Snarling
fiercely, the massive creature lumbered closer, letting out a ferocious roar
that made everyone’s hair stand on end. (Well, except for Tasha’s, but were
talking heavy-duty styling products here.) In a typical show of brave, heroic
courage, the Neon Lites fell over each other in their efforts to get away. Jack
and Denara (their non-band status notwithstanding) followed with equal fervor.
Soon they reached the back wall of the cavern, and whirled around to see the
creature still galloping toward them at full speed.
Panic ensued. Mollie gaped, Hamish bellowed, Tasha shrieked…and Jack
grabbed Sparki’s backpack.
“No you don’t!” hollered Denara, their rapidly approaching deaths a
secondary issue. “You give that back!”
With that, she snatched the backpack, which flew from Jack’s grasp,
slipped from Denara’s fingers, looped twice around Craig and flew directly
into the monster’s path, fiddler, fiddle and all. Landing with a definite
WHUMPF!!! (A sound the whole band was by now familiar with), Craig stared
dazedly up at the creature, who slowed, stopped and stared back in hungry
fervor. The situation was desperate.
Lying amidst the scattered contents of the backpack, Craig reached
frantically for a weapon, then lunged bravely upward to fight the fearsome
creature with a…
“Smelly marker?” Mollie gasped, wondering if this was a good time to
point out to Craig that he was insane. “You’re attacking the monster with a
smelly marker?”
Craig glared at Mollie. “I’m winging it, okay?!!!”
The band drew a collective breath and held it as the creature lunged
forward, paused, sniffed the marker, then inhaled deeply.
Taking advantage of its momentary distraction, Craig scrabbled on the
floor for another weapon, but only came up with two more markers. Astonishingly
enough, however, this total lack of strategy seemed to be working. Most of its
eighteen toes curling in delight, the huge creature nearly knocked Craig down,
writhing in a frenzy of aromatic ecstasy, sucking in great lungfulls of scented
marker and rapidly going cross-eyed with delight.
Carefully
edging backwards, Craig bent to draw a line on the floor, which became an
ever-lengthening trail across the cavern floor in a fatal combination of root
beer, green apple and licorice ink. The creature began to gurgle with pleasure
and followed the trail to a niche in the wall, where it settled itself down with
the markers to sniff itself into artistic oblivion. Relieved, Craig retrieved
his bow and fiddle and skedaddled back to the group.
“Whoa,”
observed Sparki, who had re-collected her haphazard possessions and returned
them to the backpack. “That mondo-huge hungry dude is beside himself now!”
“He
really was!” marveled Mollie, while Hamish quickly checked Craig over for
damage.
Denara
squeaked suddenly and pointed, as Sparki shook her head. “No way, Dudette, I
meant like, he’s BESIDE HIMSELF, see…”
The
others turned to see that, in a most unfortunate occurrence, Sparki was correct.
A second creature, mirror image to the first, was staring at its besotted twin
and glaring at the band members in turn. Before anyone could do more than gasp,
the monster had begun to charge them. In a twinkling of an eye, the entire group
staggered backwards and collapsed onto Sparki, who felt something hard and
rectangular jab her in the small of the back.
A
moment later, the Neon Lites found themselves sitting, dazed and confused, on
the bridge of their very own ship!
“What
the…” Hamish crawled to the top of the pile.
“Oh
yeah…” grinned Sparki weakly, “the mondo mini beam machine. I, like,
totally forgot I had it!”
Mollie
did a hasty nose count, as Craig staggered to his feet and checked his fiddle
and body for breakage (in that order). Satisfied that not so much as a string
was stretched, he suddenly turned to Sparki with a look in his eyes that no one
but Hamish had ever seen before.
“Do
you mean that you have had that beam-us-out-of-here thing ALL THIS BLOODY
TIME???!!!!”
The
others stared in shock as the fiddler suddenly lunged for Sparki, but Hamish
swept him up around the middle and started off down the hall.
“I’ll
cool the laddie down,” he advised, shifting the sputtering, swearing fiddler
to one massive bicep. “And you’d best start the ship an’ get us oot o’
here. I’ve a feeling we werena meant to ever make it oot of that cave, and I
mean to discover why.” His gaze rested levelly on the figure slouching near
the console. “Then I have a few questions for Bodhran Boy over there.”
They
all turned to look at Jack, who grinned helpfully. “Hey, could I HELP coming
along for the ride? Did I push the button? Was the beam-box in my pocket? I
don’t THINK so.”
Mollie
glared wearily. “Jack,” she said pleasantly, “shut up.”
A
series of escalating thumps and poundings, interspersed with wild fiddle
screeches and Gaelic curses echoed from the hatchway through which Craig and
Hamish had disappeared. The rest of the band looked at each other in
consternation as a battle of mammoth proportions grew in volume beyond the door,
then receded down the hall and into silence. A few minutes later, Hamish
staggered back to the bridge and collapsed into a chair.
Mollie
edged over. “Er…umm…where’s Craig?”
Hamish
buried his face in his hands and groaned. “He’s gone an’ done it,” he
said thickly, his eyes mirroring his horror. “Och, I TRIED to raise him right,
I did! Poor wee fiddling orphan that he was. But when he gets this angry, ‘tis
only one thing that will appease him, desperate act though it is, and no amount
of conscious or clishmaclaver will talk him oot o’ doing it.”
Everyone
leaned forward with widened eyes.
“You
mean…” Mollie breathed.
“Aye,”
Hamish nearly wept in disgust. “He’s Spring Cleaning.”
The
band recoiled in horror.
Tasha
blinked. “You know,” she observed, putting a last strand of hair back into
place and finishing with a coat of sealant. “I think Craig is upset about
something.” And off she went to find him.
Jack
let out a low whistle. “You people are crazy.” He shook his head and propped
his feet on the table. “Does that espresso machine work?”
“Of course there’s no way o’ knowing WHAT we have in storage down
here…” Craig pointed out sanely enough, three hours later, as Tasha and the
others meandered along behind him. “None of us has even been down to this
level of the ship since…” His voice trailed off in surprise as they rounded
a corner and found themselves in a large, open area, complete with wood
paneling, dance floor, working bar and giant mirrored disco ball.
Horrified
and shocked, Craig paused in the doorway and breathed a soft oath to ward off
evil. (Intrigued, Mollie leaned closer, trying to decipher his mutterings, but
caught only the words: “fiddles preserve us” and “McCusker”.)
Hamish
depressed a button on the wall, flooding the area with strobe lights,
multicolored flashes and mood lighting. Jack shook his head and Sparki grinned
as Denara stared open-mouthed at the display, which Hamish managed at last to
stop by a series of frantic swipes at the light switch.
“It’s
frightful!” he breathed, eyes still swimming with spots of color.
Tasha
wrinkled her nose. “It’s dusty.”
“It’s
weirder than all of you!” Denara declared, for once agreeing with Jack, who
was dialing 911 on his cellular phone.
Sparki
grinned. “No way, fellow band-o-mites, it’s like way totally…” He voice
lowered to a reverent whisper. “D I S C O.”
Tasha
shrieked in fear, horrifying pictures of a pre-mousse generation filling her
mind, while Mollie patted her back calmly. Craig (moving with difficulty, since
Tasha was attached to his middle) paused to perform a brief traditional folk
musician’s exorcism, involving several swigs of whiskey and a Woody Guthrie
chorus, before stepping gingerly onto the dance floor.
Jack
shrugged. “Disco is dead, children,” he reminded them, glancing
apologetically at Sparki. “It can’t hurt us now.”
Walking
in a trance (“AGAIN?” complained Denara.) Sparki crossed the room and dusted
off a large box of vinyl records. (“Kids, you’re going to have to ask your
parents about vinyl records” – John McCutcheon.) Turning, she addressed the
band with tears in her eyes.
“Don’t
you totally see?” she said happily, clutching the dusty box to her chest.
“It’s my ship!”
The
others stared in confusion.
“Do
you mean,” Mollie said slowly, “that this level of OUR ship is really
what’s left of YOUR ship? But how?”
Jack
leaned on an old jukebox, sending off a shower of dust mites. “Yeah,” he
remarked, scratching a negligent elbow. “And more to the point, WHY?”
Sparki
beamed. “When the Improbability Generator made me materialize on THIS ship,
parts of MY ship came with me, I’m totally sure! This is SO mondo cool!”
Mollie
frowned. “This stuff was NOT here before,” she insisted. “We would have
noticed!”
Sparki
nodded. “Real true, Drum Dudette, it most bogusly WASN’T here before.”
With that, she scampered off happily in search of a working turntable.
Mollie
shook her head. “But we’ve been travelling for MONTHS! WHY did all this take
so long to materialize on our ship?”
Craig
and Hamish both shrugged in the manner of resigned musicians the galaxy over.
“You know what happens when the airline loses luggage!”
Tasha
peeled herself off of Craig and sprayed her curls with a hydrotherapy spritzer
that made Denara sneeze. “What are those over there?”
Following
her at a safe distance, the others approached the large storage unit at the
other end of the hall. In the dusty confines of a shadowy room they found three
large rectangular boxes, each covered with indecipherable hieroglyphs and nailed
firmly shut. Undeterred, Hamish pulled a tool kit from a nearby shelf and
attacked the first of the boxes with a hammer and a pair of pliers.
“They
aren’t very pretty boxes,” Tasha complained, perching atop one of them to
file her nails. “I wonder where they came from? Bruce would never have put
them here, they clash with EVERYTHING.” She sighed and stared morosely at the
nail that was in desperate need of professional buffing. “If only we knew
where Bruce WAS…”
Craig
shrugged. “There’s no way o’ telling. What with time travel and all that,
anything is possible. We could never hope to find out all we need t’ know. Why
the answers t’ everything could be on this very ship and; us sittin’ on them
all along and not even knowin’.”
The
lid of the box splintered open at last to reveal a plush, silk-lined sarcophagus
edged in gold and through its glass top could be seen a well-groomed and very
familiar face.
Tasha
shrieked, squeaked and promptly swooned into the arms of Jack, who relinquished
her quickly at a combined glare from Sparki and Craig.
Hamish
whistled as the realization that Bruce was in the box slowly sang into
everyone’s brain, “Aye,” he muttered, eyes bulging nervously, “Time
travel can be an ugly thing.”
Mollie
shuddered. “Is…is he…”
Tasha
revived slightly, took one look and closed her eyes in nothing short of a most
determined denial.
Bravely,
Hamish pried the rest of the lid off the box and tossed it away, before peering
at the small panel at the foot of the sarcophagus. A moment later, he let out a
shout of relief. “Nay!” he grinned. “He’s in cryogenic suspension!”
Craig
eyed the other two boxes steadily, half hoping that Tasha would swoon again, and
handed Hamish the hammer. “Then th’ other two boxes would be…”
Three
hours and forty-five minutes later, the Neon Lites sat on the bridge of the ship
and glared at one another, the silence broken only by the ticking of Jack’s
watch and the steady aggravated smack of Craig’s fiddle bow against the
console.
“Ye
should never have used the transport bay for storage…” Craig began
accusingly, but Hamish waved his hand for silence.
“Griping
about it willna bring the boxes back, lad, and that’s the final truth o’
it.”
Craig
glared. “I suppose you’re blamin’ me because I sat on the `send’
button?”
Mollie
interrupted. “Stop it. I was the one who accidentally turned the transporter
on. Fighting about it won’t do any good.”
Denara
peered at Craig’s defensive face. “Well, the THIRD level of the ship could
use a good cleaning. Maybe if you fought just enough to get Craig mad…”
Hamish
scowled. “Aye, lass, that’s enough out o’ YE! Who was it that was after
playin’ wi’ the transporter coordinate generator in the first place?”
Denara
flushed, but Sparki came unexpectedly to her rescue. “Like, okay, it was
totally MY fault that the boxes had to come upstairs in the first place, true?
Since it was, like, my antique sno-cone machine that flooded the cargo bay.”
Tasha
sighed. “Well I was the one who stuck them together with nail glue…can you
believe how strong that stuff was? I mean the package SAYS it’ll support the
weight of a speckled Thratavarian Glaraguardius, but who would have thought they
meant it? I mean they can CLAIM their product will do this or that, but how can
you tell if it really will? `Ever since the FCC was overthrown by Rock
Musician’s Local Union 53845, truth in advertising has gone the way of Ozone
protection and the dinosaur.’ Why if we…”
Mollie
wrestled the Time-Life Guide to Interplanetary History from Tasha’s
hands. “SHUT UP!”
Hamish
glared at Jack. “What are YE grinnin’ at noo?”
Jack shrugged. “Just glad I had nothing to do with it.”
Hamish
glared again. “YOU were the one who unplugged the sno-cone machine, Bodhran
Brain! And if it weren’t for you…”
His
voice trailed off as the computer on the console began to blip and beep and
print in rapid succession, and release a small slip of paper to float gently on
the floor. Craig and Denara bumped heads trying to catch it and fell back,
howling. Jack sniggered.
Hamish
read the message, then turned to face the others. “It’s from the
hairdresser…” he informed his waiting audience, “and it’s dated fifteen
years in the future.”
Mollie
breathed in awe. “What does it say?”
Hamish
frowned. “It says, `shut up and follow the boxes’!!!”
Sparki
stood, dusted off her hi-tops and stepped into the transporter. “Like, now is
the time for all good musicians to come to the aid of their hairdresser. We most
bogusly have to find them.”
Hamish
frowned. “Why?”
Sparki
grinned. “Because, like, we have been most absolutely ignoring them for
several chapters in a bogus attempt to shrink our cast of characters down to a
manageable size, which has totally NOT worked (she gazed accusingly at Jack and
Denara) and we really should be trying to find them by now.”
The
others paused, discussed, dithered and decided in the space of a moment, then
shrugged, climbed into the transporter and closed their eyes while Mollie pushed
the button.
For
a moment all was silent, then the Neon Lites found themselves tumbling headfirst
onto the deck of a great wooden ship that sat becalmed on a sea of waveless
blue.
Jack
climbed painfully to his feet. “Think you overshot the mark a little,” he
growled accusingly.
Mollie
whined fretfully. “I don’t THINK so…” she whimpered, “but so much has
HAPPENED in this chapter, I’m tired!”
Craig
bounded up, unscathed, as he and his fiddle had both landed safely on Hamish.
“Dinna fash!” he said cheerfully, entirely too energetic for page six of a
longish chapter. “We’re here right enough, look!” On the other side of the
deck, three swarthy sailors stained with ropes and pulleys to lower a familiar
looking sarcophagus into the hold of the ship. “See?”
A
man in a sea-stained tunic strode across the deck and stared at them, his hand
resting on the sword at his side. “From whence have you come? He demanded
suspiciously. “And why do you wear this outlandish garb?”
Tasha
bristled. “THIS is a Donna Karan ORIGINAL…” she began, but trailed off as
several of the sailors wandered closer to stare.
The
Captain of the ship frowned and shook his head. “I am Odysseus, Captain and
leader of this voyage. We are cursed by the gods, for the spirit of water has
becalmed the sea, so that we may not sail for home. He has sworn that I and my
men will perish upon the ocean, `ere our mortal eyes see Ithaca again.”
Tasha
blinked. “What does that mean?”
Sparki
shrugged. “It means that Poseidon is pissed.”
Odysseus
glared at them, staring moodily at the windless sky, then abruptly ordered them
imprisoned.
Tasha
squealed. Jack pulled from a pocket a paperback copy of The Odyssey and
began thumbing through it at breakneck speed.
Sparki
sighed. “Like, don’t you think this is a bad time to catch up on your
reading, dude? We are about to be totally imprisoned, I’m sure.”
Jack
continued turned pages feverishly, Mollie scanning over his shoulder, as the
burly sailors approached with sharpened daggers. A moment later, he let out a
shout.
“Ah!
What you need is a big bag of wind!”
Craig
turned. “Hamish, come over here!”
Odysseus
frowned, but held up a hand to halt his men. “Are YOU advising ME? Am I not
Captain of this voyage? Do I not know what is best for my crew? Will I not some
day have a long and convoluted television mini-series made about my adventures?
Who are you to suggest I am wrong? What do you mean by this? What should I do
with this big bag of wind?”
Sharpened
daggers notwithstanding, there was only so much a bodhran player could take.
Planting his face in direct line with the captain’s, Jack grabbed him by the
shoulders, shook him so his teeth rattled and bellowed at the top of his voice:
“You blasted fool! BLOW YOURSELF BACK TO ITHACA!”
Sometime
later, bruised and bound in the dank and smelly hold of the ship, Sparki turned
to Jack and shook her head. “Whoa, dude,” she said as the rest of the band
huddled in misery around them. “Maybe you shouldn’t have had that ninth
espresso.”