Carnival Chaos

by Ron Bates

All the reflections stood at attention.

  “You there,” he said, “suck in that gut.”

  The reflection took a deep breath and held it. Cuphead began to pace.

  “Now, remember, you’re all Cupheads, so I expect you to act like Cupheads.”

  Instantly, the reflections put their thumbs in their ears like moose antlers, stuck out their tongues, and made annoying raspberry noises.

  “That’s more like it,” Cuphead said.

  Just then, there was a clatter from another part of the maze. All the Cupheads turned and looked.

  “Let’s go,” said the real Cuphead, and they all ran toward it.

  As it happened, the commotion came from the part of the maze where Ms. Chalice was searching. When Cuphead and Mugman arrived, they found her standing with her back pressed tightly against the glass.

  “He’s in there,” she whispered.

  The brothers peeked down the line of mirrors. Sure enough, there was Hopus. In fact, there was a room full of Hopuses. This was a problem since it was impossible to tell which one the real magician was. Or was it?

  Suddenly, Ms. Chalice got an idea. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the red crayon she’d been holding when Cuphead yanked her over to the window during their escape from school.

  “Good thing I didn’t drop this!” she said cheerfully.

  And she was right. Armed with the crayon, Ms. Chalice dashed through the maze, scribbling as she went. Whenever she found a rabbit reflection, she wrote the word Mirror on the glass so that they’d know it wasn’t real. In no time at all, there were Mirror markings as far as the eye could see. Still, there was something strange about one of the reflections—it was furrier and more three-dimensional than the others.

  “Uh-oh,” said Ms. Chalice. And in the middle of the rabbit’s forehead, she wrote the word Hare.

  Hopus rolled his eyes upward, peering up at the bright-red letters. He frowned. Quickly, he snatched the crayon from Ms. Chalice’s hand and changed the word from Hare to Harebrained.

  He seemed pleased.

  And with a laugh that sounded a lot like a hyena with a bad case of the hiccups, he hopped swiftly through the maze and ran out of the building.

  “After him!” Cuphead said.

  More determined than ever, Cuphead, Mugman, and Ms. Chalice burst out the back door. At the end of the alley was a small, handwritten sign hung between two posts. It said TRY YOUR LUCK.

  “This can’t be good,” said Ms. Chalice.

  The three of them walked up to a small table covered by a white cloth directly beneath the sign.

  “Ah, customers!” Hopus exclaimed.

  “Just give us the watch, Hopus,” Cuphead said.

  The magician smiled.

  “Oh, I’ll be glad to,” he told them in the most sincere-sounding lie they’d heard all day. “Only I can’t seem to remember which shell I put it under.”

  “Shell?” Mugman asked.

  In a flash, Hopus produced three green shells and laid them out on the tablecloth. He then shuffled them back and forth at blinding speed so that no shell ever stayed in one place long enough for the shell watchers to get used to it.

  “My friends, you see before you three shells,” Hopus spieled. “Under one of them is the watch. All you have to do is pick the right one and that terrific timepiece is yours to take home. What could be easier? Go ahead, pal, give it a try.”

  Cuphead scratched his chin.

  “You mean all I’ve gotta do is pick a shell?”

  “That’s it,” said the rabbit. “Easy peasy with extra cheesy!”

  Again, his hands moved swiftly around the table, clanking the shells down with a series of noisy clunks.

  “Now then, which shell has the watch?”

  Cuphead, Mugman, and Ms. Chalice huddled for a moment. Cuphead turned and stared at the table.

  “The one in the middle,” he said.

  “This one?” the rabbit asked, pointing to the middle shell. Cuphead nodded.

  “You’re sure you wouldn’t rather choose this one?” he asked, pointing to one on the end.

  “Well…”

  “Or this one?” he asked, pointing to the other end.

  “No, no, you’re not going to trick me. It’s the middle one… isn’t it?” Cuphead said.

  Hopus grinned.

  “Well, let’s find out.”

  At that moment, all three shells sprouted arms and legs and heads and tails, which is what happens when you play with turtle shells.

  “All right, gals,” Hopus said. “Which one of you has the watch?”

  Sure enough, the middle turtle reached into her shell and pulled out the watch.

  “We win!” Mugman cheered, and it looked like they had every reason to celebrate.

  But the magician still had one card up his sleeve.

  On Hopus’s signal, the turtles began switching shells. They were pulling them off like undershirts and replacing them with the one that belonged to the turtle next door. They switched again and again and again until Cuphead had no idea which shell was hiding the watch.

  “Every player makes the same mistake,” Hopus howled. “They’re watching the hare when they ought to be watching the tortoise! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

  While the rabbit stood there cackling like some long-eared chuckle machine, Cuphead decided he’d had enough of this game. He looked at the turtles.

  “Grab ’em,” he said.

  Mugman and Ms. Chalice lunged at the table, but the little green watch thieves scattered.

  “They’re getting away!” Ms. Chalice yelled, which is something you don’t hear very often about turtles, but maybe you should.

  You see, turtles are much faster than given credit for, and that’s especially true of the ones on the Inkwell Isles. (The locals called them “green lightning.”) These three ran like world-class sprinters, leaving little streaks of smoke behind as they disappeared up the alley, down the path, and over the fence.

  “You go that way, you go that way, and I’ll go this way,” Cuphead said. “Follow those turtles!”

  And that’s how the trio of them ended up heading out in three different directions on the trail of the tortoises. If only they’d known where it would lead them.

  Mugman chased one of the turtles down an aisle that led back to the midway. The rowdy reptile (who was as tricky as she was fast) crawled under the side of a large, colorful tent. Mugman crawled in right behind her. When he emerged, he found himself at a performance unlike anything he could imagine.

  It was a ballet. He’d heard of ballets, of course, but never expected to see one (at least not at a carnival in a tent he’d secretly sneaked into while chasing a watch-stealing turtle—that seemed like the kind of thing that happened to other people). Still, here he was, and now that he’d seen it with his own eyes, he understood the appeal. The music was enchanting—like something you’d hear in only the fanciest elevators—but the most wonderful part was what was happening up on the stage.

  Pirouletta was dancing. Actually, she wasn’t just dancing—she was pirouetting.

  Pirouletta was a good ballerina, but a great pirouetter. The greatest pirouetter in the whole world, according to signs posted all over the tent, and Mugman believed it. As a wheel, she was perfectly balanced, and could whirl and twirl like a shiny gold tornado. He was mesmerized.

  Watching the performance, it occurred to him that ballet was a little bit like flying. It was smooth and graceful, and there were moments when Pirouletta seemed to defy gravity. The fact that she could hover that way without a propeller was nothing short of amazing, and he was green with envy. Well, not actually green, like a tree or an avocado or that little lady in the audience, but more like—

  Little lady in the audience? The turtle!

  What was he thinking? Mugman had completely forgotten about the turtle. The hard-shelled hoodlum was standing near the front of the crowd, and when she saw Mugman, she climbed onto the stage and made a break for it. Mugm
an went after her.

  But there was a problem—he was on the opposite side of the stage. Crossing it in the middle of a ballet wouldn’t be easy. Still, he had to try.

  Very quietly, while Pirouletta danced and leaped and twirled, Mugman tiptoed across the back of the stage. Well, halfway across.

  The audience howled.

  Of course, the right thing to do would’ve been to just keep moving. But Mugman couldn’t move. He was experiencing a sensation he’d never felt before—stage fright. And the minute he looked out into the crowd and saw all those faces staring back at him, he froze.

  As he stood there, staring and sweating, the laughter got louder and louder. But not everyone thought it was funny.

  “No one interrupts my performance!” Pirouletta huffed.

  She glared at him with eyes as hard as her metal tutu. He tried to explain, but before he could get a word out, Pirouletta had pulled him into one of her spectacular spins. Mugman twirled round and round like a top until he was flung—with the grace of a nauseous swan—back to the wrong side of the stage.

  When he was able, he stood up again. He felt dizzy, humiliated, and strangely enough, a little bit brave. Not a lot, mind you, but enough to try again. After all, it was almost time for Elder Kettle’s party, and the turtle was getting away.

  So he dusted himself off, took a deep breath, and stepped back out onto the stage. This time, he deliberately didn’t look at the audience to avoid getting stage fright. Unfortunately, he did look at Pirouletta and got regular fright. She was enraged. He watched as she made several long, swooping leaps in the air, getting higher and higher with each lunge, and just when she was about to put her foot where he kept his face—

  Mugman caught her. He didn’t know why; it was a reflex. Still, it was a good catch, beautifully executed, and the audience applauded. Well, if anything, this made Pirouletta even angrier. She spun away from him, then back again, her foot whirling toward him like the blade of a propeller. Mugman ducked and dodged, but he did it so gracefully that the crowd never even suspected he feared for his life. To them, it looked like dancing, a glorious punching, kicking, twirling, tossing ballet by two masters of the craft. Finally, an infuriated Pirouletta grabbed hold of Mugman and the pair spun in an elegant, entangled brawl to every corner of the stage.

  When the twirling stopped, and you could again tell one dancer from the other, Mugman was holding Pirouletta above his head in majestic suspension. How it happened, he had no idea. But since it occurred just as the music came to a rousing conclusion, the audience exploded in wild applause. They were cheering and whistling and throwing flowers. Pirouletta, who was completely surprised by the reaction, walked to the edge of the stage and made a deep curtsy. And Mugman, not wanting to seem rude, did the same.

  Considering this was his first ballet, he felt like it had gone pretty well. He thought about staying longer (the crowd was begging for an encore), but he had a turtle to catch. So he did what any artist would do in his position: He picked up a flower, put it in his teeth, and made a great, noble leap off the end of the stage.

  And he kept right on leaping until he’d danced his way out the back of the tent.

  Meanwhile, Ms. Chalice (whose chase had taken her in the opposite direction from Mugman) was busy tracking turtle-size footprints that led to the dark end of the midway. This was not the nice, bright, cheery side of the carnival, where they sold cotton candy and malted milk mush. This was the creepy, crawly side where they sold critter candy and un-malted milk mush. She got chills just being here.

  Still, she was determined to find the fugitive turtle and, with a little luck, get Elder Kettle’s watch back in time for the surprise party. To do that, she’d go almost anywhere.

  The tracks took her down a twisted, winding pathway—and that’s where they stopped. Which, by the process of deduction (Ms. Chalice had read many detective stories, and knew all about deduction), meant the turtle must be right here. There were only two problems with that theory: The turtle was not here, and what was here was nothing Ms. Chalice wanted to find.

  It was a gigantic clown’s mouth. Whether it was attached to some gigantic clown, she had no idea, but it wouldn’t have surprised her (this was, after all, the dark side). All she really knew was that she was standing beside a row of tiny, boats that took you into the big, gruesome mouth, and from there—well, the possibilities were really too disturbing to think about.

  She looked around. Up above the painted clown face was a crooked, decrepit-looking sign that said FUNHOUSE. This puzzled Ms. Chalice. It certainly didn’t look fun. And from the screams coming from inside, it didn’t sound fun. She thought perhaps the sign used to say NOT FUNHOUSE and some of the letters had fallen off, which would have made a lot more sense. But to be honest, the funhouse sign wasn’t really the thing that bothered her. What bothered her were all the other signs, the ones that said DANGER and WARNING and BEWARE and ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK and THIS MEANS YOU, MS. CHALICE and VISIT OUR GIFT SHOP (their prices were frighteningly high).

  She was about to give up the search altogether when something entering the tunnel caught her eye. It was one of the tiny boats—and sticking out of it like a periscope was a skinny green turtle head.

  And even though it seemed like the worst idea she’d had in a very long time, Ms. Chalice caught the next boat to clown town.

  As she floated through the enormous mouth, a spine-tingling laugh echoed off the walls. The next thing she knew, she was headed into a pit of total darkness.

  “This place gives me the heebie-jeebies,” she said. “And not in a good way.”

  She moved slowly down the narrow river, listening to the horrible eeks and shrieks roaring through the tunnel. In the shadows, she could see spiderwebs, ghostly figures, and ghouls carefully placed to give the ride a haunted feel. But mostly, she kept her eye on the boat ahead of her—the one she desperately needed to catch.

  Just then, she saw a display that looked like a mechanical witch stirring a cauldron with a big wooden spoon.

  “Mind if I borrow this?” she said, plucking the giant stirrer from the witch’s hands. “Thanks!”

  And sure enough, by using the spoon as a paddle, she was able to close the gap between her boat and the turtle’s. Well, she must’ve made the turtle pretty nervous, because the instant they reached the next scary scene, the turtle jumped out of her boat and hid herself among the gravestone markers and devilish scarecrows.

  Ms. Chalice sighed and followed her.

  “Little turtle!” she yelled into the darkness. “Come out, come out, wherever you are!”

  A few feet away, she saw something move. It could’ve been the turtle, but since it was in the shadows, it was impossible to tell. She took a step forward, then another, then another and—

  CLA-AAA-ANG!

  A pair of big, shiny cymbals crashed together just inches from her head.

  It was Mr. Chimes!

  Of course, Ms. Chalice had already met Mr. Chimes once that day. He was the hollow-eyed windup monkey playing a street organ in front of the carnival gate. She hadn’t liked the looks of him then, and she liked them even less now.

  “Eek! Eek! Eek!” Mr. Chimes screeched, then disappeared back into the darkness.

  Ms. Chalice’s ears were ringing. In fact, it felt like someone was banging a gong inside her head.

  “You better not do that again,” she called out. “I mean it. You don’t want to monkey around with me.”

  Wherever Mr. Chimes was, Ms. Chalice hoped he was listening. The last thing she needed today was to have her head squashed by a band instrument.

  Just then, the turtle leaped out from behind a gravestone marked B. WARE and ran into a spooky grove of cardboard trees. Ms. Chalice went in after her. Carefully, she checked behind each trunk hoping to find the turtle, and hoping not to find—

  CLA-AAAAANG!

  Out of the branches came Mr. Chimes! The terrible brass cymbals chomped at her like crocodile jaws.

  CLA-
AAAAANG! CLA-AAAAANG! CLA-AAAAANG!

  Ms. Chalice moved out of the way just in time, narrowly escaping a head squashing.

  “I’m warning you!” she said again. “I don’t want to play right now!”

  But Mr. Chimes was gone.

  Suddenly, the turtle made a break for it. Ms. Chalice raced down the tunnel after the turtle until she came to a haunted holiday scene. It was filled with eerie, terrible-looking toys. There were toy soldiers with twisted faces and creepy, grinning dolls. And in the very center was a gigantic jack-in-the-box playing a mournful tune.

  Doo-DO-doo-DO-dum-dum-dum-dum-DOO.

  Ms. Chalice moved as quietly as a mouse on a stack of pillows. Carefully, she approached the giant box. Without warning, Mr. Chimes burst out from behind it!

  “Eek! Eek! Eek!”

  But when he looked for Ms. Chalice, she was gone. The music slowed to a crawl—

  DOO… dum… doo… doo.… SPROINNNNNNNG!

  The door on the jack-in-the-box burst open. But instead of a terrifying clown, out popped… Ms. Chalice.

  CLA-AAAANG!

  She brought two trash can lids together on each side of Mr. Chimes’s head. He wobbled and bobbled like a top looking for a place to fall, then toppled headfirst into one of the passing boats. It carried him down the tunnel.

  “I told you I didn’t want to play right now,” Ms. Chalice called after him. “But ask me again later. This was fun!”

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a little green streak dashing out the end of the tunnel.

  She sighed.

  A turtle chaser’s work is never done.

  Now, while Mugman and Ms. Chalice were off having their adventures, Cuphead had been busy chasing down the third turtle from Hopus’s game—and not very successfully. It was like pursuing a green, leathery cheetah in a rocket-powered shell. Not only was the turtle fast; she was crafty. Whenever Cuphead would manage to gain on her, she’d weave through the crowd—bounding over handbags, swinging on neckties, racing through a maze of legs—and give him the slip. Finally, they came to an open space and Cuphead saw the turtle running toward a curious-looking contraption. He ran after her.