by Matt London
“Objection!” The Winterpole Advocate stomped his foot. “Just because she wasn’t near the stain doesn’t mean she wasn’t behind its creation.”
Rick pulled an index card from his breast pocket and flung it at the advocate. “Permission to speak freely!” he shouted.
The cyber paper card fluttered toward the advocate and slapped against his face, sealing his mouth shut. It had taken Rick hours of filling out a fifty-page form to acquire a Winterpole gag order, but it was worth it. It would buy him the time he needed to make his case.
Rick cleared his throat. “Ahem. Furthermore, the stain is composed of Ink-A-Spot’s trademark stain solution UberDark-X. The chemical makeup of this solution is a closely guarded corporate secret. Mrs. Lane never had, nor will she ever have, knowledge of this formula, nor the means to fabricate it herself.”
The Winterpole Advocate shoved Rick out of the way. “Mmph hmph mrff! Muffph!” he said. The gag order still blocked his sneering lips.
The first tribune leaned forward. “I believe what the advocate is trying to say is that Mrs. Lane may have fabricated the stain to frame Ink-A-Spot. We have testimony from a Cleanaspot employee claiming as much.”
“Who at Cleanaspot made these accusations?”
“Well, ergh . . .” the tribunes stammered and shuffled their papers.
“If you cannot produce the witness, then there is nothing connecting Mrs. Lane to the stain. She and the ocean are the victims here. Not Ink-A-Spot. In fact, without the witness, we can safely assume that this Cleanaspot accuser doesn’t exist.”
“They do exist!” the Winterpole Advocate insisted, having finally removed his gag. “They were provided to us by Ink-A-Spot.”
“Ink-A-Spot?” the second tribune repeated.
Rick banged his hand down against the bench, like a gavel of his own. “Well, that just goes to show who the real culprit is.”
The third tribune beckoned for the Winterpole Advocate to approach the bench. “The boy is right. Produce the witness, or this tribunal is over.”
The advocate massaged his red lips. “My employer says I don’t have to produce anything.”
“Your employer? You mean Winterpole itself?!” The three tribunes looked equally outraged. “Case dismissed!”
“On what grounds?!” The Ink-A-Spot executives in the audience rose from their seats, looking quite outraged.
“Lack of evidence!” the tribunes said, slamming their gavels in unison.
The security agents disabled the squid-cuff binding Rick’s mother’s hands. She raced to Rick and took him into her arms, showering him with mushy kisses. “You did it, my baby. You did it, you did it!”
“M-o-m! Stop!” Rick tried to cover his cheeks.
“I will not stop! Smooch!”
Rick was in a daze. The tribunal had taken a lot out of him. But he’d done it. He’d beaten Winterpole at their own game.
After a brief trip on the acorn escape pod, Rick, his mom, and 2-Tor landed on the flagship of the Cleanaspot fleet, the Sudsy Bubbler. Catherine was waiting for them, cradling her computer tablet. She gave Rick a high five as he hopped out of the acorn escape pod and onto the deck. “I’m so glad you’re all right, ma’am,” she said, handing the tablet to Rick’s mom, who examined the device quickly as they walked inside the ship. “I can’t believe the Cleanaspot board was going to fire you over this stain. They must be getting nasty pressure from Winterpole to pull a stunt like that. But don’t worry. Everyone on the Sudsy Bubbler is loyal to you, ma’am.”
They reached the conference room, just aft of the bridge. Long windows on either side of the bright room let in the sea breeze—the salty smell reminding Rick of mornings on the shores of the eighth continent. He longed to return to his new home soon.
No one blinked when a seven-foot-tall talking crow entered the room. Cleanaspot executives were used to the eccentricities of the Lane family.
Mom took her seat at the head of the large conference table. To Rick’s surprise, she offered him the seat at her side. “This is the only place my hero should be,” she said, smiling. Rick wondered if this was how the heroes in his video games felt after beating the last level. But deep down he knew their troubles weren’t over yet.
2-Tor perched on a chair and started pecking at the mountain of doughnuts laid out on the table. Crumbs and blobs of sugary icing spilled across the smooth tabletop. The Cleanaspot executives watched the crow in horror—birdliness they could excuse; messiness they could not.
Catherine began a slideshow to catch them up on the latest with the stain. “The black blob has not been responding to any of the usual treatments. It’s quite vexing, Mrs. Lane. It’s almost like the stain doesn’t want to be cleaned up, like it’s fighting us.”
“Double the amount of eco-cleaner in the water boats. Surely the stain will react to one of our products.”
“We’ve already tripled the amount of eco-cleaner, Mrs. Lane.”
Mom wrinkled her brow. “Hmm . . . can we reroute boats from other cleanup jobs? The stain has to be the biggest job we have going on right now. Let’s get all hands on deck.”
Catherine shook her head. “We could try that, but some of those boats are days away. We don’t have that kind of time.”
Rick’s mom turned to him. “Got any ideas, honey?”
He thought carefully for a moment, applying all the analysis and calculations he could muster. There had to be some way to get rid of the stain. But what?
Suddenly, Rick remembered a fascinating book he had read recently on solvents. “What if we add water to the stain? Try to dilute it into a more manageable solution.”
Mom’s forehead wrinkled. “You want us to add water to the stain? But it’s in the ocean.”
“Yeah,” Catherine said. “That’s about as diluted as it gets. But it’s still not breaking up the stain.”
Rick polished his glasses, thinking. “Hm, good point. Well, I could do some research and try to find a new formula to break up inky compounds.”
Mom smiled. “Great. Can you do it by sundown?”
“Um, well, honestly . . . probably not.”
Rick was beginning to realize that he was going about this all wrong. He was trying to use logic and reason to solve the problem, but what he needed was creative, outside-the-box thinking. Whenever Rick tried to think that way, as soon as he came up with one bad idea, he stopped, because it seemed illogical to pursue bad ideas.
Across the conference table, 2-Tor was watching him, an expectant look on his avian face. The crow was trying to tell him something.
“We should ask Evie if she has any suggestions,” Rick blurted out suddenly.
Mom raised an eyebrow. “Evie? Why?”
“She’s always coming up with crazy ideas. And thinking about this problem logically isn’t working. Maybe what we need a crazy idea. Maybe what we need is Evie.”
“SO YOU SEE, WE’RE ALL STUMPED HERE, AND WE WANTED TO KNOW—I WANTED TO KNOW—IF YOU had any ideas.”
Evie listened carefully, watching her brother’s face on her pocket tablet. She stood outside the Roost, looking across the landscape of the eighth continent. A rocky cliff was just ahead, overhanging a deep ravine. As soon as she and Sprout had gotten back to the Roost, they’d flown to a remote corner of the continent in an attempt to hide their tree-shaped ship among its jagged cliffs while they tried to come up with a way to anchor the super root to the ocean floor. To make matters worse, Winterpole had launched a counter-attack against the Big Whale. The lights of pink robots battling hoverships filled the sky. Evie’s mind felt like the sky must have felt—mayhem full of flashing lights and clashing ideas.
“Listen, Rick, about before, I—”
“Evie, I know, but we don’t have much time.”
“Okay.” The wind was whipping her ponytail—blowing stray wisps of hair across her f
ace. She had to think. How could she anchor the continent, sop up the stain, help Mom, and save the day? Even with so much at stake, Evie’s mind wandered. It was hard to believe Rick and their mom had come to her for help.
Gazing across the open expanses of her continent, Evie wondered what this area had been before the Eden Compound changed it. Sometimes she would look at a cylindrical rock formation and immediately see a tower of old car tires. But sometimes it was just wide stretches of the spongy green earth.
Spongy earth. The ground did have a lot of give to it, but it sprung back into place when she raised her foot. The dirt on the eighth continent had a number of strange properties. This was only one of them. Evie could shovel the dirt, kick it, or pack it like normal dirt. But it was different too. She remembered the way the continent drank up all the weird ingredients the Piffle Pink Patrol threw at it, from water and juice to olive oil and tapioca. The continent absorbed everything. Like a sponge.
Evie shouted into her tablet with a look of pure joy on her face. “That’s it! Like a sponge, Rick! A sponge!”
Sprout stuck his head out of the Roost, raising an eyebrow. “What’s all the hollering about?”
On the screen, Rick scratched his head. “Yeah, Evie, I have no idea what you’re saying.”
“No time to explain! But I’ve got it. Trust me.”
“Evie, wait! You have to—” Rick disappeared as Evie pressed the button to end the call.
She turned to Sprout, who was sauntering toward her. “We need to soak up the stain somehow. And the eighth continent is spongy like a sponge.”
“As opposed to spongy like a brick?” Sprout grinned.
Evie snorted in amusement. “We can use the continent to sop up the stain. We just need to get the continent over there.”
“Well, saddle up, little lady,” Sprout said. “I’m gonna hogtie this here continent and drag her home!”
They flew the Roost away from the battle raging between Condo Corp and Winterpole, landing again just offshore. A quick scuba dive later, they had taken the longest root dangling off the bottom of the continent and fastened it to the back of the Roost. Evie turned up the throttle until the hovership growled in exertion. She fired the engines.
The Roost took to the air, tugging the root tight. The tiny hovership pulled and pulled. Fortunately for Evie, Winterpole and Condo Corp were so caught up in their battle over the eighth continent, they didn’t notice they weren’t over the continent any more. The Roost was making off with the prize!
As the Roost pulled the continent, Evie scratched her chin the way Dad always did. Dad. He was still nowhere to be found. Rick had rescued Mom, no thanks to Evie, but Dad had disappeared and they hadn’t even had a second to look for him. In his absence, a twist had appeared in Evie’s heart. She felt responsible.
All Evie could do was focus on her mission for now, or she would start to feel the twist getting tighter.
The going was slow at first, but soon the Roost picked up speed and the continent was cruising along the water like an inner tube behind a speedboat. They were halfway across the ocean when the hovership’s sensors picked up the Winterpole patrol behind them. A flock of their hoverships was in hot pursuit, led by a bulky flying vehicle.
“Oh, sixteen kinds of darn it!” Evie moaned. “Now we’re sunk for sure.”
They promptly received a transmission from the lead hovership. A stiff, professional voice came over the comm. “You with the continent! On behalf of Winterpole we order you to proceed at a pace infinitely slower than the pace at which you are proceeding now. In other words, not at all!”
Evie grabbed the communicator. “But you don’t understand! There’s an enormous stain in the Pacific that’s hurting the ocean. We’re trying to clean it up. And the continent was on a collision course with Australia. We just wanted to pull it away. Don’t you see? We’re trying to protect the oceans, and Australia, and we’re trying to make the continent stop moving so Winterpole can stop hounding the Lane family!”
She listened carefully as some quiet murmurs came over the comm. Clearly the agents aboard the lead hovership were discussing something.
“I know, Barry. She makes a couple of good points.”
“Sure, Larry. I agree. But that doesn’t mean we should let her run off with the continent.”
“That’s cold, Barry. Real cold.”
“Oh you are at it again!”
Evie and Sprout exchanged a puzzled look.
“Well, we’ve checked the statutes,” Agent Larry said. “Turns out there’s nothing in the Winterpole bylaws prohibiting you from stealing a continent. I guess no one ever thought that would come up.”
“Make a note of it!” Barry said.
“It’s our continent!” Evie said.
Larry coughed. “Right. So. Can’t stop you from taking the continent, and your story about cleaning up the oceans, that’s cool with us.”
“LARRY!” Barry shouted, annoyed.
“Sorry. We are okay with you pursuing this eco-friendly mission. Sheesh, Barry. Chill—”
“—Don’t you say it!”
Evie leaned into the throttle. The engine argued, but she kept it up. “Okay, well thank you! Nice speaking to you gentlemen! So long, now.”
The Winterpole agents continued to bicker as Evie and Sprout pulled the eighth continent closer to the stain—and to their final victory.
WITH A HEAVY THUD, THE ROOST LANDED ON THE DECK OF THE SUDSY BUBBLER. A FINAL, PITIFUL gasp emerged from the hover engine. Black smoke billowed from every opening on the vessel. But the thick root trailing from the hovership remained intact. The continent floated in the ocean, just beyond the edge of the stain.
Rick watched Sprout and Evie exit the Roost, looking pretty thrilled their long journey had finally come to an end. And in the nick of time, too. The sun was beginning to set, striping the western horizon in pink haze. They didn’t have long before Cleanaspot would revoke Mom’s command.
This urgency did not seem to be on Mom’s mind as she sprinted across the deck to her daughter. She scooped Evie up in her arms, showering her with kisses all over her face. “Oh my darling! I’m so glad you’re safe!”
“M-o-m! Stop!” Evie tried to cover her cheeks.
“I will not stop! Smooch!”
“There’s no time! We have to soak up the stain before sundown!”
“Evie’s right, Mom,” Rick said, coming up behind, along with the others. “We have to hurry.”
“Quite so!” 2-Tor added.
Mom put Evie down. “Okay. I know. Catherine! Connect this continent to the Sudsy Bubbler and let’s move!”
The Cleanaspot workers scurried across the deck, detaching the continent from the Roost and re-attaching it to their flagship, which was a much more stable tugboat.
With the adults distracted, Rick stepped closer to Evie. “Hey.”
Evie grinned. “‘Evie’s right.’ I like the sound of that.”
“Yeah, well, this whole thing was your idea. Including, it seems, completely destroying the Roost.”
“Destroying?” She waved her hand at the Roost. “Psshh. She might look like she’s in rough shape, but it’s nothing an engine replacement and complete interior redesign won’t fix.”
“Interior redesign?”
“Yeah, but that’s just because of the fires.”
“Wait, fires, as in, plural?”
Evie rolled her eyes. “Rick! It was just a couple of them.” Sprout nudged Evie, urging her to continue. With a sigh, Evie looked down at her feet. “Yeah, so, Rick, about before, I’m sorry we fought.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry I’m always blaming you for everything,” Rick said. “And to you too, Sprout. I just wanted you to be my best friend. I wish I hadn’t acted like that.”
2-Tor flapped his wings. “I say, that is wonderful news. Everythi
ng is all patched up.”
“It’s my fault too,” Evie said, turning to Sprout. “For the same reason. I wanted you to be my best friend.”
Sprout tipped back his hat. “Aw, shucks, y’all. I reckon that’s the silliest thing I ever heard. I’m both y’all’s friend. Wouldn’t have it any other way. Shoot, a week ago I was just a humble cabbage rancher with nothing going on. Now look at all the fun we’ve had!”
Rick smiled. If Sprout’s idea of fun was outrunning robots, busting juvenile delinquents out of jail, and nearly dying in multiple fires, then he was going to fit right in with the Lane family.
Sprout looked between them. “As for best friends, why, that’s sillier than a skydiving squash! Y’all both already have a best friend, and it sure ain’t me.”
Rick wrinkled his brow. “Who?”
“He means me, you nerd.” Evie glowered.
Sprout was right of course. It was what 2-Tor had been trying to say. Rick and Evie were very different, but they complemented each other. They were stronger together than they were apart. They never could have accomplished their missions alone.
Suddenly 2-Tor scooped both kids up in his wings. “Oh I am so glad everyone is back safe and sound. My feathers could not take any more anxiety!”
Mom ran over to them. “All right, kids. Ready to see the world’s biggest sponge in action?” She tapped her communicator. “Catherine! Increase speed to full throttle!”
The Sudsy Bubbler lurched, churning water with its big propellers. The root went tight.
Rick and Evie high-fived. Sprout gave them both a big hug.
But something was wrong. The continent wasn’t moving.
They looked. It was hard to see at first, because it sort of blended in with the pink haze on the horizon.
“By my endless consternation!” 2-Tor moaned.
Rick couldn’t have said it better himself. There in the distance was the Big Whale, tethered to a different tendril of the super root. Vesuvia’s giant blimp was pulling the eighth continent in the other direction!
