Felix the Shark Page 5

  Her joints creaking audibly, Maude heaved herself from the stool and disappeared in to her private domain. Dirk could hear her shuffling around and muttering, “Let’s see. Let’s see … Yep. Here it is.”

  Maude returned with a trade paperback book. She set it on the counter so Dirk could see the cover image of a prehistoric-looking cross between a shark and a crocodile.

  Dirk gasped, grabbing the paperback. “That’s The Dogged Dogmatist! I love this book!” He stared at it in awe. He couldn’t believe it! He looked at Maude, who was grinning at his excitement.

  “I made up a game based on this book—Caverns and Crocodiles. Aaron Sanders’s daughter wrote it? But it says Louisa Jewel.” Dirk tapped the author’s name.

  “Jewel is her middle name,” Maude said.

  Dirk stared at the cover of the book again, then looked up at Maude. “I have to talk to her!”

  Maude studied him for a minute, then nodded. “I’ll make a call, see if we can get you in with a little fib. They might let you in to see her, but don’t expect much.”

  Dirk wasn’t very good at controlling his expectations, so he didn’t even bother to try before he entered Mattson State Hospital. Even setting aside how close he was to unraveling the mystery of Felix, he was about to meet one of his favorite authors.

  Ever since he’d discovered Louisa wrote The Dogged Dogmatist, Dirk had been reviewing what he remembered about the book. Maude had loaned him her copy of the book, but he hadn’t opened it yet. He didn’t need to. He knew the book well.

  The novel had come out when Dirk had turned fifteen, and it had immediately gotten a huge following—most of which consisted of people like Dirk, people who didn’t fit in, who wanted to see layers when others wanted to accept things at face value. The novel was the story of a man whose determination to be right proved to be his undoing … possibly, anyway. The ending was obscure, and people debated whether the man lived or died at the end. Dirk and Leo had discussed this ad nauseam. Leo was sure the man died. Dirk believed he’d lived.

  The whole book was obscure, actually. The gist of the story was a man on a quest to find the prehistoric shark-croc hybrid depicted on the book’s cover. The man was led on his quest by a “voice of intuition” he heard in his head. The man’s search for the creature was convoluted on the whole, but certain lines in the book went beyond convoluted. They just didn’t make sense. Neither did the drawing in the middle of the book—an ornate and frilly sketch of what looked like butterflies and flowers. The drawing was never referred to in the book, and it couldn’t be related to any of the story. Were the odd lines and the drawing some kind of code? For what purpose?

  Now that he’d been in that water park, though, Dirk thought he knew what they were for. It was starting to make sense … if he was right.

  Inside Mattson State Hospital, Dirk followed a redheaded caregiver down a long beige corridor. She looked to be about Dirk’s age, but she was taller and very serious.

  After the caregiver made a left turn, she stopped in front of the second door on that hallway. “She’s in there,” the girl said, pointing. “So kind of you to visit your cousin. People don’t come in often enough.” Then she turned and walked back down the hall, her crepe-soled shoes making funny spongy sounds as she went.

  Dirk flushed at the lie. So I broke a window and told a white lie, he said to himself. People have done worse for less.

  Dirk stepped in to a small yellowish room that contained one hospital bed, two visitor’s chairs, a recliner, a bureau, a nightstand, and a TV on a shelf on the wall. The light in the room was dim, and the space smelled like honey, vinegar, and bleach—an odd combination. He looked at the bed’s occupant.

  Louisa Jewel Sanders didn’t look as vacant as Maude had said she was. In fact, she seemed alert. Her gaze was focused directly on Dirk.

  A fragile-looking petite blonde woman, Louisa appeared to be in her early forties maybe. She had small features, pale blue eyes, thin lips, and almost translucent skin. Dirk had asked Maude what was wrong with Louisa, and she’d just shrugged. “Some kind of past trauma is the story. She’s perfectly healthy, but she can’t speak or function on her own. Just sits or lies in her bed and stares.”

  “Hi, Louisa,” Dirk said, slipping in to the room and walking softly to a visitor’s chair. He hesitated, then sat, a few feet from Louisa’s bed.

  Louisa didn’t say anything, but her eyes shifted to stay on him.

  Louisa was dressed in a simple moss-green smock dress and white socks. The neck of the dress was scooped, and he could see she wore a necklace with a butterfly pendant.

  He gestured at it. “That’s a cool pendant, a zebra longwing butterfly. I like those.”

  Louisa might have been silent, but she wasn’t out of it. When Dirk finished talking, she touched the butterfly’s black-and-pale-yellow-striped wide wings.

  Dirk felt a jitter of excitement skitter through his body. He smiled at Louisa. “I’ve always loved butterflies.”

  Louisa didn’t move.

  Dirk wasn’t sure how to begin, so he just jumped in. “I have a lot of good memories from my time in your dad’s restaurant—Freddy’s. We weren’t in the town a long time, but I went to Freddy’s every day while we were here. I liked visiting Felix. Do … ?” He stopped. He was going to ask if she remembered Felix, but he didn’t want to make her upset. Everyone else in Forkstop seemed to hate Felix. He’d talked to a few more people since he’d been with Agnes and Dawn in the diner, and they all had memories similar to those of the two women.

  “I want to find Felix,” Dirk said softly. “I was hoping you could tell me if the Freddy’s your dad owned is still … um … around.”

  Dirk noticed a vein in Louisa’s neck was starting to pulse quickly. He stopped talking and hurried to change the subject, pulling her novel out of his jacket pocket. “I love your book,” he said.

  Louisa looked at the book, then looked back at Dirk.

  Dirk waited, not sure what to say next.

  Before he could decide, Louisa moved, and Dirk jumped in his seat. Louisa tilted her head slightly and reached up to unclasp the chain around her neck. Removing the butterfly from the chain, she held out her hand to Dirk.

  “No, I can’t take that,” he protested.

  She held his gaze. He shrugged, leaned forward, and stretched out his hand. She dropped the pendant in to his palm.

  “What’s this for?” Dirk asked.

  Louisa looked away from the book Dirk held to him and back at the book again. Dirk followed her gaze, and he smiled. He thought he knew what she was trying to tell him. Maybe. He opened his mouth to ask a question, but Louisa closed her eyes. She was done with him.

  Dirk watched her for a few seconds, then nodded. He’d gotten what he needed. He was sure of it.

  “Thanks, Louisa,” Dirk said.

  He got up, tucked the pendant in his pocket, left the room, strode out to his car, and drove back to his motel. In his room, sitting on his sagging queen-size bed and looking at his plush Felix, which “swam” on the scarred oak nightstand, he called Leo.

  “Dirk!” Leo said when he answered the phone. “Everyone’s been talking about you.”

  “I doubt that,” Dirk said.

  “Well, we have.”

  Dirk knew “we” were his friends.

  “Jenny says it’s our fault you left. Gordon says you’re too determined for your own good. Wyatt wants to go looking for you. He even started researching Freddy’s locations.”

  “Tell him to stop. I found it. Or at least I think I did.”

  “Really? It’s real? Send pictures.”

  “Well, it’s not … yeah, I’ll send pictures.” Dirk didn’t feel like going in to the whole water park thing. “Listen, I called because I have a question. Do you remember that list of pointless clues we made from The Dogged Dogmatist?”

  “The ones you thought were code? Sure.”

  “I don’t have my copy of the book with me. I have a copy, but not th
e one I marked up. I think I remember the clues, but I don’t want to take the time to go through the whole book, and I want to be sure I’m right. Do you have yours?”

  Dirk heard a creaking sound, and he knew Leo was sitting in his rolling chair at his drafting table. The sound of rustling papers followed a couple thuds. Leo kept filing cabinets full of scribbled ideas, and apparently, he had a system that worked for him; he could always dig up what he was looking for.

  The rustling stopped. For a few seconds, Dirk waited.

  “Got it. You remember the weird drawing, right?”

  “Yes, I looked at that in the copy I have here.”

  “Cool. Want me to read the other four things to you?” Leo asked.

  “Yes, please.”

  Leo read off the items while Dirk wrote as fast as he could.

  “What’re you up to?” Leo asked. “What’s the novel got to do with Freddy’s and the shark?”

  “I’m not one hundred percent sure yet. I’ll let you know.”

  “Where are you?” Leo asked.

  “I’ll let you know when I figure this all out.”

  Dirk said good-bye to Leo and told him to tell the others, especially Jenny, he wasn’t angry anymore. He read over the short list Leo had given him and looked at his watch. He barely had an hour if he was going to get to where he needed to go in time. He stood and left his motel room.

  Instead of parking on the road as he had the first time he’d visited the derelict water park, this time Dirk drove around to the back of the park. He left his car near the trough that led under the fence.

  As he had the night before, Dirk came prepared, which hadn’t taken much effort. His pockets held just his flashlight and the list he’d made when he talked to Leo.

  Dirk crawled under the fence again. Although it wasn’t raining, he trotted over to the sheltered eating area to stop and think a minute. He perched on the edge of a cold, hard metal bench and looked out at the moss-covered structures pressing in around him. The sky held only a few clouds today, but here in the water park, the day still felt dingy and dark … probably because of all the overgrown vegetation. Dirk had hoped he’d be more comfortable in the park during the day, but the place still gave him the heebie-jeebies.

  He took a deep breath and forced himself to focus.

  The Dogged Dogmatist’s strange clues were the subject of endless analysis by the book’s fans. Countless theories about them had been put forth—Dirk and Leo and Wyatt had come up with at least a couple dozen of their own. None of the theories had made sense … until Dirk had started thinking about them in the context of the water park.

  The entirety of the novel takes place in a desert area—dry and rocky and utterly devoid of water. In spite of this, however, the main character receives two clues that are related to water. The first one directs him to a swimming hole, which doesn’t exist, and the second one tells him to follow the flow of the water, which also doesn’t exist. The character blithefully ignores the clues, making them seem even more out of place. And he ignores two others as well. The third clue the character ignores comes in a dream in which a wise woman tells him, “The butterfly reveals the key.” No butterfly of any kind shows up in the book. The last clue the character ignores is a direction from his inner voice to “be there at 3:33.” Because the character never goes anywhere at that hour, Dirk and other readers thought 333 was some kind of numerology clue. However, now he thought it was exactly what it seemed to be, a time of day. And that was why Dirk had hurried over here. He glanced at his watch. It was 3:18 p.m. He didn’t have much time.

  Dirk, of course, knew that 3:33 could be a.m. instead of p.m., but p.m. was coming first, so he figured he might as well make the assumption that p.m. was correct. If he was wrong, he could come back during the night.

  A rustling in the bushes at the edge of the picnic area abruptly plucked Dirk from his mental planning. He scanned the dense foliage encroaching on the shelter. When he spotted a pair of yellow orbs, he gasped, but then the orbs disappeared, and he realized they’d been small. He’d probably just spooked an opossum or maybe a squirrel.

  Dirk stood.

  If the pointless clues in the novel were directions for finding Freddy’s, Dirk needed to get to Floyd’s Swimming Hole, which wasn’t far from the sheltered picnic area. Thankfully. Dirk had gotten quite enough of poking around the spooky water park the night before.

  The Crawberry Flows Water Park might have been in a semi-urban setting—the intermittent shush and vroom of passing cars was a reminder of that—but it was being reclaimed by rural wildlife and vegetation. The night before, once the sun had gone down, Dirk had been serenaded by crickets and frogs, and he’d jumped at the continual sounds of small animals moving in the bushes. Twice, he’d been startled by owl hoots. This afternoon, the crickets were silent, but the frogs still had a lot to say.

  As soon as Dirk started down the narrow path that wound back toward the pool, he heard another sound … a distant howl. That made him freeze. It sounded like a coyote. Could a coyote get through the fence?

  Dirk picked up his pace. If his theory was right, he was going to find a way to get underground. The prospect of being in the dark tunnels he expected to find wasn’t incredibly uplifting, but at least he wouldn’t have to deal with wild animals in tunnels … hopefully.

  Passing a loading area for the river rapids on one side and a small supply shed on the other, Dirk’s feet crunched over gravel and twigs as he hurried around a corner and aimed toward the massive swimming pool he’d ignored the night before. Another howl echoed through the park, and the breeze picked up, swishing tree branches and bushes. Dirk moved even faster.

  After just two more turns and a fight with the low-hanging branch of a maple tree, Dirk arrived at the edge of the huge empty swimming pool. He looked down in to it, but he saw nothing except dirt and dry leaves, and the edge of what was probably a painted design on the tiles at the bottom of the pool. The design was barely visible; most of it was covered by dirt. The breeze was picking up the leaves and swirling them around.

  Now what?

  Dirk looked at his watch. It was 3:24. He had just nine minutes to wait.

  Dirk started walking around the periphery of the pool to pass the time, frowning in concentration as he gazed at every little detail of the area. He found a quarter by the broken-down diving board, but his investigation didn’t turn up anything else. He checked the time. Just one more minute.

  Looking around the area again, Dirk rolled his shoulders to release his tension. He didn’t have any idea what to expect at 3:33, which made him feel like he was about to walk in to something that was more than likely a trap. Every muscle in his body was taut. He pulled out his flashlight to use as a weapon if needed.

  Dirk watched the seconds tick past, and at 3:33 exactly, he raised his flashlight overhead like a club and widened his stance. He listened intently, swiveled his head this way and that.

  Nothing happened.

  Dirk turned in a complete circle. He stared at everything around him.

  He felt like he was in the middle of one of those games where you had to spot what was out of place in the picture. Something must have happened at 3:33. But what? He couldn’t see any differences in his surroundings.

  Dirk squinted at the area around him for several more minutes, and then, when the sun shone in his eyes, he moved in to the shadow thrown from the nearby waterslide.

  Wait a second … Shade. Shadow.

  Dirk stepped back out of the shade, and stared at the shadow. He smiled.

  The shadow was vaguely arrow-shaped.

  Could it be?

  Dirk had seen something like this in treasure hunt movies, where clues were often hidden in plain sight. Was it really so hard to believe this sort of thing happened in real life?

  Dirk looked at the end of the pool designated by the shadow arrow. The arrow seemed to be pointing to right under the sagging diving board.

  Dirk looked down at the bottom o
f the pool, where the arrow nearly touched the tile. He couldn’t see anything.

  He glanced at the ladder leading down in to the pool. It was rust-encrusted, and he didn’t think he wanted to see if it would hold his weight. He turned and trotted to the shallow end of the pool. Walking down in to the pool, he headed to the spot where the point of the shadow ended. There, he knelt and scraped away several layers of dirt and sediment. He found … nothing.

  Frowning, Dirk sat back on his heels. Was he in the wrong place?

  He didn’t think so.

  Was he missing something?

  He looked up at the waterslide and past the top of it to the sun. He gasped and snapped his fingers. The sun!

  The sun wasn’t always in the same place in the sky at a given time of day everywhere in the world, obviously.

  If 3:33 was related to a cast shadow, the timing would have to be precise for a particular location and time and date. If 3:33 was right for the time and place in the book, it might not be right for this date. Dirk grinned at his cleverness. Then he stopped grinning.

  What good would his cleverness do? He had no idea how to calculate the right date for this place and time.

  What now?

  Dirk sat down in the dirt under the diving board. He stared at the end of the shadow arrow. He blinked and leaned forward.

  The arrow had retracted from where it had been. As the sun moved, the shadow arrow was being pulled toward the middle of the pool.

  Dirk got back on his knees, and he began digging the dirt away from the line cast by the shaft part of the shadow arrow. Of course, what he was doing was about as imprecise as you could get. Maybe at the right time of day, the arrow wouldn’t even land in the pool. But he didn’t think so. The fact that a swimming hole was one of the pointless clues in the book convinced him he was in the right place. So, he kept digging.

  He dug until he got to the edge of the design he’d noticed on the tiles. His heart rate doubled. A design could be a clue. Why hadn’t he looked there to start with?

  Dirk leaned forward and dug faster around the edge of the design. As soon as he’d moved just a few inches of caked crud, he realized he was on the right track. Part of the design was a zebra longwing butterfly. Panting in his eagerness, Dirk pawed and scraped at the dirt until he’d revealed the whole design.