Wobar and the Quest for the Magic Calumet Read online

  WOBAR

  and the QUEST for the MAGIC CALUMET

  HENRY HOMEYER

  Illustrations by

  JOSHUA YUNGER

  Dedication

  FOR NARDI REEDER CAMPION, 1917–2007

  Author, editor, Friend

  Your help in editing Wobar made all the difference: you made me believe in the book and helped me to continue to keep looking for the right publisher. Thanks for the refrigerator magnet with that all-important quote from Calvin Coolidge:

  “Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan ‘Press On’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”

  www.bunkerhillpublishing.com

  by Bunker Hill Publishing Inc.

  285 river road, piermont

  New Hampshire 03779, USA

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Text Copyright ©2012 by Henry Homeyer

  Illustration Copyright ©2012 by Joshua Yunger

  All rights reserved.

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2012937199

  ISBN 9781593731083

  Designed by Joe Lops

  Printed in China

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part

  of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a

  retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic,

  mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior

  written permission of the publisher of this book.

  Contents

  1. Trouble at School

  2. Cougar!

  3. The Search Party

  4. The Underground River

  5. The Veterinarian Has Suspicions

  6. The Haunted House

  7. Hiding from the Police

  8. A Narrow Escape

  9. The Magic Calumet

  10. The Plan

  11. The Disguises

  12. Getting Started

  13. Sneaking Around

  14. Oscar the Hobo

  15. Catching the 10-56

  16. Riding the Rails

  17. Walking the Streets of New York

  18. Making Money

  19. Almost Getting a Hotel Room

  20. The Fire Escape

  21. The Hotel Fire

  22. Sheets and a Square Knot

  23. The Millionaire

  24. Dead Giveaway

  25. “Borrowing” a Boat

  26. Gunfire!

  27. The Wooden Crate

  28. Acme Air Freight

  29. Landed at Last

  30. The Fortune-Teller

  31. The Crystal Ball

  32. X Marks the Spot

  33. To the Swamp

  34. Perseverance Pays Off!

  35. Mr. Longsworth’s Hotel

  36. Telling All

  37. The Presidential Medal

  38. Paying Off Debts

  39. Going Home

  Postscript

  A note on illustrating (and reading) Wobar

  Acknowledgments

  CHAPTER 1

  Trouble at School

  “IN TWENTY-SIX YEARS of teaching fourth grade, I’ve never been bitten by a student before,” said Mrs. Murphy. “I’m not sure he belongs in our school.”

  Wobar’s teacher and the principal of Woodstown Elementary School sat facing his mother. it was the first day of school, and Wobar was already in trouble. Mrs. Murphy’s right hand was bandaged, and she had an angry scowl on her face.

  Mr. Benson, the principal, nodded. “I’ve looked at his records from his other schools. He’s always been a troublemaker, despite his good grades. Of course, he’s only been here one day.”

  Wobar’s mother sighed. “Yes, he’s had trouble before. He’s a good boy, and he means well, but kids make fun of him because of his name, and because of that mustache.”

  Mr. Benson cleared his throat. “This is an elementary school, so we have no official policy about mustaches, but I don’t think children should be coming to school with facial hair. I’m sure the school board will agree. He’ll have to cut it off.”

  “But you see,” said Wobar’s mother, “this is no ordinary mustache. And Wobar is no ordinary boy. I guess I’d better explain.

  “One cold winter morning I opened the door, and there he was, a newborn baby, wrapped in a blanket. His face was red with cold, but he wasn’t crying. He had a smile on his face.

  “Clenched in his tiny fist was a piece of paper, with the word “Wobar” written on it. He had a full head of hair, which is not unusual, but he also had a mustache. Unlike other newborns, his hair never fell out. Neither did the mustache.”

  Mrs. Murphy looked at her and said, “Well, that explains it. I thought he was wearing some kind of silly glue-on mustache and told him to take it off. When he wouldn’t, I tried to pull it off. It didn’t come. When I reached out to try again, he bit me and drew blood.”

  “His mustache is very sensitive,” Wobar’s mother said. “We’ve made him shave it off, and he says he can feel the pain of each hair being cut. The few times we’ve insisted, it grew back bigger and bushier in just a few hours. If he had shaved it this morning, for example, it would have been even bigger by lunch.”

  Mr. Benson and Mrs. Murphy exchanged glances. They looked doubtful. Wobar’s mother continued her story.

  “We called the police, but his birth mother was never found. We started calling him Wobar because of that paper, and never changed it when we adopted him,” said Wobar’s mother. “Wobar is supposed to rhyme with low bar, but kids call him Woe-bear or Wobare, and he gets mad.”

  Meanwhile, outside the window of Mr. Benson’s office, Wobar was hiding in the shrubbery. He had run away from school that morning and had been hiding all day. It was a warm September day, and the windows were open. He could hear every word being said.

  “Wobar is different than other children. At six months of age, he was walking and running around the house. At one year, he could talk. He could carry on a real conversation. and he was strong. Wobar could do things nobody else could. He was never afraid of anything or anybody. if we spanked him, he never cried. in fact, it didn’t even seem to hurt.

  “Wobar spends a lot of time by himself. Sometimes he goes off into the woods alone and stays all day. One time when he was just six, he was gone for three days. We had locked him in his room for doing something wrong. Well, that night he climbed out a window and ran away. We searched everywhere. The police and neighbors and friends searched the woods, but we never found him. When he came back, he said he was sorry. But he said that we should never, ever, lock him up again, or he would never come back. And we believed him.

  “So you see, Wobar is different. We love him, but we can’t make him be like other boys. Believe me, we’ve tried everything. I really worry about Wobar. He wanted so much to do well at school here. He didn’t want any trouble. But now that he has gotten in trouble, I just don’t know what to think. I hope he comes back home tonight.”

  Mr. Benson turned to Wobar’s mother. “He will have to behave himself if he is to attend this school. I don’t care how different he is. He will follow our rules. If he continually gets in trouble, I’ll have to expel him. This state still has a reform school for perpetual troublemakers. You need to make that very clear to him.”

  Wobar heard, and he understood. And he knew exactly what he had to do.

  CH
APTER 2

  Cougar!

  WOBAR WAS FAST. When he ran, nobody could catch him, not even his brother who was on the high school track team. So he didn’t worry when he ran from the school. School had just let out, and there were plenty of people around. A teacher spotted him and shouted “Stop!” but he kept on going. He knew that once he was in the woods, they would never find him.

  It was September, and the nights were already cold. The sky had clouded over, and it looked like rain. He was following a hiking trail that passed near the school and went from Maine to Georgia. He slowed down after a while, but he kept running at an easy pace. He had to cross two roads before he came to the big woods on Grantham Mountain. Each time he came to a road, he stopped and took a good look, checking carefully before dashing across. He didn’t want anyone to know where he was headed.

  Once Wobar had reached the big woods, he felt safe. Even though he didn’t know these particular woods very well, he could get along just fine. He carried matches and knew how to build a fire to cook on, or if he got cold. He knew the edible plants. Wobar liked living on his own in the woods.

  Wobar had never told anybody, but he could talk to animals. Well, not exactly. But he could understand what they were thinking, and they could understand what he was thinking—just like they were talking. That’s the way animals communicate with each other, since they can’t talk the way we do. He didn’t know how he was able to understand animals, he just always could, even when he was little. So he knew he would not be lonely. Animals liked Wobar.

  Wobar followed a small stream until he came to a deep pool that looked like the perfect place for catching trout. Wobar loved to fish. He always kept a fishhook and some line in his backpack, even when he went to school. And he had his Swiss army knife, a big one with all the gadgets.

  He used the saw blade on his knife to cut a small maple sapling for a rod and attached his line and a hook. He looked under a log and turned over a few rocks, and within a few minutes, he had several fat, juicy worms. He baited his hook and let the current pull it downstream, as it eddied around the rocks. Within an hour he had three nice trout. After cleaning them, he headed farther up the mountain to find shelter for the night.

  It was nearly dark when Wobar stopped. He smelled something different. Up ahead, a tree had fallen over near some large rocks. He guessed it was hiding the mouth of a cave. He sniffed again. There was a cave and a large animal inside. He put down his fish and approached slowly. He peered into the opening of the cave.

  “This is Wobar. I will do you no harm. May I enter?”

  There was no response. Wobar waited. No animal came out, nor did he hear any noise. So, cautiously, he crawled in. The cave was dark, but Wobar had always been able to see quite well in the dark, even when other people said it was pitch-dark. He looked around the cave and stood up. Suddenly, with a roar, a large animal leapt up from behind a rock and knocked him to the ground.

  They rolled over and over, the animal trying to bite him. It kicked, trying to scratch him. Wobar didn’t want to hurt it, so he grabbed it at the back of its neck and pinched a nerve. That paralyzed the animal for a moment. He saw that it was a cougar, one of the biggest and meanest of the wild cats found in America. This one was more than three feet long, not counting the tail, and must have weighed almost as much as he did.

  “I am Wobar. I will do you no harm,” he repeated, but this time in the language of cats.

  The cougar eyed Wobar suspiciously, and then said, “Sorry. You spoke to me first in the language of bears, who are my sworn enemies. Since you speak my language, you are welcome to my cave. My name is Roxie.”

  Within a couple of minutes, Roxie was able to get up and move around. She was still surprised to meet a boy who could speak her language and who knew how to fight so well. Wobar explained that he had run away from home and wished to spend a few days in the cave, or at least until he knew no one was following him.

  “That’ll be fine,” said Roxie. “It gets a little lonely living alone. You’re welcome to stay here for a few days.”

  Wobar went outside and broke off some small branches from pine trees to make a bed to sleep on. He was careful not to take too many from one tree, so that if a search party came, they wouldn’t notice what he’d done.

  When it got dark, Wobar built a fire inside the cave. It was smoky at first, but then the smoke found a way out though a crack in the ceiling. Wobar roasted the trout and shared it with Roxie. After dinner together, they sat around the campfire telling stories until late at night. When he got tired, Wobar rested his head on Roxie’s chest, and she began to purr. Before long, they were both sound asleep.

  CHAPTER 3

  The Search Party

  ROXIE, IT SEEMS, was the last cougar on Grantham Mountain. Her mate had been killed two years ago by hunters who were out looking for coyotes that were killing sheep. Her children had all gone away because they said there was nothing to do on Grantham Mountain. They had gone off to look for excitement somewhere else. Roxie had heard from a hawk that her youngest son had been caught in a steel leghold trap and was now in a zoo in the next state.

  So Roxie lived all by herself in the cave on Grantham Mountain. Sometimes she considered leaving, but didn’t know where else she could go. each year, more houses and roads were built, and Grantham Mountain was one of the few places left where she could still live in peace. But sometimes she was lonely, so she was very glad to have Wobar as a guest in her cave, even if only for a few days.

  Wobar liked Roxie and was comfortable living with her in the cave. He went fishing every day. One night, Roxie stole a chicken from a neighboring farm, and Wobar roasted it on the fire. Wobar collected wild blackberries and dug up the edible roots of plants and roasted them like potatoes.

  Early one morning, Wobar awoke to the sounds of voices and dogs barking. A search party was approaching the cave. Roxie had warned him the day before that a hawk had reported seeing a search party not far from Grantham Mountain.

  “Don’t worry, Roxie,” he had said. “They might look for me in barns or abandoned farmhouses, but no one would look on Grantham Mountain. Anybody knows a boy couldn’t survive long on Grantham Mountain.”

  But he had been wrong. Soon he heard them nearby, and it was too late to run.

  “Let me handle this,” said Roxie. “I’ll scare them off if they try to enter the cave.

  “But they’re probably carrying guns,” said Wobar. “You could be killed!”

  There was little time to think, however, as the search party quickly arrived at the cave. “Hey, Bob,” someone shouted. “There’s a cave up here. Wobar! Wobar! Are you in there? Come on out! It’s time to go home!” A big bearded face looked in the opening of the cave. The man had a flashlight and a bloodhound on a leash.

  Roxie snarled and ran toward them. The dog leapt at her, but she knocked him aside with one of her powerful paws. Suddenly, there was a deafening roar, and a shotgun blast knocked Roxie to the ground. She got up and scrambled into the cave, trying to get away. A moment later, the gun was fired into the cave. Wobar was hiding behind a big rock. Shotgun pellets bounced off the walls. He closed his eyes, lay low, and hoped for the best. The man fired three more times.

  “Cougar!” the man shouted. “I’ve wounded it, but I don’t think I killed it. We’d better block off this cave, or it could come out and attack us.”

  The men rolled a huge boulder in front of the cave. The sunlight disappeared, and their voices sounded distant.

  “Well, he can’t be in there with a cougar, that’s for sure,” said one. “We better keep looking. That dog of mine sure acts like he smelled him. Maybe we’ll find his bones. Cougar might have gotten him.” Wobar lay still until the voices faded and the men were gone.

  Roxie was bleeding badly and lay unconscious on the cave floor. Wobar needed more light to see her wounds better, so he dug a small flashlight out of his pack.

  “Roxie, are you all right? Roxie, say something!” There was no an
swer. Wobar took off his T-shirt and cut it into strips with his Swiss army knife so he could bandage her wounds. One ear was almost torn off, and she had a huge wound on her shoulder. Wobar pressed hard on her wounds, trying to stop the bleeding. She didn’t move. He bandaged the wounds and then went to open the cave.

  Wobar was almost as strong as a full-grown man, but he couldn’t budge the boulder that closed off the cave. The men had rolled it downhill and jammed it against a fallen tree in front of the cave. Wobar knew he had to get Roxie to a vet or she would die. But they were trapped inside, and there was no way out.

  Wobar stopped to think. Their cave went deep into the mountain, and in the far back there was a river. Water ran through the cave, then disappeared underground. That river had to go somewhere, and he was pretty sure that it flowed into the trout stream. He wondered if it would be possible to escape from the cave by swimming underwater.

  Wobar was a strong swimmer, and he could hold his breath for a long time. But he didn’t know how far he’d have to swim underwater to get out. And it would be totally dark. He tossed a stick in the water and watched as it swirled around and disappeared. He shuddered.

  He went back to see how Roxie was doing. Although the bleeding had slowed, her breathing sounded funny, and she was still unconscious. Once again, Wobar tried to move the boulder, this time using a branch to pry it loose. But it was no use. He couldn’t get out. Unless the men came back soon, Roxie would surely die, and he would slowly starve to death.

  CHAPTER 4

  The Underground River

  WOBAR STOOD BY the entrance to the cave wondering what to do. He listened for the men, willing them to come back. If they did, he would gladly turn himself in so he could save Roxie. He would holler and bang stones on the boulder to get their attention. But there was no sound from outside, no sign of the men coming back. He knew he would have to act fast to save Roxie. He went to the back of the cave to see if he could escape by the river.