Tank & Fizz

by Liam O'Donnell

  “My sources at the police station say Slick City is their next stop,” Mom said.

  “But gremlins can’t be near water, and Slick City has Fang Harbor.”

  “True. Slick City is normally gremlin-free, but all the police in town are on the lookout for them.” Mom flipped through the research notes scattered on the couch beside her. She let out a long sigh. “If only I could figure out what disguise they’re using before they strike again. Exposing the Gremlin Gang would make this story a real winner.”

  “All your stories are winners, Mom,” I said. Hey, it pays to lay it on thick with your mom every now and then.

  “You’re sweet, kid.” Mom tickled the scales on my neck. “But you’re still cleaning your room this weekend.”

  Dang. Can’t blame a goblin for trying.

  Mom put down her coffee and started typing again. That signaled we were done talking.

  Fine by me. I’d finished my cereal. And I had my own investigation to dive into. But first, I had a troll to talk to.

  Tank pulled me through her front door.

  “You’re just in time.”

  Her home was small and crowded. That’s what you get when you put ten trolls into one cave. Mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers and grandparents, and all the noise and love that comes with them. Going over to Tank’s place was like going to a party. There was always food cooking, music playing and laughter bouncing off the walls. It made my little apartment with just me and my mom seem so quiet and small. But quiet and small has its good parts too. I’m not complaining.

  Two tiny trolls, barely out of diapers, burst from behind the couch. They danced around us in the narrow corridor.

  “Fizz is here! Fizz is here!”

  “Away with you, girls!” Tank said, waving her arms. She snarled playfully at the girls. They screamed and ran into the crowded kitchen, giggling.

  “Dreena and Draana are getting big,” I said.

  “Big pain in the butt.” Tank opened a small door carved into the stone wall at the end of the hallway. “Come on, let’s get downstairs before my mom sees you.”

  “Fizz Marlow!” a voice thundered from the kitchen. “Is my favorite little goblin here?”

  Tank sighed. “Too late.”

  Mrs. Wrenchlin came into the hall, wiping her glasses on her shirt. She put them on her large warty face and peered down at me.

  “Why yes, it is Fizz!” She smiled. “Girls, you were right! We have a guest.”

  Dreena and Draana popped their heads out from behind Mrs. Wrenchlin’s legs. They stuck their tongues out at Tank and disappeared again, still giggling.

  “We were just going to the workshop, Mom,” Tank said wearily. “We’re working on a case. No time to talk or eat.”

  Tank pulled me down the stairs and into the workshop. The scent of home-cooked beetle brisket lingered in my snout.

  The shop was an explosion of tools, wires and gadgetry. But it was an organized explosion. Shelves ran along the stone walls, lined with boxes and bins. Each box and bin had a neatly printed label that said circuit boards, diodes, heat sinks, transformers or some other tool of technology I did not understand. Tank did, and so did her mom.

  This was their workshop. They had built it together and now spent many evenings tinkering, building and creating. Tank’s mom was a tugboat captain, working the waters of Fang Harbor, so she normally worked with much bigger gears and circuits than these. This workshop was a place for her to pass on the love of engineering to her daughter. And it worked.

  Tank picked something small off the workbench and held it out to me. It was a brass ball the size of a cave apple.

  “Check this out!” she said. Her eyes gleamed with pride. “I call it the Ticklebot 1.0!”

  I stepped away from the ball. “What does it do?” Getting too close to one of Tank’s inventions was a great way to get covered in grime, toasted in flames or electrocuted. I had learned the hard way. Having a tinkering troll as a friend comes with some risks.

  “A good question.” She grinned. “Let’s test it out on my sisters.”

  I looked around. “But they’re upstairs.”

  “No, they’re not,” she said.

  Tank marched out of the workshop and to a corner of the basement where a washing machine stood. She reached into a pile of laundry and pulled out two giggling trolls. Dreena and Draana.

  “How’d they get down here?”

  “With these two, it’s always best to just assume they’re spying on you.” Tank carried the twins back into the workshop. She dropped them on the floor. They stood looking at us with wide eyes.

  “We weren’t spying!” Dreena screeched.

  “Mom sent us down here!” Draana added.

  “Whatever. Stand there,” Tank ordered.

  We stepped back from the girls.

  Tank ran to the Ticklebot. “Those arms were meant to tickle Dreena and Draana! Not you, Fizz. I’m sorry.”

  “Apologies later!” I wailed. “Make it stop!”

  The arms had me pinned to the ground with their tickling. I couldn’t move. All I could do was laugh. Having someone tickle you can be fun, but not if they don’t stop when you ask them to. Tank’s Ticklebot was definitely not stopping.

  Tank pressed the Ticklebot. Inside the little ball, metal clicked against metal. The arms stopped their tickling. They zipped back into the tiny ball and disappeared. It was like they’d never been there.

  I stumbled to my feet. My head swam from all that tickling. Dreena and Draana giggled like the Ticklebot had attacked them.

  Tank carried the Ticklebot back to her workbench. “I have to work on the bot’s targeting mechanisms.”

  “You have the whole tickling side of things perfected,” I said. “I don’t want to see another feather for as long as I live!”

  “I wonder what went wrong,” Tank mumbled. She put the bot back on her workbench. She opened a small hatch on the little bot’s side and poked at the colored wires with a narrow screwdriver. “I have to get to the bottom of this. Won’t take long.”

  When Tank is working on one of her creations, “won’t take long” means “get comfortable—this is going to be awhile.”

  I switched on the TV on the wall above the workbench. I immediately wished I hadn’t.

  “Mr. Trellik!” I said.

  “What’s he doing talking to Trina Trallastar on TV?”

  Onscreen, the owner of the antiques store was talking excitedly to the SlickTV news reporter. It looked like he had a worm in his ear. I turned up the volume.

  “Tell us more about Firebane’s Hoard, Mr. Trellik,” Trina said in her sweetest TV voice.

  Mr. Trellik smiled nervously. “Firebane’s Hoard is a collection of the finest treasures from the vaults of the master of the Dark Depths himself, Firebane Drakeclaw. The treasures are touring Rockfall Mountain and will be on display at Trellik’s Treasures all this week.”

  “Sounds exciting!” Trina gushed. “Back to you in the newsroom!”

  The camera jumped back to the anchor at her desk. She started talking about the weather.

  “No wonder old Trellik freaked out about the slimes on his steps!” Tank said.

  “Firebane’s Hoard will bring a lot of visitors to his shop this week,” I said. “That dragon is ancient! He’s been hoarding treasure since Rockfall Mountain was a hill. I bet he’s got some cool stuff.”

  The rest of the weekend should have been filled with homework, but my mind was stuck on Mr. Snag and those slimes. The old ogre was as gentle as a granite sloth. There was no way he let the slimes loose. I didn’t have much to go on, but I just knew Snag was set up. My hunch didn’t make much difference though. By the start of the week, Tank and I still didn’t know what to do. And I still didn’t have my homework done.

  To make things worse, we had gym class.

  I don’t know who invented this part of our curriculum, but they should be dropped into the fire pit of the Howling Suck. I know, I know. Gym is great! Gym
is fun! You get to run around. You get to scream. All good in theory. But when you have Rizzo Rawlins in your class and a gang of goons to back him up, gym becomes forty minutes of bangs, bumps and bruises. Even when I’m on the same team as Rizzo and the ogre twins, they still manage to bash, bang and bloody me.

  Whoever invented dodgeball should be tossed into that fire pit too.

  “Don’t sweat it, Fizz,” Tank said when I sat on the bench beside her. “Rizzo is just excited because his dad is taking them all on vacation next month.”

  “Vacation? In the middle of the school year?”

  “Yeah, he was bragging about it at lunch. His dad’s business is doing really well. Some big deal or something.”

  The walls of the gym trembled.

  “Here we go again,” Tank said. “Grab hold of something.”

  The entire gym shook, sending kids falling to the ground. As soon as it came, the shaking stopped.

  “It’s just the heater,” Ms. Blinx barked. “Get back into the game!”

  “That’s the third tremor today,” Tank said. “They’re happening more often. Hope Mr. Zallin fixes the heater soon.”

  “What exactly is wrong with the heater?” I put my hand over the heating vent behind our bench. “It’s not cold in here. And there’s hot air coming out of this vent.”

  Tank wasn’t listening. She was on her feet, walking to the equipment room. I followed her.

  “What is that doing here?” she said. She ran her finger through a pile of purple dust on the ground outside the door. “Interesting.”

  She opened the door to the equipment room.

  It was packed with balls, sticks, nets and other gym equipment. A line of purple dust trailed into the small room and disappeared behind a ball hockey net.

  Tank stepped into the room. She pointed her camera at the trail and took a photo. I leaned down to get a closer look at the dust.

  “It’s the same stuff as in Zal’s office,” I said.

  The trail disappeared under an old hockey net. I tugged on it to get it out of the way. It wouldn’t move. But it did growl.

  The little creature bounced around the room, screeching like I had stuck it with a knife. Hockey sticks clattered to the ground. Its sharp claws burst soccer balls and ripped crash mats as it jumped from wall to wall. All I saw was its tiny blue body scrambling into the heating vent.

  Then the room was silent except for Tank’s heavy breathing beside me.

  “What was that?” I said.

  “I have no idea.”

  The door to the equipment room flew open.

  The whole class stood in the doorway. Dodgeball game forgotten. Rizzo Rawlins stood at the front of the pack.

  “Figures the detective duds would trash the place,” he howled. “Just like their caretaker pal trashed the schoolyard!”

  That got the whole class laughing. Ms. Blinx buzzed around behind them, telling them to stop and get back to the game. The kids drifted away, but the laughter didn’t stop. And our trouble wasn’t over.

  A dark shadow fell over the doorway. Mr. Zallin’s large body blocked the light from the gym.

  “Look at what you have done!” His deep voice boomed. His eyes blazed red. His whole face scowled. I’d never seen a caretaker so mad before. “You have destroyed school property! Principal Weaver will hear of this.”

  In the caretaker’s face, I saw more than just anger. I saw something familiar. I just couldn’t place it.

  As he marched us down to Principal Weaver’s office, I knew I had more to worry about than an angry caretaker. We’d just seen a creature that didn’t belong in our school. Something dark was happening here. I was determined to find out what. But first, I had an angry principal to face.

  Fang Harbor is always a busy place. Weekdays after school are no exception.

  Every minute of every day, ships loaded with cargo sail in and out of the large underground port. Nestled in the safety of a giant cave, Fang Harbor has only one exit to the outside world—the Mouth. The top of the wide cave opening on the far side of the water is lined with jagged javelins of rock. These sharp rocks look like teeth and are what gave the harbor its name.

  Beyond the Mouth lie the open sea and the surface world. I’ve always wanted to know more about the monsters living outside the mountain. But there are enough mysteries under this rock to keep me busy for now.

  All around me, trucks, cranes and armies of dock workers scrambled to unload crates packed with fruits, vegetables, furniture, toys and anything else needed inside the mountain. Dozens of container ships would arrive that day, fully loaded. They’d drop their cargo and sail out, hauling minerals, mushrooms, barrels of valuable slick and other treasures the mountain had to offer.

  Tank and I sat under the statue of Tiberious the Brave, the founding ogre of Slick City. He didn’t actually find the place. We goblins lived along these beaches for centuries before Tiberious showed up. The ogres won’t tell you that part of the story. They like to take all the credit themselves. There aren’t any statues for the goblin tribesmen who showed Tiberious how to turn slick into fuel. But goblins used the goopy black stuff under the sand to light their lamps for years before the ogres came along and pumped it out of the ground. Now the stuff keeps the entire Rockfall Mountain running. From gadgets to cars, slick is the stuff that makes it happen. And goblins were the first to use it. You won’t have much luck finding that in Mr. Mantle’s history books.

  But then there’s Mr. Snag. He’s an ogre, and I’m working to prove he’s innocent.

  Old Tiberious’s hairy stone feet made a good spot to sit and wait. We weren’t alone. A pair of teenage goblins sat against the statue’s other leg. They had their heads together, sharing a pair of headphones. They bopped their heads like yo-yos to some song I couldn’t hear.

  Teenagers. Who gets them? Not this detective.

  For me, the best part of the harbor was the monster-watching. I’d sit with my notebook and create stories about the monsters who passed by. Tank loved watching the ships chug their way slowly through the murky water. She had seawater in her bones, just like the rest of her family.

  I wasn’t the only one unimpressed by Aleetha’s sudden appearance. The goblin teens gave her a wary look and moved to the far side of the harbor. Aleetha’s purple robes stood out against the brown rocks around us. Only students from the Shadow Tower wore robes of that color. Passing monsters crossed to the far side of the harbor path as they neared us. No one wanted to get close to the mysterious elf or her magic. Maybe arranging to meet Aleetha in public wasn’t such a good idea.

  “Sorry for startling you. It’s just so much fun scaring the brave detectives of Gravelmuck Elementary.” Aleetha’s eyes twinkled. She wasn’t bothered by the stares from other monsters. Maybe they taught her that at mage school.

  “We don’t have time for games,” I grumbled. “Mr. Snag is going to court tomorrow. The judge will decide if he’s responsible for letting the slimes out and damaging the school.”

  “And you don’t think he is?” Aleetha said.

  “It just doesn’t add up,” Tank said. “Mr. Snag loved his job and he loved his slimes. There’s no reason why he would let them do all that damage.”

  “And there’s all that weird stuff happening at our school,” I said.

  “What weird stuff?”

  “This weird stuff.” Tank handed her camera to Aleetha.

  The elf ’s brow furrowed as she watched Tank’s video from the equipment room.

  It was a mess of red eyes, blue skin and flying soccer balls. You couldn’t make out what the creature looked like, but it did prove that we hadn’t caused all the damage. When we showed the video to Principal Weaver, it saved us from a year’s worth of detention. She didn’t seem too concerned that there were mysterious red-eyed creatures hiding in the equipment room. Who knows what goes on in the mind of a principal?

  “Hard to say what that thing is,” Aleetha said when she finished watching the video. She handed
the camera back to Tank. “It’s moving so quickly, and all we see are its shadows. Could be an imp.”

  Tank moaned. “Oh, no, not imps! Our neighbor’s cave was infested with those little critters last summer. It was a mess.”

  “They get everywhere,” Aleetha said. “They chew through wires, burst pipes and much worse.”

  “Yeah, but would they cause the whole school to shake?” I said.

  “No, but this stuff could.” Aleetha held up a small ball of soft putty.

  “Is that play putty?” Tank asked. “The twins love that stuff.”

  “Then they would really like this.” Aleetha walked toward a set of stairs that led to the water. “Follow me.”

  She stopped at a quiet spot on the beach.

  She pushed her thumb into the putty to make a hole.

  “Hold this.”

  She handed me the putty ball and pulled a little cloth pouch from her bag. She poured the purple powder into the tiny hole.

  “Watch what happens when we add that purple powder you found.”

  Aleetha took the putty ball back. She closed up the hole so that the powder was completely covered. Then she put the ball on the sand near the water.

  She grinned as she walked back to us. “Ready?”

  “Are you going to turn it into an imp?” I asked.

  “No, but I’m tempted to turn you into one.”

  I stopped with the lame jokes. It’s never good to make a wizard angry. Even a wizard-in-training.

  “Watch.”

  She stared at the ball. In a quiet voice, she said words in a language no monster outside of the Shadow Tower would understand.

  “The purple powder is an explosive,” I said.

  “But there was no sound,” Tank said. She moved to where the ball had been only a moment before. Now there was a crater in the sand. “No pop or bang or anything. It was completely quiet.”

  “Exactly.” Aleetha grinned. “I played with it in the lab at school. It’s an explosive that’s been filled with magic to take away all the noise.”