by Bill Myers
“What are you doing?” I shouted.
She motioned me to be quiet. “While they’re chasing us in the woods, we can make a getaway.” She pointed toward a small rowboat. “That’s my dinghy over there. We can cross the lake and get help.”
It was a great plan (even though I get seasick just taking a bath). When we arrived I quickly climbed into the boat.
“What’s that?” she whispered.
I turned to see Doc squinting at the lake. I followed her vision and saw a pretty good-sized motorboat quickly approaching.
“All right!” I cried. “We’ve got help.”
Doc threw a look back into the woods, then turned toward the motorboat. She began waving her arms to get its attention.
It spotted us and picked up speed. At first I didn’t recognize the driver, but the closer he got, the more familiar he looked.
“Mr. Snavely!” I shouted. “Mr. Snavely!”
“Wallace?” he cried. “Is that you?”
I gave a huge nod as he cut the engine and coasted toward shore. “Boy, am I glad you’re here,” I said. “Listen, we gotta go. Some men came in that helicopter over there and they’re trying to steal a monster from Doc, who I thought was a ghost but isn’t ’cause she invented the monster, which actually isn’t a monster and somebody’s threatening the city’s water supply by draining . . .”
I stopped jabbering for two reasons. First, there’s this thing I have about breathing. And second, I noticed Mr. Snavely wasn’t listening. Instead, he was just looking at Doc.
“How have you been, Sarah?” he asked.
“Fine,” she said.
“That’s great!” I cried, having caught my breath.
“So you two know each other. That’s swell, but if it’s not too much bother, do you think you could get reacquainted a little later so we can get out of here before they—”
I was interrupted by the suits’ voices. “There they are!”
I spun around just in time to see them emerge from the woods.
“That’s them!” I turned back to Mr. Snavely. “That’s them! We gotta get outa here!”
But nobody moved.
“Look, I don’t want to make a big deal out of this, but those guys with the guns are not good guys. And since I’m kind of allergic to getting shot, I mean I break out in a bad case of death every time it happens, could we please—”
“Wally?” Mr. Snavely interrupted.
“Yes, sir?”
“Shut up.”
His rudeness surprised me. But not as much as the next statement. It came from Short Suit as he continued approaching. “Snavely,” he shouted, “you’ve caught them. Excellent.”
I spun back to Mr. Snavely. “You know these guys?”
“Know us?” Tall Suit giggled as they finally arrived. “He, like, works for us, don’t he, Boss?”
But Short Suit didn’t answer. He was too busy flirting with Doc. “Good afternoon, Dr. Ventura.”
Call it a wild guess, but by the daggers shooting out of her eyes, I could tell Doc wasn’t especially knocked out about seeing him.
Short Suit’s grin faded as quickly as it had appeared. “Get her into the trailer,” he ordered. “And take the kid with her.”
Chapter 7
All Cooped Up with No Place to Go
Exactly 3.5 minutes later Doc and I found ourselves back in her trailer. The bad guys were doing the usual bad guy things: ripping out her phone, threatening her a lot, and, of course, smoking. They demanded that the Doc use her remote control thingie and call Iatds to the surface. That way they could dismantle him and take the important parts back to their headquarters.
No problem, except for the part where Doc refused.
“Okay, fine,” Short Suit sneered. “Then we’ll just go ahead and finish draining the lake. By tomorrow morning we’ll be able to stroll out onto that lake bed and take it without your help.”
“Not only that,” Tall Suit said, “but we’ll be able to stroll out onto that lake bed and take it without your help.”
We all turned to him, amazed at his incredible lack of brain voltage. He smiled, obviously pleased that he had impressed us.
“But what about Middletown?” I protested. “You’re going to poison their water.”
“Serves them right,” Mr. Snavely growled. “For years I’ve been working at that plant, pouring my heart and soul into it. Never a word of thanks, barely a raise in pay. Nothing but those stupid sewer jokes, that’s all I ever got.”
Suddenly I remembered. “What about that nice trophy? You know, the one I smashed to smithereens?”
He gave me a look that made me wish my memory hadn’t been so good . . . or my mouth so big.
“That’s enough small talk,” Short Suit snapped. “Lock them in the bathroom, and let’s get on with our work.”
As they hustled us into the tiny room, I tried to explain that I really didn’t have to go to the lavatory and, even if I did, I wouldn’t with a lady right there beside me. But they had a lot of other bad-guy stuff on their minds and didn’t pay much attention. Soon, the two of us were stashed in a room just a little smaller than a box of Milk Duds.
“Great,” I sighed as I plopped myself down on the edge of the toilet seat. “This is just great.”
“Relax,” Doc said. She was already searching the room. “There’s got to be a way we can use this to our advantage.”
I couldn’t help rolling my eyes. “You sound just like my mom.”
“How so?” Doc asked, as she continued her search.
“She keeps telling me to use every situation. To ‘bloom where I’m planted,’ she says. I don’t want to complain, but it doesn’t look like we’ll be doing a lot of blooming here.”
Doc’s eyes locked onto the small window in the wall. It was the type with a bunch of narrow glass panes running across it. She crossed to it and immediately began working to slip those panes out of their frames.
“What are you doing?” I whispered.
“Your mother might not be so wrong. Of all the rooms to lock us in, this is the best.”
“Really?” I rose to my feet. “What can I do?”
She gave me an aren’t-you-the-klutz-that-was-just-banging-around-into-all-those-trees look. “I’m sorry, Wally, but from what I’ve seen of your coordination, it might be better if you just sit quietly and try not to help.”
I nodded, once again amazed at how quickly my reputation spreads.
The minutes dragged on. I wished I’d brought ol’ Betsy. Now would be a good time to continue my superhero story. Unfortunately, I’d left my computer back at the Water Management Facility. Still, Doc carried a half dozen pens in her pocket (I think that’s part of the uniform for scientists), and there was a nearby roll of toilet paper. So I borrowed a pen, pulled on the roll, and went to work. After all, when a guy’s gotta create, he’s gotta create. . . .
When we last left our incurably neat and carefully manicured hero, Tidy Guy was approaching a giant cruise ship heading the wrong way down the freeway. A cruise ship that is none other than Chaos Kid’s headquarters.
But the closer Tidy Guy approaches the cruise ship, the more chaos he experiences. It is even affecting his spaceship. The gas pedal has already traded places with his door handle. To use his rearview mirror, he must now crawl into the glove compartment. And worst of all worsts . . . when he drops in his latest D.C. Talk cassette, he winds up hearing “Sesame Street’s Greatest Hits”!
Then, just when he’s about to lose his mind (you try listening to “The Alphabet Song” a hundred times), he finally gets his craft landed. But when he pulls on the door handle, he suddenly shoots back into the sky. (Stupid gas pedal, anyway.)
Having to use the cigarette lighter as a steering wheel, he eventually touches down again. And, after crawling out of the gas tank (now the exit hatch), he finds himself standing beside a giant and notorious generator that is blasting out the even gianter and notoriouser Chaos Beam.
And, di
rectly in front of that generator is the corruptibly crummy and incorrigibly cross (insert bad guy music here) Chaos Kid.
No one’s sure what made Chaos Kid so chaotic. Some say it was his mom forcing him to make his bed one too many times. Others say he spent too many hours staring at those squiggly patterns trying to find a 3-D picture. Then there’s the ever-popular theory that he actually tried to make sense out of all the buttons on his VCR remote.
Whatever the reason, Chaos Kid is dysfunctional in a major if-I-can’t-rule-the-universe-then-I-at-least-want-to-destroy-it kind of way.
“So, Guy Tidy . . .” he sneers a sinister sneer, “meet again, we.”
Tidy Guy reaches for his Acme Unscrambler and cranks it all the way to Ultra-Mess. But he is too close to the beam; its power is just too strong.
“up Give it,” Chaos Kid grins. “over all It is.”
Tidy Guy fights the panic rising inside and cries, “me don’t You scare!”
His eyes widen in horror. Scott Great, he thinks, my speaking it even affecting is! And then, only that Not, but my thinking affecting it is, too!
Desperately he tries to figure out a solution. do What do I? do What do I? And then, just when his thoughts are more scrambled than a three-egg omelet—
I’d reached the end of the toilet paper. Great, it was just like my house, an almost empty roll that nobody had bothered to replace. But before I could get too worked up, Doc motioned me toward the window. All the panes had been removed and it was wide open. “I’ll boost you through,” she said, “then I’ll follow.”
I let her boost me up, and with the usual daily requirement of McDoogle klutziness, I finally made it through the window and dropped to the ground outside. Unfortunately, the ground outside was home to a bunch of garbage cans.
BANG CLATTER CLATTER
RATTLE BANG BANG!
The back door to the trailer flew open, and I froze.
“Who’s there?” It was Short Suit.
I thought of answering him, but since I have this thing called a brain, I decided to stay silent.
He started down the steps, and I flattened down into a pile of garbage that smelled like my gym socks after one too many months of nonstop wearing.
“It’s just the raccoons,” Mr. Snavely’s voice called from inside the trailer. “They start coming out at the end of the day. Don’t be so jumpy.”
For a second there was no movement. I could tell Short Suit was not entirely buying the raccoon bit. It could go either way. He could head back into the house or come out and see me doing a very bad imitation of a Hefty trash bag. But after a ton of prayers, including promises to never again sneak soda pop out of the refrigerator (let alone fill the container back up with water—poor Mom could never figure out why the pop was always so flat), I finally heard the footsteps turn and head back up the steps.
With a sigh of relief and a reminder to God that I hadn’t said anything about chocolate milk and all the other cool stuff in the fridge (though I suspected He wouldn’t let me get away with that kind of fine print), I whispered up to Doc, “It’s all clear.”
She effortlessly crawled through the window and dropped to my side.
“Sorry about all the noise,” I whispered.
“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “In fact, you’ve given me an idea. Let’s get the garbage back in one of the cans and take it with us.”
“What?”
“You’ll see. Hurry.”
I followed her orders. After quietly loading up a can, we each took a side handle and ran toward the lake with the can between us.
“Look at the water,” I whispered. “It’s still going down.”
“Yes, we’ve got to hurry.”
The sun was just setting as we got to the lake and silently loaded the garbage can onto the rowboat. Well, at least that’s what we wanted to do. But since this took some coordination, I ended up banging the can into the side of the boat half a dozen times and falling into the water. Unfortunately, my little dip wasn’t all that refreshing, and by the way the slimy water clung to me, I could see that the lake wasn’t completely cleaned up.
Then, before I could really enjoy the toxins, the front door to the trailer flew open and I heard our buddies shouting, “There they are! They’re getting away!”
“Quick!” Doc shouted. “Push off, Wally! Push off!”
I did my best, but not without taking another dip in the lake along the way. By the time I dragged myself into the boat, I could hear their footsteps crunching on the sand right behind us.
“Row, Wally, row!”
I grabbed an oar and began rowing for all I was worth.
Meanwhile, the bad guys were doing the usual bad-guy yelling and swearing (I’d type out the words, but I’m trying to keep my fingers G rated). Anyway, the three of them clamored into their boat, cranked up the engine, and started after us.
It didn’t seem fair, a major powerboat against a little rowboat, especially since I was helping to row (which basically meant we were going around in circles). The good news was they’d forgotten to bring their guns. The bad news was this didn’t stop them from ramming into us and trying to sink us.
K-BAM!
“Augh!” we cried.
“Go back to shore!” they shouted. “Go back to shore or we’ll sink you!”
K-BAM!
Doc spun around to me and yelled, “Grab the garbage can!”
“What?”
“Grab the garbage can and start dumping it into the water!”
I wanted to argue, but Doc looked pretty determined, so I followed her orders. Milk cartons, leftover coffee grounds, you name it, I dumped it.
Of course I felt a little bad about littering (and seeing those returnable pop bottles float away), but it’s hard to be too ecologically-minded when you’re busy being killed.
K-BAM!
The bad guys rammed our boat again.
Then the weirdest thing happened. I noticed the water around us was starting to move and swirl.
“What’s that?” I shouted.
“Just keep dumping!” Doc shouted. “Keep dumping!”
I did. And the more I dumped, the more the water turned and churned.
“What’s going on?” Short Suit shouted. The water had gone from churning to bubbling and boiling. “What are you doing?”
But Doc didn’t answer. She was too busy staring at her watch, counting down the seconds.
Water splashed everywhere.
“What’s happening?” I cried.
“Just a few more seconds!” Doc shouted. “Hang on!”
I grabbed the sides of the boat. Things were starting to go crazy, out of control. It was like floating inside a giant teapot that was boiling on high.
And then Doc screamed. “Now! Row, Wally! Row like you’ve never rowed before!”
Chapter 8
Up, Up, and Not Quite Away
Our little rowboat was rocking and rolling in a major sort of way. There were times I couldn’t even tell where the water began and the boat ended. But that didn’t stop me from following Doc’s orders.
I was rowing, big time. And for once in my life, I was almost doing it right.
We’d only gone a few yards before I heard this terrible cracking and splintering sound followed by shouts and screams. I started to turn, but Doc yelled, “Don’t look back! Keep rowing!”
Still, I had to see. I had to know what was happening to the bad guys. I spun around for just a second. Through the splashing and spraying water, I saw their entire boat rising into the air. It was incredible. The middle was splitting in two as the men screamed for their lives. And for good reason. Directly below them was what looked like part sea monster, part machine. Its giant black head continued to rise and push the boat high into the air, while its long, slithering tentacles whipped in all directions, grabbing floating garbage and cramming it into its monstrous mouth.
“HELP US!” the men in the motorboat screamed. “HELP US!”
“Keep rowing, Wally. Keep rowing and don’t look back!”
Now I understood. All the garbage had summoned Doc’s Iatds to the surface.
The screams grew more terrifying and were followed by a powerful CRASH!
And suddenly there was nothing. Only eerie silence. The water was still spraying and splashing, but the screaming had mysteriously stopped.
I wanted to turn back, to try and help, but I knew if we didn’t get out of there, we’d be next on the monster’s menu. Doc and I kept rowing, straining against the oars for all we were worth, when suddenly—
SCRAPE!
We’d hit the beach.
“Hurry!” Doc grabbed my shoulder, half guiding, half shoving me out of the boat. But I had to see. I had to take one last look.
The water was already settling down, but the boat was nowhere to be seen. There were no boards, no splinters, nothing. Iatds had done his job well, too well.
The only thing he’d missed were the Two Suits and Mr. Snavely, who suddenly bobbed to the surface, coughing and cursing and thrashing in the water.
I turned to Doc. She was looking at the trailer, searching for a getaway. The van had already been trashed, and the telephone had been ripped out. Of course we could do the run-in-the-woods routine, but that hadn’t been too successful the last time. With the lake draining so quickly, we had another problem. Not only did we need to get away from the bad guys, but we had to warn the people in town.
“Let’s go!” Doc grabbed my hand and dragged me toward the helicopter.
“You know how to fly that?” I shouted.
“It’s been a long time,” she yelled as we ran toward it.
Behind us, I could hear the bad guys already on their feet, sloshing toward shore. When they saw where we were heading, they started yelling, but neither of us wanted to hang around and chat. We arrived at the helicopter and Doc threw open the door. “Get in, get in!” she shouted.
I crawled over the pilot’s seat and toward mine. Well, at least I tried to crawl toward mine. It seems my feet got a little tangled up in a bunch of foot levers and stuff.
“Quit fooling around, Wally!”
I hadn’t the heart to explain that this was me functioning at peak performance. Fortunately, after a lot more squirming and kicking (which unfortunately meant hitting a lot of switches and buttons on the control panel), I finally managed to tumble into my seat.
