Where's Burgess? Read online

  Text copyright © 2018 Laurie Elmquist

  Illustrations copyright © 2018 David Parkins

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Elmquist, Laurie, author

  Where's Burgess? / Laurie Elmquist ; illustrated by David Parkins.

  (Orca echoes)

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-4598-1478-3 (softcover).—ISBN 978-1-4598-1479-0 (PDF).—ISBN 978-1-4598-1480-6 (EPUB)

  I. Parkins, David, illustrator II. Title. III. Title: Where is Burgess?.

  IV. Series: Orca echoes

  PS8609.L574W54 2018 jC813'.6 C2017-904532-6

  C2017-904533-4

  First published in the United States, 2018

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2017949695

  Summary: In this early chapter book, a young boy deals with his parents’ separation by focusing on finding his lost frog.

  Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

  Edited by Liz Kemp

  Cover artwork and interior illustrations by David Parkins

  Author photo by Ryan Rock

  ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

  www.orcabook.com

  Printed and bound in Canada.

  21 20 19 18 • 4 3 2 1

  To Clay

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter One

  He went missing on a Tuesday. I’ve made a poster. LOST FROG. Answers to Burgess. Might be scared. BIG reward. I’ve written our phone number in red letters.

  “It doesn’t even look like him,” says my sister, Hazel, staring at the picture. She’s twelve, and I’m nine.

  “It does,” I say.

  “Are those teeth?” she asks.

  “Yeah.”

  “And eyebrows?”

  “Yeah.”

  She flips her hair off her shoulders. “Most people put up a photo.”

  “I need to get their attention,” I say.

  Mom slides a piece of toast in front of me. “I’ll photocopy it at work,” she says. “You can put the posters up after school.”

  “Paper?” says my sister. “What about the trees?”

  Mom sighs. “This one time.”

  Mom works in recycling. Dad says she’s on a mission to get everyone to reduce their trash for a whole year to an amount that will fit in a zip-lock sandwich bag. He says most people can’t do it. He says he couldn’t do it. He had too much garbage for Mom to handle. He lives in another city now. I look down at my toast slathered with peanut butter, the way I like it. I push it away.

  “I’ll eat it,” says Hazel, taking the toast and biting into it. Her teeth grind away, and peanut butter smears the side of her cheek. “I’m sure we’ll find him,” she says. “How far can he go?”

  “He might have caught a ride,” I say, pushing my chair back.

  She shakes her head slowly back and forth. “Sometimes I wonder about you.”

  She’s okay for an older sister because she likes to ride bikes and go places together. But we don’t always see the same things even if we’re standing right beside each other looking at them. She sees a frog. I see Burgess and everything he’s capable of.

  “Everybody ready?” asks my mom, picking up her computer bag. “Teeth brushed? Reece, do you have your math homework?”

  I grab my multiplication sheet and stuff it in my pack. I follow them out to our VW bus. Burgess is out there alone. How can they act like nothing has happened?

  In class I draw a few more posters while the teacher reads to us. I draw Burgess with a suitcase under his arm. I give him shoes.

  After school I put up the posters. I press the tacks deep into a wooden telephone pole. I smooth the paper down with my hand. It makes the pole look better to have something on it. People like to look at something while they’re waiting for the bell to ring. I know I do.

  I bend down to tie my shoelace. A shadow falls over me. “Are you that kid looking for his lost frog?”

  I tie my lace into a knot so tight it cuts off the blood supply to my foot. Then I slowly look up.

  “Yeah, that’s me,” I say.

  He’s the guy who got suspended for bullying. He’s looking mean today. He cracks his knuckles, all of them at once, like a fist. He steps real close. His breath smells like a buffalo’s butt.

  “Who cares about a frog?” he sneers.

  I don’t know what to say. I can feel my brain jumping around in my head, trying to find the right answer. “They’re pretty important, ecologically speaking,” I tell him. “If frogs disappear from an area, the whole ecosystem can suffer.”

  He snorts. “It’s probably flattened on the road.”

  “Maybe not,” I say, but the image sticks in my head. Burgess squashed, and no one around to give him a decent burial. My stomach feels like someone just kicked it.

  “Maybe somebody used it for bait,” he says. “Stuck a hook in its guts.”

  A voice behind me says, “You wouldn’t say that if it was your frog.”

  I turn around. It’s Aaron, the kid who got the bully suspended. He wears a plush dark-blue bathrobe over his clothes. My stomach sinks. I might have been able to get out of this alive, but now I’m not so sure.

  Aaron stands up on his toes. “Maybe someone should stick a hook in your guts.”

  I don’t know why Aaron’s picked today to be brave. But then I see the look of terror in his eyes, and I realize he’s going to fall apart at any second. He grabs my arm. “RUN!” he screams.

  Only I can’t.

  The guy’s hand clamps my shoulder. His other hand curls into a fist and swings back. I close my eyes, waiting for the punch.

  “Hey! What do you think you’re doing?”

  I open my eyes. It’s Hazel—she’s dropped her bike and run over. She whips her helmet off and throws it on the ground. Her face is all red, and her hair is frizzed out.

  “Get your hands off my brother,” she roars in his face.

  The guy is so surprised, he lets go of my arm.

  “You want to fight me?” she says, pushing up her sleeves. She is just as tall as he is. Her arms are strong from playing water polo.

  He takes a few steps backward and spits on the ground. “It’s not worth my time,” he mutters.

  Hazel takes a few steps toward him, but I grab her arm. “You’re supposed to walk away.”

  “Tell that to him,” she says.

  He storms off as if he has better things to do. At the corner he gets into a red car that spins its wheels and churns up a lot of dust. “Morons,” says my sister. She picks up her bike helmet and turns to me. “What was all that about?”

  “Nothing,” I say.

  She stares at Aaron. “Why are you wearing a bathrobe?”

  He shrugs.

  “It’s his thing,” I say.

  “Well, it draws attention,” she says. “It means Neanderthals will pick a fight with you.”

  “I know,” he says.

  “It wasn’t him,” I say. “It was my frog
posters.”

  She pushes her bike beside me down the sidewalk. “The two of you are ridiculous. I can’t protect you all the time. I can’t always be around. You should grow up. Nine is too old for this stuff. Drawing pictures of frogs.” She sounds mad, really mad, as she rides ahead of us.

  Aaron looks at me. “I don’t have a sister, but if I did, I’d want her to be just like yours. A barracuda.”

  Chapter Two

  I have my father’s staple gun. Mom says it’s okay if I go around the neighborhood and put up posters. I can go to the end of the block and back. I have my phone with me. “Twenty minutes tops, Mister,” says Mom.

  Two doors down is a pole painted with vines and sunflowers. I bang up a poster of Burgess.

  “What’s this?” asks our neighbor. He’s out walking his dog, a big brown Lab. On top of the dog’s head is a Band-Aid with hearts on it. I’ve never seen a dog wearing a Band-Aid before.

  “It’s Burgess,” I say.

  “Where did you last see him?” he asks.

  “In the backyard.”

  He looks up and scans the sky. “Lots of eagles around. At the beach the other day, one of them scooped up some dog’s squeaky toy. Must have looked like something good to eat from way up there.”

  “He’s a freshwater frog.”

  “Oh,” he says.

  “They don’t swim in salt water, so they don’t go down to the ocean.”

  “Smart.”

  His face is grizzled with white hairs. He smells like pipe smoke. It curls around him like an invisible cloud. Frogs are sensitive to smells. I doubt Burgess would have gone to him for help.

  At our feet, his dog is eating a big chunk of grass. He spits it up in a slobbery blob. “What happened to his head?” I ask, pointing to the Band-Aid.

  “A crow got him,” he says. “Swooped down and pecked his head like it was a pumpkin.”

  Now I understand why our neighbor is obsessed with birds. But I’m not worried about Burgess. He knows better than to pick a fight with a crow. “I have to get going,” I say.

  “I’ll keep an eye out for him,” my neighbor calls out.

  I walk to the end of the block, a busy road with cars and buses. I can imagine a frog trying to get across the road. At night it would be quieter. I’ve seen deer at night. They walk really slowly out into the road, so cars will see them. Deer are smart. They’re urban deer. Burgess is smart too, an urban frog.

  My phone buzzes in my pocket. I turn back for home. Mom doesn’t like it when I’m late. She says that she, Hazel and I are all in this together. The three of us have to look out for each other. I liked it when Dad was here. He was good at looking after us. Dad always kept a baseball bat under the bed in case of intruders. I keep it under my bed now.

  I open the door.

  “Any luck?” asks Mom.

  “I put up all the posters,” I say. “If a frog doesn’t want to be found, he’s good at blending in.”

  “We got a call,” says Hazel.

  “You did?” My heart tap-dances in my chest.

  “Don’t get too excited,” says Mom. “It was a false alarm.”

  “Someone thought Lost Frog was a band,” says my sister. “They wanted to see if you’d play at their grad party.”

  “A band?” I ask.

  “Yeah, they thought it was some sort of really cool promotion.” My sister is standing at the stove, stirring a pot of milk. She’s crumbling cheese into it, and I realize she’s making my favorite, macaroni and cheese.

  My stomach rumbles.

  “Burgess isn’t a band,” I say, slumping at the kitchen table. “He’s my best friend.”

  The kitchen fills with silence for a few seconds. It’s never silent around my sister and my mom. I look up. Mom’s eyes are red like they were when Dad left. They were red for a long time. I don’t want her to be sad.

  “I’m starving,” I say.

  “Yeah, well, that’s why I’m making dinner,” says Hazel. “Mom says we can eat in front of the television and put something on Netflix.”

  Mom’s blowing her nose.

  “Yeah,” I say, “that would be awesome.”

  Hazel looks at me and smiles. The real deal, where it reaches her eyes and they crinkle up and disappear. Somehow I’ve said something right.

  Saturday morning, Mom leaves more posters for me on the kitchen table. I ask Hazel if she wants to ride over to the school playground. It’s five blocks from our house, and I can’t go if she doesn’t come with me.

  “I suppose,” she says.

  At the playground she puts her bike down under a tree and takes out her phone. She waves me away as if I’m a fly. I head to the other side of the school, over to the parking lot, where I haven’t put up any posters yet.

  When I turn the corner I see Aaron pushing his bike. I holler over to him, “Hey!”

  He looks up, startled. We usually only see each other in class. We’re not exactly buddies or anything. I walk over to him. “Whatcha doing?”

  “Nothing,” he says.

  “Where are you going?” I ask.

  “Nowhere.”

  Sometimes there are lessons at school on the weekends. Karate. But he doesn’t look as if he’s going inside. He’s wearing a red-checkered bathrobe today. Flannel. He’s just standing there, gripping the handles on his bike. Gripping them hard, white-knuckled.

  “You want to put up some posters?” I wave the staple gun in his direction.

  “Nah, I’m kind of busy,” he says.

  “Suit yourself.”

  He doesn’t look busy. At school the other day, I thought that maybe he wanted to be friends. Guess I was wrong. I get on my bike and ride across the playground. I put up a few posters. Whap! Whap! I love the sound of the staple gun. I glance over to see what Aaron’s doing.

  He’s on his bike. He’s wobbly. He puts his feet down. Wobble, wobble, stop. Wobble, wobble, stop. He looks like he just got his training wheels off. I laugh.

  A car turns into the parking lot.

  Aaron falls over.

  Just like that. He’s on the ground, and the bike is on top of him. The man in the car comes flying out the door and runs over to him. The man is bald. He’s got his hand on Aaron’s shoulder, and he’s pointing to his car like he’s offering him a ride.

  Stranger danger. My arms are tingling like they do when you hit your funny bone. I spin my bike around and pedal hard back to him.

  “Don’t get in the car!” I yell.

  They look up as I skid to a stop.

  “This your friend?” asks the bald man.

  “Yeah,” says Aaron.

  “We go to this school, and our moms know where we are,” I say, getting between him and Aaron.

  “I was just telling your friend that I have a first-aid kit in my car.”

  Aaron rubs his elbow.

  “You can leave now,” I tell Mr. Baldie.

  “Okay,” he says. “I’m going inside now. I teach karate in the gym. Been teaching here for about five years. If you need anything, just holler.”

  I feel kind of stupid.

  Aaron doesn’t seem to notice. He’s just looking at his sleeve where he ripped it.

  “What happened?” I ask.

  “I fell over,” he says.

  “What did you hit?”

  “Nothing,” he says. “I just fell over. I always fall over.”

  “You do?”

  “Yeah, that’s why I’m here. I’m trying to learn not to fall over.”

  “Oh,” I say.

  “My dad said I had to learn to ride a bike or else.” His face crumples, and his eyes get watery. His elbow is bleeding.

  “We can go to my house,” I say. “My mom has antibacterial ointment.”

  “Nah,” he says, sniffing. “I only had half an hour, and now it’s up. My dad will be mad if I’m late.”

  “But you didn’t learn how to ride yet.” As soon I say it, I feel bad, because that’s probably the last thing he wants t
o hear.

  “I have to go now,” he says, as if he’s waiting for me to go first.

  “Okay,” I say, pushing my bike back to Hazel.

  “See you later,” he yells.

  I wonder what it’s like having a dad that’s strict. I wonder what he thinks of Aaron’s bathrobes. It doesn’t quite fit. I thought Aaron came from a family of artists who let him do whatever he liked. It shows you can be in the same class and not really know anything about each other.

  “You ready?” asks Hazel, getting up from her tree.

  “Yeah,” I say. Then I ask, “Do you miss Dad?”

  “Of course,” she says. “Kind of a random question. Why do you ask?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe if he was around more, we’d do things with him on a Saturday morning rather than hanging out here.”

  “It was your idea,” she says.

  “Yeah, I know,” I say.

  Chapter Three

  Mom’s extended my geographical boundary for putting up posters. The dog park is okay, but not the community gardens where teenagers drink alcohol in the bushes. I can go as far as the corner coffee shop, where there’s a big board for community events, but then straight home.

  I turn the corner. I hear a cat meowing from a rooftop. It’s a big fluffy thing, gray fur that sticks out at all angles like it went through the rinse cycle. It teeters on the edge. It keeps yowling, as if it’s in trouble. I look around to see if anyone is going to save it.

  A car pulls up to the sidewalk. One of those tiny Smart cars. A woman jumps out. She has red toenails that gleam in the sunlight. She looks at the cat and then at me. “She does this all the time,” she says.

  “Oh,” I say.

  “Go inside,” she yells at the cat.

  The cat walks to the peak of the roof, looks down at us and yowls.

  She turns to me. “She likes to be up high. It gives her a better view of things.”

  I hold out the poster. “Can you ask your cat if she’s seen Burgess?”

  She reads the poster and calls up, “Louise, have you seen a green frog?”

  “Actually, he’s brown,” I say.

  “Looks green in the picture,” she says.