Mr. Chickee's Messy Mission (14 page)

Russell was getting more and more familiar and comfortable around the Great Clabbernabber. While he still couldn't bring himself to look at the animal's head for more than a few seconds, he started giving its body a closer examination. He walked around to get a look at the electrified tail.

Ms. Bowling said, “Young man, I'd strongly recommend you not go back there this soon after she has eaten. You'd be wise to come back with us.

“The reason I can't use her in my books is because all of the
b
vegetables seem to make the poor girl become very flatulent and—”

Russell said, “Make her what?”

Great-great-grampa Carter's dictionary said, “Flatulent
([FLACH-uh-lent] adj. Generating gas in the stomach or intestines, suffering from such an accumulation of such gas).”

Ms. Bowling said, “Correct, and unfortunately when she passes gas …”

Russell laughed, put his hand over his mouth and said, “You said ‘passes gas’!”

Steven said, “You don't have to explain anything else. I bet when something that big and rough-looking farts, the smell could fry a rhinoceros!”

Russell laughed again, kept his hand over his mouth and said, “Bucko, you said, ‘farts’!”

Ms. Bowling said, “No, actually the smell is quite pleasant, it's the fact that the Clabbernabber has an open flame near…”

Before Ms. Bowling could say anything more the Clabber-nabber's wings lurched forward and a great rumbling rolled from her belly.

Russell used his fingers to plug his ears and said, “Uh-oh, she's gonna burp!”

Steven used his fingers to plug his nose and said, “I doe tink zo, I tink she's gedding ready to cut a big …”

Steven was right, and the second the Clabbernabber's gas reached the sparking lightning bolts on her tail, a blue and green flame roared out and shot thirty feet behind her. The temperature in the room instantly rose twenty degrees!

“Wow!” all the members of the Flint Future Detectives and Marvin said at once.

Ms. Bowling said, “I know. So as you can see, the poor girl has proven to be quite impractical for any of Hairy's adventures. Forests, castles, caves, anything she was in would be instantly incinerated.”

In no time at all three more flames jumped from the back of the Great Morose Fire-Spewing Clabbernabber.

Richelle wiped her brow and said, “Ms. Bowling, we have to go, but before we do, I was wondering, why weren't you able to use those dump trucks in any of your stories. Do they have a terrible flaw too?”

“Oh,
those
. Another large embarrassment, I'm afraid. Actually those aren't mine, they're from Earth and they come every hour on the hour.”

Ms. Bowling looked at her watch and said, “I know you're pressed for time, but if you can wait for just a moment more, you'll see why they're here.”

A second later a whistle blew and the engines of the fifty dump trucks roared to life and one hundred headlights came on.

Steven looked at the Clabbernabber. Richelle was standing next to her and petting her nose! In the one or two seconds that he could actually look at the mighty dragon's head Steven wasn't sure if her nose looked like an elephant's or a lion's, but whatever it was, Richelle's hands were rubbing back and forth across it and the beast's inky black eyes were shut! The “Oooga-ooga-ooga” sound the Clabbernabber was making reminded Steven of purring.

The dump trucks started coming toward them.

Richelle scratched at the Clabbernabber's ear and said, “Hold on a minute, sweetie, fresh food is just about here.”

Ms. Bowling said, “No, Richelle, it's not food that the trucks are bringing.”

The first dump truck reached the group and swung around so that its rear was facing them. A loud beep came
just as the bed of the truck began to raise and the rear door yawned open.

Right at Ms. Bowling's feet, out poured an ocean of money! Skillions and jillions of green bills tumbled out of the bed of the truck!

Richelle picked one of them up, laughed and said, “For a second there I thought this was real American money. What do you do with all of this counterfeit cash, Ms. Bowling?”

Ms. Bowling said, “No, child, this is real.”

Richelle squinched her right eye halfway shut and left her left eye halfway open. She twisted her lips to the left, then to the right, and gave the bill a closer look.

She put her hand on her hip and said, “I'm sorry to have to tell you this, Ms. Bowling, but this is
not
real money. There has never been a president or founder of the United States named HWMISB. There aren't even enough vowels in that word for it to be a real name.”

Russell picked one of the bills up and said, “Uh-oh, Madam President, I hate to be the one who's got to burp your bubble, but these
are
real. Bucko.”

He handed the bill to Steven.

Steven felt the room start to spin and it wasn't caused only by the farting of the Clabbernabber. Looking out at him from the face of the bill in his hand was a very sweaty, tired-looking man who seemed to be having both a bad hair day and a very bad stomachache. Yup, it was the hardest-working man in show business, the Godfather of Soul, Mr. James Brown! The dump trucks were filled with …

Russell and Steven cried out at the same time, “Quadrillion-dollar bills!”

“My word!” Ms. Bowling said. “How in heaven's name did you know the proper name for those? I'd been told they were an absolute secret back on Earth!”

Russell said, “You wouldn't believe how much trouble those things can get you in!”

Steven said, “All fifty of those trucks are filled with quadrillion-dollar bills?”

Ms. Bowling said, “As I said, it's a tad embarrassing, but this is how I get paid for my writing.”

Steven said, “Huh? I do't get it.”

Richelle let out a tiny growl.

Ms. Bowling said, “People from America have bought so many of my Hairy Plodder novels, and the tastefully done spin-off items that are associated with them, that if the publishing company were to pay me what I've earned, every piece of paper currency that your country has ever printed since 1779 would now be mine.

“This is top-secret, but to give me my royalties your Treasury Department had to create and print nine septillion of these quadrillion-dollar bills, which allows me to get paid and still leaves enough cash for your fellow American citizens to use for their day-to-day expenses. You know, buying hamburgers and gasoline and ammunition and such things.”

Russell said, “Well, Bucko, I guess that's why Ms. Tip-tip said we didn't all-the-way solve the mystery of the quadrillion-dollar bill!”

Before Steven could answer, the Clabbernabber started ooga-oogaing again, and with each ooga she shot a hot blue flame thirty feet behind her.

Richelle said, “Goodness! I've got to stop petting you now, sweetie. You're really warming the room up!”

She turned to the author and said, “Ms. Bowling, we'd love to talk some more, but we've got work to do.”

Ms. Bowling said, “It's really most extraordinary the way she lets you pet her, but I agree, you should leave. It's getting intolerably warm in here!”

The Flint Future Detectives, Marvin, and Ms. Bowling shook hands and wished each other luck. Steven turned the left-hand knob on the door to the right and the right-hand knob to the left, and the door rose and let them out.

Before the door shut, Richelle called back to the Clabbernabber, “See you later, sweetie!”

Steven said, “Not in this lifetime you won't, that's one scary animal!”

Russell said, “Yeah, Madam President, why are you calling that dragon ‘sweetie’?”

“She kind of reminds me of me, she is sweet and no one really understands her.”

Steven's eyes rolled and he said, “Mr. Surly-Guide, do we have time to visit any other authors?”

Marvin looked at his Oops-a-Daisy and said, “Hey, it's your lives, you think I care if ninety-nine years go by on …”

Russell ran farther up the hallway, heading toward the A doors. He stopped at one door and read:

• a pair of hair clippers
  

• a good sense of humor
  

• a great life insurance policy
  

• a thick skin
  

• a book of waterproof matches
  

• a bottle of Old Spice aftershave
  

Russell hollered back, “Look, I know who this is! He's the guy who writes those cool Ben-Jammin, the Baddest Barber and Outdoor Adventure Brother, books.”

Steven said, “Ben-who?”

“Oh, man, Bucko, I can't believe you haven't read any of the Ben-Jammin stories. He's that guy who's cutting hair until he saves enough money to follow his dream to be the world's greatest outdoor adventurer.”

Richelle's arms crossed and her foot started tapping. “Come on, Russell, thirty-two quadrillion authors here and this is the one you're interested in, someone who writes about an outdoor adventure barber?”

Russell had two ways of dealing with people who were negative: he either ignored them or pretended he didn't hear them. He decided to do the ignoring way with Richelle.

He turned the left-hand knob on the door halfway to the
right and the right-hand knob three-quarters of the way to the left, waited three point two seconds, knocked three and a half times (go ahead, try it again, keep practicing!), and stood on his tiptoes to look through the peephole.

A gruff, outdoorsy voice yelled, “Who is it?”

Russell said, “Someone who's ready to go on a wilderness adventure, let me in, please.”

The door flew up.

Marvin looked back and screamed out, “No! Stop him! Not there! That's Buster B. Bayliss County!”

The guide rushed toward the door Russell was standing in front of. He was absolutely panicked and screamed, “No! Stop now, you little idiot!”

But Russell stepped in and the door shut behind him.

The guide pulled at his hair and said, “Aww, man, that little sap just went in the most dangerous county in all of H.A.L.F. Land! And it'll be my fault if anything happens to him.”

Steven said, “Hurry up! Let's open the door and go get him.”

The guide slumped against the door and said, “We can't.”

Richelle said, “Why not?”

“The only way the door can be opened before a week has gone by is if that knucklehead opens it from inside, and what do you bet he isn't going to want to?”

Steven said, “Why wouldn't he?”

“Weren't you listening to me? It's a dangerous place,
boys love danger, he'll have a great time. If he isn't ripped to shreds and eaten.”

Steven and Richelle yelled, “What?”

“Yeah, there's been this monster-bear thing on the loose in there for the longest time. It's eating anything that moves. And it loves fresh Yourside meat.”

Steven tried like mad to open the door the way the dictionary had told him; nothing happened.

“Quit wasting your time. All of you Yoursiders are so selfish! Here I'm about to get into a ton of trouble and all you can think about is your foolish friend.”

Richelle said, “Are you kidding? Russell might get killed and you're worried about getting in trouble? What can we do?”

The kid tapped his Oops-a-Daisy and said, “All we can do is pull up a chair and wait. If your bonehead friend doesn't open the door himself, we can go inside in a week and get what's left of him. Maybe if we find a bone or two, I won't get punished too bad.”

Richelle looked at Steven.

Steven was so disturbed he looked right back at Richelle.

He said, “I can't believe Russell's in so much trouble, and Richelle, I can't believe it, but ‘your love is all I nee-ee-ee-d, all I need, woo-oow-woo-woo-oow-woo, all I need!’ ”

Richelle slumped down next to the surly guide and said, “Carter, if you look at me even once during the next week, I'll make you wish
you
were trapped in Buster B. Bayliss County!”

Steven looked at his Oops-a-Daisy and said, “Don't worry, the only thing I'm going to look at for the next week is that door. The only thing I'm going to do for the next week is hope Russell opens it up from inside.”

Marvin said, “I wouldn't hold my breath, that kid's probably already been eaten. And as greedy as that bear thing is, I bet he's already burped your partner's bones out.”

The Return of Rodney Rodent

T
HE DOOR DROPPED
behind Russell. What he saw crashed into his senses like a cheap-shot punch from a 360-pound lumberjack. To his right was a thick, impenetrable wall of green, running forty, maybe fifty feet up. A forest so dense and hot that it shimmered and danced as waves of heat and humidity rose from it.

To Russell's left was another wall, this one running as far up as he could see. Instead of the vibrant green of the first wall, this one was bright white. White from the blizzard of snow, hail and wind that tore through the area, making it just as impenetrable as the forest to the right.

Running between these two walls was a twenty-seven-foot-wide, calm and peaceful, grass-covered street.

Once the shock of what he was seeing wore off, something
even more disturbing came at Russell. From the left came the piercing howl of wind-whipped snow. Having been born and raised in Flint, Russell recognized what this sound was. It was the desperate, lonely sound of life in hiding, of life scoured and scourged into retreat and surrender by unremitting cold and blasting winds.