INSIDE THE NEW envelope there is a hard lump that feels like a stubby crayon or something. When we tear the paper and peek in, we see a small carrot. Along with our next clue card.
Find the Captain of the Crew
Just’a lotta fun for you!
“How can a clue seriously be only two lines? Do they expect us to be mind readers? Are we supposed to have some kind of comic-strip clue-solving superpowers? I mean, you do, I guess. But I don’t. What the heck?” Liberty grumbles, licking mustard off her hand.
“Captain of the Crew? Maybe that’s another boat reference. Something by the harbor.”
“Okay. Who else is a captain?” she asks. “In comics trivia, I mean.”
“There’s a bunch. For starters, there’s the new Captain Marvel. But she doesn’t have a crew, unless you could call the Starjammers a crew,” I say, crumpling up my sandwich wrapper. “Then there’s Captain America. He was part of the Avengers, but I’m not sure I’d call the Avengers his crew, if you know what I mean. Iron Man sure wouldn’t!”
“So what superhero leads a crew?”
A memory is bumping around in my head. At Joon’s about a month ago, he was waving around one of those silly Captain Carrot and the Zoo Crew comics. It’s a Justice League of America spoof, with a tagline reading Just’a Lotta Animals!
I read the clue card again: Just’a lotta fun for you . . .
I wiggle the orange carrot from the envelope between my thumb and forefinger, and I know I’ve got it! I explain as Liberty crumples up her lunch bag.
“Well, it’s pretty clear where we’ve got to go,” she says. “But are you up to it? It means another bus ride. And you look kinda pale.”
I don’t exactly want to but I’ve got to keep going. I need to prove something. To Joon. And Dylan. To . . . Keefner. To Principal Coffin, Mrs. Ngozo, Mom. To Dad. And Gramps, and Calvin. To Liberty.
To John Lockdown.
And to myself.
But mainly to Joon.
So I nod.
“You know what they say, right? ‘The only way to get through hell is to keep on going,’” Liberty says. “Uncle Dan used to tell me that, when I was sick.”
I want to ask her that. About being sick. But now’s not the time. She’s already grabbing my arm and pulling me up off the bench, shouting: “To the zoo!”