"Overstay isay ayay oopyheadpay," Cadet McCoy said.
"I bet anything there will be cameras facing the audience," Seamus Finn said.
"This thing is life-size," I said. "You think they invited forty-five thousand people to see the circus?"
By this time we were being herded up the ramps and through the corridors, then through tunnels that led into the amphitheater. When we came out into the stands, we all said the same thing. "Wow!" is what we said.
CHAPTER 73
Wow!
The stands were almost full. It was a sea of people in togas. And, just as Seamus had predicted, there were cameras on cranes, lenses aimed at the audience. The studio employees directed us to a section with the words "Brown-Sparrow" taped to the seatbacks. They were good seats, right down in front. We'd get a good view of everything.
It looked as though everyone in Los Angeles were there. We could see where the kids from the Harmonious Reality School, Iggy's school, were sitting. They had drawn flowers on their togas with crayons and poster paint, and were holding up a banner that said nosce te ipsum. Crazy Wig was in the crowd, wearing his toga, and also his fur hat with the buffalo horns. High up in the stands, I saw a bunch of fat guys—their horn-rimmed glasses reflecting the sun—it had to be those cops from outer space.
There were vendors moving through the crowd selling sausages. The pretty actress whose life had been ruined by Sholmos Bunyip was selling Roman doughnuts. And I heard my father's voice shouting, "Ligula, ligula, ligula! Get your Imperial Shoe-la Hoops! Ludere, ludere, ludere!" My mother was selling them too. There were balloon vendors, and guys selling cups of orange juice. The Leprechaun Man was wandering up and down the stadium steps, talking to himself about the Little people.
Everybody was cheering and hollering. The Brown-Sparrow band, wearing togas and shiny gold helmets, was on the field, marching and playing.
On the special platform called the suggestum, where the emperor sat, was Sholmos Bunyip, with the odious Bruce beside him, the two of them surrounded by movie stars. He waved his hand, the Brown-Sparrow band marched off the field, and a bunch of guys with tremendous trumpets came out and blew a fanfare. Then Sholmos Bunyip stood up, and spoke into an ancient Roman microphone. We heard his voice over loudspeakers. "Let the games begin!" he said.
CHAPTER 74
The Games Begin
First came the circus parade. Clowns first, lots of them, slapping their big shoes on the sand, pushing baby carriages with little clowns in them, slapping each other with slapsticks, stumbling and bumping into one another, doing somersaults and cartwheels. Great clowns! Then there were horses, beautiful circus horses, with bareback-riding ladies in sequined tights. Camels came out, with bright red cloths trimmed with jingle bells over their humps. Then acrobats, tumbling and jumping.
The arena was filling with people in sparkling costumes, animals—and then the elephant parade! Sixteen elephants, each holding the tail of the elephant before it in its trunk—the biggest elephant first, and at the end a baby elephant—lumbered around the arena. And there was a calliope playing! A steam calliope! This is the most amazing, most unexpected musical instrument ever. It's like an organ, and at the same time it's like huge whistles, and it's played with a keyboard like a piano, and it's run by steam pressure, and it's loud, and it has a beautiful hollow hooting-whistling sound that's not like anything else in the world.
"This is good," I said to Seamus Finn. "You know, Sholmos Bunyip is obviously evil and everything, but it's pretty nice of him to throw this free circus for everybody."
"It's also a lot cheaper to hire the circus for a day than pay forty-five thousand extras," Seamus said. "That's what the cameras are for."
"oh," I said.
"obviously they're making a movie set in ancient Rome, and they need shots of the audience for some scene set in the Coliseum. Pretty clever trick, huh?"
Just then, through the doors at one end of the arena, came Don the mammoth, all by himself. And riding on his head was our boy Al! The crowd gasped when they saw Don, saw how inconceivably big he was—there was complete silence as he walked out into the middle of the ring. And then everybody went wild.
The Brown-Sparrow cadets went even wilder. I am sure not one kid, except for Seamus and me, knew that Al Crane, the quiet little guy that nobody paid attention to, was with the circus. He had on a great costume, with a gold turban, and when he made Don the mammoth do a walk around the whole arena, he stood up on the huge head and bowed as he passed our part of the stands. Kids were yelling and yelling his name, and throwing their hats in the air. Al was smiling a big smile.
It was hard to believe that the actual show would be better than the parade—but it was. Great tall poles, steadied by guy wires, had been set up to support the trapezes and the high wire. The aerialists climbed and climbed up long ladders, and we held our breath, and they swung and flew without a net. The wirewalkers were balancing so far up, we had to bend our necks all the way back to watch them. The trapeze artists were swinging and catching each other. The calliope was playing.
And then lions appeared out of trapdoors in the floor. This was a special feature of the Coliseum. They used to have lions and other wild animals pop out of trapdoors for the purpose of fighting with gladiators and eating unfortunates who had been captured in wars, or were disliked by the emperor.
But these lions were not going to eat anyone—we hoped. They were not inside a cage, though, as they would have been in a regular circus. The parapet around the arena was built to the same height as the original Roman one, and that had been scientifically designed to be just barely too high for the average lion to jump up into the seats and eat people. So Clive Montague was able to do his act with the lions running loose all around the arena, which they seemed to be enjoying. It was really impressive, because the lions could get away from him if they wanted to. Also, he did not have the option of running outside the cage if they got feisty.
And, sure enough, some of the lions tried to jump up the wall and join the audience—and it looked like they could almost make it. All this was going on while the aerial acrobats were up there doing their stuff, and Clive was the only human on the floor of the arena. It was exciting and scary, and pretty incredible that he was able to get all the big cats to perch on their stands, jump through hoops, come to him when called, and allow him to play with them and put his hands in their mouths. He didn't put his head in a lion's mouth, but that was a tiny defect in an otherwise highly satisfactory performance.
CHAPTER 75
Pretty Good Show
This had to be better than the Roman circus, and we didn't have to watch anybody get eaten, which I considered a plus, though some cadets expressed an opposite opinion.
"Pretty good show." A voice in my ear. It was Billy the Phantom Bellboy, sitting next to me, completely invisible.
Clive Montague had chased the lions into their chute, the acrobats were climbing down the ladders, and they were getting ready for the chariot race.
"Did you know that in Roman times, they could flood the arena floor?" Billy asked me.
I knew that.
"Did you know this one is built just the same?"
"Been doing more snooping?" I asked Billy.
"I have," Billy said. "And did you know that Sholmos Bunyip has had a tunnel built that connects the arena to the turtle pond behind his office?"
"Why would he do that? Wait! The turtle pond where he communicates with Kkhkktonos?"
"Yep," Billy said. "The only two places where the nasty old earth-god seems able to emerge from underground are that pond and the La Brea Tar Pits."
"And now he will be able to emerge here," I said.
"And did you know that there's a full moon tonight?" I knew that.
"But did you know that this will be the twelve thousandth full moon since the last time it happened?"
"It? Happened?"
"It."
"Happened?"
"Well, tried to happen. Th
e resurgence of the old nonorder," Billy said. "You know, the thing Kkhkktonos wants to happen, where civilization is gone in a flash and life is all about mean big animals crunching little weaker animals in their jaws, and Kkhkktonos reigns supreme. Bunyip thinks Kkhkktonos is going to make him king of all creation, but I bet he gets eaten in the first fifteen minutes."
"Wait, and you're saying that the twelve thousandth full moon since the last time..."
"Means you're on, Neddie. Tonight, you get to do your stuff."
"You sure about this?" I asked Billy.
"Fairly sure."
"How come Melvin didn't tell me about this?" I asked.
"I dunno. Maybe he forgot," Billy said.
CHAPTER 76
He Forgot?
The chariot race was exciting, but I was distracted and couldn't fully enjoy it. When it was over, Sholmos Bunyip spoke into the ancient Roman microphone again. "This concludes the circus. International Mammon Studios thanks you for your attendance. The next time you visit our amphitheater, you will all bow down to me as your king—and the games will be rather more exciting. Please file out in an orderly manner, and return your togas to the costume department on the way out."
I thought this speech confirmed what Billy had told me. Bunyip was getting ready to be installed as king of everything—Kkhkktonos was about to make his comeback.
When the bus brought us back to Brown-Sparrow, I went to find Melvin.
"Billy the Phantom Bellboy says that tonight is the twelve thousandth full moon since the last time Kkhkktonos tried to resurge," I said.
"Wow, that's some news," Melvin said.
"It's going to happen at that coliseum they built," I said.
"Makes sense," Melvin said. "Probably they'll have a little ceremony before they go out and start unleashing chaos, kicking over buses, biting people in half, and all that."
"So, I figure I'd better go there and ... what is it exactly I'm supposed to do?"
"Put a stop to it, obviously," Melvin said. "We can't have enormous carnivores running all over town."
"What do I do, just tell them to cut it out?"
"You could try that," Melvin said.
"Are you coming with me?"
"I'd like to, of course," Melvin said. "But I have to go with Crazy Wig. Besides, this is something you have to do alone."
"You're wearing a bowling shirt. Why are you wearing a bowling shirt? And that's a bowling ball bag, isn't it? Are you going bowling? Civilization may be ending tonight, and you're going bowling?"
"We're up against another team of shamans from West Covina. It will be the match of the year. I wish you could come."
"But ... what about me?"
"Of course, we're terribly proud of you, being a shaman and so young and all."
"I'm not a shaman!"
"You keep saying that. You'll be fine. You can handle this."
"What makes you so sure? How do you know I can handle it?"
"Because you are the guy with the turtle."
CHAPTER 77
Twelve Thousandth Full Moon
The moon was just rising as I entered the coliseum. Slipping into the studio grounds had been easy. There didn't appear to be anyone around. I made my way up the ramps, and through the corridors, and then into the amphitheater.
There were big lights illuminating the arena. It had been flooded, filled with water, and was the size of a small lake. In the reflected light, I could see that the stands were full, but not with people in togas. The whole place was filled with gigantic predators: cave lions, huge bears, saber-tooth cats, and lots and lots of dire wolves. They were standing, some of them with their bodies spanning two or three rows of seats, and all of them perfectly still. They looked like statues, but they were real. I could see them breathing, and I could smell them. Several thousand dire wolves put out an unforgettable aroma. All of them were gazing into the arena, their eyes glowing.
The animals seemed to be in some kind of trance—they paid no attention to me, and I was able to move among them. It was amazing how big some of them were, especially close up. I made my way down to the parapet at the edge of the arena.
Sholmos Bunyip, wearing a gold Roman breastplate and a gold helmet, was standing on the suggestum, chanting and mumbling. Most of what he was saying was gibberish and nonsense syllables, but now and then there was a phrase I could understand.
"Humma hummma ... goo goo ... manifest destiny ... waka waka ... power to the proletariat ... ish kabibble ... new world order ... remember the Maine ... hoo hoo ... thousand points of light ... we don't want to fight, but by jingo ... oop shoop ... guns or butter ... lebensraum ... no child left behind ... city on a hill ... I feel your pain ... walla walla bing bang ... day that will live in infamy ... who put the overalls in Mrs. Murphy's chowder."
He was clean out of his mind, glassy-eyed, and a little scarier than the thousands of prehistoric carnivores listening to his weird speech. I knew what he was doing. He was the warm-up guy. He was getting the crowd ready for the appearance of Kkhkktonos. The animals were not in a trance—they were rapt, they were focused. Every glowing red eye was fixed on a spot in the middle of the fake lake, every breath was restrained, every tiny carnivorous brain was waiting, anticipating.
It felt a little lonely, being the only rational creature, and also the most likely snack, in the midst of all those meat-eaters. I really couldn't see any way that I was going to leave that place uneaten and in one piece. To my own surprise, the idea didn't bother me as much as I would have thought. If I am going to be eaten, then eaten I will be, I thought. But first I had to do my turtle-hero thing ... and I still didn't know what it was!
The moon rose over the top of the coliseum. Little waves appeared on the surface of the water. Then it began to bubble and boil. Wisps of vapor rose. Bunyip was babbling faster and louder. The animals were breathing heavier.
The water began to swirl. There was a dark vortex right in the middle of it. It got darker.
"Kkhkktonos! Kkhkktonos! Kkhkktonos!" Bunyip was saying. The animals were breathing noisily.
Then a waterspout. It got higher and higher. Something dark was emerging.
"KKHKKTONOS! KKHKKTONOS! KKHKKTONOS!"
Snort. Roar. Rumble. Pant.
"KKHKKTONOS!"
He was rising up. Very big. Black. More black than black. Darker than the darkest darkness. A black hole in the blackest black there ever was. Pulsating, shimmering, sucking at my eyes. And big! So big! And so bad! This was Kkhkktonos, no doubt about it, and he was no one to mess with.
Bunyip was shrieking, the animals were shrieking, Kkhkktonos was shining, if you can imagine something shining with darkness. He was towering up, higher than the top of the amphitheater. He radiated power—you could feel it. Definitely no one to mess with. The animals were stirring, roaring, and bellowing. The wolf stink was overpowering. Bunyip had fainted.
And then I, Neddie Wentworthstein, having no idea what I was doing, or why, messed with him. I jumped up on the parapet, holding my turtle in my fist, and shouted, "I am the guy! I am the guy with the turtle!"
CHAPTER 78
I Am the Guy
Everything went quiet. Dead quiet. I heard a few droplets of water splash to the surface of the flooded arena. Then, silence. Kkhkktonos towered over everything. None of the animals was breathing. Time was standing still. Then, I heard someone singing, softly. I knew the song—it was the one I had sung with the great turtle. I wondered where it was coming from, and who could be singing it. It was me! I sang louder. My voice filled the huge amphitheater. I felt powerful. I didn't know what I was doing or why, but I felt that if I kept singing I could make Kkhkktonos shrivel, vanish, sink out of sight.
And then Kkhkktonos spoke. He spoke in a voice and in a language not heard on earth in thousands of years. It was pain to hear it, way deep in my ears. It was a black voice, thick and sticky and burning like hot lava. Ugly, creepy, filthy voice. And even though it sounded like air escaping from a huge ballo
on, I understood what he said.
"Somebody, eat that kid."
Several thousand dire wolves lunged, and at the same moment, I launched myself, still singing, into the air, and executed a very good dive, right into the water—where Kkhkktonos was!
The wolves swarmed into the water after me. They were good swimmers, the wolves, and they caught up with me right away. They paddled madly through the water, open-mouthed, their enormous teeth flashing. And some of them were on me in seconds, snapping and biting.
But they were hardly able to put a scratch on my carapace. Their fangs glanced off the scutes that made up the outer layer of my shell. Underneath the shell was strong bone, rigid and heavy, connected with my spinal column and ribs. Beneath, I was protected by my plastron, tough and thick and smooth—nothing for a wolf to bite into. I could have tucked my scaly feet in between my upper and lower shells and pulled my head in if I needed to be more protected—but I didn't have to. I was already too big for the wolves to do the least harm.
I was getting bigger and bigger. I was enormous. I think I was as big as the whole fake Coliseum Sholmos Bunyip had built. The coliseum was gone, by the way. No sign of it. No sign of anything, actually—just water. Big water. Endless water. A whole world of water.
These things, this becoming a turtle and then a turtle of stupendous size, then bigger than stupendous, and the spreading of Bunyip's fake lake to an endless ocean, seemed to be taking place in a few seconds—or a million years. There was no way for me to tell the difference. And I was busy singing the ancient turtle song, and didn't really care.
What I cared about was the next thing I had to do. This was simple. All I had to do was hold still, floating just below the surface, while friendly creatures piled cool mud on my back. Lots of mud. Heavy mud. Mud with trees growing. Mud with mountains. Mud with rivers, birds, animals, humans.
The Neddiad: How Neddie Took the Train, Went to Hollywood, and Saved Civilization Page 16
