by Ahmet Zappa
Max just stood there and laughed.
“I must admit that Max is right; you do look silly, Minerva,” Mr. Devilstone said with a giggle. “It does smell rather putrid around here, but there is no need for you to cover up in the way that you have. There's a higher chance of being eaten by a monster than catching a disease. So take all that silly stuff off.” I had a hard time caring about Mr. Devilstone's opinions at that moment because he was the one who had suggested that we take this disgusting route, and so far there had been no sign of my father, just monsters. I had to wonder if we were just being taken on some wild-goose chase, conducted by a mean, mysterious coyote, for no reason. I was angry, worried, confused, hungry and fed up. Plus, it was hard to breathe with all that cloth I had around my face.
“Okay, enough is enough, Mr. Devilstone. I want answers, and I want them now!” I demanded.
“What can I help you with, Minerva? Knowing you, I'm sure there's a list,” he said, and rolled his eye.
“Well, for starters, how are we going to get across this disgusting place?” I asked, a little impolitely.
“I'm meeting a friend here who's going to help us all cross. I'm sure he'll be along any moment now,” answered Mr. Devilstone. “Is there anything else you would like to ask me in a more courteous manner?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact. Why won't you answer my questions about my father and that mysterious monster from my vision? I'm worried about my father, I'm worried about our safety and I think you're hiding something. Maybe I was right about you from the beginning. Maybe you are working for … monsters! Behind you, look out!” I screamed, and grabbed Max.
From the depths of the stagnant, watery sludge emerged not just one but three Moldrens!
The mossy, mold-encrusted creatures crept out from the marsh toward us, all of them in varying shades of green and brown, each one bigger than the one before. They each had three eyes and bacteria-filled mouths crammed full of teeth at least triple the size of a human's. Their wet, overgrown, rabbitlike noses constantly twitched and dripped disease. Their disgusting mold-covered arms were the size of fallen tree trunks, and their legs seemed twice as massive. Puddles formed with every step they took toward us as the murky waters squirted through the toes of their hooflike, rhinocerous-sized feet. The idea of any of them touching me with their moldy hands made me want to scream, and one of the Moldrens wouldn't stop staring at me with all three of its creepy eyes.
Then Mr. Devilstone did something I hadn't expected. He almost keeled over, he laughed so hard. Max grabbed Ms. Monstranomicon and we ran as fast as we could. We needed to find a way out of the marshlands alive. Our hearts beating fast and our legs pumping hard, Max and I ran neck and neck against the acrid air—until his foot snagged a vine and he tumbled to the ground. It took me a second to realize that he was down, and when I stopped to go back for him, I noticed that Mr. Devilstone was casually standing right behind me. In the distance, I saw Max and Ms. Monstranomicon slumped over the shoulder of one of the Moldrens, being carried back toward the polluted water's edge.
“Minerva, I am not your enemy and you are never going to find your father if you go in that direction. That I'm sure of,” said Mr. Devilstone calmly.
“How can I trust you?” I asked, all panicky.
“Your brother is in no danger and neither are you, Minerva. Now listen to me,” he said gently, and placed a paw on my shoulder. “I know you have questions and I promise I'll answer all of them, once we get your father back.” Then he seized my hand. “You have my word, Minerva: no harm will befall a McFearless as long as I shall live.” With a blink of his only eye and a burst of red lightning, suddenly the world around me ceased to exist. Time and space seemed to fold in on themselves. I felt like I was moving faster than I'd ever moved before, without actually moving at all. I'd been magically transported back to the water's edge and was surrounded by Moldrens. Max greeted me with a smile, unlike any I'd ever seen before, plastered on his face.
I calmed down once I learned that Moldrens didn't like to eat people, but got incredibly angry when I found out that the biggest Moldren had taken part in my father's kidnapping. So I kicked it as hard as I could in the leg. A large chunk broke off and stuck to my shoe, spurting a watery, green, bloodlike liquid all over the place.
“Ow!” shouted the Moldren, and saplike tears slowly started dripping from all three of its eyes. The other two Moldrens snarled defensively and were about to retaliate, but the big Moldren called them off.
“That was for my father, and if you know what's good for you, you'll give him back!” I yelled through my face cloth. I geared up to sock it in its crying third eye, but Mr. Devilstone stopped me.
“Don't you dare strike Milgrew again,” the coyote scolded. “If it weren't for him, your father would probably be dead by now. Apologize at once, Minerva.”
“No, little one, you have every reason to be angry,” sighed Milgrew the Moldren. Then he commanded the parts of himself still stuck to my shoe to crawl back onto his leg where they belonged. In no time whatsoever, the place where I'd injured him had healed itself. “I probably deserved that kick. But you must understand something, Minerva. I've been working undercover as a monster double agent for years now, supplying humans, like your family, for instance, with important monster information. Please believe me when I say that I only participated in your father's kidnapping so that I could hopefully ensure his safety. I wanted to set your father free and pretend that he'd somehow escaped, but that insidious Snargle who accompanied me to your father's incarceration watched him far too closely for that. Unfortunately, my monsters on the inside have relayed to me that your father has been swoggled and that Medighouls had to be brought in to repair his badly battered broken body. There's no word yet on exactly what sort of mental state the swoggling has left him in but, at least for now, he is alive. That is why I feel it is I who should apologize to you and your brother, for not being able to do more for him. Hopefully, together, we can make things right. I've enlisted the help of my Moldren comrades-in-arms, Sporak and Mushroach, in the building of a mighty McFearless vessel that will carry us all safely to the burning sands of Skullbury Desert. I hope that this makes up for at least some of the grief I have caused your family and that someday you might find it in your hearts to forgive me.”
Milgrew's words made me feel tremendous shame for the way I had acted. I never should have kicked him. “I am so sorry for what I did to you,” I told him sincerely. “And I thank you very much for all that you've done.”
“It only hurt for a moment. See? I've put myself back together again. So don't worry,” replied Milgrew sweetly.
“Can we please just get on the boat and save our dad already?” implored Max. It was obvious to everyone that Max couldn't wait any longer to climb aboard his fantasy fulfilled.
“Well, it seems that Max here is extremely fond of the boat we've made, which gives me an idea,” said Milgrew. He searched inside his ears with his long, twiglike fingernails and plucked out a thin, needlelike thorn. “Do you trust me, little pirate captain?” asked Milgrew.
“Um, yeah, I do, sort of,” replied Max, without need of a gum ball.
“Good. I'll try to make this as painless as I can,” said Milgrew. “Stick out a finger.” Max did as he was told and closed his eyes. Then Milgrew pricked his finger with the thorn.
“Did you do it yet?” asked Max, eyes still closed. He hadn't felt a thing, yet his finger had the tiniest droplet of blood on it.
“Yes, it is done, young sea captain. You can open your eyes now,” answered Milgrew.
“Why'd you do that?” I asked. “I mean, what was the point?”
“Well, Minerva, I did it so that I could give your brother a present I think he'll really enjoy. I have infected him with parts of me.”
Hearing that made Max need a gum ball right away.
Milgrew realized he'd caused my brother fear, which was not his intent. So he explained to Max reassuringly what a truly magical thin
g he had done for him. A thing that, to Milgrew's knowledge, had never been done for a human before. “Max, don't be nervous. Think of this thorn of mine with your blood on it as a key. Now, once I place this ‘key' into the ship's steering wheel, it will only ever serve one human master, and that person shall be you, young Maxwell McFearless. It'll never set sail without you, and it'll always be loyal only to you. Wherever you want to go, it'll take you, and when you need it, it will come. I suspect it'll do whatever you want it to, Max, because I believe that you have it in you to be the greatest sea captain of them all.”
Max loved hearing that. His mind had been blown away, as if it had been blasted with a pirate's cannonball. The ship was everything he had ever hoped for, with two massive oak trees for masts, one fore and one aft. Their smooth branches held leaves that were woven tightly into green sails set lengthwise along the golden-brown wooden deck. The ship could easily carry up to fifty-five crewmen or twenty-five crewmonsters comfortably and would still have more than enough room for plenty of piles of pirate booty. With eight mounted self-loading monster-designed cannons and four fearsome swivel guns at its devilish disposal, it was a living, sailing terror, and it looked like it could move faster than the wind itself.
(Max got his dream boat; I got scary, uncontrollable visions. Great!)
“Milgrew …” Tears of joy welled up in Max's eyes. “This is the greatest thing ever. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
“Wait,” Milgrew said. “It will need one other thing. A name. So how about it, Max?”
Max quieted down, paused for a moment and chose a name for his boat. “I think she should be called Adelaide, after my mother. It was her middle name,” he explained to Milgrew. Then he actually hugged the moldy monster. Gross.
“Adelaide it is, then,” declared Milgrew with kindness in his face. He patted Max softly on his head; then he closed all three of his eyes and sent out a telepathic message. Max shook his head slightly, as if he had a bumblebee stuck inside it. He could hear what Milgrew was thinking at him, and it caught him a little off guard. “Max, this is how you'll be able to communicate with your ship,” said Milgrew with his brain. “You try it now. Ask me something.”
Max scrunched up his forehead hard in concentration and squeezed his brain waves right through the top of his head. “Can you hear me? Am I doing this right?”
“Yes. Loud and clear, young sea captain,” re-sponded Milgrew, impressed. “Now, cast your eyes back toward your boat, for she knows her name and wears it proudly.”
Max turned just in time to see the last letters of the name he had given the ship magically appear, in bright sea-foam-green lettering, boldly across her starboard bow.
Like I said before, it was truly amazing (not that I'm jealous).
travel time would be longer for some reason, but Mr. Devilstone informed me that we'd probably reach our scorching, sand-filled destination just before daybreak and suggested I get some rest. I took his advice and bid everyone good night. I found a nice place to rest my head in the captain's chamber, where I closed my eyes and fell fast asleep.
Mr. Devilstone woke me a few hours later by scratching and biting my feet. He seemed a bit stranger than usual.
“Minerva, I hope you had a splendid nap. Sorry to have woken you,” he said. “I want you to hide Ms. Monstranomicon under your clothes. You have enough of them on, so it shouldn't be a problem. I lost her sack somehow and I wouldn't want her to get burnt by the sun's rays in the desert. Do you mind?”
“No, I guess not,” I told him as the boat suddenly shook hard.
“I think you should do it now,” he said, and handed her to me. “One more thing: beware of the Zarmaglorg! Things aren't always what they seem. Be brave and keep your wits about you.”
The Enotslived Diamond was glowing more brightly than I'd ever seen it glow before, yet what it meant never registered in my mind—until it was too late. A Snargleflougasaurus battered down the door to our room, grabbed Mr. Devilstone and gobbled him down, crunch after bone-cracking crunch. It happened so fast, Mr. Devilstone didn't have a chance.
“Nooooooo!” I screamed.
“Mmh, me favorite meat be coyote for Snargle,” mumbled the Snargleflougasaurus—and that was when I noticed that it had my brother in its clawed hand. Max was unconscious and his head looked like it had been bashed.
“Oh, no! Max! Max, can you hear me?” I yelled. “Max, wake up! Oh, no! You've killed him!”
“Me no kill him boy brother. Me only do what master say me do. I do to you now, girl sister, like what me already done to boy brother him,” said the Snargleflougasaurus, and it hit me awfully hard in the face with its bulbous spiked tail. I was knocked out cold.
3) The Snargle was finished with its nap. (Not so good.)
Once our cages stopped swinging wildly, I looked down at Max, who was rubbing his jaw, and I saw one of the saddest things ever. A flaming dead baby bat that had caught its end from the fiery blast had landed, toasted and cooked, by Max's foot. I thought it was still adorable, in a burnt-up kind of way, with its wings smoldering. Max didn't think so. He looked at it and grimaced, then kicked its cute carcass over the side of the cage and into the pit below. Jerk.
I guessed Max didn't feel so great after being ping-ponged around our birdcage cell by the explosion. I had on layer after layer of shock-absorbing fabric to protect me, but Max had nothing to soften the barrage of blows he had sustained. Oh, and I almost forgot, Ms. Monstranomicon was shoved up the back of my shirt too, which really helped, because she took the brunt of the beatings for me. I was sure she felt like thousands of pages of pulverized swollen gibberish right about then, since she was the one who had broken the lock of our cage with her spine.
“Children, are you all right? Minerva? Max?” asked Ms. Monstranomicon between small panicked grunts of pain and frantic page ruffles that tickled my back. “Oh, please get me out of here. I don't want to be eaten by a Snargle. Can you hear me?”
I gently pulled her out from under my shirt and held her low, toward the bottom of our cell, so that the Snargle wouldn't see her. “Ms. Monstranomicon, I'm okay, but how are you doing?”
“I'll live, but I suspect not for long if the Zarmaglorg knows that I'm here,” said Ms. Monstranomicon. “You were both unconscious for so long and that Snargleflougasaurus was so mean to you, I was terrified. I wanted to try to escape and go for help, but I was way too scared that the Snargle would eat me like it ate Mr. Devilstone. How are we ever going to get out of here?”
“Who are you talking to in there, Minerva?” asked my father from across the way. He was straining his neck to get a better view of who it was and what we were doing. “I'm worried about you, my precious, adorable baby girl. If anything had happened to either of you, I don't think I would have been able to go on. Now, Daddy wants to know who is in there with you, okay, my little lamb chops?” Our father sounded like he'd been hit on the head one too many times. It wasn't like him to talk that way. I mean, it was weird. I tried to answer him, but the Snargleflougasaurus was curious too.
“I see sister boy mouths moving, girl and boy brother sister, why be talking? Me no can hear you. If Snargle no can hear then me want quiet so not one body hear. Girl boy sister brother shut mouth now!” shouted the Snargle furiously. Ms. Monstranomicon was so terrified of being discovered, she gasped once and fainted.
“Okay!” Max and I yelled down to the Snargle.
“Me no hear you, what boy girl say?” roared the hard-of-hearing Snargle back up at us.
We said we'll be quiet! Max and I hollered as loudly as we could.
“Good boy girl sister brother. I go get master now so he reward me Snargle food. Me tummy no like coyote me had. Me have pain down in tummy place, Snargle no like bad feeling. Boy girl meat maybe fix Snargle tummy problem, me go ask master for permission to eat sister boy meat now,” said the Snargle as it lumbered off.
The Snargle headed toward a large jagged opening in the cavern wall. Inside I could see a few
steps of a small staircase that I assumed led up into the haunted stone walls of Castle Doominstinkinfart. It was unusual to see the enormous Snargle trying to make its way up the tiny stairs with its monstrously sized body. It was slow going, and the Snargle had to bend its peanut-sized-brain-filled head down close to its elephant-looking scaled feet going up the narrow passageway. There was no other exit in the cavern, unless you considered falling to our deaths a way out. We needed to escape and I had a plan.
“Children, the Snargle is gone now. Don't be afraid. Tell me who you were talking to, please,” said my father. I thought he'd be angry and disappointed that I had inadvertently smuggled Ms. Monstranomicon back into that evil place, so I lied.
“Nobody, Dad. It's just Max and me in here,” I said, hoping I was convincing. Then I handed Ms. Monstranomicon to Max and shot him a look like “If you tell on me right now, I'll kill you.”
“But I heard someone else in there with you. Are you sure you're not lying to me, pumpkin?” There was something in the way my father said pumpkin that gave me the creeps.
“Yeah, I'm sure, Daddy,” I said, and Max even kept his mouth closed for once. “I have an idea about how to get out of here. Just give Max and me a few minutes, okay?” I said, changing the subject.
“No, children, stay where you are! It is too dangerous for you,” my father ordered.
But I was already taking action. I had no intention of staying in our filthy birdcage prison a moment longer. “Sorry, Daddy, but I have to try something. Just hold on,” I said.
“Max, Minerva, no! Do you hear me? No!” my father commanded, but I just tuned him out. Max was definitely torn between obeying our father and getting out of our cage.
