Fig arrived at the tree ship a few minutes after Milton, and she had a lot more supplies than he did. Milton thought he’d probably collapse in T-minus ten seconds if he had all that gear on his back.
In spite of her obvious preparedness, Fig looked nervous. She was flipping the field-guide pages back and forth and poking at the vines. Milton wasn’t sure he’d ever seen Fig nervous. It put a bit of a damper on his oyster-world feeling.
“Now that we’re here, I don’t know what to do,” Fig admitted. “I mean, we know the vines can move, but what kind of a clue is Truths open? What truths? I feel like we’re still missing something.”
To be honest, Milton had expected that Fig would have figured that out by now. Fig was always figuring things out.
But as he stood next to her studying the green wall, Milton realized that actually he was the one with the most vine experience.
He had seen the vines move three times now—when he found the field-guide box, by the Sweet Pickle Tree, and when he and Rafi saved Gabe. The question was why had the vines moved? The only thing he could think of was that on all three occasions, he had been talking when the vines rolled up.
“The vine is always willing to listen,” he said to himself, remembering the field-guide entry.
It wasn’t much to go on, but he would give it a shot. What should he say though? What would Sea Hawk say to make these vines part?
Milton took a deep breath, puffed out his vest-covered chest, and cried, “Come now, my good vines. Show us the treasure beyond!”
If he really were Sea Hawk, there was no doubt those vines would have parted before his brawny, dashing incredibleness.
But they didn’t.
Milton glanced at Fig, then moved closer to the vines, until he could only see green and white. “Hello, vines,” he whispered. “Can you let us through, pretty please?”
The vines didn’t move.
Milton reached out to touch the tiny white flowers and the friendly leaves. “Do you remember me?” he continued. “I’m the one who told you that I used to ruin things and that I didn’t want to be called names anymore.”
As if in response, the vine rose up off the ground. It was only a few inches, like an old-timey lady lifting her skirts to walk through a puddle. But those few inches were Milton’s answer.
“Fig!” he cried, spinning around, super intense-faced. “Tell me something true!”
“Um, okay,” Fig said. “Dr. Paradis first set foot on the Lone Island after her sailboat was blown off course on the way to Ascension Island.”
Milton swung back to the vines.
They were motionless.
“Not that,” Milton said, turning to Fig again. He pressed both hands to his explorer hat as he reviewed each vine-roll-up incident. Yes, the things he’d said to the vines had been truths, he realized, but not facts. “It has to be something true about you!”
“My favorite color is marigold?” Fig offered.
Milton didn’t even have to check to know the vines were not going to be impressed. “Fig,” he cried, “it has to be a truth about you that you wouldn’t tell just anyone. Something you care about. The vine is always willing to listen to those who have nothing to hide.” The vines shivered in that unfelt breeze (which Milton now suspected was not a breeze at all) and brushed against his hand. “And you have to be touching them!” he added, remembering how the vines had ripped out of his grasp each time. “It’s like—it’s like a botanical lie detector test. So grab ahold and spill your guts to the foliage, Fig!”
“Seriously, Sea Hawk?” Fig said, but she approached the vines. The flowers blossomed ever so slightly as she lifted a strand and wound it around her hand. Then she let out a cry of surprise as the tendril began to move on its own, twining gently around her wrist, like it was taking her pulse. “Okay,” she said a little warily. “Here goes. I—I’m happy on this island, and my mother is too. I don’t want to leave.”
As soon as Fig stopped speaking, the wall of vines began to quiver like it had when Milton found the field guide. The vines shook. They shivered. Then they began to part.
A path opened up in the wall of green.
“Behind banyan truths open, indeed!” Milton shouted, pumping a fist in the air.
Suddenly, the vines began to twitch and a few dropped back into place. The vine door was closing.
“Hurry!” Fig cried.
She rushed through the opening, with Milton right behind. They ran for about ten feet, but then they met another Truth-Will-Out Vine wall. Behind them, a layer of vines had swung shut. They were trapped!
“It’s your turn, Sea Hawk,” Fig said. “Quick—tell a truth!”
“Me? Ah, yes. Of course. No problem,” Milton replied.
It was a problem though. It was a big problem.
He could, of course, tell Fig that he was not who he had been claiming to be this whole time. He could confess his lies … but he really didn’t want to, because he didn’t want to stop being Sea Hawk. Not yet.
So what truth would Sea Hawk tell? Probably a not-too-big-of-a-deal, humble-brag kind of truth (Sometimes I think I may be too strong! or I have occasionally gotten hand cramps while completing my exceedingly brilliant field journal entries!). Or maybe, being the epitome of awesome, he didn’t have any truths to tell.
Milton decided to go with that. He grabbed a handful of vines, cleared his throat, and declared, “I am an open book, Vine. I have no truths to reveal.”
The vines did not stir.
“Why don’t you try again?” Fig said. “I’m sure you can think of one little truth.”
The truths that came to Milton were not little though. They were very big and very rotten and very definitely not humble-brags. They were things he didn’t want to even think about, let alone say out loud. But he had tried the Sea Hawkian approach twice now with no success, and Fig was waiting.
So Milton adjusted his explorer hat about six times, held tight to a green strand, and finally blurted out, “It may shock you to know this, Vine, but currently Fig is my only friend in the entire world.”
The vines split again.
Milton and Fig ran farther this time, so that when they came to another vine wall they were more than thirty feet in. Milton wondered exactly how long this would last. He had a vest-covered heart-stopping moment where he imagined Fig and himself trapped in the Truth-Will-Out Vine for days, telling secret after secret until they died of thirst … or embarrassment.
Fig’s voice snapped him out of it.
“Before Sea Hawk got here,” she said, “I hadn’t had any friends in a long time. And I didn’t really want any.”
The last of the vines parted.