Jasper Dash and the Flame-Pits of Delaware (18 page)

“Release the backpack straps!” Jasper yelled. “Katie! Katie!”

She ducked—she twisted—she turned. She fell. The wicked Thing hauled her toward its mouths. Black butterflies wobbled through the air before her face. She scraped over dirt and baby tears, wrestling with her own arms.

Jasper shot the Thing again. “Too weak!” he muttered, rattling his ray gun. Now the batteries were truly gone. The laser was just a feeble beam of light.

So, raising it once more, he aimed it directly at the Thing's eye. He fired. The gun flashed.

The Thing blinked. It twitched, then growled—but in the moment of that twitch,

Katie had hunched her back. She threw her arms above her.

She was free of her pack.

It slid toward the monster without her.

The Thing tossed the backpack in its mouth while Katie, half crawling, scrambled for the stairs.

Now they all started clattering upward, away from the pit and the eldritch Thing.

“Sorry, Jasper,” said Katie, “I lost your extra supplies.”

He looked a little guilty. He didn't say anything.

Lily glanced back down toward the Thing. It had pulled itself up and was starting to galumph after them, heavy blue-veined lips smearing against the rock.

“My ray-gun batteries are now entirely dead,” said Jasper. “Do we have any other plans, chums?”

“Running,” said Katie. “That seems like a plan.”

There was a ferocious cry behind them. Stunned, they couldn't help but look back.

The ancient demon-spawn, child of a lost and awful world, was clutching its stomach. It was balled up and woozy.

“It must have eaten some…” Katie stopped herself. “Jasper,” she said, “what was in that extra backpack? That backpack I've been carrying for two days now?”

He said, in a very small voice, “Why, supplies, Katie.”

“Jasper?” she said. “What kind of supplies have I been carrying in that extra backpack for two days now, while being chased by cannibals, creatures from pits—and
allosauruses
?”

“Well, Katie, when your pluck is unplucked and your pep is—”

“Jasperrrrr!”

“Why, there's nothing that zaps up your zip like—”

“Jasper Dash, have I been carrying sixteen twelve-ounce jars of Gargletine Instant Breakfast Drink through twenty-five miles of tropical rain forest?”

“Yes, Katie.”

“And why didn't you just tell me that I was carrying—”

“I was ashamed,” said Jasper, “because you always make fun of Gargletine, and recently you haven't been doing anything but arguing with me about Delaware and laughing at me. You've been— Anyway…So I didn't want to show the jars to you. Because a fellow gets tired of being
ha-ha
'ed to death. To absolute death, Katie. Now argue with me about
that.
”

“Um, Jas,” said Katie, pointing down the stairs at the monster. “Maybe it's good I didn't drink any of that Gargletine.”

The Thing writhed on the bottom steps. It held its stomach and groaned out of twelve mouths in uneasy, passing harmony. It shlupped itself toward its home pit like a daddy longlegs crawling off the windshield of a speeding car.

“Let's go,” said Lily. “While it's slowed down.”

“Yes,” said Jasper, with dignity. “Because once the Gargletine takes effect, the Thing will
be…much…stronger…and peppy…All Saturday long.”

They climbed the stairs to freedom.

“I'm sorry, Jasper,” said Katie. “It's just that right now—okay—I am a little sick of boys and their pride. It always seems like boys have got to be right about, you know, tyrannosauruses.”

“Why, gee, no, Katie. I am sorry. Here I—”

“Moody guests,” said Bntno, “perhaps we walk on upstairs and speak of tyrannosauruses when we don't have so many monster right behind us. Then heartwarming talk of friends and oh sorry and clasp hands, tada.”

So they kept toiling up the steps leading out of the overgrown kingdom of Greylag.

And when they got to the top and stepped out of an old stone cupola, they found themselves on a beautiful plateau. The fronds and petals whispered in the breeze. The eyes of birds shone bright. The air was warm and friendly, curling on their arms and hair.

And over the peaceful scene, blocking out the thousand jillion stars and the Milky Way,
dashed across this American landscape, were the shadows of four mountains rising from the hills. Bdreth, Minndfl, Tlmp, and Drgsl. They hunched like cowled monks surveying the world.

Katie, Jasper, and Lily looked in awe around them. On one of those mountains stood Vbngoom, the Platter of Heaven. Whichever one of them was Tlmp.

“They're beautiful,” said Lily.

“Indeed,” said Jasper. His voice full of awe, he said, “On one of those mountains, Drgnan Phglik waits for us. We are coming, my friend. We will soon be there.” He asked Bntno, “Which one of them is Tlmp?”

Bntno was rooting around in his sack for his roast beef sandwich.

“Bntno?” said Lily.

“Yes, lovely guests?”

“Which one is Tlmp?” Jasper repeated.

“Yes?”

“Which mountain is Tlmp?”

“Which I-not-know is what?” said Bntno.
He took a bite out of his sandwich. “I am not very good with whichways.”

“But we need to know which mountain to go up,” said Katie. “There are four of them.”

“Yes, you choose. I do not know where monastery is. I get you here, but you take me to Vbngoom.”

“It's on Mount Tlmp,” said Jasper. “So which one is Tlmp?”

“One with Vbngoom on it.”

“Thank you,” said Jasper. “Swell. Tell me which of those four. The one farthest to the east? To the west? One of the ones in the middle?”

“Rocket-youngster does not see what is said to him. I am not know which mountain has which name. The story say that these mountains, they are dance when it cloudy. All…” He slapped his hands around next to each other to suggest the mountains changing places.

“Will we be able to see Vbngoom in the morning?” asked Katie. “On top of one of them?”

“Oh no,” said Bntno. “Oh no. Can't see no
tops because of rumples. Vbngoom, it is very great secret of Delaware state.” He finished with his sandwich, balled up the aluminum foil, and shoved it into a convenient blossom. “Time for sleep now. In morning, you will find monastery for us.”

“Um,” said Katie, “aren't you supposed to be our
guide
?”

“Shh! I am to be sleeping,” said Bntno, shaking out his bedding and laying it on the ground.

And so, exhausted, not knowing where they'd be headed the next day, they unrolled their sleeping bags and fell asleep in the vale between the four great star-shadows of the four greatest peaks in the greatest mountain range in the state of Delaware.

Up on one of those mountaintops, locked in the board game and tiger closet of Vbngoom, Platter of Heaven, young Drgnan Pghlik crouched next to Nrrrgarha, monastery pet, waiting to be eaten.

So far, Drgnan had not been clawed. He had not been mauled or bitten.

The tiger knew him. They had lived together for years. Still, this was a tiger, not a calico cat with a love of sunbeams and people smooshing their face in his fur singing about bouncy mice and shnuggles. Nrrrgarha was a beast of the wild. He hunted the slopes in lean times.

Drgnan talked to the tiger as he had been taught, speaking gently, compassionately, and evenly, freeing them both from all desires. He
asked the tiger to look within. He told the tiger to forget worldly hungers, for worldly hungers are the crooked stick with which wickedness thwacks us.

At first, Nrrrgarha was lulled by the sound of Drgnan's voice.

But hours passed—days, probably—and now Nrrrgarha was getting restless. He no longer purred when curled next to Drgnan. He fidgeted. And after a few days in the game closet, Drgnan smelled unwashed, and he knew the tiger was thinking about meat.

So Drgnan started to think again about escape.

Of course, he had tried several things already. He had attempted to unscrew the hinges. No luck. He had searched the closet for something he could saw with or scratch away at the bottom of the door with. No luck.

But now he had a new idea.

Carefully, he reached across Nrrrgarha to the shelf where the games were stored.

The tiger growled at him. The growl was irritable. Like he might just swipe at the boy.

“Consider a still, peaceful place,” said Drgnan. “Nrrrgarha, listen to me. Picture a mountain pool.”

The tiger growled.

“With a caribou in it.”

The tiger growled louder.

Drgnan had a box in his hand. He drew it over to him. The box sagged and torqued in the air over the tiger's head.

Drgnan lay the box on his lap. Carefully, he removed the lid and felt the contents.

He felt the grain of the board…some cards…a pile of fake money…and yes, houses, many small houses…

Monopoly. Monastic Monopoly. He felt triumphant, as if he'd just bought the Water Works, Westminster Abbey, and the Vatican, and built a line of hotels straight across them.

Slowly he picked up the stack of cards. He slid one under the door, keeping the corner of it under his finger.

Now he needed something to poke with.

Here was his plan: He knew the key was still
in the keyhole. He could poke it from his side so it would fall out on the other side. It would land on the Monopoly card. Then he would draw the card slowly back under the door, bringing the key with it. Then he would unlock himself, and he and Nrrrgarha would be free.

But he needed something to poke the key with. He groped through the Monopoly box. For a second, he thought maybe the die-cast metal top hat or the 1930s roadster would do the trick, but the car's running boards were too wide. It didn't fit in the keyhole.

He lay the Monopoly game aside and reached back over to the shelf.

He came up with Travel Scrabble. Because it was the Doverian edition, it had hardly any vowels.

Then another long box. He lifted it over to him. He laid it on his knees.

Nrrrgarha stirred restlessly.

Drgnan prowled around the board. Little holes, with…

ZAP! There was a red light—a bulb—and Nrrrgarha rose to his feet, snarling.

It was Operation, Drgnan realized. An old game where you try to remove body parts with tweezers. The patient's nose lights up when you get it wrong. Drgnan had knocked the metal tweezers against the metal edge near the funny bone.

He didn't really want to think about anyone removing body parts at the moment.

Nrrrgarha stood in the darkness, growling deep in his throat.

Young Drgnan Pghlik reminded himself that his heart must be as still as a pat of wolf-butter on a hot cinnamon bun. He cleared his mind of tigers. Though one stood two feet from him, showing its fangs in the darkness.

Stifling his fear, Drgnan lifted the tweezers out of the game box. He felt for the door handle. He inserted the tweezers in the keyhole and inched them forward.