Meg’s voice interrupts my thoughts. “Okay, Johnny, so let’s just untie them, and we’ll leave.”
Wendell stops. “Untie them?”
“Well, yeah. You didn’t want them tied up. This way, you can find someone else to kill them. Come on, Johnny. They should be close to waking now. Dusk is when they feed.”
I laugh. “Okay. Let’s go. You have the scissors?”
“Right in my backpack.” We start toward the door.
“Wait!” Wendell runs around and blocks our way. “You can’t untie them.”
“Watch me.” I start to shoulder past him.
“Okay, okay. Maybe I was a little hasty. You can have the frog. Just show me the giants in person.”
“Gladly.” But when we start toward the door, I see something that makes me stop.
It’s the tank on Margaret’s information desk. It says, Alorian Marine Frog.
The top of the tank is open.
The tank is empty.
I grab Meg’s arm and point. She looks from my face to the tank. Back at my face. She starts toward Wendell. “Excuse me? Ranger?”
“What?”
“Did you put the frog someplace special for safekeeping?”
Wendell turns. “Yes, it’s right over on Margaret’s . . .” His face freezes, and I know. The frog was supposed to be in that tank. If he’s not, it’s because he’s dodging traffic, hopping down the Overseas Highway or worse, kidnapped by the Zalkenbourgians.
Wendell’s talking or, at least, moving his lips. But I can’t hear him above the sound of my own voice in my head, saying, It’s over. It’s over. I’m floundering through blackness, and I grab the only thing I can touch. Wendell.
“What have you done with him? Where is he?” My head may explode.
“I d-don’t . . .” Wendell’s stammering. “I can’t . . . he was here. I took him home, but I brought him back this morning.” He’s looking at the floor, the shelves, under Margaret’s desk. Nothing.
“He’s not here, you idiot!”
I feel Meg’s hand on my arm, trying to calm me.
“Did you see anyone?” she’s asking Margaret. “A woman, very beautiful, with long, blond hair, or a man, six-five at least.” She eases me away from Wendell, and I cling to her instead.
Margaret, who has her hand on the phone about to call the police, says, “No one like that.”
“How about . . .” Now, I remember the prince’s words, Ze first family wiz a teenage girl. “Any young girls, young women?”
Margaret looks at Wendell. He nods. “Well, there was one family from Ohio.”
Hope slowly flutters one eyelid, not completely dead yet.
“They had a sixteen-year-old daughter. She was looking at the frog, thought he was cute.”
“Are they still in the park?” At this point, I would have absolutely no problem with attacking a sixteen-year-old Ohio girl and wrestling the frog from her hands.
But Margaret shakes her head. “Nope. They were leaving. Just stopped by to get souvenirs and sign the guest register.”
I run over to the guest register. It’s summer, crowded, and there’s almost a page of entries for today. But only one from Ohio.
Debi and Rob Stephen, Tessa, and Rob, Jr., Columbus, OH.
Under comments, it says
A great place to stop on the way to Key West!
Key West! They’re on their way to Key West. Now all I have to do is go to Key West and . . . oh, boy.
I have to check every hotel in Key West.
And while I’m there, I also promised to look for the swans’ sister.
Hope lies down, saying it feels too tired to move on.
“Were they camping?” Meg asks.
Good question. There are fewer campgrounds than hotels.
But Margaret shakes her head. “No, but they had a minivan. White, I think.”
Well, that narrows it right down. Every third car is a minivan, and half are white.
Meg tries to pump her for more information, but the only thing she remembers is, “Red hair. The girl had lovely, long red hair.”
“Well, then, I guess we should go to Key West and look for a girl with long red hair.” Meg holds out her hand and leads me to the door.
Once outside, I say, “It’s no use. How can we find one frog in all of Key West?”
“Guess we just start south and head north.”
So we wish ourselves to the Southernmost Point.
Chapter 36
That which you have promised, must you perform.
—“The Frog Prince”
“Ever play Frogger?” I ask Meg. “It’s this old game Mom used to play when she was a kid, and last year, she bought it for me.”
“Yeah, what about it?”
“It looks sort of easy, but it isn’t. You have to guide your frog across the highway, and there are cars and trucks coming from every direction. Bicycles too. And just when you think you made it, you have to guide your frog across a pond on logs, and he drowns.”
“So you’re saying our frog is like that?”
“I’m saying I’m like that. I’ve dodged traffic. I’ve gone underwater, and I’m still dodging stuff. I can’t believe you’re still here with me. Why are you still here with me?”
She shrugs. “I’ve never been to Key West before.”
The Southernmost Point is nothing but a big, striped cylinder that looks like a black beer can against the blue waves behind it, where everyone crowds around to take pictures. On it is writing that says, “Conch Republic: 90 Miles to Cuba.” We stand, watching the water as it laps hungrily at the cement-covered land and thinking about what to do.
“‘Wynken, Blynken, and Nod, one night, sailed off in a wooden shoe,’” Meg recites. But I shake my head. I’m not in the mood to think of shoe quotes. We start down Duval Street.
Jimmy Buffett’s song about changes in latitude, changes in attitude streams from the doorway of a shop completely devoted to chickens. I keep my eyes out for red-haired girls or white minivans, but almost everyone’s on foot. Meg makes me stop to put a quarter in a donation can that says, “Save the Chickens.”
The first motel we see is called Eros and advertises a clothing-optional Jacuzzi. “We can probably skip that one,” Meg says. “Doesn’t sound like a family establishment.”
“You never know,” I say, sort of wanting to look in. “Some people are free spirits.”
We compromise by checking the parking lot.
“Wastin’ away again in Margaritaville,” sings Jimmy Buffett as we walk toward the house where Ernest Hemingway, the famous writer, lived. That reminds me of the swans Jimmy, Ernest, and Margarita, all named after Key West things. I promised the swans I’d look for their sister, Caroline, here. But no time now.
We’re about to pass the house when I see a girl about my age with copper-colored hair. She’s inside the gates, so I yell, “Tessa? Are you Tessa from Ohio?”
She stares like I might be a stalker, but I say, “Are you?”
“Nope. I’m Hailey from South Carolina.” Her accent is unmistakable.
I scan every crowd, every tour bus and ask at the desk of each hotel. We crisscross the streets that intersect Duval. Nothing. When we pass Harry Truman’s winter home, I feel another pang, thinking of Harry the swan and his brother, Truman. We pass bars crowded with tourists wearing nothing more than string bikinis and walk by T-shirt shops and nudist hotels. I approach every redhead and almost get beat up twice. I keep my backpack unzipped so I can whip out the cloak. It’s almost sunset when we reach the other end of Duval Street.