by Mark Crilley
Everything was so slimy and slippery that it was almost impossible to stop myself from sliding. By then the snake was almost completely vertical!
Luckily, Mr. Beeba was only about ten yards below me, and he was doing a much better job of holding on to the slimy walls. In fact, he was actually climbing up to help stop me from sliding any more.
“Just stay put, ’Kiko!” Spuckler called from above. “Beeba’s gonna save ya!”
“It’s too slippery!” I grunted as I slid down another few feet. By then Mr. Beeba was just a couple of yards below me.
“Hang on, Akiko!” he called desperately. “I’m almost there!”
“I’m losing my grip!” I cried as I felt myself begin to fall.
“Akiko!” Mr. Beeba shouted.
Just as I fell past him he reached out and grabbed my arm, squeezing as tightly as he could. He managed to hold me there for a minute or two.
“Don’t worry, Akiko,” he said to me. “I’ve got you!”
He tried to keep a grip on me, but my hand was covered with slime from the walls of the snake creature, and I watched in horror as his fingers slowly slid upward along my forearm. Before long it was just my hand in his, and finally just the tips of my fingers all scrunched up inside his fist.
“I can’t . . . ,” I gasped, “I can’t hold on much longer!”
“But you must, Akiko!” Mr. Beeba cried desperately. “If you let go now you’ll fall straight into the snake’s stomach!”
Just as he said these words, my fingers slipped out of his. Giving a terrified shriek, I felt myself drop like a stone into the darkness below!
I don’t even like to think about what happened next, much less describe it in detail. Let’s just say I was saved by a bad case of snake indigestion. Just as I was falling into the shadowy stomach of the snake, there was this huge belching sound, as loud as thunder. I felt myself being lifted up by a warm (and very disgusting smelling) blast of air. With that one deafening burp, the snake began forcing me all the way back up its throat! It was pitch-black and I couldn’t see a thing. Still, I could feel myself rocketing up through one slimy passage after another, until finally I flew right through the snake’s mouth and out into the open air.
The next thing I knew, I was plunging down into the water of the Moonguzzit Sea. I was pretty dizzy, but luckily I was able to swim back to the surface and start treading water. It’s a good thing my mom made me take those swimming classes at the YMCA when I was a kid!
There was a huge splash as the giant snake plunged back into the water. Its body rolled over and down until finally, with a flip of its long tail, it disappeared beneath the waves. I guess the old monster had lost its appetite.
Just when I was beginning to worry about whether the others had made it out alive, I heard voices from somewhere behind me: “Akikoooo!”
It was Spuckler, Mr. Beeba, Gax, and Poog. It turned out that they’d been carried up out of the snake just like I had been, and had landed a dozen or so yards away. They were all treading water and shouting at me over the waves.
“Thank heavens you’re okay!” Mr. Beeba called out.
“You had us worried there for a minute, ’Kiko!” Spuckler shouted.
“That was, uh, kind of scary, wasn’t it?” I answered breathlessly as I swam over to join them.
“We need to work on your vocabulary, Akiko,” Mr. Beeba said disapprovingly. “The phrase ‘kind of scary’ doesn’t capture it at all.”
The sky was clear and sunny, and the water was pretty calm. As the waves carried us gently up and down, Spuckler started fiddling around with something inside Gax. He told us that Gax was equipped with a life raft, but he was having trouble getting it to inflate.
“This had better work, Spuckler,” Mr. Beeba warned. “We can’t tread water indefinitely, you know.”
“Keep a lid on it, will ya, Beebs? I’m tryin’ to concentrate here.”
“JUST A LITTLE LOWER, SIR,” Gax said, evidently enjoying himself, “YES, YES, THAT’S MUCH BETTER.”
“This ain’t a back rub, Gax,” Spuckler said through clenched teeth, “Release the dang thing already, will ya?”
Finally there were several loud snapping sounds as a sheet of bright orange plastic shot out from underneath Gax, followed by a big whooshing noise as it began to fill with air. Within thirty seconds the raft was fully inflated and floating impressively on the surface of the water. It was pretty big, and I was relieved to see that there would be plenty of space for all of us.
“Climb aboard, everybody!” Spuckler said proudly as he helped us all into the raft. “The S.S. Gax is about to set sail!”
We were all safely inside the raft, lazily drying ourselves off in the midday sun. After all we’d been through, we definitely needed some time to recuperate. Mr. Beeba, as always, was a little nervous about the possibility of something going wrong.
“Spuckler,” he said, inspecting the well-worn surface of Gax’s raft, “are you sure this vessel is seaworthy?”
“Absolutely!” was Spuckler’s confident reply. Then a doubtful look came over his face. He turned to Gax and asked, “Say, buddy, did I ever get around to patchin’ this thing?”
“NO, SIR,’’ Gax answered bluntly.
“Aw, well, they ain’t but tiny little holes anyway,” Spuckler said after a pause. “We won’t start sinkin’ for another day or two, I bet. . . .”
The thought of the raft having holes of any size was not reassuring. Neither was the possibility of us floating around like this for days and days! I decided to see if we couldn’t speed things up a little.
“Mr. Beeba,” I asked, “is there any limit to how high up in the air Poog can fly?”
“I don’t think so,” he answered absentmindedly, staring off across the waves. Spuckler busied himself rearranging some of the pieces of equipment inside Gax’s body.
“Well, then, maybe Poog can help us find the Sprubly Islands,” I suggested.
There was a brief pause. Poog turned to face me.
“What are you getting at, Akiko?” Mr. Beeba asked, leaning forward with a puzzled expression.
“If Poog could fly up, way up into the air,” I explained, “he might be able to see where the Sprubly Islands are. Then he could come back down and tell us what direction to go in and we could all paddle with our hands until we started heading in the right direction.”
“Very clever,” Mr. Beeba answered, sitting up straight. “Let’s see if I can persuade Poog to take your plan into consideration.”
But before Mr. Beeba could say another word, Poog began slowly floating up into the air. He rose higher and higher, like a child’s lost balloon, until all we could see was a tiny purple speck against the sky hundreds of feet above us. Spuckler stopped working on Gax and looked up to see what Poog was doing.
“Astonishing!” Mr. Beeba said, shading his eyes with his hands as he followed Poog’s progress. “I’ve never seen Poog act so quickly on a request like that. You’ve really got a way with him, Akiko.”
“Really?” I asked, smiling. My face suddenly felt very warm, and I realized that I was blushing.
“Indeed,” he answered, a hint of jealousy coming into his voice, “Poog doesn’t often do the things I ask of him, and I’ve known him for a lot longer than you have!”
“It’s, uh, probably just a coincidence,” I said with a nervous chuckle.
“Oh no, Akiko,” Mr. Beeba said with grave seriousness. “Mark my words: There’s a special connection between you and Poog, one that I’ve seen developing from the moment you two met.”
There was a long pause as I thought about Mr. Beeba’s words. I looked up at the distant purple dot in the sky that was Poog and wondered what it meant to have a special connection to this strange floating alien. Somehow I sensed that there was more to it than Poog doing the things I asked of him. What would happen if Poog asked me to do something? Would I be able to do it?
A moment later Poog slowly floated back down to our raft. As us
ual it was hard to see much of an expression on his face, but I think I saw him smiling just a little. He turned to Mr. Beeba and blurted out a brief series of high-pitched syllables.
“Your scheme is a success, Akiko!” Mr. Beeba announced. “Poog has spotted the islands just a mile or two away, and the current is already carrying us in the right direction.”
Spuckler let out a big whoop and I breathed a sigh of relief. Our luck was finally improving! We all started paddling like crazy, trying to get the raft to move as fast as possible. Before long my arms were very sore and I had to take a break. Mr. Beeba soon joined me, but Spuckler kept paddling for almost half an hour. Finally I began to see the silhouettes of trees on the horizon, hazy and blue in the late-afternoon sunlight.
“Everybody look over there!” I shouted, leaning over the edge of the raft and pointing frantically. “It’s one of the Sprubly Islands!”
Soon we were only half a mile or so from the shore. From what I could see, the beach appeared to be wide and sandy, with huge black boulders jutting out all over the place. As we floated closer, the raft got caught in a current that swiftly carried us toward land.
“Everybody hunker down, now,” Spuckler warned. “If we hit one of them boulders, there’s a good chance of gettin’ knocked right outta the raft!”
I crouched low and braced myself as best I could, covering my head with my arms and drawing my legs under my body. Water sprayed over the edges of the raft and soaked us, just like on one of those water rides in an amusement park. The roar of the waves grew louder and louder as the raft rocketed past one black boulder and then another, until finally an enormous wave tossed the raft onto the beach, sending all of us sprawling headfirst onto the sand.
The water quickly receded into the sea, and we scrambled across the sand to avoid the next wave already sweeping in behind us. Spuckler picked both Gax and the raft up in his arms and carried them to a dry, sandy area far from the tide line. Mr. Beeba, his face covered in sand, stumbled after them and finally collapsed in exhaustion. Poog floated along to join them, and I walked unsteadily after Poog, my feet somehow unused to the feel of dry land.
We all sat down on the beach to catch our breath for a moment. Gax clicked and buzzed as he deflated the raft, carefully folded it up, and placed it in a compartment somewhere deep inside his body. Poog was humming quietly a few feet away from me, gazing out at the sea. I sat there on the sand, my elbows on my knees, watching the waves roll in one after the other. The late afternoon sun lit the beach from a very low angle, casting long thin shadows from every stone and seashell. A bunch of tiny crablike creatures skittered along a few yards from where I was sitting and a warm, soothing wind blew across my back. I could have sat that way for the rest of the day, except for one thing: My stomach was almost completely empty.
“I’m hungry,” I said to no one in particular.
“You ain’t the only one,” Spuckler said, turning his head toward the forest behind us. “I wonder if there’s anything eatable around here.”
“Edible, Spuckler,” Mr. Beeba instructed. “Edible.”
“All right,” I said decisively. “We’ve already achieved one of our goals: We’ve arrived safely in the Sprubly Islands. The next thing we have to do is find Queen Pwip.”
“Agreed,” Mr. Beeba said, as if he were checking things off a list in his head.
“But we’re not going to find Queen Pwip tonight,” I continued. “It’s almost sundown, and besides, we’re all half starved.”
“So what’s your plan, ’Kiko?” Spuckler asked, knocking his head with an open hand to dislodge some water from his ear.
“I say we go into this forest and see if we can find anything eatable,” I answered. “I mean, edible.”
“Good thinking, Akiko,” Mr. Beeba said. “But we’d better get moving. We only have a few minutes of sun light left.”
So we got to our feet and made our way up the beach and through the tall grasses that grew at the edge of the forest. The sun had nearly set, and the light gave the trunks of the trees a red-and-orange glow. Spuckler took the lead and we all followed obediently behind him. The forest was strangely quiet, apart from the occasional call of a bird high above.
As we went along, Mr. Beeba pointed out a number of plants he recognized from his studies in botany. He kept trying to make us memorize the names, like some overenthusiastic schoolteacher. Unfortunately, Spuckler and I were way too hungry to be appreciative students.
“Can anyone spot the coniferous twump?” Mr. Beeba asked as we lumbered farther into the increasingly dark woods. “Come on, now. I’ve pointed it out several times already.”
“Beeba,” Spuckler answered, “we don’t want to hear about no more of your highfalutin plants. Not unless it’s somethin’ we can eat.”
“Well, you wouldn’t want to eat a coniferous twump,” Mr. Beeba answered, a troubled expression coming over his face. “It’s been known to make people’s intestines explode!”
“We sure are hungry, Mr. Beeba,” I said, trying not to imagine what it would feel like to have my intestines explode. “Aren’t any of these plants safe to eat?”
“I appreciate your desire for a good square meal, Akiko, but you can’t go through the forest eating things willy-nilly,” Mr. Beeba answered, reaching out and grabbing hold of a small, smooth-surfaced fruit hanging from a nearby plant. “Take this fruit, for example: plump, fragrant, and pleasing to the eye; one might think it would make a delightful snack. . . .”
“That’s all I need to hear,” Spuckler said, snatching the fruit out of Mr. Beeba’s hands and twisting it free from its stem.
“Spuckler! Wait!” Mr. Beeba pleaded. “I know nothing about this plant! It might upset your stomach! It . . . It could be poisonous!”
But it was too late. Spuckler ate the entire thing in a couple of bites and swallowed with an audible gulp. There was a long, frightening pause as we watched to see what would happen. Gax made a squeaky churning sound as he raised his head to get a closer look at Spuckler’s face. Poog hovered near Spuckler’s shoulder, a slightly nervous expression in his eyes. Then Spuckler let out a loud belch and chuckled happily.
“These things are good!” Spuckler declared triumphantly, quickly plucking another one and tossing it in my direction. “Here, ’Kiko. Try one!”
I caught the little fruit with both hands and raised it to my face, slowly turning it over and inhaling its faintly sweet aroma. It was about the same size and texture as an eggplant, but its skin was dark blue with light blue spots, like some kind of exotic butterfly.
I knew that it was wrong to eat something out in the forest without being sure what it was. There was always the possibility that I’d end up getting a bad stomachache or even worse. Still, I was so hungry and the fruit smelled so good that I finally couldn’t resist. I took a tiny little bite, chewed, and swallowed.
“Mmmm, they are good!” I said, taking another bite. It was a lot like a peach, except it tasted a little like strawberries, too. It was soft and juicy and had just one seed in the middle about the size of an almond. I went over and helped Spuckler find some more.
“Try one, Mr. Beeba,” I said, handing him a smaller one I’d just picked. “It’s better than staying hungry, trust me!”
“Well . . . ,” Mr. Beeba replied, his resistance wearing down, “it does have a rather pleasant aroma. . . .”
After inspecting it thoroughly and wiping it vigorously against his clothes like a boy polishing an apple, Mr. Beeba took a bite of the mysterious blue-spotted fruit. Spuckler and I watched him as he slowly chewed and chewed and chewed. Finally he swallowed loudly and wiped the juice from his chin.
“Oh my,” he said quietly, opening his eyes wide and licking his lips. “ It is good, isn’t it?”
Spuckler gave me a wink as if to say “I knew it!”
“Let’s pick as many of them as we can!” Mr. Beeba said excitedly, no longer sounding the least bit cautious. “We’ve got to hurry! The daylight’s almost
gone!”
He was right. The forest was growing darker and darker, and now only the very tops of the trees were lit with a faint red-and-orange glow. Spuckler, Mr. Beeba, and I picked as many pieces of the fruit as we could and began placing them on the ground in little piles. Even Gax helped out a little, though as a robot he wouldn’t end up eating any of them. Finally we all sat down on the ground and began our feast.
We laughed and joked with one another as we stuffed ourselves with the fruit, smiling and spitting the seeds in all directions. Mr. Beeba turned out to have even more of an appetite than Spuckler and me put together. By the time I had reached my limit, Mr. Beeba had eaten more than two dozen pieces of the fruit and showed no sign of slowing down.
“Beeba, take a breather for a second, will ya?” Spuckler said, chuckling. “You’re gonna make yourself sick!”
“You’re quite right, Spuckler,” Mr. Beeba replied, grabbing another piece of fruit from the pile in front of him. “I’ll stop just as soon as I finish this stack.”
It was right around then that I started to get this odd feeling all over my body. At first I thought I was getting an upset stomach, except I didn’t feel really bad, just really . . . well, weird. It was like my whole body felt a little lighter or something. I looked over at Spuckler and noticed that he had a puzzled expression on his face.
“Hey, Beebs,” he said, “ya really better stop eatin’ that stuff, and I mean pronto. I’m startin’ to feel a little . . . strange.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Spuckler,” Mr. Beeba said between mouthfuls. “I’ve never felt better in my life.”
Suddenly I had the odd sensation that I couldn’t feel the ground underneath me anymore. I reached down to touch the ground and felt myself slowly float up into the air an inch or two!
“Whoah!” I gasped. “I’m . . . I’m floating, guys!”
