Lost in Bermooda Read online

  Lost in Bermooda

  Written and Illustrated by Mike Litwin

  ALBERT WHITMAN & COMPANY

  CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

  for Xander

  CONTENTS

  1. The Big Trinket

  2. Dakota

  3. The Porter House

  4. The Hortica Center

  5. The Raft

  6. WKUD

  7. The Hawk

  8. The Warehouse

  9. The Balloon

  10. The Boomflower Festival

  11. The Storm

  12. A New Day

  It was another perfect afternoon on the island of Bermooda. The sun was perfectly bright, the breeze was perfectly warm, and the waves sounded perfectly lovely as they rolled upon the soft, sandy beach. It was all perfect, just like every other day. It was the kind of perfection that made it seem like nothing in this tropical paradise could ever change. But life was about to change, and it would all start with a shout.

  “Chuck! Come back! You’re not supposed to go down there!”

  Patty Porter chased after her brother, who was quickly making his way down the cliff to the Boneyard. That was the one place on the whole island where their mother had told the two calves not to go. “Come back here or I’m telling Mama! Do you hear me?” Patty yelled.

  Chuck heard her just fine, but he didn’t stop. “Come on, don’t be such a scaredy-cow!” he yelled back. “Besides, it’s the middle of the day. What could happen? I’m going, with or without you.”

  “Fine! You can go without me!” Patty huffed. Off she trotted, until she and her pink flowered dress disappeared into the palm trees. Chuck didn’t care. Patty was always getting him in trouble anyway. Today he had bigger things on his mind. Today he was going to find a trinket.

  Now Chuck would never admit this, but the Boneyard was a spooky place, even in the daytime. Chuck could almost feel ghostly things watching him as he tiptoed around the ancient shipwreck resting quietly in the sand. The cows of Bermooda called this shipwreck “the Boneyard” because its massive timbers jutted out of the ground like some giant, creepy skeleton.

  Most of the wreck had been moved up to the island’s museum, but sometimes—if you were lucky—you could still find a little something buried in the sand. Something interesting. Something mysterious. Something left over from those legendary creatures called “hu’mans.” A trinket. That’s what he was looking for today.

  The little cow poked a boat paddle around in the sand searching for stuff that he thought might be from the old shipwreck. After an hour or so, he stretched out his blanket and carefully placed all of the items he found on top. He wrinkled his nose and frowned as he surveyed his collection. All he had was a chunk of driftwood, a broken clamshell, three blunt whale teeth, and a sea sponge that looked a lot like a snout.

  “Rats!” he mumbled. Last month, his whole class had been so impressed when Muster Cloverhoof brought in the old hu’man spoon he found in the Boneyard. After all daring thing for a calf to venture down into this haunted place. How could Chuck go back with nothing to show for it?

  He had hoped to find something that would impress everyone and win a few friends. Chuck didn’t have many friends. He liked to think it was because he was such a daring loner, but it was really because he spent much of his time daydreaming and talking about places that didn’t exist. He imagined fantastic worlds over the horizon, far beyond the quiet shores of Bermooda.

  This old shipwreck made him think of the amazing world the hu’mans must have come from. He had hoped that coming to the Boneyard would lead to something exciting, but so far he had found nothing but junk on an empty beach.

  “There’s no adventure here,” he grumbled to himself. “Not in the Boneyard or anywhere else on this boring island.”

  Then he saw something odd. Way out across the shallow pool inside the shoals, the waves were breaking funny. Something—or someone—was lying on one of the sandbars! Chuck hadn’t found anything on the beach and he did not want to go home empty-hooved. Should he dare go out there and see what it was? A warm breeze tickled his snout. He twitched his tail as he wondered.

  Chuck pulled a plank from the shipwreck and dragged it to the shore. He bunched up his blanket full of junk and put it on the plank. He sat on the plank behind the blanket bundle and paddled the board like a canoe across the calm water. As he floated closer to the sandbar, he started to worry about what he would find there. Was it just a piece of a boat? An injured cow? A hungry shark playing dead? By the time Chuck reached the sand, he was terrified.

  Chuck slowly inched closer to the lumpy blob lying in the surf. It wasn’t very big. In fact, it was about the same size as him. He raised his paddle slowly and carefully. His paddle hovered inches above the lump and was just close enough to tap the blob ever so gently. He gave the lump a firm nudge, and—

  Nothing! It didn’t move at all. Whatever it was, it looked dead as it just laid there on top of a floating orange ring. Chuck leaned in close to get a better look. Somehow, this thing felt familiar. It was some kind of animal, but it was definitely not a shark. It was wearing a shirt like him, but it was definitely not a cow. It had no horns, no hooves, and no sharp teeth. This thing was soft and pink and about the same size as him. Arms, legs, some yellow hair…

  Chuck gasped when he suddenly realized what this thing was. In his shock, he lost his balance and stumbled, falling face down in the water and waking up the creature in front of him. He lifted his snout from the sea foam and found himself staring face-to-face with the most terrifying thing he’d ever seen.

  The creature let out a loud scream. Chuck let out a shrieking moo. The creature dove under the orange ring. Chuck rushed out of the water. He grabbed his blanket and scrambled under it, scattering his junk collection all over the ground.

  He had gone in search of a hu’man trinket. But instead he found a real, live hu’man!

  “Don’t eat me!” Chuck cried. Cowering beneath his blanket, he wept and wailed and wished he’d never gone to the Boneyard.He had never seen a creature like this in all his life.

  He’d read about them in his history books. He’d seen their tools in the museum. He’d drawn them from his imagination. But no one he knew had ever seen one in real life before. This was a cow-eating, bone-crunching, fire-breathing hu’man! A real one!

  But after a few minutes, Chuck couldn’t help but notice that he had, in fact, not been eaten yet. He peeked out from under his blanket to see the hu’man still hiding under its ring.

  Why is that thing hiding? Chuck asked himself. Why hasn’t it eaten me? Then another thought occurred to him. Why am I hiding? This isn’t what a brave adventurer would do!

  Chuck gathered all his courage and cast off his blanket. Grabbing his boat paddle, he ran toward the monster with his face scrunched up tight to look like he wasn’t afraid.

  “Don’t eat me!” the hu’man cried out.

  Chuck paused. What? Wasn’t that what he just said? Was this thing…afraid of him?

  “Who are you?” Chuck demanded. “What are you doing here?”

  “Where am I?” the thing looked around.

  “Never mind!” Chuck snapped. “I know what you are! You’re a hu’man! A monster! You’re here to scorch me with fire and eat me for dinner! Well, not if I have anything to do with it!” Chuck felt bolder and bolder as this monster trembled in the sand.

  He shook his paddle in the thing’s face to let him know who was boss. “What is your name, hu’man?” he bellowed. But the hu’man just stared at him with wide eyes, breathing shakily. And then something really strange happened—the monster began to cry.

  “Hey,” Chuck said, lowering his paddle. “Hey, don’t cry. Stop it! Monsters don’t cry.”

  “I
’m not a monster,” the thing blubbered. “I’m just a kid! Please don’t eat me!”

  Chuck looked down at the weeping hu’man and felt very confused. For nine years, all he had ever heard was that hu’mans were terrible cow-eating monsters. But this thing didn’t look like any monster Chuck had imagined. It didn’t breathe fire. It didn’t have a pointy tail or long fangs. This thing was lost and confused and scared that Chuck was going to eat him!

  “Hey,” Chuck said again. “It’s all right. Look, I’m not going to hurt you. See? Come on, look at me.”

  The hu’man looked up at him with a tear-streaked face. “You’re…a talking cow!”

  Chuck curled his nose and raised an eyebrow. What a silly thing to say. “Of course I can talk. Can’t everyone?” He sat down in the sand next to the terrified hu’man.

  “I’m Chuck Porter,” he said, holding out a hoof. “Welcome to Bermooda.”

  The hu’man slowly reached his hand out and shook Chuck’s hoof. He looked around him like he was searching for something and then finally said, “Umm…Dakota. My name is Dakota. Where did you say I am?”

  “Bermooda,” Chuck repeated. “It’s an island. I live with my family right over there,” he said, pointing a hoof over his shoulder.

  The hu’man looked down the coastline. It was thick with green trees and colorful flowers. Jewel-green waves rushed along its gleaming white beaches. Behind the trees, a giant mountain stretched up into the bright blue sky. Everything was lush and beautiful. It looked like…paradise.

  “Is everyone here a cow like you?” he asked.

  “Not everyone,” Chuck said. “There are pigs, monkeys, birds…all kinds of folks. But I can say there’s no one on this island like you. Where did you come from?”

  There was a long pause before Dakota answered. “Umm. I was on a boat with my family. Yeah, we were out in the ocean, and I guess I just…fell off.”

  Chuck looked at Dakota’s soft pink fingers and toes. He still did not understand why this hu’man did not look as fearsome as he expected.

  “Where are your claws?” Chuck asked.

  “I don’t have any claws,” Dakota answered.

  “What about fire? Can you breathe fire?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Chuck let out a disappointed sigh. So far, hu’mans were not turning out to be very impressive. “Well, what can you do?”

  Dakota thought for a moment, then stuck out his tongue and touched it to the tip of his nose. “I can do that.”

  Chuck grinned and touched his tongue to his own nose. “Me too!”

  The two of them laughed. What an odd thing to have in common!

  “So…are there more hu’mans out there?” Chuck asked excitedly.

  “Sure,” Dakota said. “Lots of them.”

  “Tell me more!” Chuck begged.

  They sat in the sand while Dakota told Chuck more about the hu’man world. It was an unbelievable place filled with moving pictures on glowing screens and buildings so tall they scraped the sky. It was the kind of world Chuck had only dreamed of.

  “Do they have any cows there?” Chuck asked.

  “Umm…well,” Dakota thought it’d be best not to mention what life is like for cows back home. So after a short pause he said, “No. Not really.”

  Chuck was finding himself wonderfully entertained, and he decided at once that this hu’man must come home with him. He thought it would be rather amazing to have his very own hu’man. Even if it was just for a little while.

  “Okay, Dakota,” Chuck said, getting back up on his hooves. “You’re coming home with me.” He began collecting his junk back up in the blanket.

  “Home? With you?” Dakota asked, with a look of disbelief.

  “Well, you can’t stay here.” Chuck said as he dragged the plank back to the edge of the sandbar. “But you can stay with my family until we find a way to get you back to your home.”

  Dakota really wasn’t sure what to do, but he knew this talking cow was right. It was getting late and he couldn’t stay here on this sandbar forever. So he climbed onto the wooden plank with Chuck and paddled back to the beach.

  They were about to climb the hill leaving the Boneyard when Chuck had a sudden thought.

  “Wait!” he said. “We’ll have to hide you. They’ll never understand.”

  “They who?” Dakota asked.

  “The herd,” Chuck said. “They’re the cows who lead Bermooda. A council. They make all the laws and big decisions. I don’t know what they’ll do if they find out there’s a hu’man on the island!” Chuck’s tail twitched as he thought for a moment. “I’ve got an idea! We’ll make you some cowmaflague.”

  “Cow-ma-what?” Dakota repeated.

  “A disguise!” Chuck said. He dumped the driftwood, clamshell, whale’s teeth, and sea sponge back onto the ground and began tearing his fuzzy blanket. “We’re going to turn you into a cow!”

  “There’s no way this is going to work.”

  Dakota clomped along in the disguise Chuck had made. Strips of Chuck’s blanket had been torn and pieced together into what looked like cow pajamas, complete with a hood and a swishy little tail. Coconut shells had been cut to look like hooves and tied to the outsides of his hands and feet. Chuck used the whale teeth he had found to make horn buds, and the sea sponge was tied like a mask across Dakota’s face.

  It was terrible. When Dakota looked down, he didn’t see a cow. He saw a kid wearing a horribly stitched cow costume.

  “Leave everything to me,” Chuck said. “I have a plan. Just relax. Don’t walk so fast. And try not to sweat so much. Cows don’t sweat like that.”

  Dakota wasn’t sure how to relax with Chuck giving him so many orders. And how could he make himself sweat less? After a long walk that seemed to last forever, they finally stopped at a bush of hibiscus flowers underneath a wooden sign that read, The Porter House.

  Behind the sign stood the craziest-looking house Dakota had ever seen. There were lots of windows, boardwalks, and odd-shaped rooms sticking out all over the place. It looked like a bunch of shacks and bamboo huts had all been stuck together to make one big mega-house. It was huge.

  “Wow!” Dakota said. “You must have a really big family.”

  “Porters aren’t the only ones living here,” Chuck explained.

  “It’s our house, but there’s lots of extra rooms and other folks have lived in them for years.”

  Chuck and Dakota had arrived just in time for dinner. They entered to find that everyone had already taken their seats at the long dinner table. In addition to cows, lots of other animals had gathered for the meal, including a small green parrot with a nervous twitch, an old gray porcupine with glasses, and a manic orange monkey who couldn’t seem to stop laughing.

  “Everyone, this is Dakota.” Chuck said. “He’s…visiting.”

  “Visiting? From where?” Chuck’s sister Patty asked. “Why haven’t I seen you at school?”

  “His family doesn’t live on the island.” Chuck said. “They live on a boat. Out at sea. He’s a…sea cow. Can he stay with us for a little while, Mama?”

  Mama Porter’s eyes were kind and loving. She had a warm smile that almost made Dakota feel right at home, even as he stood there trying not to sweat. She didn’t seem suspicious of him at all. Was she really fooled by this costume?

  “Well, Dakota, it’s a pleasure to have you,” she said in a gentle voice. “We’re about to have dinner if you’ll join us.”

  Chuck and Dakota sat down at the table, which had a delicious-looking spread of dates, nuts, apples, bananas, mangoes, corn, and tomatoes. Dakota’s stomach growled. With everything that had happened today, Dakota had forgotten how hungry he was.

  Across the table from Dakota sat an older lady cow in a very tidy dress, with her napkin perfectly folded in her lap. She offered a bowl of dates to the small green parrot perched next to her. “Would you like some dates, Ditto?”

  Ditto was an awfully loud and squawky bird, and h
e never seemed to start a sentence without repeating the last thing someone else said. “Would I like some dates? Would I? Would I? Yes! Thank you, Miss Magnolia! Moohalo!” He dove his beak into the bowl as Miss Magnolia smiled.

  Chuck passed a bowl of bright green grass blades to Dakota.

  “What’s this?” Dakota whispered.

  “Bermooda grass,” Chuck said.

  “I can’t eat this!” he whispered back, a little too loudly. Everyone at the table stopped eating and looked at Dakota.

  “What I mean is…I’m…umm…allergic. Allergic to Bermooda grass,” Dakota sputtered out. “Could I just have some fruit, please?”

  “You must have a very unique family, Dakota,” said the elderly porcupine as Dakota munched on an apple. He peered at Dakota through his glasses. “Living on the water…allergic to Bermooda grass…and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a cow with blue eyes before. And you seem to be more fuzzy than furry.”

  Dakota cleared his throat and laughed nervously. This spiny porcupine was just as sharp as he looked. “Yes, sir, we’re umm…kind of a different breed.”

  Yeah, Chuck thought to himself. A really different breed.

  “Now, Quincy,” Miss Magnolia scolded the old porcupine, “that’s no proper way to treat a guest. Guests should be treated with as much respect as the Wellingtons themselves.”

  “Who are the Wellingtons?” Dakota asked.

  “Who are the Wellingtons?” Ditto repeated loudly. “You don’t know who the Wellingtons are?”

  “Dakota’s a sea cow,” Chuck said. “The Wellingtons don’t own the sea.”

  “Why not? They own everything else,” snorted Chuck’s Uncle Bo, a sloppy-looking cow with a huge belly that shook when he talked. “They own the grass fields, the coconut grove, the windspinners…plenty of moo’lah in that family.”

  “We’re quite blessed with what we have,” Mama Porter cut in. “We have our family, our friends, and our pride. That’s good enough for me.”