by Gary Paulsen
“It’s Kissing Gertie! Help mmph—”
Dunc and Lash turned around. Amos was lying on the ground. Gertie had her arms wrapped around his shoulders and her legs wrapped around his waist. She looked as if she had about half of Amos’s skull down her throat. They tried to pull her off, but her arms were like iron. Dunc shook his head. “So this is the monster guarding the skateboard.”
“Rad,” Lash said. “Gross. Rad. Puke.”
“Help.…”
“Good job, Amos,” Dunc said. “She’s not really hurting you. Keep her busy while we look for the board.”
Amos managed to pull his mouth away from Gertie’s puckered lips. “Don’t just stand there, help mmph—” Gertie gave him a wet one.
Dunc watched Amos spit a chunk of prechewed banana out of his mouth.
“I don’t know how much time we have,” Dunc said.
“Dunc—” Amos fought to get his head clear.
“What?”
“I’m going to kill you. I’m going to kill you bad.”
“Pretend she’s Melissa.”
Amos tried to say something more, but Gertie’s lips muffled his reply. Dunc and Lash went into the cave.
There was a sharp turn right after the entrance, and just out of sight was a barred door blocking off a little room. Dunc tried the door and found it unlocked. They went into the room. Maggie was on the floor.
“Awesome.” Lash ran and picked up the board and held it in his arms.
“We have to get out of here,” Dunc said.
“Jam.” He followed Dunc out of the cave.
Amos was still on the ground with Gertie on top of him. He was fighting her off, but his movements were getting weaker.
Lash waved as they went by. “Rad.”
“We have to help him.” Dunc stopped. He looked down and saw the half-eaten banana the zookeeper had thrown to her earlier. He picked it up and threw toward Gertie. She climbed off of Amos and chased down the banana.
Amos groaned and rose slowly to his feet. The sunglasses were sucked halfway off his face, and his eyes looked glazed behind them.
“Are you all right?” Dunc asked.
Amos leaned over with his hands on his knees and shook his head. When he straightened up, his eyes were clearer.
“Never,” he said, “kiss a monkey.”
“Let’s get going.” Dunc took a step toward Amos, then stepped back again. “Whew, Amos. Don’t get too close. You smell something awful.”
“I know, I know,” Amos said, “just like Emile and Claude, or like Uncle Alfred’s socks.”
Dunc grimaced. “Even worse.”
Gertie had finished her banana. She looked at Amos and smiled coyly.
“We better get out of here,” Amos said. “Now. I don’t want to go through that again.”
“And if Emile and Claude catch us here,” Dunc said, “we’re—”
“You’re what?” A man’s voice stopped them.
The boys turned. Emile and Claude were standing in the cage door, watching them.
The men stood in the doorway with their hands on their hips. Emile was in front, and he smiled.
“Ah, so what is this?” Emile said. “A rescue party for a skateboard?” He chuckled.
“I think the rescue party is going to need a rescue party,” Claude said. He smiled and pushed the sleeves of his raincoat up forearms that looked like raw hams. They stepped forward.
“Get back, get back, you mangy animals!”
Emile and Claude looked over the three boys’ shoulders. Amos, Dunc, and Lash turned around. The old zookeeper was trotting up from the rear of the exhibit, desperately throwing bananas over his shoulder as he went. A crowd of monkeys was chasing him, grabbing the bananas before they could reach the ground.
“I tell ya,” the old man said, “I give you monkeys one banana, and you take two. I give you two bananas, and you take three. When’s it going to end? This is blackmail, you know.” He looked up, saw the crowd of humans in the exhibit, and stopped. “Oh, hello,” he said.
“So now we have another member of the party,” Claude said. “No matter.”
Just at that moment the parrot, sitting on a tree branch directly above Claude, looked over its shoulder, belched once for luck, aimed carefully, and let loose.
Emile turned around to see what his partner was cursing about. A happy scream came from the tree branches, and Kissing Gertie exploded out of the brush. She grabbed Emile. Hard.
“Not again, you hmmph—” Emile said as he fell backward. The parrot sat above them on the tree branch, nodding its head up and down, laughing.
“Run!” Dunc shouted. They dodged past the cursing thugs and ran toward the zoo entrance. As Lash went past Emile, he broke loose from Gertie and made a grab that knocked the skateboard loose. It flew through the air, and Amos caught it. They skipped left and right through people coming to see the animals, and the last thing Amos saw of the other two boys was when Dunc yelled:
“Get over to the skateboard championships and get lost in the crowd. We’ll try to find the police.” Then a tour group cut them off, and Amos was alone. He headed across the street toward the skateboard park.
Just before he ducked into the mass of people, he glanced over his shoulder and saw Emile and Claude leaving the zoo, one wiping green stuff out of his eyes and the other wiping monkey slobber off his face. They looked toward the park and saw him and immediately came running across the street.
Amos darted back and forth through the crowd. Emile and Claude were gaining on him. He put on a burst of speed, jumped through the last of the spectators, and suddenly found himself trapped between the thugs and the steep concrete drop of the track.
“Give us the board, Mr. Hare Krishna.”
Amos turned. They were walking slowly toward him, evil grins on their faces. He felt the weight of Maggie in his hands and took a deep breath. Just as they reached him, Amos put Maggie down, stepped on it, and pushed out onto the track.
He couldn’t remember much of what happened after that. There were vague pictures, mind-photos, but things moved so fast he could never be sure. He remembered going down the track somewhere near the speed of light, and then he thought he might have hit the side and done a flip almost the same as the day before, but higher.
Much higher.
He shot into the air as if he had been fired out of a cannon. Halfway through his trajectory he looked down and saw the track. It seemed to be a skinny white snake across the park, and the people like ants looking up at him. Next to his ear he thought he heard a migrating goose honk. I’ll have to be careful, he thought—there are planes up here. He thought he could see Melissa in the bleachers, but her face was so tiny, he couldn’t be sure.
Then it was time to come down.
Bummer, he thought.
As he plummeted to the earth, he thought he heard the announcer say something about a world record. He didn’t have time to think about it. He barely had enough time to get Maggie under his feet again before he hit the track.
His agility amazed him. He thought he would just end up as a greasy spot on the concrete, but by some miracle he stayed upright, streaked to the end of the track, and shot over the judges’ table.
Oh great, he thought—the trees. He covered his stomach with both hands and waited to hit, but he didn’t have to worry.
He went too high to hit the trees.
I’m leaving, he thought—leaving earth. I’ll never see it again. Not any of it. Not Dunc or Melissa or anybody. He even had time to feel sorry for himself and started to compose a will. I’ll leave Uncle Alfred some new socks, clean ones, and my bike to Dunc and a disease for my sister.…
All that time to think. And the final thought, just as he started back down, was: I bet I go down faster than I came up.
But it seemed to go slowly. At least at first. On the way back to earth again, he looked over his shoulder and saw Emile and Claude still waiting for him. He also saw Sherman Hemlock walking through the
crowd—he was wearing shorts and a loud flowered shirt and sunglasses and zinc paste on his nose and the tops of his ears. He saw Dunc. And Melissa. There she was, watching him, actually looking right at him.
Then he saw the ground.
It was hurtling up at him at a terrible speed. He had cleared the parking lot and was over the public swimming pool. Luck, he thought—I’m finally getting lucky. I’m going to hit the pool.
He almost smiled. He plugged his nose and closed his eyes and prepared to hit the water.
He missed.
He didn’t miss by much, only three feet, but he found that the ground is just as hard three feet away from a pool as it is a hundred miles from a pool.
There wasn’t any pain. Not at first. He went into the dirt like a bullet—in the exact center of a small decorative flower bed next to the lifeguard chair. The ground, as ground goes, was soft, at least it was before he hit it. But his body packed it, and he tried to remember what his science teacher had told him about the formation of sedimentary rock. He also tried to remember his name. And how to add. None of it worked. I am, he thought, I am.…
“Amazing.”
“Huh?” He looked up. Dirk Cordoba was standing over him, shoving a microphone in his face.
“Incredible,” Dirk said. “A run of astronomical proportions. If I hadn’t seen it, I wouldn’t have believed it. Lash, how did you do it?” Amos was still wearing Lash’s helmet and glasses.
I am Lash, Amos thought. My name is Lash. This man is calling me Lash.
“Tubular,” Amos said. “Like rad to the max. I was fully tweaked and boned out and rockin’ and rollin’—” He stopped as memory came back. I’m not Lash. I’m Amos. Amos Bender. No. Amos Binder. And I want my mother. Now.
“I’m not—”
“You’re not,” Dirk said, smiling. “Listen, ladies and gentleman, to this boy’s modesty. You are, Lash, there is no question that you are.”
“Are what?”
“You are the greatest skateboarder who has ever lived.”
“But—”
“No buts, Lash. No need for any qualifying statements. Your actions speak for themselves. Do you have anything to say?”
“But—”
“Well, thank you, Lash. Thank you for your time. Thank you for this breathtaking run, this moment in history you’ve given us. You’ve left even me speechless. Now back to George in the booth.” Before Amos could say anything else, the camera was off and Dirk was on his way to his dressing room.
Amos was still on his knees when Dunc and Lash came to him. Lash held Maggie, and Dunc leaned over Amos.
“What happened?” Dunc asked.
“I set a world’s record.”
“How did you do that?”
“I have no idea, but I don’t want to do it again. Can you help me with these—my arms won’t bend.” Dunc took the helmet and glasses off and gave them to Lash.
“I saw Claude and Emile and Sherman,” Amos said. “What happened to them?”
Dunc smiled. “Either Sherman used karate, like he said, or he bent over to pick up his notebook and fell on them, like I think—either way, he knocked them down into the track, and the cops caught them.”
“Did you tell the police what happened?”
“No. Sherman’s telling them about how he used karate to apprehend the circus thieves. He started talking before we had a chance.”
“And they believe that?”
“Well. Enough, anyway.”
“We better go straighten them out.” He took two steps before Dunc stopped him.
“Don’t bother. They won’t believe you.”
“Why not?”
“Because Sherman has the notes to back up what he says.”
Amos groaned. “Oh, well. Maybe it’s not a total loss. I think I saw Melissa in the stands when I was riding Maggie. I figure this is it—world record, hero. She has to be impressed with me now. Let’s go talk to her.”
“Like,” Lash said, “thanks.”
“Lash,” Dunc said. “You actually said a sentence. Sort of—well, two words that work, anyway.”
Lash nodded. “Tubular.”
“See you tonight at dinner.” Amos smiled.
Lash walked off through the crowd that was just beginning to gather with Maggie in one hand and his helmet and glasses in the other. Everyone began cheering.
“Oh.” Dunc stopped. “I don’t think it will do much good to talk to Melissa. I just saw her. She was on her way over here, but she stopped when she met Lash—I think she thinks he made the run. Not you.”
“Great. That’s just great.” Amos leaned over and tried to pick some of the grass out of the knees of his pants. His fingers still didn’t work. “It’s just not fair.”
“What’s not fair?”
“The whole silly mess. We do all the work saving Maggie, and Sherman gets all the credit. I make the skateboard run of a lifetime, and the whole world and Melissa think Lash made it because I was wearing his helmet and glasses.”
“The problem has nothing to do with fairness.”
“What’s the problem, then?”
“The problem is,” Dunc said, “that you have the worst luck in the world.” Dunc put his arm around his friend. “C’mon. We have to get you cleaned up. There’s a big dinner at your house tonight.”
“Why get cleaned up?”
“Because you stink to high heaven.”
“So? Everybody will think it’s Uncle Alfred’s feet. He has the smelliest feet in the world. And he picks at them.”
“Through his socks. I know.”
“Right after dinner, while he’s watching the television with Dad. It’ll make you sick.”
“I know, I know. Let’s go.”
“But it’s really disgusting. You should see it.”
“If I come over tonight, I will.”
“If? What do you mean, if? You have to come. After what I went through today, I couldn’t put up with Alfred without you. It wasn’t good, Dunc—none of this. I went really high and there were geese and planes and I almost got a nosebleed and then I started down and I had time to compose my will and I was so scared I wanted my mother and—”
“It’s all right, Amos.” Dunc took his hand and led him. The arm still wouldn’t bend, and Amos walked like Frankenstein. “It’s going to be all right.”
“Really?”
“Sure.” Dunc nodded, lying only a little. “Everything will be all right.…”
Be sure to join Dunc and Amos in these other Culpepper Adventures:
The Case of the Dirty Bird
When Dunc Culpepper and his best friend, Amos Binder, first see the parrot in a pet store, they’re not impressed—it’s smelly, scruffy, and missing half its feathers. They’re only slightly impressed when they learn that the parrot speaks four languages, has outlived ten of its owners, and is probably 150 years old. But when the bird starts mouthing off about buried treasure, Dunc and Amos get pretty excited—let the amateur sleuthing begin!
Dunc’s Doll
Dunc and his accident-prone friend, Amos, are up to their old sleuthing habits once again. This time they’re after a band of doll thieves! When a doll that once belonged to Charles Dickens’s daughter is stolen from an exhibition at the local mall, the two boys put on their detective gear and do some serious snooping. Will a vicious watchdog keep them from retrieving the valuable missing doll?
Culpepper’s Cannon
Dunc and Amos are researching the Civil War cannon that stands in the town square when they find a note inside telling them about a time portal. Entering it through the dressing room of La Petite, a women’s clothing store, the boys find themselves in downtown Chatham on March 8, 1862—the day before the historic clash between the Monitor and the Merrimac. But the Confederate soldiers they meet mistake them for Yankee spies. Will they make it back to the future in one piece?
Dunc’s Halloween
Dunc and his best friend, Amos, are planning the best route to get
the most candy on Halloween. But their plans change when Amos is slightly bitten by a werewolf. He begins scratching himself and chasing UPS trucks: he’s become a werepuppy!
