23

THE KEY TO SURVIVAL

I think back to all the times Sky seemed like he was trying to tell me something—like the way he stood on his grave, strong and unmoving. Is this what you were trying to say, boy? That you were murdered?

Sky wags his tail and spins around like he’s shouting Yes, yes!

“Look there!” Nector points to a flash between the trees.

I swing the flashlight where Nector points, and I light up a baldie. A live one. The animal crouches low like he wants to move in toward the free meal.

“No!” I yell at the baldie. “Get back.” I wag the flashlight, moving my arm up and down, trying to create a barrier between him and the steak.

Sky and his ghost friends go crazy barking at the approaching baldie. They bang into him with their bodies, but their friend can’t hear or feel their warning.

“Come on,” Nector says. He tries to pull me away.

But I won’t go, because the dog will eat the steak, making him dead baldie number six.

The baldie doesn’t seem deterred by the fence I’m miming, waving the flashlight up and down. He moves slowly, gearing up to fight me for the food. I’m afraid to touch the meat with my bare hands. I have to guard the steak as if I’ve claimed it for myself.

Go home to your cave, I think. Go home, go home, go home. I close my eyes, chanting over and over, praying the Go home magic works.

Nector tries again to pull me away from the steak, but I stand my ground.

“Come on!” he shouts. “It’s going to attack.”

“I can’t leave, or he’ll die.”

“Who cares?” Nector doesn’t get it. The baldies are nothing to him.

“I do,” I say. “I care.” The weight of the truth hits me. I’m the only one who cares. And I won’t stop caring. Not tonight. Not ever.

The baldie steps toward me another inch.

“Save yourself,” I tell Nector. “I’m staying.”

But Nector doesn’t leave. His long brown hands curl into trembling fists. He bends his knees and hunches down next to me. He whispers, “Sure wish I had my slingshot.”

I’m bent, too, over the steak. I close my eyes and mentally chant, Go home, go home, go home. I picture the cave, cool but cozy with a family of baldies. I can smell their warmth. I concentrate with a force that mentally transports me to the protected cave.

I don’t know how much time passes, me frozen in thought, but when I open my eyes it’s just Nector and me.

The baldie is gone.

I stare down at the fluorescent meat, wondering how to pick it up. We have to remove the threat. “We have to get this steak out of here. Without gloves, I don’t think we should touch it—just in case the poison could hurt us, too.”

Nector eyes the ground a moment. Then he takes off his shoe. He removes his sock and slides it over his hand, using it to pick up the steak. He dangles the meat from his socked hand, grinning. “Mission accomplished.”

I laugh.

Nector slides his shoe back onto his bare foot, and we head back to his house, where we can close the meat up in the garbage can.

“I saw this same yellow stuff coming out of Eder’s truck,” I say. “I think he did this.”

Nector nods like it’s easy for him to believe. “If anyone thought they could control nature, it would be Eder. He told Mom once that she should do a better job fighting back against the hurricanes. Isn’t that nuts?”

“Yeah.” But even though I’m sure Eder put out the poisoned meat, I’m struggling to understand. He’s our friend. How could he? “I found Sky’s dog tag at your house,” I confess. “It was Thursday, delivery day, when I came to your house about my broken bike. You know anything about that?”

Nector pauses like he’s trying to remember. “Eder stopped by—I think it was the night before—to talk to my dad about building him a fence like you wouldn’t believe. Said he wanted the tallest fence money could buy, like he was trying to keep out something. Dad told him that if he was worried about the baldies, they know how to dig under fences. Maybe Eder dropped the dog tag then?”

I turn my head so Nector can’t see that I’m about to explode with angry tears. “Eder took all our supplies from our house. He took my dad. And he took my dog from me.”

Nector nods again like he could believe Eder would do all that.

“But it’s not just Eder who didn’t like Sky,” I say. “No one did. My dog was murdered. His soul was taken, but no one will care about making it right, because he’s a baldie.”

We walk in silence for a few minutes, unless the universe can hear my fury. “Should we tell someone about this? He has to be stopped.”

Nector shifts his eyes to the evidence dangling from his socked hand. “Probably wouldn’t do much good.”

My fury grows because I know he’s right. Since Eder is only killing baldies, people will probably say good riddance. “No one likes the baldies.”

“I…” Nector hesitates. “I wanted to like your dog. I was working up the nerve to pet him. I was going to ask you if it was okay, but he disappeared before I got the nerve. You were always with him, so when you showed up without him I thought he was sick. I waited, but the next day he wasn’t with you either. Then I saw your poster about him being lost, and I…”

“You wanted to pet Sky?”

He nods.

“No one ever asked to pet Sky.” I pause, letting the image cool my anger. “He would have liked it. He liked you.”

Nector blushes and shakes his head like he doesn’t believe me.

“He did. I swear. Remember that time you were late to the docks because you were helping your dad finish painting at the Fishbornes’?”

“Yeah.”

“Sky wouldn’t stop looking toward your house, waiting for you to come. Then when you showed up, I had to grab his collar to keep him from mauling you with excitement.”

Nector lets out a nervous laugh. “Mauling might have been a little more than I was ready for.”

“I figured.”

We walk more, then Nector says, “It was weird how that baldie backed off. It could have killed you if it wanted. Honestly, I thought it was going to.” He pauses like he’s thinking more about this.

“Sometimes baldies are hungry or protective, but that’s different from being murderous.”

Nector looks confused, as if he doesn’t understand what I’m saying.

“People think the baldie who knocked over the tourist girl was trying to kill her, but he just wanted her sandwich. He was hungry. He wasn’t a murderer. He didn’t commit a crime.”

“But if I killed someone for a steak or a sandwich, even if it was an accident, I’d go to jail.”

“Baldies do what they have to do to survive. They can’t go shopping at the general store for food. If they see a steak in the woods, they have to snatch it. It’s like your mom. Despite what Eder says, she works hard to protect you from the hurricane. And if biting or growling at a hurricane worked to send it away, she’d do it. Don’t you think?”

Nector laughs. “My mom would love that. She drinks two cups of yaupon tea every morning just to get through the weather report.”

“But she’s not mean. Not really. I used to think she was, but she’s doing what she has to do.”

“I don’t know. I could see my mom getting excited about killing a hurricane with her bare teeth.”

It’s a funny thought, and I can’t help laughing, too.

*   *   *

But that night, after I’m tucked back in bed inside the Hatterask house, I’m not laughing. Before Nector and I left the woods we found three more steaks. We used our socks to carry them to the trash, but how many more are out there? Eder’s out there, too, a murderer on the loose, and poor Dad, an innocent man locked away from everyone he knows. And Mr. Selnick and Mrs. Fishborne locked up, too. It’s not fair. Dad and the others can’t be sick because of the baldies, because the baldies are being poisoned. How can islanders, kind enough to thank the soul of an oyster before eating it, sit back and let these terrible things happen? Well, I will not sit back.

I will stand up. I will find Dad. And together we will make things right.