Sasquatch and the Muckleshoot Page 2

  Uchenna said, “Sorta?”

  Professor Fauna ignored her. “Europeans encountered chimpanzees only four hundred years ago! And, until very recently, they didn’t even realize that there are two different species of chimpanzees: chimps and bonobos.”

  Just then, Uchenna noticed that the sky was turning black and the clouds were getting thicker. She nudged Elliot. But he was too engrossed in Professor Fauna’s lecture. Jersey had curled up in Elliot’s lap and fallen asleep.

  “The case of the gorilla is truly interesting,” the professor went on, now completely ignoring the sky and the airplane’s controls. “There were reports more than two thousand years ago about giant apes in tropical Africa, twice as big as a human! But, until 1847, scientists believed that the gorilla was no more than a story! That is barely a hundred and fifty years ago!”

  The little plane was starting to shake as it entered the black clouds. Uchenna said, “Elliot, have you checked your—”

  “Shhh,” Elliot hushed her. “I need to learn this before we meet Mack gәqidәb and the Muckleshoot.”

  “All over the world,” the professor went on, “there are stories of giant ape creatures. There are the yeti of the Himalayas, the orang pendek of Indonesia, the yowie in Australia. . . . If the gorilla was discovered only a hundred fifty years ago, might not all of these apelike creatures exist?”

  “Maybe,” said Elliot. “But—”

  “Elliot,” Uchenna interrupted, tightening her seat belt. “You’d better—”

  “Uchenna,” Elliot said, “can it wait just one min—”

  Suddenly, a massive gust of wind hit the plane so hard that the Phoenix turned upside down. Elliot found himself pasted to the roof of the little aircraft and then, as the plane righted itself, back in his seat. “Gunnnh,” he groaned.

  Uchenna reached over. “Your seat belt’s not on.” She strapped her friend in.

  Elliot muttered, “Thank you,” and closed his eyes.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  A few hours later, the Phoenix started to rumble and rattle.

  Elliot and Uchenna had fallen asleep on each other, with Jersey stretched out between their laps. But all three jerked awake at the sudden turbulence.

  “Are we there?” Uchenna asked, wiping her eyes with her sleeve. “Will we be on the ground soon?”

  “No and yes,” Professor Fauna replied. “No, we are not quite there. We seem to be about three hundred miles south of our intended destination.”

  Elliot stretched his arms above his head. “What’s the ‘yes’ part then?”

  “Yes, we will be on the ground soon because we are out of gas.”

  Elliot shot a panicked look at Uchenna.

  “Don’t worry!” Professor Fauna held up his cell phone. “I have informed Mack, and he is driving down from Washington to meet us.”

  Uchenna looked down at the forest ahead of them. “Those trees are big,” she said.

  “They look like Douglas firs,” Elliot said. “Some of the oldest are thirteen hundred years old and over three hundred feet tall.” He suddenly turned on Professor Fauna. “We’re not going to try to land there, right?”

  “Ah . . . ,” Fauna said, as the plane’s engine began to sputter. “Not exactly . . . You see, there is another very small problem.”

  “Which is what?” asked Elliot.

  “We lost our landing gear when we hit that truck on takeoff.”

  “WHAT?”

  “Sooooo,” Professor Fauna said, pulling hard on the yoke to level the plane into a glide, “we are not going to land among the Douglas firs. We are going to crash among the Douglas firs.”

  Elliot grabbed Uchenna, who grabbed Jersey, who grabbed Elliot’s face. Elliot screamed.

  And the plane plummeted into the trees.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Smashing into the heavy branches of the giant fir trees knocked both wings off the plane. It also tossed Uchenna, Elliot, Jersey, and the professor out of the little aircraft’s cockpit.

  But rather than tumbling down toward the earth with the rest of the wreckage of the Phoenix, splintering branches as they fell and probably ending up like shish kebabs, they all found themselves lying on their backs, on a wide canvas platform, staring up through the green needles of a Douglas fir at the blue sky.

  None of them moved for a moment. They felt the gentle swaying of the tree in the wind, heard the tree groaning as it swayed, and smelled the clean smell of fir needles.

  “This might be kinda relaxing,” Elliot said at last, “if we hadn’t just been in a plane crash.” He rolled onto his stomach. “Also, we appear to be hundreds of feet in the air. I take it back. This is not relaxing at all.”

  “I love it,” Uchenna murmured, breathing in and out with the swaying of the tree. “But how did we not just die?”

  Jersey lay on his back beside her and gave a tiny, contented sigh.

  Stretching next to the canvas platform and the enormous tree trunk were steel cables that rose high above them and descended past the platform to the ground. Professor Fauna got to his knees and started hoisting something up from below. “The scientists who are studying these great trees,” he said, “place platforms like these all around this forest to observe the unique ecosystem of the Douglas fir. Having been here once before, I saw this platform and aimed for it.”

  “That is unbelievable,” said Elliot. “Like, literally unbelievable.”

  Professor Fauna shrugged. “I may be bad at landing, but at least I have excellent aim.” He continued pulling at the steel cables. “These trees! They provide food and shelter for so many creatures. They hold the soil in place and store moisture. Cut them down, and even the salmon in nearby rivers die, because soil erodes and spills into the water.” The professor inhaled the sweet scent of the treetops. “These firs are the guardians of life. It is something that the original people of this land have always understood. People such as our friend Mack. Who is surely waiting for us below.”

  “He’s waiting below this exact tree?” Uchenna asked.

  “Of course!” the professor answered. Just then, a belt with several straps on it rose into sight, attached to the cables that Professor Fauna had been hoisting up. “Hold this,” he said to Uchenna, handing her one. He then pulled two more such contraptions toward him. “Our fellow member of the Unicorn Rescue Society sent these harnesses up the tree for us to use.”

  The professor strapped himself into one of the harnesses. “There is one for each of us.”

  Elliot required a bit of help putting his on because his hands were shaking. But soon all three were strapped in.

  “¡Magnífico!” Fauna said. “Now, you put one foot in the stirrup, loosen this up here with your hands, press down with your foot, and ¡ya está!”

  And, just like that, the professor was lifted two feet in the air. And he swung out over the abyss.

  “Now you, children!” Fauna called to them.

  “No,” said Elliot. “No. No. No. Absolutely not.”

  Uchenna put her hand on Elliot’s shoulder. “We’ll do it together.”

  Elliot was shaking, but he closed his eyes and nodded.

  They prepared the harnesses, and then Uchenna said, “One . . . two . . . three!”

  Elliot and Uchenna pushed down with their feet and felt themselves both lifting up and swinging out.

  “WOOO-HOOOO!” Uchenna shouted.

  Elliot opened his eyes. They were dangling together, the three of them like puppets on strings, far, far above the forest floor. Something whizzed by their faces. It was Jersey, joyfully gliding in circles around them.

  “But we just went up,” Uchenna said to the professor. “How do we go down?”

  The professor smiled at her. “Simple. Grasp here to loosen the tension and you will slide quickly down. It will feel like flying. To stop, just let go. Observe.
”

  The professor grabbed a strap under his thigh—and plummeted down. Elliot’s stomach went with him.

  “I was right before,” Elliot said. “No. No. No.”

  Uchenna didn’t notice. An idea for a new song had just hit her.

  What’s the difference

  Between falling and flying?

  Swooping and whooping,

  Out of the sky-ing.

  See how we’re soaring?

  We’re not even trying!

  I know I’m in love

  With the feeling of flying!

  “Uchenna . . . ,” Elliot said.

  “That was another good one, right?” Uchenna asked. “It was in the style of Rodgers and Hammerstein.” Then she said, “We’ve got this, Elliot.”

  Elliot nodded uneasily.

  “Grab the release, okay?”

  “Okay . . .”

  “One, two . . . threEEEEEEEEE!”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Elliot and Uchenna dropped like stones. It was the most awful feeling. It was also wonderful. He was going to die. He was flying. He . . .

  “LET GO!” Uchenna yelled.

  Elliot released his grip. The cable caught, bounced him up, and then he felt his toes touching the ground.

  “I am not dead,” he said, as Professor Fauna and Uchenna helped him out of the harness. “I am NOT dead.” He dropped to his knees and pressed his face against the sweet-smelling moss at his feet.

  “Can we do that again?” Uchenna asked.

  Elliot looked around. The only signs of human activity, aside from the climbing cables, were the scattered pieces of the Phoenix. There were huge-trunked trees everywhere. Jersey, who had landed gracefully on the pine-needle-strewn ground, scampered over to another enormous tree and began climbing it, his front claws gripping the bark and his wings flapping, as his back hooves clopped against the wood. Then, when he was about twenty feet off the ground, he launched himself off the trunk and glided through the quiet forest air, disappearing and reappearing as he went through the shadows of the huge trees.

  The trees were so big that you could hide a house behind one of them. Or other big things. Which reminded Elliot: “Are there bears here?”

  “Ah yes,” Professor Fauna replied. “This forest is fine ursine habitat. Excellent for bears. Mostly the black bear. Which is very dangerous, though perhaps not as deadly as its brown cousin, the grizzly.”

  “Aw,” groaned Uchenna. “I wanna see a grizzly bear.”

  “No, you do not,” Elliot replied. “A grizzly bear could—”

  Suddenly, a huge, hairy brown bear lurched out from behind a tree.

  This time both Elliot and Uchenna screamed.

  “Play dead!” Elliot shouted, pushing Uchenna under him as he fell to the ground. He stretched out over Uchenna, bravely putting his body between her and the huge, hairy beast looming above them.

  He peeked out of the corner of one eye at the grizzly.

  On closer inspection, it didn’t seem to be a grizzly after all. It was more like a big, brown gorilla . . . though it stood upright . . . and its legs extended down to two huge, hairy . . .

  Bigfoot! It was Bigfoot!

  And it was going to kill them.

  Elliot watched in horror as Bigfoot reached up—and removed its own head.

  Which made Elliot scream again.

  And then Elliot watched in utter confusion as Professor Fauna picked his way over him and Uchenna to the headless Bigfoot and reached out his hand.

  The tall man in the Bigfoot costume took the professor’s hand and shook it vigorously.

  “Children,” said the professor, “why do you keep trying to take naps? Get up! Allow me to introduce Mack gәqidәb, our member of the Unicorn Rescue Society with the Muckleshoot Nation. Mack, meet Uchenna and Elliot.”

  Mack reached out his hands to pull them both up to their feet and said, “kʷədačiʔc.” It sounded something like “kwuh-dah-cheets.”

  Both children looked at him uncertainly.

  Mack grinned. “Never heard Muckleshoot before? I just said ‘Shake hands with me’ in my language. Pleased to meet you. Your name is Uchenna, pronounced Ooo-CHEN-ah?”

  Uchenna nodded.

  “Good,” Mack said with a chuckle. “If it was pronounced UH-chen-ah, it would mean something like ‘too bad’ in Muckleshoot. Which really would be too bad.” He grinned. “Anyhow, I liked what you were singing up there in the tree. Maybe we should call you Sings Real Sweet.”

  Uchenna blushed. “That’d be nice.” She smiled.

  “And you’re Elliot?” Mack asked. Elliot nodded. “Maybe we’ll call you Screams A Lot.” Elliot’s shoulders drooped. Mack laughed. “Aw, don’t take it too hard. Your screaming was even louder than the Phoenix hitting the top of that tree. We can always tell when you arrive, Professor, by the sound of the plane crash.”

  Mack took off the rest of his costume, including the heavy boots that left prints like two enormous bare feet, and a pair of huge hairy gloves. “Here,” Mack said, tossing one of the gloves to the professor. “Let me give you a hand.”

  Elliot and Uchenna looked uncertainly at Professor Fauna.

  “He is always making jokes like this,” the professor explained.

  “You didn’t think it was punny?” Mack asked. “Oh, well.” He ran a hand through his black hair, and Elliot noticed a thick silver ring on his finger, marked with a unicorn. The signet ring of the Unicorn Rescue Society.

  “My truck’s parked thataway,” Mack said. “Come on.”

  “Wait a minute,” Uchenna said. “Why were you dressed up like a huge hairy monster? Is that what Bigfoot really is, just people wearing ape suits? Is Bigfoot not real?”

  Mack shook his head. “That’s right,” he said. “Bigfoot is just a myth.”

  “Oh!” Elliot sighed. “Thank heavens. Now we can go home and forget all about—”

  Mack held up his hand. “Nope. Bigfoot, like I said, is a myth. Sasquatch, on the other hand, is very real.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Mack’s truck was a surprise. Uchenna had never seen anything like it before. It looked as if it had been put together from parts of several different vehicles. It had the bed of a full-size pickup truck, the passenger interior of a minivan, and the front end of a 1950s Cadillac. It was all the same color—more or less. Each part had its own unique shade of green, from discreet camouflage to dark khaki to a bright, eye-catching kelly. Instead of the standard two or four doors, it had seven. And because its various parts took up so much space, it was almost as long as a bus.

  As Elliot stood there staring, Uchenna looked under the truck. Yup, it had seven tires. Not only that, it had something like a smokestack sticking out of the back. There was an odor coming from it that was sort of familiar and pleasant. What was that smell?

  Mack chuckled. “I call it the TruckVanAc. Part truck, part van, part Cadillac. Did you know it’s one of a kind? I put this baby together myself.”

  “Hard to believe . . . ,” Elliot murmured. He wondered if riding in it would be like flying in the Phoenix, with parts falling off as they chugged along.

  “My friend Mack,” Professor Fauna said, “is a great mechanical genius. He holds engineering degrees from the Rensselaer Polysyllabic Institution and the Massachusetts Institute of Technophobia.”

  “Close enough, Professor.” Mack patted the hood of the TruckVanAc. Nothing fell off, which reassured Elliot, slightly. “All recycled parts,” he said, stroking his chin. “How many miles per gallon of gas do you think this gets?”

  “Five?” Elliot guessed.

  Mack’s smile broadened as he shook his head.

  “Twenty?” Uchenna ventured.

  Mack shook his head again. “Nope,” he said. “The answer is none. No gas at all.”

  Uchenna sn
apped her fingers. “I’ve got it!” she said. “That’s french fry grease I smell!”

  Mack laughed out loud. “You’ve got a good nose there, Sings Real Sweet. This baby runs on used cooking oil I pick up from fast-food joints. They give it to me for free since it saves them the trouble of shipping it off to the dump. Back when I was in my senior year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, we took a car all the way from Boston to Los Angeles on grease alone. Modified injector nozzles, stronger glow plugs, parallel fuel filters. Got us thirty-seven miles per gallon on vegetable oil. Now TruckVanAc here, thanks to a few of my own ideas, gets one hundred miles per gallon. Runs quiet and burns clean—aside from smelling like a Big Mac. Which suits me fine, eh? Mack in his Big Mac TruckVanAc!”

  Professor Fauna tapped Mack on the shoulder. “So, speaking of french fries . . . ,” he said. “I am feeling rather hungry.”

  Mack motioned to the TruckVanAc. “Come on,” he said. “We’ll get some food when I refill at this burger place I know up in Portland.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  “So, you’re a member of the Muckleshoot Tribe . . . ,” Uchenna said as they pulled out from the forest access road and onto the main highway. Elliot had to move a hard hat and a fluorescent-orange vest from his seat to the floor. He tried not to step on them.

  Mack nodded.

  “So . . . ,” said Uchenna. “Muckleshoot . . .”

  Mack grinned. “You probably want to know about our name, huh?”