Whales on Stilts! (5 page)

“And if they figure out that it was Lily, then her dad will probably be in danger.”

“Katie,” said Jasper, “there are times when good friends enjoy a certain kind of silence.”

“It's not a loss at all,” said Lily quietly. “Now we know what we're up against.”

“Goons with guns?” said Jasper. “That we knew before.”

“No,” said Lily. “We know much more than that. We saw part of Larry's face. Most of his mouth.”

“It was really weird looking,” said Katie.

“And I think that gives us a hint as to his whole... you know, insane scheme,” said Lily.

Her two friends turned to her.

“Okay,” said Katie. “Now will you please explain?”

Lily tapped thoughtfully on the car door. “Let's go to dinner at the Aero-Bistro, and I'll tell you what I think.”

That night the Aero-Bistro was floating in the middle of Jebb's Gorge, just outside of town. The trees on the cliffs were strung with lights. The dinner special was a hearty lobster-and-squash bisque. Music for the evening was supplied by members of a string quartet, who were playing energetic chords while sitting in the backseats of four speedsters that did daredevil jumps off the cliffs, flying past the Aero-Bistro. The music—one note per jump—was very solemn and slow, a little drowned out by the roar of the engines and the cries of the pit crews replacing tires.

“Well,” said Katie, leaning back in her chair as a cello went by playing B-flat at a speed of about 170 miles per hour, “now maybe you'll
tell us what that guy's weird mouth helped you figure out.”

“To me it looked... It was like he didn't have teeth,” said Jasper. “It was like thick white hairs instead of teeth.”

“Up close,” said Lily, “I'll bet they're wider than hairs. I'll bet they're made of the same thing as our fingernails.”

“Hmm,” said Jasper. “A whole mouth full of hangnails. No wonder he's so moody.”

“No,” said Lily. “It's not actually fingernails. It's called
baleen”

“‘Baleen,' huh?” said Katie.

Lily nodded.

ba-leen
[bay-leen]
n
strips of hard fiber that occur in the mouths of certain whale species; used to strain out plankton, the microscopic organisms eaten by whales. Example: “It's so embarrassing going to the movies with my whale cousin and watching him try to eat popcorn through his
baleen.”

“Hmm,” said Katie.

“And did you notice?” said Lily. “His skin was blue.”

“So it was,” mused Jasper. “As blue as the woad on a Celtic warrior's pinkie.”

“Jasper,” said Katie, “can you not use words like
woad
right now?”

Lily forged on. “One other thing about Larry. He pours brine over his head.”

“So you're saying ...,” said Katie.

“I'm saying that Larry is a whale-human hybrid. He's a little of both. Remember when my dad said that he thought the company made stilts for whales? Well, he may not have been kidding. They may actually make stilts for whales ...”

“So that the whales,” said Jasper, catching on, “can invade the land!”

“Exactly!” said Lily.

“Dastardly!” cried Jasper.

“Whoaaaaaaaa!” exclaimed Katie.

They stared into space, uncertain of what to do with this terrifying news. The string quartet whizzed past, leaping between the limestone outcroppings.

“Why couldn't we have had one of
those
cars for our escape?” complained Katie.

“Why would we need a string quartet?” asked Jasper.

“I mean, those cars go over twenty miles per hour.”

“But... they're not rocket powered,” said Jasper, hurt.

“Jasper,” said Katie, putting her hand on his wavy, heroic blond hair, “it's so sweet how you risk our lives for gadgets.”

“I have a few things I want to ask my dad,” said Lily, tapping her index finger on her teeth.

They all nodded solemnly. They looked out over the gorge and the trees strung with Chinese lanterns.

There is nothing better than friends working together against incredible odds. It is a great feeling. Some friends of mine and I, for example, once had to stop this jerk we knew from middle school who was trying to carve his face next to
the presidents' on Mount Rushmore. He was the richest kid in school, and he had won a bunch of Italian stonemasons in a game of Go Fish. He and the stonemasons were headed down to Mount Rushmore in a bus.

I won't go into the whole thing, because I'm just trying to make a point that when you work on a project together with friends, and you're rushing around with climbing gear and scissors, and your friend Dana is explaining how to go up mountainsides, and your friend Bubs is showing everyone how to disable a helicopter, and though you don't have quite as many useful skills as your friends, you're doing your part by writing personalized haiku for each of them, you get this intense feeling of love for your friends, and you come to admire them even more than you did before.

You start to think,
I would really hate it if they were injured or destroyed in an invasion of whales on stilts.

This is what Lily, Jasper, and Katie were all thinking.

Funny that they should be thinking that, though. Because later that very night...

While the three kids met at the Aero-Bistro, Larry, hidden away in his secret laboratory, was lowering himself into a salt bath. He pulled off his mask, muttering, “And I would have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn't been for those meddling kids and their mule.”

He leaned back in the bath. His skin was thick, slippery, and blue. His mouth was in a big scowl, and in the water his baleen glistened. He spoke to two of his head guards, who stood nearby. “We must find those children before they spread word of my plan. The one girl looked familiar—the one with the hair in her eyes and the handlebar mustache—but I can't quite place the face. It was quite an unmemorable face.
Somehow the mustache throws me off. But that other girl—I know I've seen her face somewhere ...”

He absently plucked at his baleen as if playing the harp.

“So they saw my face. My face!” He slapped the water angrily with his blue hands. Then, more quietly, he muttered, “My mother was a razorback whale. My father was a very lonely sailor. They were married in Barbados and lived a happy life together until... But I won't talk about that. Then they bred me... Me!...A monster! Laughed at by all! Even by my cousin, my jerky cousin who now writes for the dictionary! The dictionary, do you hear?
I am a monster! Yes indeed!
But a monster who shall one day soon rule the Earth!”

His voice echoed in the chamber.

The two guards stood against a wall.

Finally one of them said, “Do you, uh, want us to say anything? Or just listen?”

“Just listen. That will be fine.” Larry stroked
his chin. “Aha! Yes! Eureka! That's it. I have got it. I know exactly who that meddlesome girl is. Her name is Katie something ... Katie ... Yes. I've seen her posters up... here and there ...”

“You mean the one in your office, boss?”

“Yeah, okay? Yeah, the one in my office. It is my business, Rod, if I want to join the Horror Hollow Fan Club. Isn't it? Tell me, Rod. Tell me right now. Isn't that my business? So I like to read and improve my mind. So I like novels full of suspense and action. So I joined the Horror Hollow Fan Club. Okay?”

“Fine with me, boss.”

“And that girl, that's where she's from— Horror Hollow. Her name is Katie Mulligan. See? Where would we be if I hadn't joined the fan club?” He clapped once. “Now here's what I want you to do. Look in the phone book for some Mulligans who live over in Horror Hollow. Send one of our operatives to her house. One of our
special
operatives.”

“Yes, boss.”

“I think you know what I mean by emphasizing
special.
”

“Yes, boss.”

“Big, you know... with the...” Larry winked and made a sound like something gigantic on stilts wreaking destruction on a suburban cul-de-sac.

“Yes, boss. You mean ...” The guard stuck his fingers in his mouth and made the sound of something towering on stilts smiting an address in Horror Hollow, and dark smoke rising up to the unforgiving sky.

“That's it. See that she never tells a soul what she has seen here.”

“Yes, boss.”

“Now. Go!”

The guard turned and left.

Larry sat in his salt bath, thinking. “Very soon,” he said,
“very
soon” the years of planning will pay off. The world will be amazed at my power. Not much longer! Ha! Great! To think
that soon I'll be...” He sank down and disappeared beneath the surface of the water.

Bubbles drifted up because he was still talking, still describing his fiendish schemes, though no one could hear or make out his words.

Picture a deserted cove. A dirt road runs right down into the bay. During the day people put their boats in here. It's a public launch. They zip around Smogascoggin Bay, waving to one another. Their skin looks shiny, and they drink pop.