Jasper Dash and the Flame-Pits of Delaware (25 page)

Katie began swatting at #1 from below with the lever, as if he were a particularly obnoxious piñata.

#1 growled.

A hand—#1 swooped his hand down from above and grabbed Katie's arm. She roared in protest. She slapped him. Grunting, he lifted her.

Her wrist burned with his grip, but it was all that kept her from falling into the blue flames. She looked down at the tangled energies of the mountain, the loops and licks of magical fire that roiled below.

Her arm creaked and popped. She hung, slowly sliding out of #1's grip.

“Say good-bye,” said #1.

She felt his fingers loosen their hold on her wrist.

She fell.

Drgnan swung—he let go—he dropped.

She tumbled.

The flames grew brighter—rocks flashed past.

Drgnan grabbed her. His arm was wrapped around her.

And suddenly she wasn't falling.

They were deep down in the throat of the mountain, hanging in midair.

“You levitate,” she said, looking into his eyes. His arm was very strong.

“The mind is as still as a concrete pool,” he said.

And with that, they floated upward. Past the suspended team members who hung there helpless, basted in magic. Past #1, who was trapped, holding on to one of the chains, unable to get to either cliff.

Katie, with her arm around Drnan Pghlik and his arm around her, was shooting up toward the light of day.

Jasper Dash and Bobby Spandrel faced each other on the tower top. From the chimneys below, the scent of burning fir boughs and candle wax was carried on the breeze across the mountain peaks.

“Bobby Spandrel, you scoundrel,” said Jasper. “You have disturbed all these good people just to get your revenge on me.”

“I am tired of you,” said Bobby Spandrel in his awful, tinny, electronic voice. “I try to just carry out a simple, straightforward plan where I levitate the Egyptian Sphinx so I can fly over the sea and rob banks in Rio de Janeiro, and you're there with a cable to trip me up. I try to counterfeit the Canadian dollar in the basement of a haunted
house, and you kick open the secret door and foil my designs. I try to set up a blorgassium smuggling ring on the planet Neptune, and you're there crawling through the air ducts. I am tired of you, Jasper Dash. I hate you. So this is the end, my flustered friend. You will never bother me again.”

“You monster!” said Jasper. “Why didn't you finish me off when you met us disguised as Lisa Buldene in Dover?”

“Because I wanted you to meet your death here, in total defeat, with the place you love most crushed beneath my thumb.” He gestured with his cuffs to his hands, which lay on the floor. “I put on that woman suit so I could be assured you were on your way to this monastery, and that you knew how to get here despite the mountains shifting when it's misty. I knew you would eventually see the Vbngoom artifacts in the Pelt Museum, and I knew that if I could slip you directions, it would only be a matter of time before you sought out the monastery and
were here quivering at my very feet.” He gestured at the fake feet at the ends of his zip-off pants. “So now you're here. And now you're gone. That's it. It's time to bash Jasper Dash.” He called shrilly, “Men!”

From the staircase, several toughs appeared. Team Mom was among them.

“And woman,” said Team Mom. “I'm here, too.”

“Men and woman! Throw him over the parapet!” Bobby Spandrel ordered. “Make sure he makes a squishy sound at the bottom.”

They walked toward Jasper.

But they couldn't get to him.

The monks all moved in and stood in the way. They crossed their arms.

And right in front of Jasper stood Lily, looking defiant and nervous.

“We won't let you hurt our friend,” said the monk in front.

The mobsters stopped inches from the monks. More monks moved up and confronted them.

“You will never learn,” said Jasper to his enemy, “that friendship is stronger than hate.”

Bobby Spandrel didn't laugh, because that wasn't the kind of thing they did with their lungs where he came from. But he
seemed
to laugh, and he said, “And you, Boy Technonaut, will never learn: It's not much good to have your fighting done by friends who have sworn an oath of nonviolence.” Spandrel swung his empty sleeve in a broad gesture. He ordered his goons, “Push right through the monks.”

“Move out of the way, baldy,” growled Team Mom. “There are events that need to happen.”

Bobby Spandrel taunted the monks, “You pledged to never attack anyone. You can't do anything. So move out of her way.”

The monk in front said, “We also pledged to protect our guests and our friends. We will use nonviolence to help them.”

“Ignore him!” cried Bobby Spandrel. “Grab Jasper Dash—and
smash smash smash.
”

The gangsters—Team Mom among them—reared
back and plunged into the crowd of monks—

Or would have if the monks hadn't stood their ground. They didn't move. The gangsters raised their hands to push the monks out of the way. And then a most extraordinary fight broke out. Monks vs. gangsters.

The way life should be.

Of course, it's a little difficult to describe this fight, since half of the people fighting couldn't in fact, um, fight, but it went down somewhat like this:

Weasel Chops O'Reilly goes to smack a monk on the head—raises his hand—and the monk blocks his blow with a sincere hope for universal friendship and kindness! Weasel Chops tries a left-hand hook to the jaw, but the monk counters with a wish that all men and women could coexist peacefully, living in geodesic domes! Gurgling with fury, Weasel Chops throws a quick right to the monk's face—but just before his punch connects, the monk whaps him on the back of the head with a vision of
an elk in a sunlit clearing standing next to its young! Weasel Chops goes reeling, clutching his skull!

Team Mom seizes a monk's green robe and hauls him to the side! She elbows another monk in the gut! She grabs his neck! He flails for a second and then delivers a swift, powerful plea for world peace to the nose! She stumbles backward and grabs at his arm, twists as she falls. He fights back with a recipe for unleavened bread! She hits him in the chin; he gasps and pummels her with the thought of calico kittens riding on the back of a friendly shark!

She throws him to the side! But he's not so easily defeated: He is
a master of haiku
! She delivers a roundhouse kick to the stomach. And he? He uses the power of poetry! Like:

We could sip dark wine.

Best friends go eat layer cake.

Ow. You bit my arm.

And:

The lake reflects sky.

So do our eyes show the soul.

Your left one is black.

Bobby Spandrel, his round head buzzing with irritation, saw Team Mom get a black eye from poetry—he saw his mobsters being walloped by a bunch of monks, and he was furious.

He raised his empty sleeve and blasted a huge bolt of energy in Jasper's direction.

Lily threw herself to the ground just in time. Everyone screamed and ducked—they kept writhing on the ground, wrestling, saying, “Oof!”

Jasper and Bobby Spandrel faced each other again over all the wriggling bodies.

Jasper climbed into the vaultapult. He fired his ray gun at Spandrel, but another burst of energy from Bobby's arm blocked the beam.

Bobby took aim and fired right at the Boy Technonaut.

And at the exact same moment, Jasper fired himself into the air from the vaultapult.

He soared up into the sky above the monastery. The energy bolt flew harmlessly past his feet. It shuttled along through the mountain passes. Jasper spun in the clear blue.

Roaring with anger, Bobby Spandrel launched himself into the air, blowing off his fake rubber feet as his ankles ignited with jets.

Seeing that Jasper was airborne, two gangsters from other towers launched themselves to intercept him and beat him up in midair.

Lily rose to her feet unsteadily and watched as Jasper twirled over the volcanic crater and prepared to meet the two toughs winging their way toward him. She held her breath.

A gangster flew up, passed Jasper, and got socked in the jaw—POW!—and, dizzy-eyed, fell.

Bobby Spandrel flew toward Jasper as Jasper hurtled toward a far trampoline. Jasper spun, firing off several shots from his ray gun at Bobby before he hit the taut oxhide and was hurled back up into the air, wheeling his legs in kicks and punches to knock out the gangsters who grabbed at his knees.

Now more monks shouldered past Lily and crawled into the vaultapult to throw themselves toward Jasper so they could help. Lily felt useless. She didn't know what to do. Most of the gangsters on her tower were out of commission—so worn down and humbled by the monks' superior powers of love and gentleness that they couldn't even stand up anymore. They just sat around weeping, thinking about how long it had been since they'd played with their dogs and visited their great-aunts at the nursing home. Team Mom was completely knocked out.

Lily watched, astonished, as gangsters from the far towers shot themselves toward the monks to beat them up in midair.

Meanwhile Bobby Spandrel had swooped down and grabbed the bouncing Jasper in his stumpy arms. Jasper beat on his archenemy's metal limbs. It made a sound like an angry person cooking.
Whang, whang, whang!

Bobby Spandrel blasted back up over the volcanic crater.

Far below his feet, which kicked helplessly in midair, Jasper saw the weird blue light from the flame-pits of Vbngoom. He wished—dearly wished—he'd brought his jetpack. It did not always work well—it had often sent him spiraling into sugar maples—but he was, he figured, looking at certain death without it. When Bobby Spandrel dropped him, which was going to happen close to immediately, Jasper would fall hundreds of feet into the maw of blue fire.

“Good-bye, Boy Technonaut.”

Jasper decided to spend a brief moment thinking of all the things he loved in life. Of course, he thought of his mother, who turned from the oven to smile one last smile at him. He thought of s'mores, when the chocolate was still firm but the marshmallow was gooey. He thought of bike rides in the autumn, when the leaves tangle in your hair. He thought of the simple pleasures of excavating a burial chamber booby-trapped with spikes and pythons.

And he thought of Lily, standing below him
somewhere—brave, stolid, quiet Lily, always generous, always thinking about others and what beat in their hearts—Lily, who would have to watch him drop to his death.

And Katie. If only Katie could be there—fun, funny, kind of obnoxious Katie with her gruff jokes and her golden smile. He was glad he had enjoyed the friendship of these two, which had made the last few—

Yeah, okay. Stop the violins.

Because Bobby Spandrel has just dropped Jasper feetfirst into the flame-pits of Delaware.

Bobby Spandrel hovered.

Lily saw Jasper falling.

Her heart felt like it was dying.

She screamed.

Drgnan Pghlik and Katie!

They had levitated up out of the volcanic chimney, and now passed Jasper—saw him—screeched to a halt—dropped—and grabbed him, too.

“Drgnan,” said Jasper, “I am happier to see you than a new copper penny.”

“Gosh,” said Katie, looking around her. Monks were flying through the air, their robes rippling. Gangsters were hurled through space, arms and legs straight at their sides, the pinstripes on their suits like zoom-lines in a cartoon. “What's going on here?”

Then the blasts of energy started whizzing past, fired from Bobby Spandrel's missing hands.

Jasper fired his laser back up.

“I cannot hold you both for long,” said Drgnan Pghlik. “Away from the flames, my power weakens.”

“Look out!” said Jasper. “That scourge Spandrel is coming to engage us in fisticuffs! Prepare for a set-to, chums!”

Lily, helpless below, watched as Bobby Spandrel descended on the three hovering kids. He fired his photon blasters, and Jasper deflected with his ray gun, and then suddenly they were all tangled up in a big bunch, flailing and whomping at Spandrel's robotic limbs.