Jasper Dash and the Flame-Pits of Delaware

by M. T. Anderson

  For this reason, to put you at ease, let me reassure you: This is not one of those books. I didn’t write this novel with a week’s research and a couple of foldout brochures. I wouldn’t do that to you. No, my friends, I solemnly promise: I have never once been to Delaware in my life. I can state with confidence that I am completely ignorant. I am a moron. I know absolutely nothing about the place. Everything I say is simply an uneducated guess.*You are not in good hands. You are in incredibly clumsy, incompetent hands.

  Of course, it is important to us here at Simon and Schuster that everything in our books be entirely accurate. I would hate it, for example, if you were actually from the state of Delaware and you found some inaccuracy in my portrayal.

  So, for that reason, if you do discover there is some difference between this book’s portrait of the state and the reality, please write a note describing the problem in full. Send it, with a self-addressed, stamped envelope, to:

  The Governor of Delaware

  Office of the Governor

  Tatnall Building

  William Penn Street, 2nd Floor

  Dover, DE 19901

  I’m sure they’ll get back to you.

  In the meantime, I hear the whirr of engines. Jasper Dash, Lily Gefelty, and Katie Mulligan have set off in their Gyroscopic Sky Suite. They are flying over highway, suburb, and mall.

  They are headed for the jungles and mountains, the beaches and subaquatic cities, the volcanoes and ziggurats, the deserts, caverns, lost temples, and spires… of Delaware.

  PART TWO

  17

  That morning, if the inhabitants of New Jersey had looked up from their shoe-shines, they might have seen, in the sky above them, a strange, shingled rocket supported from the bottom of a jet with a large silver girdle. This was Jasper Dash’s remarkable Gyroscopic Sky Suite. It was well on its way to Delaware.

  Inside, in the expertly riveted control room, our three heroes were lost in their own thoughts. They gazed in different directions: at the oxygen tanks, or the dials, or the pedals.

  Jasper was full of worry for his friends at the monastery of Vbngoom, the gentle monks, but he was also glad to be going back to a place he loved, where he knew what was what and people didn’t rag him cruelly for having come up with a dandy new invention.

  Lily was excited, though the only way she showed it was by jamming her fingers into the heels of her sneakers and wriggling them as she sat, hunched over, on a swivel chair. She didn’t know what to expect, but she was very glad to be along for the ride.

  Katie, on the other hand, was mainly irritated. She was sick of boys’ pride, the way boys could be so conceited. Especially certain athletic boys named like prep schools. And she was angry that she—who had outwitted giant brains and outrun giant centipedes—actually cared what a boy thought. She was mad at herself, and bunched up her lips in frustration.

  Lights on the control panel flashed softly. Jasper checked a map and called instructions into the command snorkel.

  Lily asked him, “Are we headed for the monastery in the mountains right now?”

  “Mountains,” muttered Katie.

  “No, Lily,” Jasper answered. “The location of the monastery is so secret that even I do not know where it lies. Vbngoom, the Platter of Heaven, is shrouded in mystery. We will have to land in Dover, often called the capital of Delaware, and find a guide. From there, we will head into the jungle. We will attempt to retrace my steps from the last time I found the monastery.”

  “Jungle,” muttered Katie. She pinched a toggle switch hard between her fingers, just to have something to pinch.

  “I worry, however,” mused Jasper. “There is an ancient myth that Vbngoom moves at times of trouble from mountain to mountain. Who knows where it lies now? Who knows how we shall find it?”

  Jasper peered into the Oculo-Scope and made some adjustments to cranks and dials. He said solemnly, “We are passing into Delaware.” He reached over and opened the iron shutters so the girls could see out of the portholes.

  They were in the shadows of the mountains. The clouds strayed between the white peaks, and the airborne Sky Suite itself was no higher than those icy bluffs and frigid cliffs. Down below, deep in the valleys, lay forests and rivers, the haunt of panther and serpent. Lily caught sight of ruined aqueducts and vine-covered towers, ziggurat steps moldering in the lush undergrowth.

  “New Castle County,” Jasper said. He sighed and laid his head against the metal wall. “We face great challenges, fellows, and great danger. Below us lies a realm of wonders and terrors, a land that time forgot, or chose specifically not to remember.” He gestured out the window to the peaks and crags. “For one hundred years, Delaware has been cut off from the other states, isolated completely as a result of its overpriced and prohibitive interstate highway tolls. For one hundred years, almost no one has gone in or come out. Only the bravest of explorers have penetrated this exotic land. We must take care not to attract the attention of the cruel tyrant who rules this state—”

  Katie had been wrapping an oxygen tube around her wrist in sheer irritation for the last several minutes and now could stand to listen no longer. “You mean the governor?” she demanded. “The governor of Delaware?”

  Jasper said quietly, “No, Katie. Much worse than that. Thirty-two years ago, the governor of Delaware was chased out by a crazed military dictator, who now rules from Dover with an iron fist—a man known only as His Terrifying Majesty, the Awful and Adorable Autarch of Dagsboro.”

  Jasper peered again into the Oculo-Scope and made some adjustments on the control panel. He said, “Recently, a few tourists have been allowed in under strict government supervision. But we don’t want the tyrant’s eyes upon us. He would love to get his hands on the monastery of Vbngoom, and we must make sure that he can’t follow us there. If he were to find the monastery, he could force the monks to show him how they gained their sacred psychic powers. Why, then he could be even more cruel and tyrannical than he is now.

  “I hope that by attaching the Sky Suite disguised to one of the hotels in the capital, we might evade the notice of the Autarch and his goons. That way we can explore the jungle without the Ministry of Silence interfering.”

  “The Ministry of Silence?!” said Lily.

  “That is the name the Adorable Autarch of Dagsboro has given his spies. Beware of them. They are everywhere in the capital. Closets. Secret rooms. The tap water.”

  “Okay,” said Katie, “I really am only going to say this one time. There is a governor of Delaware, there is no such thing as the Ministry of Silence, there is no way spies could be in the tap water, and there are no—hear me—no no no mountains in—”

  “Behold: Dover. Capital of Delaware,” said Jasper.

  Its domes and minarets lay before them, glowing gold in the sunlight amid the hanging gardens, the pleasant palaces, the spired roofs of ancient temples; in the harbor, the purple-sailed ships of Wilmington plied the waves, and the dragon-headed prows of the barbarian kingdoms to the south dipped their oars in wrinkled waters while plesiosaurs turned capers at their sides. The Zeppelin-Lords of frosty Elsmere drifted above the city, their balloons gilded with the tropical sun, eating sherbet on their porphyry verandas. Huge tortoises fifteen feet across lumbered through the widest avenues, carrying nomads’ tents upon their backs. Processions wandering through the streets glittered with gold and ancient costumery. But everything was not beautiful: Katie and Lily saw also the huge cement housing blocks looking burnt and desolate, where the hapless citizens lived in fear of their ruler. They saw the brown rivers, the broken factories, the Autarch’s armies drilling on a baseball field.

  They saw the lovely and the awful, the jeweled and the broken, the noble and the sad. In short, they saw Dover.

  “I think,” said Lily, “we better let Jasper just tell us what’s what.”

  Katie nodded with her mouth wide open. “Yeah…,” she said slowly. “Yeaaaaaaah.”

  Jasper was all business. “Now, fellows,
time to attach the Sky Suite to the side of a hotel. We’ve got to be careful. If we attract attention, it will make our trip to Vbngoom all the harder. There will be government agents everywhere.”

  He spoke into the snorkel to the robot in the jet above them, calling out numbers and directions. “Adjust thirty-four point nine! Modulate to the plane of the ecliptic point oh oh seven! Prepare to disengage zirconium girdle!” He turned to the girls. “Hold on to your seats, chaps. You may recall that there is a little bump when the Sky Suite—”

  “Oh no,” said Katie. “I remember.”

  “Oh, gosh,” said Lily.

  “Oh, wowzers,” said Katie. There was a click. “Oh, help. Oh, help. Oh—” But Katie didn’t finish her sentence. Because they suddenly were falling and screaming—and their bellies were flipping around like trout in a washer—and they saw a cheap cement government hotel spiraling toward them—streaked with soot—and then—

  …which took up a whole page.

  They opened their eyes. Katie coughed. Lily blew the hair out of her eyes. Jasper smiled. “Jupiter’s moons,” he said, “we’ve done it. We’re attached. We’ve clamped on to the wall. We are now rooms twenty-three A through E of the Dupontville Fine Excellent View Stay Hotel, Dover. We have landed in utmost secrecy.”

  There was a cracking. There was a popping.

  With a scream, with a crash, with a horrible bump, they fell again.

  The Dupontville Fine Excellent View Stay Hotel had not been built very well. The Gyroscopic Sky Suite had just pulled down the whole wall of the place on top of it.

  18

  But let us go back a day and see what happened elsewhere while all the excitement was going on in the gym in Pelt. If, the day before, we had been in Vbngoom Monastery, the Platter of Heaven, this is what we would have seen: a boy walking down a dark stone hallway, carrying a vat of lentil soup to gangsters.

  His head was shaved, like the heads of all the monks of Vbngoom. He wore robes of green. His bare feet shuffled on the flagstones. On his face was a look of determination.

  His name was Drgnan Pghlik.

  He passed down a flight of steps so old that the first men to use them had walked on all fours. The walls were painted with gods and oxen. The boy shifted the huge tin vat in his arms and bowed through a low doorway.

  Drgnan Pghlik had lived in the monastery of Vbngoom for almost the whole of his life. He had grown up in Vbngoom. He loved it there. He knew all the cloisters and the towers, the covered paths and secret gardens, the highest pinnacles of rock and the chambers deepest underground. He had taken his vows of obedience and kindness. He had promised never to tell a lie. He had spent months without speaking a word. In return, he was taught by the old, wise monks. They told him to speak in riddles, which he loved.* He studied inscriptions carved in stone and learned the art of monastic combat so that one day he could become one of the order’s Protectors and go forth into the land to fight evil and ignorance.

  But now, his mountain home was threatened. A few weeks earlier, gangsters from Dover’s mean streets had busted down the monastery gates and started swinging their guns around, demanding to be shown the treasure rooms. They lit cigars in the sacred flames. Chambers that had lain silent for centuries now echoed with calls of “Hey, youse guys!” and “Wouldja feast your ever-lovin’ peepers on this!” The gangsters seized the old, holy treasures. They made fun of the old, holy monks. And they did not leave. They took control of Vbngoom. Since then, everyone in the monastery had lived in fear.

  The worst of all of them were the gangsters’ kids. Eight boys had come with the mob. They were awful. They made fun of the littlest monks, who were only nine or ten years old. The gangsters’ kids kicked the monks and shined their shaved heads like bowling balls. They tortured the young novices with all sorts of mean little injuries: with Noogies and Monkey Bites, with Twister-Burns and Swirlies, with Seal Slaps, Nettle Wipes, and Goody McCoy’s Grouchy Stump. There was no end to the indignities. Thank goodness they were gone at the moment, posing as a Stare-Eyes team so they could take stolen artifacts out of the state without the government noticing. Things had been quieter around the monastery since they left. It seemed, many monks whispered, like it might be an opportunity.

  As Drgnan walked down the corridor, the tub of soup weighing heavily in his arms, he passed courtyards where monks now labored for the mob. Their robes were smudged with dirt. Many of them worked building a road up to the monastery so the gangsters could come and go more easily. As Drgnan walked by them now, they stumbled along in rows, brown with dust, bowed over beneath heavy sacks of rocks.

  Not for much longer, he thought. He ducked behind some pillars. He put down the vat. The soup inside swayed from side to side.

  Drgnan Pghlik looked both ways. In a split second, he had reached into his robe and pulled out a small bottle of pink liquid. He popped out the lid with his thumb, dumped the whole bottle into the lentil soup, and shoved the vial back into his pocket.

  Sleeping potion. Given to him by Brother Herbalist, who had concocted it out of mysterious liquors, rare flowers, and a lot of cough syrup.

  Drgnan Pghlik had just put enough sleeping potion in the soup to knock out the whole mob. Once they ate it, they’d drop flat and start snoring—too dizzy to shoot off their pistols. Once the mobsters had fallen asleep, the monks would rise up and truss them.

  Never again would these bad men steal sacred treasures. Never again would they yell from tower to tower in their brassy lingo: “Hey, Checkers! Be a sweet pea and stand guard, wouldja? I gots to whizz like all outdoors.” (Echo in the mountains: whizz like all outdoors… whizz like all outdoors… like all outdoors… all outdoors…) Once again, the bridges and chambers would be filled only with talk of kindness and the whispering of ancient riddles.

  The boy stilled any sign of sly excitement on his face. He showed no expression whatsoever. He picked up the vat of soup and carried it down the corridor that led to the monastery’s refectory.

  In the years before the mob had come, the monks had all dined here together, happily discussing the news of the day while eating one long root laid down the length of the table. Now, this was where the mobsters hunched over their entrées, demanding steak.

  Drgnan gently knocked the tin tub against the door. A mobster opened it a crack and stuck the muzzle of his gun through. “Who’s there?” asked the mobster.

  “It is young Brother Drgnan Pghlik. I have come with the lunch from the kitchen.”

  “What’s lunch, kid?”

  “Lentil soup.”

  “Yoinks.” The mobster turned away and announced to the room, “Kid in a dress with the feed.”

  “Let the squirt in,” said one of the bosses.

  The door opened. Drgnan Pghlik entered with his poisoned meal.

  The dining room of Vbngoom was simple, made of mud, stone, and plaster, painted white and a dark clay red. High windows looked out across the mountain peaks. At the old wooden tables sat the gangsters in front of their bowls. They growled and muttered to one another.

  Drgnan Pghlik had been taught to be peaceful and serene. He did not feel serene or peaceful now—now that he had a huge pot of poisoned stew he had to feed to twenty toughs.

  Almost all of the gang’s leaders were there in the dining room. The top boss never appeared. Drgnan Pghlik had no idea even what he looked like. He knew all too well, however, the sour faces of the mob’s other big shots. They stood around the tables eating carrots and exchanging business cards.

  “Serve it up,” said one of the bosses.

  Drgnan Pghlik reached into the pot, picked up the ladle, and began to spoon out sleep-soup into bowls.

  As he served, the mobsters sat at the long benches. None of them said thank you.

  Drgnan had to still his beating heart to keep from trembling. He didn’t want to think of what would happen if they detected the sleeping potion. They had a way of hanging people by their feet out windows. Then the ravens would come.

&n
bsp; The lentil soup slid into bowls. Slop. Slurp. Slugg. Slupp. Sock. Splotch. Splurch.

  While he served, the gangsters muttered to one another. (“I hope this don’t have no cilantro in it. I hate that cilantro.”) Drgnan Pghlik tried to not look at their eyes. He tried to show nothing. Splurk. Splatch. Splunch.

  Only a few left to go.

  Splutch. Splank. Splip.

  And the last one. Splock.

  He was done.

  “Thank you,” said the last gangster in line.

  Drgnan Pghlik looked at the man in shock. None of them had ever said thank you.

  He was a short, weasely sort of man. He looked at Drgnan with sudden interest.

  Quickly Drgnan bowed and began to back out of the room with the empty vat.

  “Not so fast,” said the man. His name was Weasel Chops O’Reilly. He said, “I got a question for you.”

  Drgnan paused. Panic beat on the walls of his bare head. He tried to show nothing on his face. He clutched the vat to his chest like a baby, like a shield, like it would protect him. Within the tin, the ladle rocked.

  The weasely man stepped forward. He said, “The boys hate cilantro. This got any cilantro in it?”

  Drgnan breathed easily. “No,” he said truthfully.

  “You sure? ’Cause if there’s cilantro, Bargain Basement McGhee is likely to flip his short stack, if you know what I mean, and start Pow! Pow! Pow!”

  “There is no cilantro, sir,” said Drgnan Pghlik.

  “You sure?”

  “I helped the cook make your dinner, sir. It is too delicious for gunplay.”

  “Says you. Let’s give it the old dip-and-smack,” said Weasel Chops, shoving his finger in his bowl and drawing it out, brown with lentils. He licked his finger. “Mm,” he said. “Mm!”