Mr. Chickee's Messy Mission (17 page)

He looked at his Oops-a-Daisy and said, “I guess I have plenty of time to—”

Buster B. Bayliss said, “What is that?”

“My Oops-a-Daisy.”

“That's what I thought.” He put his hand out.

Russell took the Oops-a-Daisy off and handed it to the author.

Buster B. Bayliss put the strange watch in his pocket.

“You'll get it back when we're done. We're running on natural time now. No watches. No clocks. No Oops-a-Daisies.”

Russell shrugged. He didn't really understand this thirty days/ninety-nine years stuff anyway. And besides, every time he looked at the Oops-a-Daisy, it just reminded him how much trouble he was going to be in when he saw Madam President.

Buster B. Bayliss said, “There's a hammock out back, string it between two trees and sleep.”

Soon Russell was in the hammock, gently swinging between two birch trees. Buster B. Bayliss lit a small fire, threw a sleeping bag on the ground and stretched out on the bag.

“Sleep tight, buckaroo. Tomorrow we search for the first omen.”

“What's that?”

“They didn't tell you?”

“Who's they?”

“The people who sent you.”

So many people had told Russell so many confusing things since the gnome snatched him that he was having a hard time remembering his own name.

He said, “I guess they did, but I forgot.”

“I'll tell you this once. You've been sent to help me stop the Ursa Theodora-Saura.”

“I think I remember that part but I forgot why we've gotta stop him.”

Buster B. Bayliss leaned on his left elbow and stared into the fire.

“We have to stop him because if we don't, he won't be satisfied until he's killed every rabbit in the North Country and nearly every person.”

“This thing kills bunnies?”

“Viciously.”

“How come you haven't caught him yet, Mr. Bayliss?”

“The North Country is huge.”

The author's eyes were drawn up as a shooting star streaked across the sky. He stared at the point where it seemed to disappear and said, “Village after village I've gone to, trying to stop him, but I'm always a day or two late. I'm always left to find the destruction, the carnage.”

He tossed a twig into the fire. “There's no way to describe the feeling you get when you come to a village and find every man, woman and child has been torn to shreds.

“Shreds! And this monster isn't killing for food either. He's killing for the sheer joy of destroying.
That's
why we've got to stop him.
That's
why you've been sent here.”

Russell thought this was a pretty interesting story, but he was afraid he'd never find out how it ended, because as soon as the great woodsman fell asleep, Russ planned on being outta there!

Buster B. Bayliss said, “The good news is you're here. That means that the battle will be sooner rather than later. One way or the other this nightmare is about to end.”

Russell thought, “Nope, what that really means is there's gonna be a very, very surprised person when you wake up tomorrow and find me gone!”

A shooting star caught Russell's attention too. He noticed how much brighter the stars were here and how many more of them there were and how much blacker the sky was. He could hear a stream slapping over rocks not too far away. He heard an owl sadly asking its question and an army of crickets gently chirping. There was something strange about the air too. It seemed like it was slipperier, like it slid deeper into him when he breathed in. And when he breathed out, it felt as if the air leaving his lungs was making him feel lighter and lighter.

“Wow!” Russell groggily thought. “This is so coo …”

Russell had been right. There was a
very, very
surprised person at Buster B. Bayliss's cabin early the next morning.

It was a certain future detective from Flint, Michigan.

“All right, buckaroo, up and at 'em.”

Russell opened his eyes and blinked.

“Excuse me, sir, there're still stars in the sky and it's still dark.”

“Come on. I'm not sure when we'll get the omen that the end's near. You need to learn the woods. Need to learn to look for signs. Need to learn what's important out here.”

Russell couldn't believe he'd fallen asleep and blown his chance to get away from his favorite author.

But the sleep he'd had was so relaxing and beautiful that he wanted to know more about life outdoors.

So the lessons began.

And Russell was a great student.

It's true that the sound of a fake-bearskin mitten slapping the back of a head was heard more than once or twice over the next six days, but the young Flintstone learned and grew. And the two became almost friends. Though few words were exchanged between them, they began to understand each other. (Well, I don't think if they spent sixty years together Buster B. Bayliss would understand half of the things that Russell thought about, but Russ understood the author, so that was enough.)

And just six days after he'd planned his escape, a change had taken place in Russell. He was becoming more in tune with nature, he was becoming less of the soft city boy and more of the woodsboy. (And if that's not a word, it should be, along with woodsgirl, woodswoman, woodsbaby, woodscat and woodsdog. I'd draw the line at woodsroach, though.)

Russell was becoming less of a pampered boy from Flint and more of something hard as stone. I guess you could say he was becoming less of a Flintstone and more of a stone flint. I guess you
could
say that, but it would probably be best if you didn't.

But the changes weren't limited to Russell, they also happened to his new friend. A new sense of purpose seemed to come over Buster B. Bayliss, purpose and focus.

Where before he'd been a man of few words, now he was a man of almost no words. Where before he'd been a sort of get-'er-done type of person, he was now a get-'er-done-and-
don't-make-a-peep type of guy. Where before he'd been a total loner and completely independent, now he was still those things but he at least was putting up with Russell.

Finally, the day Russell came back to the cabin with a stringer full of fish, Buster B. Bayliss broke the silence. He said, “You're ready.”

He grabbed one of the shovels and simply said, “Shovel. Bring.”

In his new awareness Russell understood this shortcut way of speaking.

Without a sound he snatched up the other shovel and trudged behind the mountain man. They headed up the steepest hill, and after what seemed to him to be forever Russell finally said something in this new shorthand language.

He said, “There. Yet. We?”

Mr. B. responded, “Mouth. Close. Munk. Chatter.”

They walked another half hour before Mr. B. put his hand up, checked his compass and walked north-northwest to a large pine tree. He then headed south-southwest for eight steps, pointed at the ground and said, “Dig.”

Russell said, “Whew! Glad. I. Am.”

Buster B. Bayliss said, “Enough Cat in the Hat talk, get busy.”

The two began flipping shovelfuls of the rich forest floor over their shoulders. Before long Russell's shovel hit something that made a metal-on-metal sound. The scraping
sound surprised him but had a much deeper effect on Buster B. Bayliss.

The metallic, hollow sound was proof to him that one of his worst nightmares was about to be revealed. That he was about to unearth something that he'd always hoped would remain buried. Something he'd prayed he'd never have to come back for. But there was no doubt, what was in the metal coffin Russell's shovel had scraped was the only thing that would give him even the hint of a prayer against the Ursa Theodora-Saura.

While Russell had visions of buried treasure dancing around in his head and excitedly worked at unburying the metal box, Buster B. Bayliss, without realizing what he was doing, let his shovel slip from his hands, closed his eyes and drew in three deep breaths.

When his nerves had been steeled, another great change came over him. It was a change brought about by the acceptance that he'd done all he could do, that the years of preparation, both physical and emotional, were finally over and that those years of getting ready for what was about to occur would soon prove to be enough … and he'd live, or they would be not enough … and he would become one with the forest. He would die.

He knew that one way or the other the end was at hand. And that knowledge brought on a final change. A change that made his back even straighter and his shoulders even broader. A change that brought the great outdoors-man peace.

Steeling your nerves, getting a bunch of knowledge and finding peace takes a lot longer than you might think it would, and by the time Mr. Bayliss finally got to that point, Russell had completely dug out the metal coffin and knocked off the lock. Before he threw the box open, he shouted, “Treasure! Rich! Yahoo!”

Inside there was a jumble of cables and wires, pieces of strangely shaped metal, small wheels, a fancy ink pen, two dimes, a cool sword in a leather sheath, a small leather pouch with a beautiful purple drawstring holding it closed, a little telescope-looking thing, and a locked, long, narrow wooden box that rattled when it was shaken.

Russell looked at Mr. B. and said, “Disappointed. Am. I. No. Bling. Bling.”

Buster B. Bayliss might have found peace, but he was still Buster B. Bayliss and Russell had worn out the man's last nerve days ago.

PA-THWOK!

He said, “Look, if you don't cut out that annoying way of talking, I don't know what I'm going to do.”

Russell almost said, “Sorry. Am. I,” but he had sense enough to put his hand over his mouth and just say, “Oops!”

Without even looking inside, Mr. Bayliss closed the lid and said, “Take one end, I'll take the other. We need to get back to the cabin before nightfall, when the mosquitoes get thick. Then we must prepare for the final chapter. For the end.”

Russell wasn't listening too closely to the outdoorsman's words. All he could think was “Nightfall. Skeeters. Yum!”

I hate being a party pooper, but if Russell doesn't start paying closer attention, it's not going to be long before instead of him eating mosquitoes, something's going to be eating him!

The Final Omen!

N
IGHTFALL WAS STILL
a good two hours away when they placed the coffin-shaped box on the table outside the cabin.

Russell was starving! He'd had his hands full the whole way and hadn't been able to eat any mosquitoes.

He ran to the smoked-food box and had eaten two whole pounds of the dried fish before Buster B. Bayliss, sounding an awful lot like a certain former president of the Flint Future Detectives, said, “Huh? I don't get it. Why do you not eat anything for days, then allow yourself to get so hungry you eat like a bear?”

Russell wasn't about to let Mr. B. know that the mosquitoes had been ruining his appetite, so he said, “Mummy says I've got a real strange metal-brawlic rate.”

“You've definitely got a real strange
something
, but we
haven't got time to figure out what.” He paused and added, “We've got to put this together.”

The sorrow was back in his voice.

“And I have to practice using it.”

The crinkle was back in his eyes.

Yowch!

Mr. B. almost whispered, “I hope I haven't lost the touch.”

Both of the woodsguys' eyes were drawn up as a single cloud passed over the sun.

Russell laughed and said, “That cloud looks like Porky Pig eating a bag of pork rinds.”

Buster B. Bayliss froze. “
What did you say
?”

Russell pointed. “That one there. It looks like Porky Pig's eating from a bag of pork rinds.”

“The Cannibal Cloud of Kenjiro,” Mr. Bayliss whispered, “the next-to-last omen of this part of the Chronicles of Zornea-Hu!”

He studied the cloud but couldn't see what Russell had seen. But that wasn't important, Russell had seen it.

Buster B. Bayliss said:

Mr. Bayliss stared off into the woods.

Russell gulped and said, “What does that mean?”

“It foretells that the Ursa Theodora-Saura has moved from the cold land into summer land.”

He knelt and pulled a piece of grass from the earth.

“Two days.”

He tossed the grass back down and stood.

“We'll meet within the next two days.”

Another GULP! jumped out of Russ's throat.

Mr. B. carefully took all of the contents out of the coffin and put them on the table.

He separated everything into two piles. In the first pile he put the two dimes, the sword, the small leather bag with the purple drawstring, the long, narrow box and the ink pen. All of the weirdly shaped metal wheels and gadgets and the little telescope thingy were set in the second pile.

He wasted no time in getting to work putting together the equipment from the second pile. What had looked to Russell like a bunch of pulleys and cables and wheels and metal elbows and arms soon turned into a mighty-looking weapon.