Fishback screeched, “Leatherbelly! Are you okay? Oyster R. Motel, this is all your fault!”

  But now the sink basin had opened wide, and from Oyster’s perch at the top of the leather chair, he could see that its center had gone black and from the blackness the silver bucket was swinging toward him. Oyster, still holding Leatherbelly, grabbed the bucket just as the door flew open to reveal the fuming, winded, and windblown Mrs. Fishback. Things wouldn’t get better if he stayed. He’d be forced to take the Child-Calming Menthol Drops, and he’d be rendered listless and dull, guaranteed! And Dr. Fromler, battling gale force winds, was still after his teeth.

  Oyster held tight to the edge of the bucket and jumped for the black hole of the basin. The sink basin’s drain widened so that Oyster and Leatherbelly slid through, then fell into darkness. Dr. Fromler and Mrs. Fishback charged the sink basin. And Oyster, bucket in one hand, Leatherbelly in the other, could see their horrified faces, peering down into the drain.

  Oyster wedged his bottom into the silver bucket. The bottle of Child-Calming Menthol Drops in one pocket, the small map of his imagination in the other, Leatherbelly in his lap, Oyster was carried off somewhere by the bucket. He and Leatherbelly sailed through darkness.

  CHAPTER 5

  THE SILVER BUCKET IN THE WELL

  (BONELAND WEST OF THE PINCH-EYE MOUNTAINS)

  Oyster heard the distant, rustling voices again.

  “Get him, Hopps!” one said.

  “No, no, there. Hold steady!” said another.

  Then the bucket slammed down so hard that Oyster and Leatherbelly shot out. They both ended up sprawled across a floor. It took a moment for Oyster’s eyes to adjust. He was on his stomach in a small room filled with cans and barrels marked FIGS: REFRIGERATE. It was dusty and dark. Leatherbelly looked at Oyster as if it had been Oyster’s idea to fall through a dentist’s sink into darkness, fly in a silver bucket, and land in this cluttered room.

  Oyster rolled onto his back and looked up. Two faces loomed over him. One of the faces was small and sweet with blinky eyes. He was smiling as he said, “I think we’ve got ourselves the right one, don’t you?”

  The other face, which had a deflated look as if it had once been fat and dimpled, wore a curdled expression, and its beady eyes stared at Oyster suspiciously. “I’m not so sure,” he said.

  “Oh, Hopps,” the happy face said. “It’s the boy! It is!”

  “Listen, Ringet, we can’t jump ahead of ourselves.”

  So these were the voices that Oyster had heard through the glove compartment. He stared up at them. He wanted to be the boy they were looking for. He wanted to think that all of the strange things—the Awful MTDs, the Mapkeeper, the chocolate on the broom handle, and the silver bucket—were leading to something. But Oyster had trouble believing that he really could be the boy they were looking for. “I’m just Oyster from the nunnery,” he found himself saying. He was just Oyster who got in the way and who wasn’t worth the trouble.

  “Oyster?” Hopps repeated. “That doesn’t help!”

  “It’s the boy!” Ringet went on.

  “How do you know, Ringet? How do you know anything?” Hopps said.

  “I just do!” Ringet answered. “He was near the spot you left him! He didn’t wander too far maybe because he knew we’d be coming back for him.”

  “I’m not allowed to wander far away, ever,” Oyster said. “I’m not allowed outside the nunnery gate except for certain reasons.”

  Hopps ignored Oyster and lit into Ringet. “I told you that I don’t really remember where I left him. That’s the problem!” Hopps said, rearing back and poking Ringet in the chest. “And if you breathe a word of that, I’ll kill you, Ringet. I will, and we won’t be friends anymore!”

  It was clear now that the two men were very small, with broad chests and short legs. They wore earrings all the way up their ears and had furry cheeks but bare chins. They both had a good number of dark moles on their faces. They wore flat, circular caps.

  “I won’t tell,” Ringet said. “I’ve already promised! I haven’t even told Oli or Marge or anyone on the Council! But, but”—and here it seemed like Ringet was trying desperately not to say what he was going to say next but he couldn’t help himself—“why didn’t you mark the spot on the Slippery Map when you got out? Why didn’t you?”

  Slippery Map? Oyster’s cheeks and ears went hot.

  “You were supposed to take the baby through the Slippery Map and then leave him there safely,” Ringet went on, “and mark it when you got back. It was what his parents wanted!”

  Oyster’s mind had snagged on the word parents. How could he be the boy they were looking for? Maybe slippery maps weren’t as unusual as he’d thought. After all, there had been an entire room filled with them. “Stop it, Ringet! Stop it!” Hopps said. “We’ve got real work to do if this is the boy.”

  “I don’t have parents,” Oyster explained. “I was rejected. I’m a reject.”

  Hopps said, “What’s your full name?”

  Oyster wasn’t sure he should answer any questions now. He didn’t want to be belched back into the dentist’s office and the clutches of Mrs. Fishback. Plus, Alvin Peterly hadn’t answered any questions unless he was given chocolate. And Oyster could smell the chocolate now. He propped himself up on his elbows and took a deep breath. He could smell the scent of the pink chocolate he’d plucked off of the broom handle. He could see the vats that Alvin had been talking about. Their rims were crusted in caramel and different shades of chocolate: blues, greens, pinks, and reds, and one filled with bright silver icing.

  “He’s stopped answering,” Ringet said.

  Leatherbelly waddled off to the corner, walked in circles, and whined.

  “I don’t know what that beast is,” Ringet said, looking at the dog. “Did you see any of them when you were there?”

  Hopps shook his head. “Don’t get too close,” he said, and then he turned his attention back to Oyster. “What’s your full name again?”

  Oyster decided he could ask questions just as easily as answer them. He had plenty of questions. “Where am I?”

  Ringet was pleased that Oyster was responding, and bounced a little up and down. One of his legs didn’t work properly, though, and so it was a rigid bounce that set him off-kilter. He had to catch his balance. “You’re in the storage room of The Figgy Shop!” Ringet said. “It’s Happy Fig Day! Don’t you hear it?” Ringet pointed to the door.

  A bright slice of light slipped into the room underneath it, and now Oyster could hear people shouting, “Two pounds four!” and “I was next!” There were bells being rung and whistles and singing and drums.

  “Only celebration us Perths are allowed, you see,” Ringet explained.

  “Perths?” Oyster asked. “What are Perths?”

  “We’re Perths! That’s what,” Ringet said. “Hopps chose to keep trying, even on Happy Fig Day. At least this way all of the noise and commotion of the celebration blocks out any shouting in here. Any screaming and whatnot. Sometimes they scream, you know.”

  “Who screams?” Oyster was alarmed.

  Hopps didn’t let Ringet go on explaining things. “You’re in Boneland, just west of the Pinch-Eye Mountains, about three miles to the Bridge to Nowhere and beyond that….” He paused.

  “Don’t,” Ringet said. “There’s no need to discuss it now.”

  “I answered your question; now you answer mine,” Hopps said. “What was your name…one more time?”

  “Oyster R. Motel,” Oyster said. He poi
nted to Leatherbelly, who looked completely dazed and dizzy now from walking in circles. “That’s Leatherbelly. And you”—he pointed to the chubby one—“are Ringet. And you”—he pointed to the angry one—“are Hopps. I heard you two talking in the nunnery van.”

  “Nunnery. Second time you’ve said that word.” Hopps walked over to a large scroll of a map spread out on the floor near shelves of canned figs. It was hand-drawn—much like the one in his pocket—with different colored inks, but this one was hugely detailed. There were shop names and treetops and ripples drawn into a river. Both ends of the map were rolled up on cane poles. Hopps walked to the silver bucket with the fancy molding; and once he put his hand underneath it to lift it, the bucket shrank and shrank until it was just the size of a small charm on a necklace. Hopps took the rope, which had become string, and tied it around his neck while poised over the map on the floor. “The nunnery,” he said again.

  “That’s where I live,” Oyster said.

  “I don’t remember anything like that. Nunnery?”

  “What do you remember?” Oyster asked, not really sure what his question meant.

  “Well, I remember slicing a hole in the Map with the edge of this.” He held up the tiny silver bucket. “And then I enlarged it and climbed in with the baby boy tucked in my jacket.”

  Ringet interrupted. “This was at the height of the Foul Revolution. We had to work quickly. It was dangerous. The baby boy was in danger. Terrible. It was terrible. And it still is!”

  “The Foul Revolution?” Oyster asked.

  “Dark Mouth,” Ringet whispered. “Dark Mouth took over.”

  Hopps ignored them. He was remembering as best he could. He spoke firmly, trying to nail down the details in his mind. “I went through the Map at night and found myself and the baby in a bed with white sheets and furry floors and an awful painting of a waterfall. When I walked out of the bedroom, I realized I was in a row of bedrooms in a building full of bedrooms.”

  “A motel?” Oyster asked. “That’s what that’s called.” It made him think of the Royal Motel, and the towel he’d been found wrapped in as a baby.

  “I don’t know what it was,” Hopps said.

  “Was it fancy?”

  “No, it smelled of wet dogs and socks and standing water.”

  “Oh,” Oyster said, disappointed. It couldn’t have been the motel that was part of his birth story. His had been the Royal Motel. It had been fancy, with inscribed towels and all.

  “I walked the streets of this Baltimore City, holding the baby. There were automobiles and red dots blipping across the night sky. The river was skunky, and they seemed proud of their sugar in Baltimore because it was lit up in a big red sign. There were paddleboats all locked up for the night, and people walking around, shouting happily. I walked away from the river and finally found what seemed to be a good spot. Across the street, there was a red dragon painted on a window.”

  “A red dragon?” Oyster asked. “Are you sure it was a dragon?” He thought of the Dragon Palace.

  “Yes, it was, and I thought, They know Dragons here—though there’s no such thing as a red Dragon. But this is good. He’ll learn.”

  “Are there dragons here?” Oyster asked quickly.

  “Shhh,” Ringet whispered, “let him talk.” It was clear that Ringet had never gotten this detailed a version of the story before.

  “And there was an open window over the red Dragon,” Hopps went on. “And through it was a woman holding a baby. The baby cried, but then it stopped and I heard her singing. And that seemed good too.”

  Oyster thought of the boy across the street with the leg braces. A boy about his age who’d once been a baby…Oyster’s heart pounded in his chest.

  “There was a trinket shop too, with a little puppy sitting there at the front door, looking out at me, wagging its tail.”

  “A puppy?” Could it be the same mean old dog ten years younger?

  “And,” Hopps went on, “there was a smiling face in the sky. I can’t explain that, but it was there. And it was smiling down on this big stone house.”

  “A smile? Did you say a smile?” Oyster could barely hear Hopps. He felt light-headed. He patted the Child-Calming Menthol Drops in his pocket. They were still there, although Dr. Fromler’s office already felt like a dream. “Like a billboard?”

  “What’s a billboard?” Ringet asked.

  Hopps ignored the questions. “There was an iron gate in front of the stone house. In front of the gate, there was a glowing button and a sign that read: ‘Please leave deliveries here. Ring bell. God bless.’ Well, that’s what I did. I left the baby there and rang the bell and left. I scratched at the curb with the sharp silver bucket to make a hole. The bucket grew. I got in and slipped back through the Map to the storage room.”

  Oyster could barely speak. Was he the boy they were looking for? “Did you steal something from the motel?” he asked. “Did you wrap the baby in something to keep him warm?”

  Hopps nodded. “It was early spring. Still cold. I took a towel,” he said. “I didn’t want to steal it! I had to!”

  “And did you put the baby in something when you dropped him off?”

  “I did. Yes, I remember that now, too. I’d taken a crate from some garbage beside a restaurant.”

  “A Dorsey’s Pickled Foods box?” Oyster asked, his voice hoarse.

  “Yes, yes!” Hopps said. “I believe it was!”

  Oyster could barely speak. He whispered, “And was the towel written on?”

  “Yes,” Hopps said. “I remember that now, too. Red lettering.”

  Ringet said, “You’re the boy! Aren’t you?”

  Oyster was crying. He couldn’t answer. He was the boy, and he didn’t know what it meant. He didn’t know where he was. He was coming home, though, wasn’t he?

  Hopps looked about to cry, too. His bare chin quivered. He said, “I never told anyone this, but I cried here in the storage room after I’d left you, because I was sure I’d never see you again. I was sure that I was going to die and that all of the Perths were going to die, and that you would survive, but I’d never live to see it. That’s why I forgot to mark the spot on the Slippery Map. I was too overcome by sadness, too sure that no one would ever find you again.”

  Ringet looked up at Hopps. He said, “But you have lived, Hopps—and so have I.”

  “And…” Oyster was afraid to finish the question. “And?”

  But Hopps knew what he was going to ask. “And so have your mother and father, even though they’re still prisoners. They’re alive.”

  CHAPTER 6

  A BUZZ IN THE EARS

  Oyster was barely able to understand what Hopps had said. He sat there staring at the canned figs and the chocolate crusted on the lip of one of the vats. He looked at Hopps and Ringet and wondered if they were real or not. Then there was the map still spread on the floor—proof of some sort that this was all real. There was a deep buzzing in his ears. Ringet was touching his shoulder. His mouth was moving, but Oyster couldn’t make out the words. Ringet’s narrow face was all pursed with worry.

  Ringing in his head was the echo of Hopps’s words: They’re alive. They’re alive. They’re alive.

  Then Oyster heard the voices in the fig shop, and everything seemed real again.

  “Should I get you water?” Ringet was asking. “Do you need to lie down?”

  “I’m fine,” Oyster muttered. He was working through it all in his mind. He had questions, thousands of them. But he had to proceed in an orderly fashion. He said, “Prison? Did my parents do something wrong?”

  “Oh, he’s speaking again!” Ringet said.

  “Your parents are heroes!” Hopps said.

  “Really?” Oyster asked. He wasn’t sure what to think of them. He’d always thought of them as the people who’d abandoned him, who’d left him on a stoop in a box. He’d wanted to imagine that they were good people, that he might one day be with them in a backyard with a swing set, but heroes? Was tha
t possible?

  Hopps was rolling up the Slippery Map and becoming all business again. When he lifted the Map, Oyster saw two names on the ends of the poles, white labels like those in the Mapkeeper’s shop. He inched closer and made out two names: WARBLER and MIGHT. “This map was stolen,” he said.

  “It’s not stolen! It’s your parents’ map. It’s our origin!” Ringet said with solemn pride. “They made us, you know. They created this World as children, and then they joined us.”

  “My parents are Warbler and Might?” Oyster asked.

  Ringet said, “Yes, and you have to save them!”

  “Save them?”

  “Well, there’s much to do now,” Hopps said. “Much to do.” He slipped the Map into a leather bag on rusty wheels. “And it won’t be simple. Not simple at all. We’ll need Ippy, and to find her we’ll have to call an emergency meeting of the Council, and we’ll have to find Ippy.”

  “You said that,” Ringet muttered.

  “Who’s Ippy?”

  “Hurry now; stand up!” Hopps said. “We’ve got to get going.”

  “Now?” Oyster asked.

  “Well, no, first you need to look like a Perth,” Ringet said. He took out some coal from his pocket and rubbed it on Oyster’s cheeks.

  “If they knew you weren’t a Perth, well, they’d know that you were here for an uprising,” Hopps said, fluffing Oyster’s hair to hide his unpierced ears. He wrapped a black cape around Oyster’s shoulders and fitted a circular cap on his head. “Your parents are too dangerous for Dark Mouth to let them loose.”

  “My parents are dangerous?”

  “In the best way,” said Ringet.

  What did they mean by dangerous? What did they mean by heroes? Oyster knew that he was supposed to be happy that his parents were good people after all, but still there was something gnawing at him. Did heroes—even the dangerous-in-the-best-way kind—hand over their baby to be shoved through a map and left on a stoop? These thoughts were just starting to bubble up, but he didn’t know how to ask them. Instead, he asked, “Who’s Dark Mouth?”