Puddlejumpers (4 page)

In the morning, Russ found the baby in his crib with a big smile on his face. The change in his demeanor was like night to day. Russ wondered if Shawn had a guardian angel or if Dolores were helping them from the other side. He was so relieved that he lifted Shawn above his head and waltzed around the room, singing, “Oh what a beautiful morning, oh what a beautiful day, I've got a wonderful feeling, Shawn's tears have all gone away.” As usual, there was an audience of two hidden behind the changing table. Root and Runnel had never seen him so happy.

Shawn's sudden cure from the colic was a mystery, but then there were other strange occurrences for which Russ had no explanation. For several weeks he hadn't been getting as much milk from his cows. He regularly gave extra milk to the Woodruffs, but now there was barely enough for his cereal. For the first time in years, he had to buy the store-bought variety in town. Sometimes he found the cartons sitting empty in the refrigerator. One night he came upon a puddle of milk near the open fridge door. There was just no explaining it.

There was also no explaining the toys that somehow found their way back into the baby's hands after he'd put them away. Or the voices he sometimes heard coming from the nursery, as if Shawn were in a conversation with someone. Or the puddles he'd found in different places around the farm. They appeared out of nowhere and seemed to persist day after day, even without a drop of rain. There was one near the corral and another one behind the barn, and it hadn't rained in a week.

When Doc Thorpe stopped by to check on Shawn, he and Russ visited the puddles together. “Could they be seeping up from an underground spring?” wondered Doc.

“I doubt it,” said Russ. “It's not just one spot. They're here, there, and everywhere.”

They went inside to play a game of chess. Pitch stayed behind, staring at the corral puddle. When Doc left an hour later, the dog was still there, sticking her nose in and out of the water like she was bobbing for apples. Both men shared a good laugh over that one.

When Shawn was three months old, another Puddlejumper came to the Up Above. His name was Cully. He was a scout who'd traveled farther from the Kingdom than any other living Jumper and was famous for telling stories that lasted whole days. He was agile and quick, which surprised everyone, because he was built like a stump. He loved to eat and drink, and his big belly shook when he laughed.

It was the night of the full moon when Cully made his first visit. He'd come to initiate Shawn into the ways of the Puddlejumper tribe. Perched on either side of Snow White, Root and Runnel could hear Pitch wagging her tail at the foot of the crib and Russ' snores from the other room. Cully gripped the baby's finger and began to whisper, his voice rippling like a quiet stream past Shawn's ear, “Wawaywo, listen, I've come to tell you about the Beginning. We were pebbles at the bottom of the ocean when a blue whale took us in her belly and brought us to MotherEarth. There we lived a thousand years, until we plunged down the great waterfall, where we were born rolling and tumbling all the way to the river.”

Root and Runnel listened intently from the crib rail. Like all Puddlejumpers, they loved to hear their tribal lore. Though they knew the baby couldn't yet understand their language, they were convinced the meaning would find a way into his heart and soul.

“Wawaywo, I want to tell you about the rain, the rain that feeds us and brightens our spirits with its lively patter and sweet smell. Rain fills the streams and rivers, every lake and well. It washes everything clean and brings the earth to life.” Shawn listened, entranced by Cully's soothing voice. “But there are those who hate what we love most.”

Root and Runnel shuddered.

“Troggs,” he whispered. “Troggs are big—bigger than anything you've ever seen. They crush and kill everything in their path. As sure as the acorn drops from the tree, they will come to find us. Nothing can stop them, except the rain. When it rains, Troggs bury themselves in the ground and howl and curse. Thunder scares them and lightning blinds their eyes. They hate the rain, they hate even water itself, every drop, and because we are the caretakers of the water, they hate us most of all.”

Shawn began to fidget, almost as if he could understand.

“A day is coming when you will journey to the Most Dark, a terrible Trogg wasteland where sap never runs and water never flows and the fires burn hot and forever. Wawaywo—you will lead us in battle against the Troggs. You are the Rainmaker.”

When the baby started to cry, Cully fell silent.

In the nights to come, he would tell other stories, happier ones, but tonight the truth needed to be told. As the sun came up, ending the first night of Shawn Frazier's education, Cully did his best to make the baby laugh. When funny faces didn't work, he stood on his head and spit acorns. Shawn giggled for the first time and Root and Runnel laughed so hard they fell right off the rail.

Fixing a bottle in the kitchen, a sleepy Russ heard something hit the floor in the nursery. He hurried in, but all he found was Shawn in his crib fingering an acorn. Mystified, he took it away before the baby could swallow it, then noticed three more right next to him.
How on earth did acorns end up in Shawn's crib?

After a week of temperatures nearing one hundred degrees, a warm rain drenched the Warbling River plateau. Root went out to collect fresh rainwater for Shawn's bath from the puddle behind the barn. Glad to be out of the house and in the rain, he was catching droplets on his tongue when another Puddlejumper suddenly burst through the puddle. Root ducked, barely avoiding the Jumper's landing.

It was Chop. At nine inches, he was the smallest Puddlejumper. He was also the most irrepressible, and now he was speaking so fast that Root couldn't understand him. Root made him take a breath and slow down.

“Ma bata-pa, Wawaywo,”
he declared emphatically. Chop wanted to see the Rainmaker. Root knew he'd left the Kingdom without permission and had jumped against explicit instructions, but he also knew he'd be impossible to turn away. He decided to allow him a glimpse of the baby, but only if he agreed to return immediately afterward to the Underneath.

As this was Chop's first experience with humans, Root expected him to be as cautious as he'd been. Instead, he made a beeline for the house, racing ahead through the rain. Root caught him just before he barged into the kitchen, where Russ was making breakfast. He made Chop dry his feet so he wouldn't track mud across the floor. When Russ opened the fridge, they scampered past him and down the hall.

Runnel rarely lost her temper, but when she saw Chop, she spun like a top, leapt into the air, somersaulted, and landed on his chest, pinning him to the carpet. She was steaming mad—if they were discovered, the human might take the baby away. When Root explained that he'd already agreed to let Chop see Wawaywo, she reluctantly stepped aside. She knew that Root wouldn't go back on his word.

Chop zipped up the leg of the crib, where he stared wide-eyed, almost forgetting to breathe. When Shawn reached out and grabbed his hand, Chop nearly fainted. Runnel, quick to forgive, offered Root a knowing smile, remembering their first encounter with the Rainmaker.

At the sound of Russ' approaching footsteps, the Puddle-jumpers scattered. Camouflaged among some stuffed animals, Root and Runnel watched, horrified, as Chop made the mistake of hiding in the diaper pail. They remained perfectly still while Russ changed Shawn's diaper, but could barely look when he opened the bucket's lid with a foot pedal and dropped the messy diaper inside. It landed with a squishy thud.

Later, after Root and Runnel finally got him cleaned up, they escorted Chop back to the puddle to make sure he returned to the Underneath.

Toward the end of summer, Root and Runnel confronted a new problem. Unfortunately, Chop had bragged to anyone who would listen about his encounter with Wawaywo, and now Puddlejumpers from near and far were jumping puddles to get their own glimpse of the baby. There were even a few who pilfered a sock, bootie, toy, or teething ring as souvenirs. Root and Runnel ran themselves ragged trying to keep everyone out of the house.

That's when the notorious Buck arrived and quickly put an end to the commotion. He was a chief scout, like Cully, and the only Puddlejumper ever to escape the Most Dark. He had a jagged scar on his right cheek and a nasty claw mark that ran the length of his back, which few Puddlejumpers had actually seen, but all knew about. Upon his unlikely return from the Most Dark, he told about the many captive Jumpers he'd seen there, suffering, enslaved by the Troggs. But Buck didn't tell about something else he'd seen in that place of darkness—something even more horrible than any Trogg. The secret was a terrible burden for one Puddlejumper to bear, but he didn't want to frighten the others any more than they already were.

Buck rounded up the perpetrators in the hayloft, where he reminded them that the very future of the Kingdom was at risk. He promised consequences for any further trespassing, then sent the chagrined Jumpers skidding back to the Underneath. After that, he used clay, pinesap, and sundew mucilage from pouches on his belt to seal every puddle on the Frazier farm. In a few days' time they would evaporate without a trace.

Buck immediately went to work. His first task was deciding how they would transport the Rainmaker. In a grove of oak, he and Cully selected a solitary maple tree. After beavers took it down, the Jumpers built three wagons sturdy enough to carry a human baby and all of his things.

Next, Buck chose six raccoons strong enough to pull their precious cargo. Jumpers had a long history of enlisting raccoons, beavers, foxes, and deer, even birds and insects, to help them in their work. Despite Buck's fierce nature, he was the most skilled and patient when it came to working with other creatures.

After acquainting the raccoons with the harness, he trained them to pull in tandem, running through the forest and along the plateau, building endurance. As they gained experience, he added more stones to the wagons to simulate the weight of the baby. During practice runs, the wagons crashed more than once, and Buck's crew needed to repair them several times. His final hurdle was teaching the coons how to jump a puddle. It took long hours of practice. One raccoon broke his leg and had to be replaced. But they finally got it right.

After mapping an escape route from the farm to a puddle deep in the timber, Buck walked the terrain to make sure there would be no surprises. And it wasn't just planning how they would do it, but when. On clear nights, he rode the back of the farm's great horned owl to the top of the tallest pine, where he could see the full panorama of the starry sky. Swaying in the wind, he studied the rotation of the planets to determine the optimal time.

While Buck prepared during the long hot summer, Root and Runnel continued to watch over their Rainmaker. Cully never ran out of nighttime stories, while Pav treated pinkeye and fended off a nasty case of cradle cap.

Those who spent time with Shawn were getting impatient because, in their minds, the baby was already theirs. But it wasn't just them. The entire Kingdom was waiting for the homecoming, waiting until all things were right and ready.