“I’d kiss him back into princedom anytime,” Meg says.
I find the picture of the frog and stick it on top of the prince photo real quick, before Meg can drool anymore. “Yeah, well, this is what you’re looking for anyway. A frog. Not a guy.”
“Got it.” She examines the picture, then switches it with the other one. “Mind if I keep this one in my backpack for a while? He is soooo hot.”
I shake my head. “Fine. If you like goofy playboys.”
“Guess I do—just like you like rich, drunk princesses.” She tucks the photo into her purse. And then the sun is, once again, clouded by a giant shape. I glance up.
A turkey vulture. I point it out.
Then a rare breeze tickles my nose, bringing with it an odor.
“Do you smell that?” I ask Meg.
She nods. “Mangroves. They smell like an open cesspool, but they’re pretty.”
I shake my head. “Not mangroves. Something’s dead, something big.”
Something makes me stand up and follow the smell off the path and through the grass, even though it slaps my face and scratches my arms. For long moments, it’s lost in the sweeter aroma of the ocean, and I wonder if I’m wrong, if it’s mangroves after all. I hope so because the stench I smelled was bigger than a possum or a squirrel could make. What I smelled could have been human.
But just as I’m about to chalk it up to mangroves, I smell it again. I push through the tall grass, holding my breath against the stink. Then I see it.
I exhale in relief. I go back to Meg.
“It’s just a deer,” I say. Because now that I know what it is, I realize what I’d been worried about. I was afraid it was the prince.
“Who would kill a deer in a deer refuge?” Meg asks. “That’s just wrong.”
Good point. We decide to tell the ranger—if we ever find him.
Going through the razor-sharp grass has left me with stinging cuts on my arms and legs. Meg reaches for my backpack. “Got anything useful in there, like sunglasses or socks or a first-aid kit?”
I nod sheepishly. “I didn’t want to wear the glasses, since you didn’t have any.”
“How about this?” she says, pulling out the glasses. “I’ll wear them, but I’ll do something about your cuts.”
When Meg says that, I remember the swan. She held it, and he got better. Did Meg heal him, somehow? Does she have witch skills after all? But she pulls out the first-aid kit, swabs the cuts with Neosporin, then covers them with Band-Aids. They feel a little better, but not healed. Okay, I’m just crazy. Meg puts a Band-Aid on her own blister too.
Soon, we see people, hikers and beachgoers. Then, we reach the ranger station.
Chapter 28
“We’re looking for the ranger,” I tell the lady at the information desk.
“I can help you.” She glances at the door behind her, which says RANGER’S OFFICE. “What do you need? Maps? Guidebooks? Tour information?” She hands me one of each, glancing again at the door. “There you go.”
“Um, thanks.” I take them from her. “But I really want to speak to the ranger.”
“He’s not here. Maybe another day. Or next week.” She reaches into a drawer and hands me a sticker that says I BRAKE FOR KEY DEER. “Here. Have a bumper sticker.”
This isn’t good. I need the ranger now. “Is he on a trail?”
“Margaret?” says a voice from the office. “Have you reached the National Guard yet?”
Margaret turns and cracks open the door, then whispers, “They’re not coming.”
“Not coming! Why not?”
“Shh.” Margaret looks back at me. “They don’t believe you. Say it’s urban legend.”
“The National Guard doesn’t believe me?” The voice is even louder. “Let them come over here and look around. See if they think it’s an urban legend when they’re staring it in the face.”
Margaret glances back at me again, then whispers into the door. “Wendell, I’ve been telling these nice young people how the ranger isn’t in today.”
Wendell! That’s the name the fox gave me.
“Look,” I say. “I know that’s the ranger. I’m not leaving until I talk to him.”
I’m not usually pushy like this, but being trapped underground makes you bold.
“I can call the police,” Margaret says.
“And tell them what? That I’m in a national park, expecting to speak to a ranger, but the ranger can’t talk to me because he’s hiding in his office? Yeah, I’m sure they’ll arrest me.”
Meg puts her hand on my shoulder. “Let us speak to Wendell. Then we’ll leave.”
“I’m afraid I can’t.”
“It’s okay, Margaret.” The door opens. “They’re all going to find out anyway.”
The ranger is a short, balding man in a brown uniform with shorts. His scalp is sunburned and peeling. What’s left of his hair is unkempt. He looks like he’s gotten less sleep than I have. He gestures us into his office.
“All right,” he says when we get in. “Where’d you see it?”
“See what?”
“You’re here to report a dead Key deer, aren’t you?”
“Yes. I mean, no. I mean, we did see a deer, but that’s not why we’re here.”
“So you found another one? Another one?”
He bursts into tears, and not some manlike tears either, where you pretend you’re brushing something off your face and, incidentally, wipe a tear. Nope. He starts bawling like a kid who spilled his Slushie, clutching his head. Finally, he sits down and begins rocking back and forth, saying, “Ruined. It’s all ruined.”
Margaret walks behind him and strokes his back. When he keeps saying, “Ruined,” she puts her arms around him.
“There, there.” She glares at me. “See what you did?”
“What I did?” I don’t understand. What’s the big deal? “I just said . . .”
“This is a Key deer refuge.”
“I know. So?”
“So someone is killing the Key deer. That’s a problem.”
“Not someone,” Wendell says. “Something. Things. Monsters. There are monsters. It’s all ruined. No one believes me.”
“There, there,” Margaret repeats. “It will be all right.”
“I’m a good ranger. When I was a kid, I was a science wiz, and my parents thought I should be a doctor. But noooooo. I wanted to save the planet. Now I’ll be singlehandedly responsible for the demise of a species.”
He starts to sob again, harder, and his words after that are indistinguishable from his sobs. I look at Meg. She shrugs but starts toward him.
“Excuse me,” she says. “May I change the subject?”
Wendell lets out a mighty sniff, then drags it in again. “Ch-change the s-subject?”
Meg nods. “Just for a moment.”
“You want to change the subject?” Another sniff.
“Yes. If it’s not too much trouble.”
“No . . . no. I’d love to change the subject.” He looks at Meg with red-rimmed eyes and running nose. “What s-subject did you want to discuss?” Another sniff.