War of the World Records (21 page)

Arthur stepped in front of Ruby as the creatures crept closer. “I suppose this is what your brothers meant by
beefing up security
.”

He reached down and grasped the arm of the fallen mannequin. The lizards hissed with indignation from its far side.

“Those two really take their jobs seriously, don't they?” said Ruby. “So what do we do now?”

Using the mannequin as an inhuman shield between himself and the lizards, Arthur began prying its arm away from its body. “You use the mannequin to climb out—then get to the garage and fetch a ladder. I'll—” Arthur snapped the clown's arm from the shoulder socket and began sliding it out through the end of its frilly sleeve. “I'll try to fend them off for as long as I can.” He held up the newly severed arm like a blunt, five-fingered sword, then clenched his teeth and arched his brow.

Ruby looked concerned. “I don't mean to doubt your skills with a wooden mannequin limb or anything, but don't you think you're a bit outnumbered?”

“It's our only chance of getting out of here.”

Arthur jabbed the makeshift weapon at one of the bolder, larger lizards. The lizard snapped at him menacingly.

“But what if you get bitten?” asked Ruby.

“I'm pretty sure only one of them is poisonous—that one in the sombrero there; I'll try to stay clear of him.”

“Well . . . all right,” Ruby sighed as she took hold of the mannequin. “But I'm not happy about it.”

Arthur brandished the severed wooden arm before him, forcing the lizards backward. “Back you beasts!” he commanded. He turned to Ruby with a grin and added, “I think I've got this.”

His grin faded a moment later.

As the front line of larger lizards retreated, a swarm of smaller lizards poured into the resultant gap.

Ruby gasped—and promptly dropped the mannequin.

The new reptiles were each roughly two feet in length with blunt snouts and lumpy black skin covered in sickening scarlet blotches. They looked like the unholy offspring of a black widow spider and a king cobra. On their heads, they wore tall, cylindrical caps, giving them the appearance of monstrous Mexican soldiers. They made the other lizards look almost cuddly by comparison.

“Arthur—we need a new strategy!” Ruby cried. “You can't afford to be bitten by one of
these
.”

“What—what are they?”

“Rita's newest pets. When the Komodo died, she decided to fill its spot with the World's Largest Private Collection of Venomous Lizards. They're Gila monsters.”

“Uahh. Exactly how venomous are they?”

“One bite is excruciating; a few bites are enough to cause respiratory failure—though no one's ever really been bitten more than twice. Seeing as we're surrounded by hundreds of them, though . . . well, you've always wanted to break a record, haven't you?”

Arthur retreated with Ruby toward the cavern wall behind them, waving the wooden arm as the army of Gila monsters advanced.

“If dying was all I had to do,” he grumbled, “I might be up for it; it's the
excruciating
part that gets me.”

“Would it comfort you to know that—according to
The Big Book of Lizard Breeding
—the Gila monster is a typically sluggish, idle creature, unlikely to attack without provocation?”

“I don't think these ones have read that book. They look pretty energetic to me.”

Indeed, the creatures before him were lively and volatile—snapping at one another and clawing over each other's backs. There was no doubt they were entirely capable of inflicting lethal harm. Of course, this is true of any mob; while one bad-tempered individual may prove largely innocuous, a
mob
of bad-tempered individuals is sure to turn savage every time.

Unfortunately, any such insights into the shared psychology of lizards and men did nothing to ease the children's minds toward the gruesome end that awaited them.

Soon, the Gila monsters were climbing over the clown mannequin barricade that served as the children's last line of defense.

“Stay behind me,” Arthur called to Ruby, holding out his arm-shaped saber.

He lunged at the first of the creatures to cross the barrier and flung it backward—only to watch two others take its place.

Arthur struck again and again, but the creatures continued to spill forward, pressing the children further and further against the wall.

“I'm sorry I got you into this,” Ruby said gravely.

“No,” said Arthur. “Really, it's the other way around. If I hadn't betrayed your trust, you'd never have had to sneak onto the grounds this morning—and we'd never have fallen into this tunnel.”

“Oh, right,” said Ruby. “I guess it
is
your fault.”

“What?”

“Just joking.”

Ruby kicked a clump of earth in the face of an oncoming Gila monster and backed as closely as she could against the cavern wall. They were completely surrounded.

“Look, Arthur,” she said, “it doesn't matter whose fault it is we're here. The fact is, given the choice between never knowing you and dying a horrific death by Gila monsters, I'd choose the Gila monsters every time. Before you fell out of that tree on the Crosley estate, my life was hardly worth a pile of dragon droppings—and, well, now that we're about to literally become a pile of dragon droppings—I think you should know how I feel. . . . Arthur, I—”

“Ruby, look out!”

Arthur dove across his partner. Lashing out with the mannequin limb, he struck the Gila monster that had crept up behind Ruby and was preparing to bite into her ankle.

The creature flew several feet backward and landed in the heart of the horde, where it was welcomed back into the ranks by the snapping and snarling of its nearby comrades.

Arthur, however, now lay prone and helpless in the dirt, gazing directly into the dead black eyes of his demon attackers.

The monsters rushed forward.

Arthur had no time to stand. The stench of toxic lizard breath seared into his senses.

“Arthur!” cried Ruby.

His vision filled with black scales and snapping snouts. It was hardly the image he would have chosen to be the last thing he ever saw in this world.

Then suddenly, the image changed.

From out of nowhere, a small mechanized contraption appeared before him. With its geared treads and pivoting turret, it somewhat resembled a miniature tank.

The Gila monsters shifted their attention away from Arthur and began hissing and snapping at the new metallic invader. One of the creatures climbed onto the machine's front face and clamped its jaws around the red nozzle that protruded from the turret. No sooner had it done this, however, than the creature was blasted to the back wall by a jet of white foam.

Arthur watched in astonishment as the machine tilted its foam cannon downward and proceeded to blast the line of lizards directly in front of his face. As soon as this cluster had been flooded with foam and expelled backward, the machine's turret pivoted left and continued its assault on the rest of the legion.

Seeing his chance, Arthur staggered to his feet. Just then, a tangle of rope struck him on the shoulder.

“Arthur—” a voice called overhead, “grab on!”

Arthur looked up in confusion—and saw three familiar figures peering down at him from the upper edge of the opening. While his mother stood panicked with her hands over her mouth, his brother Simon frantically manipulated the controls of a long-antennaed remote control device. Beside Simon, the Whipples' butler, Wilhelm, stood grasping the top end of a rope ladder.

Arthur shot Ruby a look, and the two leapt at the ladder, clutching onto it with every limb.

A moment later, they had left the lizards behind and were ascending through the upper rim of the hole, out of the shadows into the warmth of the afternoon sun.

When they'd reached the surface, the pair collapsed to the ground with relief and exhaustion.

Wilhelm pulled Arthur up by the shoulders and said, “Are you hurt, Master Arthur?”

“No—I think I'm all right,” Arthur panted, checking himself for any undetected mortal wounds. “Thanks to you two.”

“I am sorry vee did not get here sooner; no boy should have to be nearly eaten by lizards so many times in so few days.”

“Yeah,” Simon agreed. “You've certainly had more than your fair share of life-threatening lizard attacks lately.” He pressed a button on his remote control and a tiny grappling hook shot up from the pit. He caught the hook, reeled in the attached cable, and hoisted up the tank-like contraption that had saved Arthur's life. “It's a good thing my DSX Machine was operational. After we discovered the pit and Wilhelm went to get the ladder, I ran to my workshop and grabbed it—just in case. I built it as a ‘Detached Salvager and Extinguisher' to put out rocket-kart fires and retrieve parts from unstable wreckage—but apparently it works as a reptile repeller as well.”

“Whatever it is,” said Arthur, “it has just earned itself free cleaning and polishing for life. If it weren't for you and your machine, we'd still be at the bottom of that pit.”

At this, Arthur's mother ran forward and hugged him as he had never been hugged before.

“Oh, Arthur, thank God you're safe!” she cried. “We were so worried. What an awful mother I was, not to notice you weren't with us this morning. My dear, sweet boy, can you ever forgive me?”

Arthur closed his eyes and breathed a contented sigh.

“I forgive you.”

He could have remained in the warmth of his mother's embrace many minutes longer—but he was soon struck by a puzzling thought.

“Hang on,” he blurted, “what are you all doing here? What about the championships?”

“When your father discovered you were missing,” explained Mrs. Whipple, “he walked off the tiltyard in the middle of his duel. We all split into search parties to look for you.”

“He did . . . ?” Arthur's mind swirled with equal parts confusion, joy, and terror. “What about your events?”

“We've missed them.”

“Oh no! We've got to get back before you miss any more! Where are the others?”

“Ivy and the octuplets stayed with Mrs. Waite to search the championship grounds in case you somehow turned up there. Your father has gone with Henry and Cordelia to check the Goldwin estate. We can fetch them with the car on our way back to the city.”

The others nodded in agreement—but before they could take their first step toward the house, Arthur's father emerged through the trees with Henry and Cordelia. The moment he saw his recordless son, Mr. Whipple cried out and ran to meet him.

“Arthur!” he exclaimed. “Are you all right, Son?”

“I am now,” said Arthur. “But . . . your duel with Mr. Goldwin?”

“Seems I'm not the dueling type in the end,” his father said with a smile. “I nearly tried to keep going after I'd heard you were missing, I'm sorry to say. But it's funny what one's mind gets up to when one is hurtling forward on a motorbike with an electric spear in one's hand. . . .” His voice softened as his eyes narrowed. “Suddenly, I was back inside the coffin. I've a feeling you know the one I mean, Arthur. I could practically hear myself gasping for breath as I clawed at the walls. I saw the dozens of hands reaching in to pull me to safety, and then I noticed the one pair that was missing. I looked up to see where my father was—only to watch him turn his back and walk away. He was a great man, my father, and I've spent my whole life trying to match his greatness. But today I realized I'd rather simply be a
good
man myself. So I left Mr. Goldwin to finish the duel on his own. I am so sorry to have left you behind, Son—and so glad to see you unharmed. But where have you been?”

“He got attacked by lizards again, Dad,” said Simon.

“Oh dear,” said Mr. Whipple as he clutched Arthur's shoulder. “How ever—?”

At that moment, Arthur's father noticed Ruby, who was standing to the boy's rear and had thus far been ignored by the rescue party. “Wait a minute. What on earth is she doing here? She's a spy for the Goldwins!”

“What?” Arthur replied in shock.

“That girl has schemed to detain you in an effort to terrorize and cripple this family!”

Ruby raised her hands in humble protest.

Arthur stepped in front of her. “No she hasn't,” he insisted. “They locked her up as well. She's on our side.”

Mr. Whipple cocked his head slightly, his expression shifting from outrage to puzzlement. “Locked up? Who did?”

“Overkill and Undercut.”

“They're still alive? The clownish giant and dwarf who said they were working for Sammy before they went down with the
Current Champion
?”

“That's them. But Sammy's completely innocent. Everything they said about him that night was a lie. After Undercut mistakenly spilled his story to Mr. Lowe at the Mountain and Molehill, he and Overkill had to get themselves arrested so they could shift the blame back onto Sammy. Ruby and I have been privately working with Sergeant Greenley to try and apprehend them on our own. They're the ones who let the Komodo dragon loose; they're the ones who shot Henry with the arrow at the Unsafe Sports Showdown; they're the ones who sabotaged the birthday cake—using a tunnel they'd dug from the Goldwin estate onto ours. Ruby and I fell into it this morning by accident.”

Arthur pointed over his shoulder to the pit, which his father had not noticed until now. Mr. Whipple and his newly arrived children walked to the edge of it and looked down. The floor crawled with ill-tempered, foam-covered lizards.

“Whoa,” said Henry.

“This . . . is
incredible
,” Mr. Whipple marveled.

Arthur retrieved the copy of the Treasurer's note that he kept in his trouser pocket and offered it to his father. “The night of the Komodo dragon attack,” he explained, “they used the tunnel again to get back to our house. I think I scared them away, but they dropped this in the trees. It's a list of instructions from their boss—signed and sealed by Ardmore's new treasurer.”