Invasion of the Hazmats
“And what about Bibi. He’s on his way to Casalot to tell Grandma and Grandpa that I’ve been married off to King Mundiflore’s son. They won’t know what to think.”
It was a sign of how well we had gotten to know each other, or at least how well I had gotten to know Zazkal, that he no longer had to be actually rude to me. There was no need for him to speak, to reduce me to speechless submission.
The black expression on his face conveyed everything that a few weeks earlier he would have said out loud. I was a cretin, a moron, an imbecile, and how dare I contradict him.
“Bibi and your grandparents can think what they please,” he said curtly. “And as for the king, I hope he’s miserable. It’s no less than he deserves.” The acid tones of sarcasm dripped from his tongue as he continued, “Don’t worry, you’ll get what you want. I’m of a mind to find another route to Metsoola.”
What did he want to do, go the other way around the world to get to Metsoola? Knowing better than to inquire about this cryptic remark, I answered his original question as best I could.
“I know that it took forty or fifty minutes before I spotted land and then we cruised south along the coastline for another three or four hours before we got to the cove where I left her.”
“We?”
“Me and the Maiden Voyage.”
“Drylanders are all idiots,” he said rounding off this pronouncement with a sarcastic snort.
“If I was back on the Maiden Voyage,” I said, gritting my teeth, “I guess I could do the same thing in reverse by traveling north and get pretty close to the spot where I got tangled in their fishing net and pulled aboard.”
We were at that moment passing over a small lake. Not much more than a pond really, but it was surrounded by woodland and there was no sign of people around. Zazkal muttered something under his breath and the bubbles descended, dissolving as soon they touched the water and leaving us stranded once again.
I had a pretty good idea of what was about to happen and handed over the sampo. In a few minutes, Zazkal had the ingredients to create a new pair of traveling bubbles and we were traveling again, but in the opposite direction, back towards Casalot.
The trip was uneventful and mostly quiet. Zazkal’s silence was more thoughtful than his usual sullen, untalkative moods, but no way was I going to interrupt him.
Turning my back to Zazkal, and barely making any sound as I moved my lips, I called Reddragon and Thorn back. I needn’t have worried, Zazkal was deep in thought. He never heard our whispered conversation. He never even noticed the seahorses’ appearance. I sent my friends back to Grandma and Grandpa with a full report of recent happenings.
I didn’t think my grandparents would approve of Zazkal’s plans. They had given me permission to visit another Sky kingdom, not to go off chasing pirates. I didn’t want them to worry about me because I didn’t call the seahorses back at the arranged time, but I didn’t want them to cut short my trip either.
So I was purposely vague with Thorn and Reddragon about when I would call them back again. This way, Grandma and Grandpa would know that I was all right, but they wouldn’t be able to send me a message calling me home.
In the last two days, I had been in three radically different places. Metsoola, Fairyland and then back at the freshwater lake with Zazkal. Now I was on my way to a fourth place with Zazkal. It was already dusk and I was tired. Welcoming my teacher’s introspectiveness, I took a soft blanket out of my bag, curled up and went to sleep.
CHAPTER 26
The Maiden Voyage
Early the next morning, we reached the ocean. We were at the same spot we had been at the beginning of the trip when the traveling bubbles had first crossed over from the sea to the land.
As soon as we were out of sight of land, the bubbles stopped moving forward and floated down to the surface where they promptly dissolved leaving us floating comfortably in the water.
“Oh, it’s good to breathe salt water again,” I said, ignoring the amused expression on Zazkal’s face.
“I remember going past this spot with the Maiden Voyage. I think if we don’t take too many breaks we can swim there in a couple of hours.”
“Let’s get moving then,” Zazkal said. “I want to see this boat of yours.”
“Me, too. I’m anxious to see how she weathered the storm.”
“Why do you keep doing that ‘she’ thing?”
“It’s a land expression, a form of endearment really.”
“Endearment? For a boat? That’s absurd. I couldn’t begin to fathom the thinking of people with such strange ideas.”
This comment was followed by his withering look number 6a. Anxious to make my point, I ignored 6a and continued.
“Sure you can. Think about how important your workshop is to you. The main reason you were willing to take me on as an apprentice was to avoid being exiled.”
Zazkal’s ‘hmfff, was followed by the silence that was the closest he ever got to admitting anyone was right about anything.
We eventually arrived at the tiny cove where I had left the Maiden Voyage more than a month ago. The shape of the cove was a half circle with two narrow inlets at the top that made me think of a cats head with pointy ears. I had left the boat in one of the inlets where she was well hidden by mangroves. We had to swim right up to the entrance of the inlet before we could see it.
“Hmmft! It looks like your so-called boat didn’t survive the storm,” Zazkal said when he got his first glimpse of the barnacle-encrusted hull. Above the water line, the boat was weathered gray wood with occasional patches of peeling white paint. You could just make out the name painted on the back. The ‘Maiden Voyage’. My heart swelled.
“No, no, that’s what it looked like when I left her. She did really well.
“Look, she’s still floating,” I said proudly.
I swam to the side of the boat. I had left her grounded on the sand, but there were a couple of feet of water under the boat. It must be high tide. First order of business was to move her from the inlet to the deeper water in the cove before the tide turned.
I grabbed my fish scale, switched to legs, stood up and walked out of the water.
“The rope is still there,” I said proudly. “I did a good job tying it up.” Zazkal didn’t hear me. He had left the cove. I don’t think he was comfortable in shallow water.
“Oh, well.” I put the chain with the scale around my neck and followed the rope to the big tree where it was tied it off. The ground was full of broken branches so I put on a pair of sneakers from the sampo before I attacked the knots.
It took a couple of minutes, but I was finally able to loosen the knots enough to untangle the rope. There was plenty of rope wrapped around the tree. Enough to let the Maiden Voyage float out of the inlet into the cove. I tied it off loosely and swam out to the boat.
The deck and the roof of the cabin were covered with leaves and broken branches. It was hot, sweaty work, but once I had it all cleared away, I could see that the storm had scoured away most of the disgusting green stuff growing on the deck. Otherwise she looked pretty much the same, although it was hard to tell the difference between shabby and shabbier.
Moving to the side of the cabin where there was a little shade, I sat down with my back against the cabin wall. I had been thinking about where to put Zazkal and was pretty sure that I could build a wheelchair.
I started with a book. I called it ‘How to Build a Solar-Powered Electric Wheelchair Out of Small Pieces That Will Fit In a Sampo’. I reached into the sampo and pulled out a book. The title said ‘How to Build a Solar-Powered Electric Wheelchair Out of Small Pieces that Will Fit in a Sampo’.
So far so good. Then I turned to the ‘list of parts’ page and started taking out the pieces on the list and laying them on the deck. I wanted to show Zazkal how effectively I was using the sampo but he wasn’t around.
The wheels had been the hardest part. Every time I tried to put the last spoke in place, the first two or three woul
d fall off. Eventually I gave up and took four tiny wheels out of my bag and a more powerful motor to get them to spin fast enough.
Next, I took a small hammock from the sampo and hung it from the winch. Zazkal could use it like a chair lift to get on the boat. I was glad now that I had spent all that time cleaning and greasing the winch before I abandoned the boat to the storm.
The biggest challenge was filling the empty gas tank. I thought about pulling little jars of gas out of the sampo, but it was going to take forever, so I pulled out a gas hose…and…surprise, surprise, it worked. My magic bag just got magicer.
I couldn’t wait to show Zazkal how well I’m using the sampo. I am so ready to be a real apprentice, not just a gofer and cleaner-upper.
CHAPTER 27
PINK UNICORNS OR FLUFFY KITTENS
The engine started easily. I cast off the ropes and left the cove to find Zazkal. He must have been watching for me because he showed up as soon as I passed the breakwaters.
“What took you so long. I’ve been waiting for hours.”
“Come and see all the neat stuff I did. There’s even a lift to get you onto the boat.” I pointed to the hammock seat hanging from the winch.
“You don’t think I’m actually getting on that thing, do you?”
“It’s easy. See. Just sit in the sling and I’ll pull you aboard.”
He grumbled and complained about being in ‘this awkward contraption’, but in the end, he let me pull him onto the boat.
As soon as he swung his tail over the side, he spotted the wheelchair sitting in the middle of the deck. Really, it was hard to miss. All that shiny silver metal and the bright yellow seat.
“What is that thing?”
“That, sir,” I said proudly, “is your new favorite toy…and…the whole thing came out of my sampo.”
Zazkal was not impressed.
“Just try it. Look.” I sat in the chair and showed him how to use the control lever. Back and forth, right and left, a couple of tight turns, hmm, maybe I should build another one of these for me.
“I don’t like it. It’s not natural.”
“Of course it’s not natural. It’s mechanical. Look, just try it. If you don’t like it, you can sit on the floor.” I had him. I know he didn’t want to spend the trip stuck in the corner.
Muttering under his breath, he lowered himself into the chair and gingerly manipulated the controls to bring himself to the side of the boat. Basically, he was as close to the water as he could get and still be on the boat. Fine. Whatever.
“Okay. Now that you’re out of the water, you have to protect yourself from sunburn. Here. Put this on, and this.”
I handed a big-brimmed sun hat with a chin strap for the wind and an oversized t-shirt with a picture of a pink unicorn. I’ve been going through a unicorn phase lately. Anyway, it was either that or fluffy kittens.
He said nothing, but there were warning signs. I quickly unfolded a beach towel. Just stripes. No picture.
“This is for your tail,” I said. “It’s a disguise. In case anybody sees us.”
Zazkal maintained his glaring silence. He held the t-shirt crumpled up in his fist, his knuckles white. I spread the towel on his lap, carefully tucking it around his tail fins.
“You could use sunblock cream instead of the t-shirt,” I said, “but you have to reapply it every half hour. Your skin is brand new to the sun.
“Fine,” he said, pulling the t-shirt over his head and jamming the hat on his head.
“These, too,” I said, gingerly handing him a pair of sunglasses. “They have a UV filter to protect your eyes.” I’m not sure, but I think I could see sweat, steaming off his body.
“So, uh, I’m just going to drive the boat now.” I said, nervously. Why wasn’t he telling me how well I managed everything? I climbed into the captain’s chair, put the boat into forward gear and headed north.
“Arrrghh!”
Finally, with a last burst of pique and as if he couldn’t stand wasting his breath on such a lowly subject, he exclaimed,
“Out, I want out of this chair and off this boat now.”
Even before he finished speaking, he had pulled himself over the side and into the water.
CHAPTER 28
MISS SWEET AND REASONABLE
“You can’t do that,” I shouted. “You’ll never be able to keep up with the boat.” But he was under the water and gone by the end of my sentence.
Frustrated and fed up, I put my hand on the throttle and opened it to full speed heading north toward the spot where I had been netted by the Hazmats.
“He knows which way to go. If he wants to swim all the way, let him. I’m tired of always being the nice one. Always polite, always compromising, always accommodating. How come he’s the only one who’s allowed to be rude and obnoxious? I’m almost a teenager. We’re supposed to be rude and obnoxious. I’m just starting early, that’s all.”
The speed, the wind, and the spray made me feel free and fueled my anger.
“I’ve been jerked around,” and I meant that quite literally, thinking about the abrupt transfer from Metsoola to the freshwater lake without permission, “and abused by that fish about enough. I don’t care what my grandparents want. I can get Agatha to teach me all the magic I need to know.”
I went on in this vein for a while, my tongue matching the speed of the boat. I started to feel better.
This was not good. Just when I needed the support of a good tantrum to justify my action, I found my anger crumbling.
Slowing down the boat and starting to feel guilty, I noticed a lumpy-looking dolphin leaping in and out of the water, just far enough ahead so that I couldn’t make out whether it was an exceptionally fat dolphin or something else altogether.
Forgetting about Zazkal for the moment, my curiosity finishing off the remnants of my anger, I pushed forward. But the anonymous leaper stayed just out of ID range. Somebody was playing tag with the boat. Finally, in an effort to trick them into coming closer I turned the boat around and forced myself not to look back.
I counted slowly to twenty five. When I hit twenty five, I jammed the boat into neutral and turned around as quickly as I could.
“So, Miss Sweet and Reasonable,” came a voice from the boat’s wake, “you think we mere fish can’t outrun your fancy boat.”
It was Zazkal, who all too obviously had listened to every word I had said from the other side of the boat. He was hanging on to the fin of a dolphin, creating the lumpy look that had confused me.
“Ollie!” I screamed, forgetting my anger, my guilt, and my embarrassment. I turned the boat off so fast that the key was out of the ignition before the engine had stopped running.
In fact, I was probably even in the air, and switched over to tail before it stopped. I swam so hard at Ollie and hugged him so tightly, that I knocked Zazkal right off.
Although dolphins have more limited facial expressions than people, their voices are particularly expressive. “I,” he said, in a clear ‘we are not amused tone’, “am not a fish, nor is my companion.”
“I know you’re not a fish. I never thought you were a fish. I mean, I never said you were a fish, I just said that to make Zazkal feel bad, I mean to make myself feel better, I mean when I thought he wasn’t listening.”
I was running out of ‘I means’ when I realized that not only did Zazkal not look annoyed, he was practically grinning. He now had enough verbal ammunition to last for the rest of the summer.
I knew instinctively that I would never be able to disagree with him again without being referred to as ‘Miss Sweet and Reasonable’.
Not only that, but Ollie was on Zazkal’s side. My best friend and my worst enemy were ganging up on me. I was abashed.
They both started laughing. At least Ollie did. Zazkal was only able to produce a sort of rough chuckling sound, which he masked with an expression of sarcastic humor lest anyone think he was actually having a good time.
It didn’t take me long t
o realize who the butt of their joke was, but I was too relieved to be offended. I was, however, deeply embarrassed, and tried to cover it with a change of subject.
“Ollie! I can’t believe you’re here. How did you find us?”
“I was at Casalot practicing my writing when your seahorse friends arrived. You know how I felt about not being able to come with you to Metsoola. This seemed like a good time to tag along. I didn’t exactly ask anyone, but so far, Zazkal hasn’t objected.”
“How did you get here on time? How did you even find it?”
“In case you didn’t notice, dolphins are fast, he said.
“Finding the right place was harder. I got directions from some local dolphins based on the description you gave me the first time we met, when you told me about the Maiden Voyage and the Hazmats. They helped me find three places in this area that sounded like they fit your description. I couldn’t find the boat, so I’ve been cruising back and forth, keeping my eyes open hoping to spot you. I think it was more luck than anything.”
“I was checking all the boats headed north and I was swimming over to check this one, when I saw Zazkal dive into the water. But you were gone and not looking back before I got there. It was Zazkal’s idea to stay ahead and out of sight.”
“Yes, I can imagine that it is the kind of trick he would think was funny,” I said, risking his anger for the fleeting satisfaction of a good comeback. Zazkal merely raised his eyebrows at my comment but said nothing.
“Well, anyway, this solves our transportation problem,” I said. “You don’t have to spend the whole trip in a wheelchair. You can go with Ollie instead. That is, if it’s O.K. with you, Ollie.”
“No problem,” said Ollie, although from the way he said it, I guessed that he would rather have me with him in the water than Zazkal.
“Well, it’s not O.K with me. If you think I’m going to be dragged around in the water for hour after hour by a…” He paused for a second, pressing his lips together and squinting up his eyes. We could almost hear the word ‘fish’ rolling around on his tongue.
“Dolphin,” he spat out, showing remarkable self restraint, to anyone who knew him. But honestly, he made it sound like ‘fish’. Nobody spoke for a moment.