It took Grandpa Leo forever to come back inside. At least it seemed that way. In reality, it was only about ten minutes, during which time Lucas and I tried to focus on the movie he’d picked. But nothing, not even Melissa McCarthy, seemed funny and I couldn’t stop wondering what was going on now. When Grandpa did return, he didn’t look happy.
I pounced, not even giving him a chance to unzip his coat. “What’s going on?” I demanded. “Who is Carl?”
Lucas paused the movie and sat forward, just as interested in this as I was.
Grandpa gave me a long look. “You really don’t know?”
“Of course I don’t know. I wouldn’t ask if I knew. Lucas doesn’t know, either.”
“That doesn’t surprise me. He’s been on the island for five minutes,” Grandpa said. “No offense, son,” he added, glancing in Lucas’s direction.
“None taken,” Lucas said with a wave of his hand.
“I was born here and I have no idea,” I said.
“It’s not meant to be spread widely. That goes for both of you.” He waited until we both nodded. Even Lucas looked interested now. “Although I am surprised that you don’t know, Maddie. You’re usually good at solving puzzles. You know him by his preferred nickname. Leopard Man. And he’d like to keep it that way,” Grandpa added. “He doesn’t like to use his name.”
“Leopard Man?” I was stunned. “Carl is Leopard Man? How can that be?” The rational part of me knew he had to have a name. A real name, not just the name the island had dubbed him with as a nod to his eccentric choice of clothing. He’d embraced the name Leopard Man and even used it to introduce himself, but of course that couldn’t be the name on his birth certificate. But Carl was … such a normal name. How could he just be Carl? A guy named Carl doesn’t wear leopard-print boots and a tail. A guy named Carl wears a suit and tie and sits in an office and does accounting or insurance or some other boring job, then goes home to his boring suburban house with his perfectly lovely, boring wife and has a boring dinner.
But now that I knew who Carl was, I had bigger things to worry about than the blandness of the name.
“Wait,” I said slowly. “First of all, he is here. Unless Scotty beamed him up in the last half hour, or he tunneled out of the basement. Why’d you tell them he wasn’t?”
Grandpa didn’t answer.
I searched his face for some kind of clue, but he wasn’t giving anything away. “Is he still here?”
“He is,” Grandpa said. “And that stays in this room also.”
“Grandpa. What is going on?” I demanded. “Is he in trouble? Does it have to do with whatever is going on down at the marina?”
“Doll, trust me. This is one of those times when you don’t need to get involved,” he said. “Please don’t worry about it. Leopard Man is still Leopard Man. He didn’t do anything wrong.”
“He’s also apparently in hiding,” I muttered.
Grandpa gave me a look. “Madalyn. Leave it alone,” he warned.
He turned to head back downstairs, but I stopped him. “Well, then, what’s his last name?”
Grandpa looked back at me quizzically.
“Come on, Grandpa. If he has a real first name, he has to have a real last name, too,” I said.
Grandpa smiled a little. “Think of him like Beyoncé,” he said. Then he disappeared back into the basement.
I watched him go, then turned to Lucas in disbelief. “Beyoncé? How does my grandfather know Beyoncé?”
Lucas laughed. “You’d have to be dead not to know Beyoncé,” he said. “But you’re right. That’s weird. That he has a name. I mean, I know he kind of has to, but…” he trailed off.
“I know exactly what you mean,” I said. “I’ve only known him as Leopard Man since I was, like, five.”
“Yeah.” His face settled into its troubled look, when the spot between his eyebrows crinkled into frown lines and he chewed on his top lip. I knew he was replaying the moment when Leopard Man stepped out of the shadows of the ferry lot and scared us half to death. The ferry lot wasn’t far from the marina where the “guy in the water” had been taking up the police force’s evening.
“You don’t think—” he began, but I cut him off.
“No,” I said firmly. “If Grandpa says there’s a reasonable explanation for all this, then there’s a reasonable explanation. Let’s watch the movie.” I sat down on the couch next to him again and put his arm back around my shoulders. We both pretended to watch the on-screen antics, but neither of us was really in a laughing mood.