Mr. Chickee's Messy Mission (5 page)

Zoopy said, “I second that emotion,” and made a sloppy,
slurping sound, which is what you do if you've got a mouth that's always full of gallons of drool and slob.

That wasn't the weird part of the dream, that was the good part. The weird part began when Rodney Rodent said:

After making those bad rhymes, Rodney Rodent picked up the bed, with Russell on it, and walked around the room carrying it over his head while saying:

But like with so many great things, this dream came to an end way too soon.

Russell was instantly awake when he heard his mother scream.

A second later he heard her say, “The fridge? The stove? How could they steal the stove and fridge without anyone hearing them?”

Russ was pretty sure he was awake, but what he saw when he looked around his room made him think maybe his weird dream was still going on.

First because his bed had moved from one side of the room to the other, and second because where his bed used to be now sat a refrigerator and stove!

Russell blinked a couple of times and shook his head to try to make the kitchen appliances go away, but each time he opened his eyes, they were still right there, right where they weren't supposed to be.

“Wow!” Russell looked at Rodney Rodent and said to the dog, “I bet I won't need a crystal ball to tell that some big trouble's right around the corner.”

Russell's mummy walked into his room. “Russell, did you hear anything last night? Someone stole the …”

His mummy froze with her mouth wide open.

“Boy!” Russell thought. “Maybe I should ask Mummy to join the Flint Future Detectives—she noticed the stove and refrigerator were in my room, and no one gave her
any
kind of clues!”

She didn't say another word, just turned around and walked out of the room like nothing unusual had happened.

Five seconds later she was back with Daddy. She pointed at the fridge. “Impossible, huh? I'm mad, am I, huh? HUH?”

Daddy looked at the stove and fridge, then at his son, then at his wife, then back at their appliances.

Mummy said, “That Carter boy is involved in this. I don't know how, but I feel it in my bones that that Steven Carter boy has something to do with this.”

Daddy said, “Russ-ell, muh boy, ya didn't hear no one toting the icebox into ya room last night? Ya slept right t'rough it? And I s'pose it'd be a grand waste of time ta ask why ya drag ya bed from one par-factly good side of the room to the otha, huh?”

Russell had seen Steven stroke his chin whenever he wanted someone to think he was doing some real strong thinking, so he decided to do the same.

“Hmmm,” he said, “I did dream that Rodney Rodent picked up the bed and was marching me around the room. I didn't see him touch the stove and fridge, but he might've. The way he was carrying my bed around the room, I kinda think he's a lot stronger than he looks.”

Mummy said, “Was that Carter boy over here last night?”

“No, Mummy, Steven's real brave, but he's afraid of you guys.”

“Imagine that! That little monster afraid of
us
!”

Daddy said, “I'll hafta go rent a dolly to move these t'ings back. What a city, what a country!”

Mummy shook her head and left the room.

“All right, muh boy, our mornin's all set for us. Get dressed and let's get goin'.”

After Russell had washed his face and brushed and flossed his teeth (yup, he actually flosses!) and combed his hair, he dropped Rodney Rodent into the front pocket of his shirt and went into the kitchen.

Since he was a soon-to-be-great future detective, he
noticed something was missing, and not just the stove and refrigerator either. Every other morning there was the delicious smell of breakfast being cooked when he came into the kitchen. Today there was nothing.

“Oh, man!” Russell thought. “This would be a great time for a messenger chicken!”

His father was sitting sadly at the kitchen table.

“Daddy, what are we gonna do about breakfast?”

“We can't do no cookin' till the fridge and stove are outta ya room, muh boy. It's too-too late for breakfast anyway, and ya mutha is craving cheeseburg deluxes with heavy olives from Halo Burger, ya up ta riding shotgun?”

As soon as Daddy said “cheeseburg deluxes with heavy olives,” Rodney Rodent began twitching around in Russell's shirt pocket. The strange little dog wouldn't eat any of the dog food the Woods family bought him, but he sure had developed a real taste for olive burgers.

Russell said, “No thanks, Daddy, I don't want to go there unless you can borrow our old van from the Carters and I can borrow Zoopy from Steven.”

“Why is it ya won't go ta Halo Burger without that wretched animal? Ya t'ink I haven't taken note of that?”

“It's not Halo Burger that I don't want to go to, it's that terrible parking lot that you leave the car in when you go inside.”

“Ah! Why I hafta marry a Flint gal? Muh own dear mutha tole me I shoulda never leave Jamaica! Children there would never talk sich nonsense.”

“Yes, Daddy, and children in Jamaica never have to sit and wait in any parking lots as scary as that one either.”

Russell's daddy was feeling a little stressed by the wandering kitchen appliances and the fact that he'd missed breakfast. He was in no mood to hear any nonsense about scary parking lots from his son.

“That's it, boy! In the car. Now! And this time you're showing me what's so terrible about this insane parking lot. If ya doe learn ta overcome ya fears, they'll sure overcome ya!”

Russell thought, “It's good I have Rod-Rode in my pocket—at least there'll be one dog there to protect me.”

Russell really did have some pretty good reasons not to want to go to Halo Burger without protection. One big reason was it was in that parking lot that he'd been attacked and robbed by a pack of hungry dogs not so very long ago.

An even bigger reason was the horrible, frightening Ver-nor's ginger ale mural that was painted on the wall there. Steven's father had told them it was put up in 1932, during a time in America's history known as the Great Depression.

After Great-great-grampa Carter's dictionary told them that
depression
meant “low spirits, gloominess, dejection and sadness,” Russell had to agree, whoever had drawn this mural had to be the saddest, most gloomy person in the world!

The mural was painted on the whole side of a four-story-tall, one-block-long building and showed a world that made adults smile and say things like “What a great imagination
that artist had!” or “Isn't that cute, I wonder how the artist thought that up?”

But kids? Kids knew!

They knew in their hearts, in their bones, that there was nothing to smile about in the painting. They understood that whoever had painted this mural had been to the strange world it so clearly showed and had had a very, very,
very
rough time there! Young people
knew
this world was real! Real and horrible.

Where old people saw a cute, cartoonish advertisement, young people saw a deadly serious warning.

The left-hand side of the mural showed a castle wall with a window about five feet up. Nothing so bad there, but what was in the window was responsible for Russell, Steven and a whole bunch of other young Flintstones having spent many a night with their eyes wide open and sleep the last thing on their minds.

It was a gnome.

And that's the perfect word to describe it. Through the years some people had said it was an elf or a sprite or a leprechaun or a goblin or even a troll, but kids knew that none of those words came
anywhere
close to painting a true picture of what it was.

It was a gnome. Pure and simple, a gnome.

To describe something as scary and weird and unreal looking as this thing, you needed a word that was just as scary and weird and unreal looking.

Gnome
was it.

Gnome
it was.

Great-great-grampa Carter's cranky old dictionary might define
gnome
as “one of a species of diminutive beings, usually described as shriveled, little old white men, that inhabit the interior of the earth and act as guardians of its treasures.” But Russell was closer to the truth when he defined
gnome
as “that thing in the parking lot of Halo Burger that would chew through your ribs, then gnaw your heart out of your chest if you gave it the chance!”

There were seven or eight other gnomes working away on moving barrels full of ginger ale, and some of them were even smiling pleasantly, but the one in the window was obviously the boss, and he obviously got to be boss because he was the meanest.

This gnome had an unusually large head and was wearing an old conquistador-type helmet. Nothing too horribly scary there. The scary thing was that the gnome was peeking out of the window with a pipe in his mouth and smiling the weirdest smile that had ever been seen on Earth. People may talk about how mysterious the
Mona Lisa's
smile is, but it's obvious that anyone who does has never seen
this
grotesque, gnarly, gruesome, gnomic grin!

To make matters worse, the gnome was winking!

At what, no one knew, but he had winked at generations of Flint's residents. Many, many winters, springs, summers and falls he had looked out on downtown Flint with this weird smile and this scary wink.

And if that isn't enough to make someone not want to
go sit in a parking lot while his mom or dad runs in for a burger, I don't know what is.

As they drove toward the restaurant, Russell's daddy popped in a Bob Marley CD.

Russell started moving to the beat of the reggae music. He probably would've started grooving anyway, but he knew if he didn't, his father would threaten to put him out of the car. According to Daddy, “If ya can't get in the groove, there's no point in ya riding wit' me!”

Russell felt his heart beating faster with each block as they drew closer to the restaurant. Even though he was in Russell's shirt pocket, Rodney Rodent seemed to be getting more and more anxious and excited too.

“Man,” Russell thought, “my heart's beating so loud and fast that it's messing with Rodney Rodent's sleep! This can't be good.”

But it wasn't Russell's heart that was getting Rodney Rodent worked up, and it wasn't the thought of cheeseburg deluxes with olives either, it was something else. The tiny animal was sensing something that he hadn't sensed in the longest, and it was what he'd been looking for ever since he came to Flint and started living with the Woods family. He could tell that he was very close to the doorway to his other home!

When Daddy turned left off of Saginaw Street into the parking lot next to Halo Burger, Rodney Rodent jumped right out of Russell's pocket onto the dashboard and began bobbing his head up and down.

Daddy thought he was either imitating one of those little fake bobble-head dogs that some people had in their cars, or that his son's dog had decided to keep time with the thumping reggae bass!

Mr. Woods was shocked. “My word! I doe t'ink I've evah seen that little t'ing move so much, what on eart' is wrong wit' it?”

Russell said, “See! I told you there was something spooky about this parking lot! Can't we park somewhere else?”

And then, almost as if to make Russell's point, Rodney Rodent stopped bobbing and stared at the mural Daddy had parked in front of. For the first time since he'd moved in with the Woods family five months ago, he threw his head back and howled! And it was like he'd been saving five months of howls in his itsy-bitsy body. It was so loud that it seemed like he must've been saving five
years
of howls!

The howl was so strong that the window next to Russell's father shattered and blew out into the parking lot! Three car alarms went off. The man who was waiting on people at the drive-through window threw his headphones down and, just like Russell and his father, slapped his hands over his ears to try to block this terrible screech.

Then, as suddenly as he'd started, Rodney Rodent stopped.

The car wobbled a little from side to side. Russell saw his father's lips moving, but the only thing he could hear was an echo from the incredible shriek.

“Mercy me!” Daddy's words finally got through to Russell. “I t'ought that was the par-fact animal! That t'ing is bad as that terrible hippopotamus dog we give to ya daft little friend, that Carter boy! I 'ope I'm not going ta be spending as much money on windows with this one as I spent on food for that otha monsta!”

Russell's father opened the car door, got out and peeked back in through where his window used to be. “Ya stay here. If anyone come a-asking what the noise was, tell 'em ya doe know! I gotta get ya mutha the olive burgers. What a city!”

Rodney Rodent hadn't moved from the dashboard; he was acting as if the mural had hypnotized him.

“Rod-Rode! Don't look at that thing! I have a bad feeling about those gnomes!”

But Rodney Rodent wasn't about to pull his eyes off of the mural. And if Russell had looked carefully, he would've seen there was one spot in particular that the tiny animal's eyes were locked on. He was staring at the pipe-smoking gnome who was peeking out of the window and winking, the one Russell and every other young Flintstone hated looking at the most!

Russell reached toward the dog to put him back in his pocket, but before his hand could wrap around him, Rodney Rodent jumped out of the window and flew right at the mural!

“Rod-Rode!”

The tiny dog shot directly at the mural going about 120 miles an hour! Russ knew if Rodney hit the wall going
with that much speed, he'd break his neck and be flattened like a slow squirrel on Dort Highway. It didn't seem as if there was anything that could stop him!