Whales on Stilts! (4 page)

Pretty soon it was time for Katie and Lily to put on their photocopy-repair uniforms, too. Katie was lending Lily a disguise. Katie's family, living in Horror Hollow, had a wide variety of weird disguises, because you never knew when you were going to need to pretend to be, for example, a census taker in an alien spacecraft while trying to get your little brother out of the meat locker.

Katie and Lily went into the women's room and changed their clothes. They stuffed their school clothes into their backpacks. When they came out, Jasper was flipping through the play-list cards on the jukebox, looking for the symphonic works of Sibelius.

“Heigh-ho, then,” he said. “Off to work.”

The three of them walked back down the
street, down the cracked pavement, to where the Abandoned Warehouse sat on the docks. It was almost five o'clock, and some of the employees were already slipping out of the secret door and going across the street to the Abandoned Parking Lot and getting into their cars. Lily had a mustache, so her father wouldn't recognize her. It was bushy and brown, and it tickled.

They opened up the secret door and stepped inside. There, in front of them, was Jill, the receptionist.

“Hello and welcome to Deltamax Industries, taking over the world through stealth and advanced laser technology since nineteen ninety-eight. How may I direct you today?”

“Ma'am,” said Jasper, who was always very polite to his elders, “we're here to fix the photocopier. I came last week and installed some new elements that are apparently giving you trouble.”

“Let me see if you have an appointment,” Jill said, smiling and looking down at a clipboard.

“Oh—” said Katie. “We don't have an appointment, but we got a call that—”

“Yup, here you are!” said the receptionist, making a check mark. “You're expected. Please go right in. The photocopy room is through the secret laboratory, up two flights, and down the hall on your right.”

The three of them looked at one another.

“What luck,” said Jasper.

“‘Luck,'” said Katie suspiciously, and exchanged a glance with Lily.

Lily scratched her mustache uncomfortably. She didn't like the look of this.

When they got upstairs, the girls were kind of surprised to see exactly how much machinery Jasper had added to the photocopier. The whole room was making a thrumming noise while all of the gears and cranks and pistons and the mule turned belts and made metal arms go up and down.

“Um, Jasper,” said Lily, “this isn't really what we expected.”

“Quick,” whispered Katie. “Where are the microfilms?”

Jasper cocked his head. “Pardon?”

“The microfilms.”

“Once more?”

“The microfilms.”

“Yes. I see.” He nodded. “So what are microfilms?”

“
Jasper!”
said Katie. “Your machine was supposed to be making duplicate copies of all of the things that were photocopied during the week!”

“Yes indeed. And so it did.” He flung open a panel. “All ingeniously copied and transcribed onto one convenient wax roll, quite easily carried between the three of us.” He hefted one end of the wax roll; it was as big as a carpet. “Come along. It's a mere two hundred and twenty pounds. Try to keep one hand free for making fists. We may have to bash our way out of here.”

“‘May,'” said Larry. “Just
may?”

“That was my assessment,” said Jasper, kneeling in front of the machinery.

Suddenly he looked up. “Ah,” he said.

The two girls turned around.

There in the doorway was Larry. He had four guards with him. All of them had guns. Big guns.

“Okay, boys,” growled Larry through his grain sack. “Let 'er rip.”

*
Are you grateful? If so, I like carrot cake.

A guard pointed a gun at them and fired. The shot ricocheted off Jasper's helmet. The girls had dropped to the floor.

The mule, hearing the shot, panicked. Suddenly it was galloping toward the guards.

The guards said things like “Whoa!” and “Ouch!”—unhelpful, brief, one-syllable things. They tumbled backward in a heap.

Jasper, Katie, and Lily ran over them, stepping over their limbs.

Larry was picking himself up off the floor. He screamed, “Guards!”

“Larry's grain sack!” panted Katie as they ran. “It's off partway!”

Jasper looked back. “He's—his teeth! What is that? By dumpkin, what is it?”

They kept running.

“They've seen my mouth!” yelled Larry. “Get them!
Get them!”

The guards slowly stood.

The mule was stomping down the hallway. The kids were right behind it.

Larry and the guards ran after them.

The guards turned the corner and were confronted by an empty hallway with many doors.

Slowly the guards paced along the hallway, listening carefully at each door.

Larry fixed his grain sack.

“It'll be hard to find those kids now,” whispered one of the guards to another.

“Oh,” said the other, “but you know what makes it really much easier? A supervisor standing there yelling ‘Guards!' and ‘Get them!' That's super. Thank goodness we have a guy like that on our side.”

“What are you saying?” snapped Larry. “Are you saying something?”

“Nothing, boss,” said one of the guards. “You just keep standing there, hollering ‘Let 'er rip.' Fix your little grain sack. Maybe eat a snack bar. You're a great manager. That's why they pay you the big cashola.”

“Miserable humans,” muttered Larry. “I am so glad that my father married a ...”

The guards all turned to look at him.

Larry folded his hands behind his back and rocked on his heels.

“Now that I've got your attention,” he said, “carry on.”

The guards kept creeping along the hallway, listening at all the doors.

“Boss,” whispered one guard, “I can hear something in the conference room.”

Larry nodded. “Break the door down. Like usual.”

They kicked open the door and jumped in.

There was the mule, eating the strategic map of world domination.

And there were the kids, escaping through the opposite doorway.

The guards ran after them.

Oh, I don't know about you, but I really hate chase scenes. It's all just chase, chase, chase, up the staircase, down the staircase,
bang, bang, bang,
“Over this way,” “No—that way,” under the desk, over the chair, and you know that either they're going to get caught, or they're not. So why prolong the agony?

I'll just flat out tell you.

They made it to an old laundry chute.

“They're right behind us!” screamed Jasper. “Jump down the chute!”

“Jump?!?” said Katie. “Are you crazy?”

“Don't worry! My Titanium Bullet-Mobile is parked at the bottom. Five seconds from now, and we'll be blasting away, beyond the reach of Larry and his goons!”

They jumped. They screamed “Whooaaaa!” all the way down.

They landed in their seats—upside down but still, they landed.

“Good job, Jasper!” said Katie. “This is great! Let's get out of here!”

“No problems now, fellows!” said Jasper. He pulled off his helmet and pulled on his motoring goggles. “With the old Bullet-Mobile, we'll be off in a jiffy.” He flicked a switch. “It's the first rocket-powered car! Rocket number one, engage! Rocket number two, engage!” He flicked another switch. The car started to move.

They were beside the old warehouse. They could see guards running out of the doors.

“Hurry!” pleaded Lily.

“Don't worry,” said Jasper. “They'll never be able to follow us! Rocket number three, engage—and we're off!” The Bullet-Mobile rolled more quickly toward the street.

The roar of the engines was unbelievable. Like being inside a firework. Huge flames leaped out of the back of the car. Sparks splattered all over the stone walls and the pavement.

“Hold on to your hats, ladies!” cried Jasper Dash. “You're in for a wild ride! This futuristic buggy can attain speeds of up to thirty-five miles per hour!”

“Thirty-five?” said Katie.

“That's right,” said Jasper proudly.

“Just thirty-five?”

“Yes indeed.”

“Oh, great,” groaned Katie, burying her head in the plush calfskin upholstery.

And behind them, guards poured out of the building.

Several of the guards had piled into a green Subaru station wagon and were swinging around corners after the Bullet-Mobile, firing their guns and changing rounds with their teeth.

Jasper expertly steered the rocket-powered car around fruit carts and pedestrians. Flames and smoke billowed out behind him. “We are gone in a flash!” He called backward into the wind, “Now—how do you like the tables turned, you gun-toting rapscallions?”

Katie said, “I wouldn't make fun of them too much until you reach the speed limit.” She looked nervously backward. “You know, you can still go over twenty in a school zone.”

“Katie, while your comments are well
meant, you should know that I would never put myself above the laws of the land and even
approach
the posted speed limit. I am a plucky yet principled youth, not a maniac daredevil.”

“Jasper,” called Lily. “Jasper?”

“Yes, Lily?”

“It might be better if we ... uh ... parked somewhere.”

“Why, Lily?”

“Because the flames are kind of... visible. We got a big head start, but I think that they can see us because of the fire. Coming out of the back of the car.”

“By jove!” said Jasper. “You may be right!”

He screeched around a corner. They were on a slope in a quiet neighborhood, on a tree-lined street.

Jasper turned off the engines and rolled down the hill. He pulled to the side of the road and kept rolling.

Lily, looking backward, saw the green Subaru station wagon fly past the end of the road.
Without the flames to alert them, the guards hadn't seen the car.

“Quick thinking,” said Jasper.

“Now we can just sit and take a deep breath,” said Katie. “Phew. That was a close one.”

“I apologize for the slow speeds of my Titanium Bullet-Mobile,” said Jasper. “I guess I haven't been keeping up with current trends. Also, I was forced to register it as an agricultural vehicle so I could drive it while I'm underage. As such, it is not allowed to go any faster than a tractor until I get a driver's license. Which will be some years from now.” He sighed. “Dash it all!”

Katie stretched her arms. “Well, it wasn't a very successful mission. We didn't get the microfilms—I mean, the two-hundred-pound wax roll—with the secret stuff on it.”

“No,” said Jasper unhappily. “More's the pity.”

“And they know we're spying on them now,” said Katie.

“I feel as if this is somehow my fault,” said Jasper even more unhappily.