The Tides of Avarice

by John Dahlgren

  “Is that—” Sylvester began.

  “It’s me,” said Rasco in a low voice. “What kind of mess have you folks got yourself into this time? Really! Can’t turn my back on you for one moment without—”

  “Oh, shut up!”

  Sylvester’s eyebrows rose. Viola’s angry exclamation had been all the more threatening for being spoken so quietly. It had clearly scared Rasco into silence.

  The chimp finished peeling the banana and, still puffing contentedly on his pipe, stared toward the center of town while scratching his rear end noisily. Mrs. Pickleberry was no more than a few inches from the chimp’s right foot.

  Viola’s mom shifted her position ever so slightly and the end of her wooden rolling pin tapped the surface of the road. By a quirk of fate, it did so just at the moment that the chimp stopped his noisy scratching. The faint click of wood meeting road sounded clearly through the cold dawn air.

  “Uh-oh,” whispered Viola.

  Sylvester was transfixed by the horror of the sight, and could only watch as the chimp looked down and saw, not far from its toes, the huddled dark shape that was Mrs. Pickleberry.

  What the chimp thought he was seeing was anyone’s guess. It was surely too dark for him to be able to tell there was a terrified lemming looking straight back up at him.

  He might have shrugged and ignored the blob on the roadway had Mrs. Pickleberry not decided to make a run for it.

  She stood up, gathered her skirts around her and started to scuttle toward where Sylvester and Viola lurked on the far side of the road.

  The chimp grunted in surprise.

  His long, powerful foot rose, preparing to stamp down viciously on the fleeing creature.

  The foot began its rapid descent and—

  “Oi!” bellowed Sylvester, shoving Viola violently away from him, so that she was lost in a clump of weed that grew out of the bottom of a neighbor’s fence.

  The chimp paused with his foot in midair, staring across to where the shout had come from.

  Claws scraping on the hard road surface, Mrs. Pickleberry scrabbled to get away from him. In her terror, she wasn’t making much progress.

  It was the first time Sylvester had seen her truly frightened, but he was in too much of a funk to relish the experience. What in the world had possessed him to draw the chimp’s attention like this? It was suicide, plain suicide. What would his mentor, Celadon, be thinking if he could see Sylvester now?

  “Good move,” said Rasco from somewhere near Sylvester’s elbow. “I’ll go and help the ol’ girl.”

  From the corner of his eye, Sylvester saw a small black streak propel itself across the road toward the struggling older lemming.

  “Come and get me, fatface,” he heard himself taunt the chimp.

  “Why, you—!”

  The chimp threw its pipe aside.

  “Mneh-mneh-me-mneh-mneh!”

  Ahead of Sylvester was the wrathful primate, now beginning to move in his direction, mouth drawn open in fury to reveal irregular but powerful-looking teeth. Behind Sylvester was the solid wooden fence belonging to the house opposite the chimp’s, with Viola flailing somewhere in a knot of weed. There were only two ways Sylvester could think of running from the vengeful primate. Down the street back toward the center of town, where Cap’n Rustbane and his band of pirates would surely still be combing the streets in search of the fugitives, or the other way along the street, heading for the unknown jungle and all the horrors it might contain.

  Sylvester knew very little about those horrors . . . as yet.

  Toward the jungle it was, then.

  Twice before, during this flight from the pirates, he’d managed to gear himself into a special frame of mind that had allowed him to cover distance faster than any mortal lemming could run, in particular, faster than a somewhat portly assistant librarian lemming could run. It was a knack he could do with being able to reproduce now. The other two times he’d been terrified, yes, but there had been something more than that, something beyond the ordinary limits of terror, something that—

  The chimp roared.

  That helped. Sylvester felt his legs gathering strength underneath him.

  But if he fled, what about Viola? She’d be left here on her own . . .

  He dithered.

  The chimp’s banana, furiously hurled, whistled past Sylvester’s head, missing by a quarter of a millimeter at most, and splattered to annihilation against the painted wooden fence behind him. He felt liquified banana cover his back in a thin, uniform layer and staggered forward from the impact into air yellowed by other rebounded banana droplets.

  Fear made him do it. He roared right back at the chimp.

  Lemmings don’t have the lungs to produce a very impressive roar. What came out of Sylvester’s mouth was more of a snarl than anything else, but it nonetheless conveyed a level of savagery that startled even Sylvester himself.

  “Huh?” said the chimp, again balancing on one foot, the other poised halfway through the creature’s first step towards Sylvester.

  There was a commotion beneath the larger animal. Sylvester was barely aware of it, unable to unlock his own gaze from the chimpanzee’s.

  He roared again. He made as if to pound his chest but then realized this wouldn’t look too impressive, so instead he just jutted out his jaw.

  “Come and get me, dumbbutt.”

  “I’ll—”

  Crrrrrack!

  “Aaaaargh!” shrieked the chimp, the expression on his face changing instantly from aggression to agony. Still staring at Sylvester, but now as if imploring him for mercy, the big creature began slowly to topple over sideways, reaching one hand toward his ankle.

  “Gotcha!” squeaked Rasco in triumph. He was holding Mrs. Pickleberry’s rolling pin in his arms, staggering under its weight.

  Then he looked upward and realized where the falling chimp was going to land.

  “Run! Run!”

  Sylvester turned to the thick weeds. Viola was just beginning to right herself. He grabbed one of her hands and pulled hard. She shot upright and cannoned into him, almost knocking him off balance.

  “What—?” she began. One glance past him at the stricken chimpanzee was enough to answer all her questions and she shut her mouth firmly.

  “Come on,” he cried.

  “Mom!”

  “Rasco’s helping her.”

  Even as he spoke the words, Sylvester recognized their falsehood. Rasco was tough but he was far too small to be of much use helping Mrs. Pickleberry to her feet, let alone dragging her out of danger if that proved necessary.

  Sylvester darted straight toward the chimp, who was now flailing his arms in the air in a doomed attempt to stop himself from crashing to the ground. Rasco had dropped the rolling pin and was throwing his full weight against Mrs. Pickleberry, trying to get her to move out of danger. Without success.

  The whatever-it-was that had helped Sylvester move at unnatural speed earlier now suddenly decided to make its presence felt. Not caring about the antics of the chimp overhead, he darted straight toward the prone lemming.

  “Run for your life,” he commanded Rasco.

  The mouse looked at Sylvester’s face and vanished in a flurry of black fur.

  Sylvester barely paused as he scooped up Mrs. Pickleberry from the ground. The darker moonshadow of the falling chimp was getting larger and larger on the roadway all around them. Mrs. Pickleberry seemed barely conscious, which was a blessing. She was in no condition to struggle or protest as Sylvester threw her over his shoulder like a sack of seeds.

  On the other side of the road, where Sylvester had been just a split second before, Viola was making good her own escape. He could see, in the moonlight, the glitter of her wide eyes as she scampered away parallel with the fence. Luckily, she was going in the same direction Rasco had taken
– away from town, toward the jungle.

  The jungle was just beginning to come awake with the dawn. The air was full of screams and shrieks and caterwauls. Most of them sounded hungry.

  Don’t think about it, Sylvester told himself. Solve one problem before you start worrying about the next.

  Limp and uncooperating, Mrs. Pickleberry was a lot heavier than he’d expected. He guessed she was a lot heavier than she’d ever have admitted in mixed company. Would Viola become like this when she was a bit older? It was an unnerving thought.

  So stop thinking it!

  I should be running!

  Running like the wind!

  Running so fast that …

  Confused, he looked around him. The kerthump of the chimpanzee hitting the road, and the ensuing torrent of curses, seemed strangely distant.

  That was because they were strangely distant, a full fifty yards away.

  Sylvester had no recollection of covering the intervening distance. He had no conception of how he’d been able to do so, burdened as he was by about a ton and a half of lifeless Mrs. Pickleberry.

  Viola came puffing up to him. He must have overtaken her on the way. All around, lights were coming on in the houses as the chimp’s screams of anger woke the neighbors. In a few moments there was going to be a mob out here, a mob that’d think nothing of ripping a few foreign lemmings limb from limb.

  “My hero,” gasped Viola, looking as if she were about to fall into Sylvester’s arms, even though they were already full.

  “Keep running,” he cried. “Keep running for your life. We’re not out of the woods yet.”

  “You mean we’re not into the—oh, never mind.”

  They ran.

  ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿.

  They stopped running when Sylvester tripped over a root and went flying, Mrs. Pickleberry shooting out of his arms to fly even farther. Fortunately, they both landed sprawling on soft, mushy ground.

  “You all right, boss?” said Rasco hoarsely in Sylvester’s ear.

  Sylvester swallowed a mouthful of mud and jungle-floor compost. The fall hadn’t hurt. Having just run flat-out carrying the heavy Mrs. Pickleberry for at least five hundred miles was what was hurting him. Well, maybe it hadn’t been quite five hundred miles. But a pretty hefty distance, anyway.

  “I’ll be all right,” he managed to say. “I hope. See how Daphne is.”

  “I’m all right,” said Mrs. Pickleberry from a few yards away. Sylvester was dimly aware of her sitting up in the moonlight. She cackled. “Wha’ever made you think I wun’t?”

  “You were uncon—oh, never mind.”

  “Me? Unconscious? Not me, I wasn’t, but why should I tire out me old legs when there was a young gemmun prepared to tire out his legs fer me?”

  She’s lying, thought Sylvester dully, nestling his head on a lump of something squishy. She was out cold. The fall must have jolted her awake again. Why’s she lying about it? What’s she trying to hide?

  “Mom?” said Viola in a worried tone of voice. Sylvester couldn’t immediately tell where she was, then heard her sit down heavily beside her mother. “Are you all right?”

  “’Course I’m all right, you young nincompoop.”

  “Mo–om.”

  “No need to be bothering your head about an old baggins like me.”

  She must be all right, thought Sylvester, shutting his eyes firmly. They’re bickering again.

  “Don’t go to sleep on me,” said Rasco urgently. The mouse tugged at Sylvester’s ear – hard. “We’re not safe yet.”

  “Um-hm.”

  “Wake up!”

  Sleep seemed an excellent idea to Sylvester. Sleep was an enormous puffy mattress, half the size of the world, and it smelled something like fresh straw, something like warm puppies. He’d just climbed aboard the edge of the mattress, and was now walking in long, bouncy, restful strides towards the center of it. With each new stride he took, his legs bent just a little more than they had the last time, and moved a little more slowly, so that very soon he was going to be crawling along on his tummy and then, perhaps, at last he’d be allowed to …

  “Wake up!” Rasco repeated, much louder than the last time. “We can’t stop here. We got to get ourselves farther into the jungle than this.”

  “Wazzat?”

  The mouse called over to the other two. “Hey, you!”

  Viola and Mrs. Pickleberry barely paused in their squabbling.

  Rasco made a curious noise in his throat. After a moment, Sylvester realized the mouse was growling. The effect of the growl was to make the mattress Sylvester was bouncing along just a little firmer. When Rasco growled a second time the mattress became positively lumpy.

  Sylvester shook his head. The mouse was right. However tempting it might be to rest, they were still in danger. If the chimpanzee and his neighbors were still searching for the intruders, they couldn’t be far away. Even if they weren’t – and through the thunder of blood in his ears Sylvester could hear no sounds of pursuit – by the time the sun was fully up anyone would be able to look in here from the road and see the little party.

  It seemed like the biggest effort he’d ever made, even bigger than carrying Mrs. Pickleberry, but he forced himself up from the ground and stood unsteadily on legs that seemed to be made out of custard.

  “You two,” he said harshly in the general direction of the Pickleberries.

  To his astonishment, they quit their wrangling immediately and stared at him, eyes wide, mouths open mid-insult. It would have been better, he thought, if he could have seen a little respect for his leadership in their eyes, or at the very least a preparedness to listen to what he was about to say. Instead, all he saw there was irritation, as if Viola and Mrs. Pickleberry were impatient for him to get the words out so they could keep going from where they’d left off. But at least they’d shut up.

  “We’ve got to keep moving.”

  “We have?” Viola’s voice was very flat.

  “We have.”

  “The boss is right,” chipped in Rasco.

  “So we’re taking orders from a mouse now, are we?” said Viola.

  “This mouse has survived in these parts for the whole of his life,” Rasco pointed out, his forepaws on his hips. “If it hadn’t been for him, you lot’d be dead by now. You don’t know diddly-squat about a thing here on Blighter Island. I don’t know why I didn’t just let you all be killed by the pirates, I don’t. It’d have been a lot less trouble for me if I had. I could be curled up all safe in my nice warm wine cellar right now, but no, I’m stuck in the jungle with a mob of angry primates after me blood and a pair of spoiled brats arguing with each other like chipmunks, and what thanks do I get? I ask you, what thanks? I don’t know why me and Sylvester here don’t just leave you two where you are and go off and find me gran and put a few drinks inside us and—”

  “Oh,” said Viola.

  “Yeah, right,” said Rasco, looking as if he might, should she utter so much as a single further syllable, leap straight down her throat and tie her vocal cords in a knot.

  She shut her mouth.

  “Now,” said Rasco less pugnaciously, “we gotta do what the big guy says. We gotta get well away from the edge of the jungle. There are trails in here that only the natives know, that only the natives, like me, can even see. I can guide you to my grandma’s place, and I can keep you out of the clutches of them brigands want to fry you alive, but only if I get a bit of cooperation. Right? Is that understood?”

  Viola looked at Rasco as if she was about to burst into tears. Mrs. Pickleberry stared at him as if she wanted to rolling-pin him until he was just a furry puddle. But neither of the two lemmings said a word. He’d won the argument.

  Rasco grinned up at Sylvester.

  “Ready to get going, mon?”

  “Mon?” said Sylvester.
>
  “Yes, well, ahem, I sort of picked it up on Bojingle Island. I heard that there was a lot of beautiful mademoiselles there.”

  “Mademoiselles?”

  “It means young ladies,” explained Rasco. “It’s a word I picked up in another place. Anyway, I was a stowaway on a ship heading to Bojingle and, wow, were those young ladies a sight! I stayed there for quite a while so I picked up the accent somehow. There you have it . . . mon.”

  ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿.

  For some hours, Sylvester felt as if he was indeed the leader of the quartet, that Rasco was merely his lieutenant and, well, enforcer. The little mouse was able to detect jungle trails where anyone else, glancing inexpertly, would have seen merely a thick tangle of vegetation. The only trouble was that very often obstacles of one kind or another had fallen across their path. Luckily Sylvester, being bigger, was able to shove most of these out of the way or at least help the others climb over them.

  “Gee, thanks,” said Rasco about the tenth time this happened. He and Sylvester stood together waiting for the Pickleberries to catch up. Viola and her mom could probably clamber over this fallen branch without Sylvester’s assistance, but he wanted to be there just in case Viola should chance to get into any difficulties.

  “You’re besotted with that so-called babe, ain’t you?”

  Rasco’s question interrupted Sylvester’s dreamy thoughts.

  “Ah, and, er, which particular babe might it be you had in mind?”

  “The one you go all googoo-eyed over. Miss Prancy-Dancy. Viola.”

  “Oh, her, you mean?”

  “None other.”

  “Well, she is, in a manner of speaking, quite lovely, you know.”

  “Not to me, she ain’t.”

  Sylvester beamed down at his smaller companion in a patronizing fashion.

  “I don’t expect she would be. A bit much for a little fellow like you to handle, I’d say.”

  Rasco glowered. “Not just that, puddinghead. There’s also the fact that I’m a mouse and she’s a—say, what kind of creatures are you folks, anyhow? I never thought to ask.”

  “We’re lemmings,” said Sylvester, hoping he didn’t sound too pompous.