Zack calmly assessed the situation and then did the only thing possible.
He panicked.
‘We’re doomed!’ he yelled. ‘We’re going to die! We’re all going to die!’
The Smacker swam over, grabbed Zack and slapped his face.
‘Get a grip, boy!’ she yelled. ‘You’re not dead yet are you?’
Zack shook his head.
‘No,’ he said, ‘but . . .’
‘But nothing!’ yelled the Smacker above the howling wind. ‘We’ve still got a world to save! You can die later, if you want, but not now. And that’s an order!’
Zack nodded meekly.
He didn’t want her to slap him again.
Besides, he thought. She was right. They weren’t dead yet. And the storm seemed to be easing slightly. There was still hope.
That’s when Zack saw them.
Fins.
Triangular shaped dorsal fins cutting through the water towards them.
Zack started to panic again.
The Smacker was wrong.
They were going to die.
‘Help!’ screamed Zack. ‘Sharks!’
The others spun around and saw the rapidly approaching fleet of fins.
‘Don’t worry!’ said the Smacker. ‘I’ll smack them if they come near us.’
‘And I’ll kick their bums,’ said the Kicker.
Everyone looked to the Kisser, who stared back blankly. ‘Well, don’t look at me,’ he said. ‘I’m not kissing them. Not with those teeth!’
As they watched and held their breath, one of the creatures leapt out of the sea. It rose gracefully into the air and then dived back into the water. Zack blinked. He didn’t know much about the creatures that lived in the Sea of Bums, but he knew enough to realise that this was obviously not a shark. It looked more like a porpoise except that its skin was a dimpled glossy brown rather than the usual porpoise-grey.
‘Nobody smack or kick or do anything to them,’ cried Eleanor.
‘Why not?’ said the Smacker.
‘Because they’re not sharks.’
‘Then what are they?’ said Zack.
Eleanor smiled broadly and stretched out her hand to pat one that was headed straight for her. ‘They’re poopoises,’ she said.
‘You mean porpoises?’ said Zack.
‘No,’ she said, patting the large brown creature as it playfully ducked and dived around her. ‘Poopoises! And they’re friendly. Just put your arms around its neck and it will carry you to shore.’
‘There’s no way I’m putting my arms around a poopoise!’ said Zack.
But nobody heard him.
They had already each grabbed a poopoise and were rocketing off into the distance.
One of the remaining poopoises nudged Zack’s arm.
He pulled away. But then Zack started to feel the water sucking him under again and he looked up to see another huge wave—even bigger than the wave that had destroyed the bum-raft. And it was about to break right on top of him.
Zack had no choice. He grabbed the poopoise and barely had time to catch his breath before it shot off down into the water, away from the killer wave.
The poopoise re-emerged in the wake of the others, diving effortlessly through the raging sea.
After a while Zack worked up the confidence to get up and sit on the poopoise’s back, using its dorsal fin as a handhold. This allowed the poopoise to move even faster, and pretty soon he’d caught up to the others.
‘Wow, look at you go!’ said Eleanor, as Zack pulled up alongside her. ‘Anyone would think you’ve been riding poopoises all your life.’
‘Nothing to it, really,’ said Zack. ‘Watch this!’
He lay flat on the poopoise and then pushed himself up, brought up his legs and stood up. He was surfing!
Without Zack’s legs dragging in the water, the poopoise was able to swim even faster and pretty soon Zack was way ahead of the group.
Then, through the angry spray of the storm, Zack saw it.
The bumcano.
It rose dark and black against the twilight—its smoothly sloping sides rising till they were almost parallel at the top. Well, mostly smooth, except for a lumpy outcrop about three-quarters of the way up on the left-hand side.
The bumcano seemed to take up most of the island.
A dark, sinister presence in the middle of a dark, sinister sea.
Zack lowered himself back down to a sitting position.
He didn’t want to be the first one there.
No way.
As Zack drew closer, two things became noticeable.
Firstly, the smell.
It was like all the sewage farms in the world put together. Only worse. Ten million times worse, to be exact. If Zack’s nose could have run away it would have done so right at that moment.
The second thing Zack noticed was the ring of black shapes circling the top of the bumcano.
‘What are those things flying around the top?’ Zack said to Eleanor.
‘I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘But I don’t like the look of them.’
As the group neared the beach, the black shapes stopped circling the bumcano and started flying down towards them.
The eye of the storm was now far behind them, and the howling winds were replaced by a loud buzzing noise.
‘Oh no,’ said Eleanor. ‘My dad used to tell me stories about these, but I always thought he was making them up to scare me.’
‘They sound like blowflies,’ said Zack.
‘That’s because they are blowflies,’ said Eleanor. ‘Giant blowflies! And here they come!’
‘All right, listen up,’ yelled the Smacker. ‘Form an attack circle. Kicker—you go on my right. Kisser— you take the left. Eleanor—go directly behind me.’
‘What about me?’ yelled Zack as the others took their positions.
‘Keep as low as you can,’ said the Smacker. ‘Leave this to us.’
Before Zack could argue he saw one of the giant blowflies heading straight for him—its huge coppery eyes as big as dinner plates and a proboscis as long and thick as an elephant’s trunk.
That was the last thing Zack saw before the fly vomited. A thick stream of sticky yellowish-green goo splattered all over Zack and his poopoise.
Zack’s poopoise dived down deep under the water. The water helped to wash most of the disgusting gunk off both of them. They re-emerged about fifty metres away from the B-team’s attack circle, the air above the fighting force now thick with giant blowflies. Not that the B-team seemed particularly worried. Zack marvelled at the ruthless efficiency with which they were dispatching the blowflies.
The Kicker was crouching on the back of his poopoise, his arms folded across his chest. He was kicking with one foot and then the other, and sometimes leaping up into the air and kicking with both feet at once. He looked more like a Russian Cossack dancer than a bum-fighter.
The Smacker’s arms were a blur, cutting, dicing and chopping the flies like helicopter blades. She looked like a human blender making a giant blowfly smoothie.
The Kisser was expending the least effort of any of them, but was no less deadly for that. He sat on his poopoise simply plucking the blowflies from the air, kissing them between the eyes and then dropping them into the water.
Eleanor seemed to be using a combination of both hands and feet—kick-boxer style. She wasn’t killing as many blowflies as any of the B-team but her broad smile suggested that she was enjoying herself.
The sea around them was thick with green and yellow goo.
But just when it looked like the B-team had the situation under control, a new wave of giant blowflies began to pour out of the bumcano—and these blowflies were even bigger, louder and more plentiful than the first wave.
Their situation looked hopeless.
No matter how talented or determined the B-team were, Zack could see they were outnumbered. It was only a matter of time before they would all become maggot-food.
The Smack
er recognised it too.
‘Head for the shore!’ she yelled. ‘There are too many of them. It’s our only chance! Zack, follow us!’
The B-team raced towards the island. Zack did the same. He stood up on his poopoise and surfed after them.
He saw Eleanor turn around.
‘Get down!’ she yelled, pointing into the sky above him.
Zack looked up, saw the dark wet end of a blowfly proboscis, and then everything went black.
He felt himself being lifted up into the air by his head.
Zack had been through some pretty disgusting experiences in the past few days, but this had to be the most disgusting experience of all. It was also the most painful because at the same time as he was being sucked upwards into the fly’s proboscis someone was pulling him downwards by his legs. He was being pulled from both ends and felt like he was going to snap in the middle. This must be how a rubber band feels, thought Zack, just before it breaks.
Just when he thought he couldn’t take it any more Zack felt the force pulling on his legs win out and his head was pulled free of the slimy proboscis and he splashed down into the sea.
As Zack came up for air he saw the Kisser reach up and pluck the fly out of the sky. It immediately stopped its angry buzzing and started crooning like a dove—its whole body softening and relaxing as the Kisser stroked the wiry tufts of hair that sprouted out from between its eyes. Then the Kisser puckered up, kissed the fly in the middle of its forehead and gently pushed it down into the water and held it under until it stopped kicking.
Zack was impressed by the Kisser’s style.
‘Thanks!’ said Zack. ‘I owe you one!’
‘Just doing my job,’ said the Kisser wiping his mouth with his handkerchief. ‘Come on. We’d better get moving.’
Zack remounted his poopoise and he and the Kisser followed the rest of the B-team towards the shore, which was barely visible through the black haze of flies.
As they reached the beach the poopoises all stopped and bucked their riders off.
Zack didn’t want to leave his poopoise—not only was it his only protection against the blowflies, but he’d grown fond of it. His poopoise, however, obviously didn’t feel the same way. It bucked him off into the shallows, turned around and swam away.
Zack put his arms over his head and started running as fast as he could, expecting to be covered in yellow-green goo and sucked up into another giant blowfly’s proboscis at any moment.
But it didn’t happen.
‘Look!’ said Eleanor, who was beside him.
Zack stopped and looked around.
There were no blowflies.
They were all in a thick clump far out to sea, chasing the poopoises. ‘It must have been them they wanted all along,’ said Zack.
Eleanor’s eyes were full of tears.
‘Those poopoises risked their lives for us,’ she said.
Zack, Eleanor and the B-team stood on the beach and watched the poopoises until they disappeared, taking the entire pack of giant blowflies with them.
‘The flies must have been breeding inside the bumcano,’ said the Smacker. ‘Not surprising, really. The conditions would make an ideal nursery.’
Zack shuddered at the thought of the size of the maggots that would be produced by the gigantic flies that had been attacking them. The thought of a bumcano full of them made him break out in a cold sweat.
He looked around. They were standing on a narrow strip of beach bordered by thick jungle. The jungle consisted mostly of bumnut trees, which closely resembled coconut trees, except for the bumnuts, which, as their name suggested, looked more like bums than coconuts. The jungle was alive with hoots and chattering sounds. As strange as it was, Zack preferred it to the eerie silence of the Brown Forest.
‘What’s making that racket?’ he said.
‘Feral bums,’ said Eleanor. ‘Bum-jungles like this are full of them.’
But the most amazing thing about the island was the bumcano. It was an awesome sight. It rose up out of the jungle and towered over everything. On top Zack could see that there was a main crater, and a little way down on one side was another, smaller opening. There were shimmering stink-waves coming out of both holes.
‘We’ve got to get that bumcano plugged as soon as we can,’ said the Smacker. ‘Judging by the warmth of the ground and the size of those flies it must be pretty full already.’
Zack knelt down and felt the ground.
The Smacker was right.
It was very warm.
Zack knew from studying volcanoes at school that somewhere deep below a volcano there is usually a huge chamber where the molten rock collects. Only in this case it wasn’t molten rock. It was much worse. And it was breaking down. Composting. Heating up the whole island.
‘How are we going to plug it?’ said Zack. ‘It’s huge.’
The Smacker nodded.
‘It’s not going to be easy, but a couple of nuclear bums should do the trick. One for the top of the bumcano and one for the side vent. We just need to collect enough feral bums, bind them together and then build a catapult to fire them up there. They’ll explode and create enough debris to seal up the bumcano forever.’
‘But the bums will still be inside,’ said Eleanor. They’ll just keep going until they’ve got even more power—enough to blow the plugs out and create even more devastation.’
‘If you’ve got a better idea, then let’s hear it,’ said the Smacker.
‘I say we go in there and find my dad,’ said Eleanor.
‘Are you joking?’ said the Smacker. ‘There are too many bums in there! We’ll be outnumbered twenty to one!’
‘But my father could be in there as well,’ said Eleanor.
‘You don’t know that for sure,’ said the Kicker.
‘You don’t know for sure that he isn’t,’ said Eleanor.
‘No,’ said the Smacker, ‘but if he was I know he wouldn’t want us going in there on some damn fool rescue mission. He’d want us to do it my way.’
‘No,’ said Eleanor, her eyes flashing with anger, ‘he’d want us to do it properly, not put bandaids over the top and hope they go away. He’d want us to deal with the problem at its source.’
‘You mean try to talk to my bum?’ said Zack.
‘I’m sorry, Zack,’ said Eleanor. ‘But your bum is insane. It has to be terminated. It’s the only safe way.’
‘But what if it’s not just my bum?’ said Zack. ‘What if the Great White Bum is involved as well?’
‘Then we kill that too,’ said Eleanor.
She turned to the group.
‘Don’t you see?’ she pleaded. ‘We’ve got it cornered. We’ll never get a better chance to make sure it never pulls this or any other stunt ever again.’
‘So that’s what this is about,’ said the Smacker.
‘What do you mean?’ said Eleanor.
‘Getting even with the Great White Bum.’
‘No,’ said Eleanor. ‘That’s got nothing to do with it.’
‘It’s got everything to do with it!’ said the Smacker angrily. ‘Listen to yourself. Listen to what you’re proposing. I know what that bum did to you and your father, Eleanor. I know what it took away from you both. But you’re letting emotion cloud your better judgment. I want to rid the world of the Great White Bum as much as you do, but dying won’t help us achieve that.’
‘Who said anything about dying?’ said Eleanor. ‘We got this far. If we work as a team we can make it the rest of the way. Why chicken out now?’
‘We only got this far by the grace of God and a fair measure of good luck,’ said the Smacker. ‘But it can’t hold out forever. The bumcano is too steep. Too high. Too dangerous. And that’s not even taking into account the danger of going inside a bumcano full of bums. We plug it, and that’s final.’
There was silence.
Zack watched as the Kicker stepped forward.
‘I agree with the Smacker,’ he said. ‘I want to kick bum as
much as you do, Eleanor, but there’s no point in killing ourselves.’
‘No,’ said the Kisser. ‘There is no point in killing ourselves, but I don’t think that’s what Eleanor is proposing. We’ve spent the last twenty years risking our lives fighting bum uprisings all over the planet and we all know who has been behind every single one of them. Eleanor’s right. We don’t know for sure that the Great White Bum is behind this, but it’s highly likely that it is. We’ve got the Great White Bum cornered. We’ll never get a better chance to finish it off once and for all. We’re a highly trained bum-fighting outfit. If we can’t figure out a way to pool our resources and get ourselves up that bumcano then we’re not worthy of the name “B-team”. I say we go in.’
Everyone was silent. They all looked at Eleanor.
Finally she spoke.
‘Well, Zack,’ she said. ‘Looks like it’s a tie. Two all. I guess that gives you the deciding vote.’
Zack gulped. He looked at the Smacker. She nodded.
‘All right,’ she said. ‘Let Zack decide. After all, it is his bum in there.’
Zack didn’t know what to do.
He didn’t want to die any more than anybody else, but he knew that going in would at least give him a chance to talk to his bum and convince it to surrender peacefully.
But maybe it was too late for that. Perhaps Eleanor was right. It was time to face facts. His bum was psycho. It would probably always be psycho. His false bum had given him no trouble at all. And it was self-wiping. He could go back home and live a safe, predictable life, free from the tyranny of his wayward bum. Plugging his bum inside the bumcano would be cruel and horrible, he knew that, but so was what it was threatening to do to the world. And it only had itself to blame. Zack had done everything he could. Besides which, he trusted the Smacker’s judgment.
‘Well?’ said Eleanor.
‘Plug it,’ he whispered.
Eleanor’s face turned bright red.
She shook her head in disbelief and stormed off down the beach.
Zack shrugged at the group and ran after her.
‘Eleanor,’ he said. ‘Wait! Let me explain!’
‘You don’t have to explain anything,’ she said. ‘You’re an idiot—that explains everything!’
The Day My Butt Went Psycho Page 11
