They all slid down the tree house slide. It was the first time Hugo had ever been on a slide, so when he reached the bottom, he climbed back up to the tree house and slid down one more time.
Then Nogg led Boone and Hugo toward the banks of the river. For a few minutes, Nogg walked back and forth, looking for something at the river’s edge.
“Here we go!” he said. Crouching down, he dipped his hand into the shallow water and brought up a handful of mud. Then he went over to Boone.
“Take off your crown for a minute,” Nogg told him.
Boone took the crown off, and Nogg plopped the mud right on Boone’s head.
“It’s just clay, Boone. Hold still.” Nogg worked the clay into a tuft of Boone’s hair, shaping and twisting until . . .
“Boone!” Hugo cried. “You have a horn on your head!”
Boone reached up to touch it, but Nogg warned, “Careful, you have to let the clay dry.”
“Wait. Is that how you got your horn, too?” Hugo asked, amazed.
Nogg nodded. “It’s part of our clan’s tradition. We call it the Golden Eye. You use your regular eyes to see the outside world,” he explained. “But the Golden Eye helps you to know things that you can’t see. Like when you get a hunch about something.”
“Oh! Like when you have a hunch that your sister is going to flick you in the head, so you flick her first?” Hugo asked.
“Well . . . sort of,” Nogg said.
“Does it really work?” Boone asked, gently touching the horn to see if the clay was drying.
“My father says that it works when you most need it to work,” Nogg answered.
“Could you make a horn for me, too?” Hugo asked.
A few minutes later all three of them had horns on their foreheads. They looked at one another and smiled.
“Do you feel any different?” Hugo asked Boone.
Boone thought about it. “Not really,” he said, “but when I stare at the tip of the horn, it helps me to cross my eyes better.” He demonstrated, and Hugo had to admit he did it really well.
“So I guess you’re just a regular type of Sasquatch, huh?” Boone said to Nogg. “When I first met you, I thought you were some kind of cryptid. Like Goatman or something.”
“Or a Snallygaster,” said Hugo, proud that he knew about Snallygasters.
“Or a Wheezing Mud Bat,” said Nogg.
Hugo and Boone looked at him in surprise. “How do you know about Wheezing Mud Bats?” asked Hugo.
“Mad Marvin’s Monster Cards, of course,” Nogg said, smiling. “I’ve got a whole box full of them.”
“Did you have to leave the cards in Craggy Cavern?” Hugo asked.
Nogg nodded.
“That’s awful!” Hugo cried. He himself had been collecting Mad Marvin’s Monster Cards since he was a very little squidge. He couldn’t imagine having to leave them behind.
“But that wasn’t the worst thing,” said Nogg. “The worst thing was that I left my notebook in my bedroom.”
Hugo would rather have lost a dozen notebooks than even one of his Monster Cards.
“You can always get a new notebook,” Hugo said.
“This was a special notebook,” Nogg explained. “In order to become a Falcon Ranger Scout, I have to earn the North Woods Expert merit badge. Every time I hiked through the North Woods, I took that notebook and wrote down where all the streams and gullies and caverns and cliffs were. I’ve been doing that for a whole year and I was nearly finished . . .” Nogg shook his head. “Without the notebook, I’ll have to start all over again.”
“Where is Craggy Cavern?” Boone asked.
“Downriver a little ways,” Nogg replied.
“Then why can’t you just go back there and get your notebook?” Boone asked.
So Nogg told him the story about the ghost. When he finished, Boone stood there for a moment, thinking.
“Let’s go,” Boone said decisively.
“Where?”
“To get your notebook. Come on, we can take my boat.”
“We can’t go back there,” said Nogg. “It’s too dangerous.”
“There’s a ghost in the cavern, Boone!” Hugo said. “A mean one.”
Boone picked up his mangled crown and put it back on his head. “I hereby command us to get Nogg’s notebook!”
There was nothing for Hugo and Nogg to do but follow the King’s orders.
