Brass Monkeys

by Terry Caszatt

  I was dimly aware of Harriet coming over the edge above me, then Ray. I was gripping the rope with everything but my front teeth and barely moving downward. Harriet caught up with me quickly and her feet accidentally hit me on the head. When I looked up, I could just make out her features, and I saw her mouth the words, “I’m sorry!”

  “It’s okay!” I called back, but I doubted whether she heard me above the wind.

  I made a determined face and tried to move a bit faster, but my back knotted up, and a terrific pain shot up my spine and exploded in my head.

  I groaned like the wimp of the century, but I knew Harriet and Ray couldn’t hear me. I also knew it wouldn’t do any good if they could. I had a sudden and very clear vision of the predicament I was in. The pain would be a killer if I continued down, but there was no way I could lift myself back up the rope.

  “Get a grip, you dumb dufus!” I screamed at myself. “This is survival time!”

  I eased down the rope, gritting my teeth, and a great wave of pain rolled over me. I grunted and my knees automatically came up and clamped onto the rope. Using them to hold myself, rather than my feet, eased the pain in my back.

  Down and down we went. I couldn’t see clearly because of all the blowing paper and sand. It seemed like we were going on forever, but then, with a jolt of panic, I felt my feet dangling in midair and I knew a horrible truth: I was at the end of the rope. I peered down, but I couldn’t see the bottom. I felt Harriet’s feet tapping me. She and Ray were right on top of me.

  I began yelling at them, trying to explain, and I was aware of their voices shouting at me to keep moving. I heard Ray scream out, “I can’t hang on!”

  I’m not sure what happened next, but it happened fast. I think Ray must have lost his grip and tumbled into Harriet, who then lost hers. They both thudded into me, knocking me loose. And we were falling.

  It seemed like we fell for a hundred years, but probably it wasn’t more than a hundred feet before we smashed feet first into … water. I say water, but it was funny water because as I sliced down through it, I could feel all sorts of squishy stuff. When I broke the surface, gasping and coughing, I could see the surface was littered with all kinds of garbage. Slimy, stinky, scummy crudola.

  “Oh no! What is this stuff?” cried Harriet as she popped up. “It’s in my hair!”

  “I don’t know, but I hope it doesn’t wreck my horn,” I said. I flipped some reddish glop out of the bell.

  “Aaahrrg!” Ray yelled, making an awful face. “That went into my mouth!”

  While Ray gave a graphic picture of where and how the glop was sliding down his insides, I had a sudden feeling the book was gone. Frantically, I began digging around inside my shirt, feeling for the plastic sack. With a burst of relief, I felt it. “I’ve still got the book,” I called out. “And it’s dry!”

  But Harriet and Ray were too occupied with trying to avoid the stuff in the water. Harriet was paddling in little up-and-down strokes, trying to lift herself above it. “I hate this,” she cried. “We’ll smell for months.”

  “Years,” piped up Ray. “I got something lumpy in my shorts.”

  For me, after the horrible pain of coming down the rope, floating in a sea of garbage didn’t seem so awful. While Ray and Harriet traded descriptions of what they had swallowed, I was craning around trying to see where we were.

  “Looks like we’re in some kind of huge body of water,” I said. “And look way over there. See that misty area? It’s a lot lighter over there.”

  “Let’s head in that direction,” said Harriet. “We’ve got to get out of this stuff.”

  We began swimming hesitantly through the garbage.

  “This is poop water,” said Ray suddenly.

  Harriet groaned loudly. “Ray, don’t say that! Please!”

  “I think it’s just moldy food,” I said. “Look at the hotdogs over there, and the chicken drumsticks. And look at the spaghetti and pizza.”

  Ray got a strange look on his face. “Waitaminnit! I know where we are. I heard the drones talk about this place. They didn’t know where it was, but they’d all heard of it. This is the Sea of Hot Lunches! I’m sure of it! And here’s how it works. When Ming-daddy kidnaps a school, she takes all their worst cafeteria recipes. Then she serves it down here and flushes the leftovers into the Sea!”

  “So, where the heck is the Blue Grotto?” My voice rose with tension.

  Ray shook his head. “I don’t know, man. All I heard McGinty say was that the Grotto was somewhere below the cliffs. He never mentioned no Sea of Hot—”

  “Ray, hold it.” Harriet gave us a pale look. “Did you guys feel something?”

  “Like what?” I said. Ray and I stared at her. Without thinking about it, we all paddled closer to each other. We were right in the center of a bunch of breaded fish sticks and tartar sauce, all bobbing along on a thick coating of pea soup.

  “I hate fish sticks,” whispered Ray. “I ate a bunch one time at my school and that night I got so sick I dreamed I was a fish stick. It was like I was trapped in my classroom, and I kept trying to swim out of it, but I didn’t have any fins.”

  “Sssh!” said Harriet. “I felt it again.”

  Ray suddenly yelled crazily and began to slap wildly at his neck. A purplish, crab-like creature darted up and was on his face in a flash. Ray flailed about and accidentally knocked it into Harriet’s hair. She screamed and batted it off into the water. As its body flashed upward, I got a good look at the black dots on its belly, and I swear it looked like the mystery meat we had back in Grindsville.

  With a foaming burst the water came alive with them. They were crawling all over us. I began swimming madly, and for a moment I thought the crabs would win. I felt dozens all over my body, nipping and piercing the skin. For a painful second there was one on the end of my nose, but as I flailed about, the trumpet bell knocked him flying.

  Finally I began to move out of the greenish pea soup, and the minute I left it behind, the crabs dropped off as if by magic.

  “Get out of the pea soup!” I yelled. Harriet and Ray followed me, and just as quickly the purple creatures began dropping away from them.

  For a few moments we simply milled around among some bloated burritos, groaning and touching our bites. Ray and I were exaggerating our wounds, and as usual, it was Harriet who cut through the nonsense and got down to business.

  “I think I see clear water ahead,” she called out. “Let’s keep swimming.”

  She led the way and we swam hard for a few minutes toward the clear, uncluttered water about a hundred yards away. But the closer we came, the slower and more difficult the swimming became. I had swung the trumpet around so it was riding on the back of my neck out of the water, but I was still getting tired.

  “There’s some kind of current here,” Ray gasped out. “It’s keeping all the crud in one big area, and us too.”

  We flailed harder, and at last we were able to fight through into the clear water. Behind us, the Sea of Hot Lunches seemed to be revolving slowly in a giant circle. Ahead was the lighter, misty area we had seen earlier. As I peered at it, trying to figure out what it was, I felt a strong underwater tug.

  “Uh-oh,” cried Ray. “Something else has got us.”

  A terrific undercurrent surged in now and pushed us toward the misty area.

  I could see that the water around the edge of the mist seemed to be boiling wildly. And then, with a rush of fear, I knew what it was.

  42

  a sailboat from heaven

  I yelled out, “Waterfall!” But my voice was lost in the rumbling roar of water.

  Our speed accelerated and we were bowling along right into the mist. I heard Harriet call out something and clutch my hand. The next moment we were shoved ahead as if by a giant hand, and we plummeted downward, accompanied by a ripple of what sounded amazingly like organ music.

  I felt a smooth, hard surface below me and realized we were in some kind of narrow, rocky chute, like t
he world’s most wonderful, natural waterslide. We went skidding wildly around a corner, and when my eyes cleared for a moment, I could see we were traveling like a rocket down a steep waterway. We twisted and wound through a beautiful landscape filled with trees and flowers. Water was gushing out of holes of various sizes and it was this that seemed to be making the organ music.

  I yelled out in sheer joy, and when I did, I heard a faint cry of excitement from Ray who was somewhere behind us. We flew down and down, past huge trees and giant cliffs of stone, and it was the kind of ride you hope never ends.

  At last we reached bottom, and with a great organ chord we shot off the edge of the chute and landed in the most beautiful clear blue water I’d ever seen.

  When I surfaced, I began to hoot happily and Harriet joined in. Ray was just coming up not too far off. Luckily, the trumpet was still on its sling, and quickly I pulled out the book to see if was okay. The plastic bag was locked tight, and I could tell there wasn’t a drop of water inside.

  “This must be the Blue Grotto,” I called out to Harriet. “Look at the water!” I cupped some in my hand and looked closely at it.

  There was no response from Harriet, and I glanced over at her. She was looking over at Ray who was floating on his back and not paying any attention to us. She shot me a glance of alarm.

  “Raymondo,” I called to him. “Are you okay?”

  Harriet turned pale. “He’s not!” she said. “Get his head out of the water!”

  I swam quickly behind Ray and lifted his head. His eyes were shut and I could see a bruise on his temple.

  “He must have bumped his head on the chute,” I said. “Let’s get him ashore.”

  I put my arm around Ray’s neck, and with Harriet keeping his chin up out of the water, we started pulling him toward the narrow, rocky shore. In a sudden, panicky burst, Ray came to and began to struggle. I yelled at him to stop, but he didn’t understand and, before I knew it, he was pulling us under.

  Vaguely I realized Harriet was trying to help, and at one point we had Ray back to the surface, but all three of us were in big trouble, and I knew it. We had yards to go to reach shore and Ray still wasn’t cooperating. Worse, the trumpet had filled with water and felt like a ton of lead.

  “Save yourself,” I gasped out to Harriet.

  “No way. All or none,” she said, her golden-brown eyes flashing.

  We went under again, and this time I was afraid I wasn’t coming back up. But somehow we all surfaced one more time. Right about then I began to hear music. Bluegrass music.

  Through blurry eyes, I saw a fantastic sight coming toward us. It was a sailboat with a man standing in the bow playing a fiddle.

  “A boat from heaven,” I murmured. I don’t remember much more. Hands were reaching down and pulling us aboard, and then a bunch of wavy faces were peering at me. I recall throwing up a lot of water and all the faces jumped back. Then I think I must have passed out.

  When I finally came to, I knew I was in heaven, or something close to it, because the first thing that swam into view was this beautiful face framed by black curls. Lilah. And there was Teddy, holding the fiddle.

  “Billy,” said Teddy with a big grin, “I was playing that music for you, trying to give you some inspiration to stay afloat.”

  “Hey you,” said Lilah in her even-toned voice. She leaned in and planted a kiss on my cheek. That felt totally real, and I was still enjoying it when I saw another face loom in behind Teddy’s. Jack.

  “Bumpus,” he said. “I’ve got to say, you’re a surprise a minute.”

  “Jack!” I sat up. “You’re not dead!”

  “Not hardly. Thanks to you and your drainage pipe, I’ve lived to fight another day, or something like that.”

  “Yeah, man, my stupid directions. Wow, I’m dizzy.” I shook my head, trying to clear the fuzziness. I could see I was in the bow of the sailboat. The sails were down and I was propped against the rail. Harriet sat at my side and she was smiling at me. I realized all over again how pretty she was, even with the fur! Ray was on the other side of her, looking pale but grinning nonetheless.

  “Raymondo, you’re okay,” I said, amazed.

  “Never better, Bumpus-man,” he said. “And I owe it all to you and Harriet.”

  “No, make that Harriet,” I said. “She’s the one.” My head was still whirling a bit. “Okay, listen, I need to introduce everybody. Ray and Harriet, this is Jack—”

  “We’ve already done that,” said Harriet, smiling. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

  “Man, you had us worried,” said Ray.

  “Me?” I said. “I was worried about you.” Suddenly a terrible thought swept over me. “Wait, where’s my trumpet? And the book?”

  “Easy kid, they’re right here.” Jack leaned in and handed them to me.

  I grasped the trumpet fondly. “This baby almost dragged me under, but it’s okay because he’s my friend. And here’s old Brass Monkeyslooking cool and dry, which means we still have a chance if we can only find McGinty. ‘Course we haven’t found him yet, but hey, with all of us working as a team—”

  “Bumpus, slow down and take it easy,” said Jack. He was signing all this to Lilah, but I could tell she was way ahead of him. “Just sit back and rest a minute.”

  “Jack, listen,” I plunged on, “I’ve got to confess some stuff and right now. First, I shouldn’t have sent you guys into that pipe. That was stupid, I mean sooo totally dumb. I don’t know what I was thinking. And second, and this is a biggie—”

  Lilah reached out and touched my lips to stop me. “Billy, it worked out fine. We simply rode the water down, just like—”

  “Frogs inside a garden hose!” burst out Teddy. “Then we popped out into the most stinky water you can imagine and these frightful little biting creatures—”

  “I know,” I broke in. “The Sea of Hot Lunches. We were just in there.”

  Jack shook his head in amazement. “Harriet and Ray told me you came down the cliffs. That’s supposed to be impossible.”

  I gave him a cocky smile. “Yeah, but not for the Wild Bunch.”

  Jack kind of laughed when I said that, and it made think he was okay. It sounded like his old laugh, but still something seemed missing.

  “Anyway, to finish our story,” said Teddy, “we came down the chute and for some reason this cold water just snapped me right out of it! Woozy I was, and discombobulated, and now, sharp as a tack!”

  Jack looked up at the sky and muttered, “Woozy I was?”

  That sounded like the old Jack, I thought, but still … What was it?

  “And the next thing we saw was this wonderful sailboat anchored nearby,” continued Lilah. “Luckily, Jack can sail.”

  “Yeah, and no thanks to this lubberly crew,” said Jack. “The only fly in the ointment is the fact that we don’t know where we are, Bumpus. Your buddies here act like they know, but they want to give you the honor of telling us.”

  I glanced at Harriet and Ray, and from their pale, nervous looks I could tell they were worried about how Jack was going to take the news.

  “Right, okay,” I began nervously. “See, this was the biggie I wanted to mention. I think there’s a good chance that we’re … I mean, I think it’s likely that we are now, ahh … Well, to be exact, it’s possible—”

  “Bumpus,” snapped Jack. “Spill it.”

  “I think we’re in the Blue Grotto,” I said in a wimpy rush.

  Jack stared at me. “Okay,” he said after what seemed like a century, “I hope for your sake I misunderstood what you just said.”

  I got to my feet. “Nope,” I said. “It’s the Grotto. Pretty sure.”

  Lilah expelled her breath softly and said, “Oh, my heavens.”

  “Jeezo-peezo, Billy,” said Teddy sadly, as if he had just now realized what a true dimwit I was. “We’ll be stuck here forever.”

  “Billy,” said Lilah, “don’t you remember we told you there’s no way out of the Grotto?” She w
as massaging her forehead as if she felt a headache coming on.

  “We’ll end up dying down here!” wailed Teddy.

  “Bumpus, Bumpus, Bumpus,” said Jack. For a moment, I thought he might jump overboard. “Might as well write our obituaries.”

  Harriet spoke up then, her voice sounding more mature and grown-up than all the rest of them put together. “You know, I think you should hear the real reason he sent you down here,” she said quietly, “before you judge him on this.”

  “Yeah,” said Ray, “you guys are gyratin’ around and you haven’t even asked him why he sent you down here.”

  “Oh, the why of it,” said Jack in a biting voice. “My yes, let’s by all means find out the why, Bumpus.”

  “Okay, that’s easy,” I began. “I thought we should all come down to the Grotto because McGinty is here.”

  This hit the air like a bombshell. Teddy and Jack both signed it to Lilah.

  “McGinty is here?” repeated Lilah. She expelled her breath in a little gasp.

  “He’s here in the Blue Grotto?” Teddy looked astounded.

  “Whoa,” said Jack harshly. “Hold the phone. How do you know that? That sounds like more drone gossip.”

  “It’s not drone gossip,” I snapped. “It’s a hard fact. First of all, Ray here saved McGinty and Webster about two weeks ago, and while they were at his hideout, he heard all about McGinty’s idea of coming down here.” I turned to Ray. “Take it, Raymondo, and tell ‘em what you know.”

  Ray cleared his throat. “It’s pretty simple. McGinty and this Webster dude argued about going to the Grotto all the time they were at my hideout. Finally, Webster left to head for town to find some drone buddies.”

  “Us,” piped up Teddy proudly.

  Ray nodded. “The next thing I know, McGinty says he’s heading for the Blue Grotto and, bam, away he goes heading straight for Ming’s school and the old drainage pipe. I saw him go inside the school and he never came out. Ming-daddy and the Stormies are still looking for him, so I know he made it.”

  Jack was shaking his head. “Listen, McGinty wasn’t dumb enough to come down here with no way out. He’s way too smart for that.”