Shout Out for the Fitzgerald-Trouts Read online

  Kim pictured the view as Captain Baker would have seen it. The island was busier now, but the bay was still there, as well as the waterfall and the marshes. In fact, the view seemed almost familiar to Kim. If she hadn’t stood exactly in that spot on Mount Muldoon, she had certainly been near it. She’d swum in the pool beneath the Makapepe waterfall many times and picked guavas from the trees that grew around it. Kim definitely thought she knew which trail up the mountain led close to the place where you could see Hanalee on your right, the waterfall across the ravine, and the marshes of the Sakahatchi stretched out at your feet.

  If that was true, it meant Kim knew the trail that led close to the place where the house had been. Or still was. Because wouldn’t a house built from volcanic stone still be standing even if the house had been built more than two hundred years ago?

  Kim thought about asking Mr. Petty this question, but then she thought better of it. She didn’t want to try to speak out loud in front of the class again, and besides, she had learned that if you could avoid consulting a grown-up about something, then you definitely should. Grown-ups had a way of making everything difficult. Take their parents, for example. Between them, the Fitzgerald-Trout children had five different mothers and fathers. Their family tree was impossible to keep track of, but the one thing that was clear was that all five of their parents were terrible. For instance, none of them had ever given the children a place to call home; instead, those five parents had left the children to fend for themselves and live on their own in the little green car that they parked at the beach.

  Of course it was true that the children’s parents were so terrible that the Fitzgerald-Trouts considered themselves lucky not to have to live with any of them. Kim, Pippa, and Toby would not have wanted to live with their father, Dr. Fitzgerald, a scientist who many years before had moved them all into the car before flying off to a different, distant island to pursue his research. Nor would they have wanted to live with greedy Maya, Pippa and Kim’s mother, who had been found guilty of stealing billions of dollars. Living with Maya would have meant living in a very small jail cell.

  Kimo, Toby, and Penny’s mother was Tina, a country-and-western singer whose songs sometimes topped the island’s music charts. She was so famous on the island that she had begun to travel with a team of bodyguards. She had no time for the children, and her only attempt at parenting was to leave them a monthly envelope of money in the glove compartment of the car. She cared for them so little that the year before she had left her most recent offspring, the baby, Penny, in the backseat of the car.

  Penny’s father was Tina’s husband, a man named Clive who wore a blue tuxedo and drove a matching blue convertible. He was not only bored by the baby, he was scared of her; somehow he’d even convinced himself he was allergic to Penny because the one time he’d held her he’d broken out in hives.

  These four parents were certainly terrible, but the fifth parent—Kimo’s father, Johnny Trout—was the most terrible of all. Not only had he never offered the children a place to live, he had actually stolen the boat that they’d won in a contest. It had happened a few months before. The Fitzgerald-Trouts had been at the laundromat doing their laundry and watching their favorite TV game show, Ham! The vending machine at the laundromat had been broken, so they’d had free chocolate bars to stuff into their mouths while they watched the contestants on Ham! stuff sausages into their mouths and tell jokes. Kim and her siblings had had a very good time and they were all laughing and repeating the jokes as they left the laundromat and drove down the road to the wharf where their fishing boat was docked. Kim had turned the car into the parking lot and that’s when they had seen it: the boat, up in the air, hanging by a few thin wires from the end of a crane.

  Kimo was the first out of the car, running across the gravel lot and shouting at the man seated in the crane, operating the levers. “What are you doing?” The man stopped moving the levers and got up from his seat. He came over to Kimo and handed him a piece of paper. It was a letter from a judge saying that Kimo’s father, Johnny Trout, had sued and that the judge was ordering that the boat be locked up until ownership was properly determined by the island’s courts.

  “When’s that gonna be?”

  The man shrugged. “We locked one up last year and it’s still there. The courts are slow.”

  The children looked at each other. A year? It was too awful to believe. But there was nothing they could do, so they just stood staring up at the boat’s wet hull as water dripped off it like tears, and Kim vowed to her siblings that they would find another place to live.

  But she hadn’t had any luck—until now. Was she right to think that Captain Baker’s house, a house built from volcanic stone, would still be standing after two hundred years? We’ll find out, she thought. We’ll hike that trail, and maybe we really will do the most important thing on my to-do list! Kim’s reverie was interrupted by the sound of the bell ringing.

  “Be sure to read chapters five and six,” Mr. Petty announced as the students began to gather their books and head for the door. “There’ll be an oral test on Monday. You’ll stand and recite your answers for me.”

  On Monday I’ll have to stand in front of the class and recite answers, Kim thought with terror. Then she cheered herself up, thinking: maybe by Monday we’ll have a house.

  * * *

  —

  The bell had rung, but Pippa didn’t care. She was in her woodworking class, where her teacher, Mr. Bragg, let her stay after school to work on projects. She waved goodbye to the other kids and grabbed a plastic visor, then she carried the pieces of wood that she had measured over to the table saw. Mr. Bragg, who spent his weekends cow wrangling and insisted on being called Bronco Bragg, helped her turn on the saw. He watched as Pippa, paying careful attention to the line she’d drawn, pushed the wood slowly against the spinning blade. When Bronco Bragg saw that she was using the machine properly, he patted her on the head (like she was one of his ponies) and said, “Giddyap.”

  Just then Pippa spotted Kim heading into the room. The look on Kim’s face told Pippa that her older sister was in a hurry. But before Kim could say anything, Pippa bent over the wood and began to make the next cut. She loved the feeling of the blade making contact with the wood, the teeth biting in and cutting, the sawdust flying. She was very careful to keep her fingers away from the saw—just as Bronco Bragg had taught her—but she knew that Kim was holding her breath, worried her little sister would cut her fingers. Kim’s worrying drove Pippa crazy, since Pippa was perfectly capable of taking care of herself. When the wood was cut, she flipped off the saw. “It’s time to go,” Kim said before the noise had even died down.

  “I’ve got another piece to cut,” Pippa replied, wiping the wood dust from her safety goggles.

  “I’ve got a plan,” Kim said.

  But instead of exciting Pippa, this pronouncement only made her groan. “Another plan?”

  “Don’t be negative,” Kim said. “This plan is gonna work.”

  “I’m not negative,” said Pippa. “I’m busy. I’m making a knickknack shelf.”

  “What’s a knickknack shelf?” asked Kim.

  “It’s a shelf where you put things that you collect.”

  “What do you collect?” Kim was annoyed now.

  “Nothing yet,” said Pippa. “But when I have a shelf, I will.”

  “And where will you hang the shelf?” Kim prodded because she knew the answer.

  “I don’t care if I don’t have anywhere to hang it,” said Pippa. “I’m making it anyway.”

  Kim read the fierce expression on her little sister’s freckled face and her heart went out to her. “I want you to have a place to hang it,” Kim said. Pippa narrowed her eyes, and Kim grinned. “Finish what you’re doing. I’ll go find Kimo.”

  * * *

  —

  A few minutes later, Kim found Kimo on the athl
etic field, running down the track holding a long flexible pole. He had taken up pole vaulting a month before, and in that short time it had become his consuming passion. Kimo was a speedy runner with enormous upper body strength, and the combination was perfect for a pole vaulter. In fact, the first time he’d tried the sport—during a PE class—he had used the rubber pole for beginners but had cleared the nine-foot mark. He’d tried again with the real pole and gone up and over the twelve-foot mark. Ms. Bonicle, his PE teacher, shook her head and said that couldn’t be right. “Try again,” she said.

  This time Kimo flew fourteen feet and two inches into the air. So the number hadn’t been wrong. And that was when Ms. Bonicle said, “The island record for pole vaulting is fifteen feet, two inches. You keep practicing, and you’re gonna break that record.” Kimo had kept practicing and he was now within five inches of the island record.

  Kim watched as Kimo finished his sprint by planting the tip of the flexible pole in a pit and using the pole’s bend to flip himself up and over the bar. He came sailing down through the air and flopped onto the deep, soft mat. Kim raced over. She was out of breath before she even reached him. “How high?”

  “Fourteen feet, eleven inches,” Kimo said matter-of-factly.

  “Wow!” Kim was genuinely impressed with her brother. Though they had different mothers and different fathers and though Kimo wasn’t yet in seventh grade, the two of them had always thought of themselves as being like twins. After all, weren’t they nearly the same age? And weren’t their names almost identical—only one letter different? And didn’t one often seem to know exactly what the other was thinking? But now, when Kim watched Kimo fly through the air, she saw how entirely different the two of them were. “You really might break that record,” Kim said.

  Kimo only shrugged. “I’ve got work to do before that happens.” What Kimo didn’t say to Kim was that he was willing to do every bit of the hard work that it would take because he was sure that if he broke the island record, there would be an article about him in the newspaper, and that meant his father would see the article and read about Kimo’s great achievement. Even though Kimo’s father, Johnny Trout, had never paid any attention to his son, Kimo thought his father might pay attention to an island record. His father might even be proud of his son for breaking that record. And maybe, just maybe, that meant that Johnny Trout would consider dropping his lawsuit and giving Kimo and his siblings back the fishing boat. Kimo picked up the pole and started back toward the beginning of the track to try again.

  “Wait,” Kim said. “You have to stop.” Kimo looked at her, puzzled. “Something big has happened,” she continued. “Something important.” Kimo furrowed his brow. What could be more important than breaking the island pole vaulting record?

  “Pippa’s gonna be here any minute. We have to find Toby, and pick Penny up from day care.” Kim was breathless again—this time with excitement. “I think I might know how to find a house.”

  Kimo gave her a huge grin. “Yeah?”

  “Yes,” she said, gratified that he looked pleased. Then she added, “We need to get going now—while it’s still light out.”

  “Where are we going?” Kimo asked, then before Kim could answer, he added, “Not the Sakahatchi, I hope.” He was remembering the drive Kim made them take through the forest of bloodsucking iguanas one time when they’d been looking for a house.

  “Not the Sakahatchi,” Kim said. “Above the Sakahatchi, on Mount Muldoon.”

  “Wait,” said Kimo, shuddering and shaking his head. “The trails on that side? Don’t they go super close to Gasper’s Gulch?” They both knew what Kimo meant. Gasper’s Gulch was a breeding ground for wizzleroaches, and Kimo hated the six-legged, flying insects more than anything. “If I see a single wizzleroach, I’m blaming you,” Kimo said darkly.

  “Fine.” Kim didn’t argue. Kimo could blame her all he wanted once they got to Captain Baker’s house.

  CHAPTER

  2

  What’s the deal with you and wizzleroaches anyway?” Pippa had her feet up on Kimo’s seat and was pressing into his back.

  “Dunno,” he said, pushing against her and adding, “Cut it out!” He stared out the window at the long, straight stretch of road that ran from their school to the base of Mount Muldoon, where they planned to park the car and begin their hike into the forest that might or might not take them close to wizzleroaches. “I think it’s the sound of their feet,” he mused. “It makes me feel itchy, like my skin has creepy crawlers all over it.”

  Baby Penny in her car seat must have recognized the word “feet” because she grabbed her own in both her hands and proudly shouted, “Fee!”

  “The best animals don’t have any feet at all,” Toby offered, peering into the jar that held Goldie and admiring the goldfish’s elegant orange fins. Then he thought very hard, Fish are the best pets. He was training Goldie to read his thoughts and so far it seemed to be working; Goldie stared out of the jar in a way that made Toby sure he had understood.

  Kim got a glimpse of this in the rearview mirror and it made her grip the steering wheel and fight the instinct to snap at Toby. She had to work to be nice to her littlest brother, who could drive her crazy. “Please,” she said, “let’s talk about Captain Baker’s house. The book says it has thirty-three rooms and that every room has a fireplace.”

  “Had,” Pippa said, her dark freckles flaring. Those freckles had a way of underlining Pippa’s temper, which was always threatening to explode. “The house had thirty-three rooms that each had a fireplace, two hundred years ago when Captain Baker built it. We aren’t gonna find that house,” said Pippa. “If we do, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle.”

  “I’d like to see that,” said Toby. “Oo-ooh, aa-aah.” He scratched his armpits and mimicked being a monkey. “If we find it, you have to do that, what I just did, till we tell you to stop.”

  “Sure,” said Pippa. “Whatever.” And that’s when Kim realized what was going on. Her brothers and sister were talking about monkeys’ uncles and wizzleroaches because too many times in the past they had lost the homes they cared about: the cabin on the cliff, the fishing boat. They were willing to look for another place now, but they didn’t want to get their hopes up about it, and they absolutely would not allow themselves to imagine living in Captain Baker’s house until they were actually standing inside its walls of volcanic stone, staring out the bay window with Hanalee on the right, the waterfall across the ravine, and the marshes of the Sakahatchi stretched in front of them.

  “Thanks for going along with this,” Kim said, suddenly full of love for her siblings.

  “Of course,” said Kimo. “We’re Fitzgerald-Trouts. We don’t give up and we don’t back down.”

  “Unless there’s a wizzleroach,” Pippa quipped. This made all of them laugh, including the baby, whose laughter always turned into a long spiral of drool.

  Pippa grabbed an old T-shirt to mop the baby up as Kimo asked, “Where’s that history book?” Toby got the textbook from Kim’s backpack and handed it to Kimo, who flipped it open to the chocolate-covered page. He read for a minute, then looked up. “Do we still have the compass?”

  “It’s in the trunk,” said Kim, “with all the stuff the harbormaster took off the boat before the judge confiscated it.”

  “Good,” said Kimo. “We’ll follow the trail to the waterfall, then use the compass from there.”

  “It’s like a treasure hunt,” Toby enthused. “Only there might be a house at the end of it.”

  Just then baby Penny began to wail—the sound that meant she wanted her bottle, which was in the cooler in the trunk.

  “We can’t pull over here,” Kim observed. “The road’s too narrow.”

  “Put on the radio,” Pippa suggested. “That always distracts her.” But when Kimo snapped on the radio the first voice they heard was a voice that didn’t distract any of them; it was the voi
ce of their mother, Tina, the country-and-western singer. “Another terrible tune by terrible Tina,” Pippa groaned, adjusting her glasses on her nose.

  “It’s not a tune,” said Kim, who had heard it in the grocery store a few days before. “It’s an advertisement.”

  They all leaned a little closer to the radio as Tina crooned, “Baby loves veggies, baby loves meat. Baby loves fruit, and good things to eat. Baby loves Mommy and baby loves Dad, when baby sees that Baby Loves is what she’s gonna have…” It was a jingle for a line of baby food from a company called Baby Loves. The children knew all about Baby Loves because since Penny had been left in their care, they had bought a lot of Baby Loves baby food, and they had also bought a lot of Baby Loves diapers and Baby Loves baby shampoo and baby powder and, most recently, Baby Loves teething biscuits because Penny had her third tooth coming in.

  The irony that Tina—who had left her baby with her other abandoned children—was singing a jingle for a product called Baby Loves was not lost on the Fitzgerald-Trouts. “Remember the bag of diapers Tina left in the car with Penny? Those were Baby Loves diapers,” Kimo snarled.

  “She probably got them for free,” said Pippa.

  “I bet she’s friends with that lady who owns Baby Loves,” Kim offered. She knew the face of Clarice McGuffin, the president and owner of Baby Loves, because it was plastered all over the island on billboards that showed her tight-lipped smile as she held up a box of Baby Loves diapers or a jar of Baby Loves baby food or a package of Baby Loves teething biscuits. “That lady gives me the creeps,” said Kim. “Why does she have a picture of herself on her billboards and not a picture of a baby?”

  “Those billboards are the worst,” said Pippa. “She uses Comic Sans.” Pippa was an expert on computer fonts and absolutely hated signs or documents that were printed in Comic Sans, which she considered tacky. “If that isn’t bad enough, she wears a jumpsuit made from snakeskin.”