Mr. Chickee's Messy Mission (7 page)

Steven said, “That's not funny, Dad. We're trying to figure out what Rodney Rodent said before he flew into that window. Maybe if we knew, we could go in behind him.”

If Mr. Carter had lost interest before, it was nothing compared with the way he wanted to get out of the room now!

“Uh-huh, talking dogs, mystery songs and ducking elves. I'm sure this is something you guys will solve in no time at all.” He started easing toward the door.

Russell said, “Yeah, it was cowboy talk and doggy talk all jumbled up together.”

Mr. Carter patted Russell on the head and said, “I'm sure it was, son, I'm sure it was.”

He looked at his watch and said, “Is it really that time
already? I'll bet there's something I'm supposed to be doing, and if not, I'll bet I'm going to pretend there is. You three keep having fun. Never stop dreaming!”

Dad closed the door and thought, “I wonder if Russell has been setting any more food-eating records? What an imagination!”

Richelle gave Steven and Russell a very disappointed look. “So much for us keeping this secret. You two have got the biggest—”

The bedroom door came open. Mr. Carter said, “Cowboy talk and dog talk all blended together?”

“Yes, Mr. Carter. But I can't remember what it was.”

“Hmmm,” Steven's dad said, “cowboy talk and dog talk all jumbled together. Why is that ringing a bell?”

Dad snapped his fingers and said, “I know! That sounds a lot like the lyrics from one of our underappreciated musical geniuses from the mid-sixties, George Clinton.”

Steven groaned.

“In perhaps his most famous song, ‘Atomic Dog,’ released May 10, 1970, he used the unlikely combination of cowboy vernacular and doggish sounds to produce a classic.”

Russell said, “What's a vernacular?”

Steven didn't know, but he sure wasn't trying to look anything up in Great-great-grampa Carter's cranky old dictionary. He said, “I'll explain it to you later, Russell. Well, Dad, we were just getting ready to do some research on …”

But Dad wasn't through. Steven thought that was one of
the problems with old people, once they got started rolling down a road on something, they didn't stop till they were at the end.

“Vernacular is the everyday language of a particular group of people, Russell. In this case it means cowboy language. Let's see, maybe I can sing a bit of it for you.”

Steven was horrified! Who wanted to come and listen to someone's father sing musty old songs from the Stone Age?

Dad cleared his throat and sang, “A-tom-ic daw-uh-awg, bow-wow-wow-yippee-yo-yippee-yay, bow-wow-yippee-yo-yippee-yay …”

Russell screamed, “That's it! That's what Rod-Rode said before he disappeared into the mural!”

Richelle said, “I hereby call this meeting of the Flint Future Detectives over! All members are to put on your coats and boots, go home and get permission to meet at Halo Burger in ten minutes. Or if you can't get permission, you have to figure out a way to sneak out and meet us there in fifteen minutes.”

Dad said, “Hey, wait a minute, I heard what you said!”

Richelle said, “We know, Mr. Carter, but you're so cool we know you won't rat us out on this important mission.”

Steven looked at Richelle like she was nuts. His father? Cool? Not even Dad would buy that nonsense.

Dad smiled ridiculously and said, “Why, thank you, Richelle, how perceptive of you to know I used to be known as Daddy Cool when I was a bit younger! I guess that's something that fades a bit but never goes completely away,
huh? And you're right, I'm not going to rat you out. Just don't be long and be very careful.”

Dad left the room.

Russell said, “If we're gonna look in that window with that elf, we need to take a stepladder or something to stand on, it's pretty high up.”

Steven said, “We can use what I use to reach things on the high shelf in the book room, Great-great-grampa Carter's dictionary.”

Richelle said, “All right, gentlemen, Halo Burger, fifteen minutes.”

If Richelle Cyrus-Herndon Jumped off a Five-Story Building, I Suppose You'd Follow Her Then Too? or Welcome,
Whose
Highness?

B
Y THE TIME
R
ICHELLE
got to the sidewalk on Saginaw Street, Steven and Russell were already waiting. Russell's head was shooting from side to side like he was expecting to be attacked at any minute. Steven was squeezing a large book to his chest, trying hard not to look too scared but failing miserably.

“Good,” Richelle said, “I thought you guys might've started without me.”

Russell looked at Steven and Steven looked at Russell.

Russell said, “Are you kidding, Madam President? I was waiting for you. I'm not going anywhere near that mural again unless there's a real responsible person with me. Sorry, Bucko.”

Steven couldn't say a word. When you've ridden a giant
dog off a 250-foot-tall dam, you get a lot of remarks like this. And you can't really argue with them. You're just about what Great-great-grampa Carter's dictionary would call “defenseless.”

Richelle said to Steven, “And what about you, why are you just standing here, did you already check the mural out?”

“I … uh … I didn't want to leave Russ all by himself.”

Richelle snatched the dictionary away from Steven and marched toward the mural. “I can't believe you two great big guys are afraid of a silly painting. I thought Flint people were supposed to be so hard and … whoa!”

Richelle stared up at the gnome.

She whistled and said, “Wow, I can see how that thing
could
scare somebody!”

She set the dictionary on the ground under the painting and stood on it to get a closer look.

Russell took a step back and turned his face away. “Be careful, Madam President, he's gonna show you his teeth, and it looks like him and Mr. Toothbrush haven't talked in a long, long time.”

But the painting didn't move.

Richelle reached toward the wall. She jabbed at the gnome and finally touched it and traced his head, even rubbing at his pipe and beard.

“Russell, are you sure Rodney Rodent disappeared here? Couldn't it have been a really bad dream? This just feels like a regular wall with some scary paint on it to me.”

Russell said, “No joke, Madam President, Rod-Rode sang that song Mr. Carter sang and, presto-change-o, he was gone.”

Richelle said, “What was the song again, Steven?”

Steven said, “Bow-wow-wow-yippee-yo-yippee-yay.”

Richelle said, “I don't know …,” and before she could get another word out of her mouth, a thick-fingered pair of greenish orange hands popped out of the mural and grabbed each of her shoulders.

The boys' mouths flew open as the gnome snatched Richelle off the dictionary and into the window. The last thing they saw before Richelle disappeared in the blackness behind the creature was the bottoms of her shoes. Then they were gone, and the boys heard something large and heavy crashing into a pool of water!

The gnome slowly looked from Russell to Steven. As soon as he saw Steven, he smiled, showed a row of razorsharp, not-very-clean-looking teeth and bowed twice before he closed his mouth. Then, winking again, he turned back into a flat painting.

The boys were in such a state of shock that instead of running off screaming like anybody with half a brain would have done, they stood there looking at each other with their mouths wide open.

Russell finally said, “Hey, Bucko, did you see the fingernails on that thing? They were yellow and long and pointy, and it looked like he hadn't cleaned underneath 'em in a hundred years.”

Steven shook his head a couple of times and said, “What just happened, Russell? Wasn't Richelle here a second ago?”

Russell said, “Uh-oh, Bucko, I think you must have got dramatized too. That gnome grabbed her.”

Steven said, “That's what I thought. Well, she's a pain in the neck, a know-it-all, a blabbermouth and a pest, but she
is
the president of the Flint Future Detectives, so you know what that means we have to do.”

Russell said, “Yeah, run out of here like we've got half a brain. I was just about to get started!”

Before he could turn around, Steven grabbed his wrist. “Uh-uh, Russ, we're Flint Future Detectives, we've got to protect each other no matter what.”

“I know, Bucko, but I was thinking I could do a lot more protecting if I was at home.”

“Russell, you know we've got to go in there after her to make sure she's all right.”

“Man, Bucko, I never thought I'd say the same thing my mother said, but if Richelle Cyrus-Herndon jumped off a five-story building, I suppose you'd follow her then too?”

Steven wrestled Russell over to the wall under the painted-on window. Using all the strength he had, he pulled his friend up on the dictionary and sang, “Bow-wow-wow-yippee-yo-yippee-yay!”

From where they were they saw the gnome's eyes come to life; they were so close they could even feel warm, swampish-smelling air coming out of his nose. They looked
up into his nostrils and saw a couple hundred hairs with tiny bits of nose candy dangling off some of them.

Not only didn't this gnome take very good care of his fingernails or his teeth, sitting in a drafty window for so many years had given him a pretty bad cold too!

The creature's dirty hands reached out and snatched Steven by his collar. Russell squirmed out of Steven's grip and had just about rolled away when the gnome's fingers clamped around his ankle. Russell grabbed at anything he could but only managed to pick up Great-great-grampa Carter's cranky old dictionary.

Then, as if the boys and the dictionary were as light as three grains of rice, the gnome tossed them over his shoulder into the blackness of the little window!

The gnome growled, “Welcome, Your Highness!”

Before they disappeared, Russell yelled, “I hope he's the scariest thing in here, 'cause if he isn't, I'm really not going to be too hap—”

The sound of something very large and heavy crashing into water filled both of their ears. A blackness surrounded them that was so powerful and thick that it seemed to smother everything, even their thoughts.

Good thing too, 'cause both boys were having almost the same one and it wasn't the sort of thought you'd think a couple of future detectives would have, especially not two from Flint.

Steven was thinking, “I want my mommy!”

Russell was thinking, “I want my mummy!”

As the darkness began to lift, a whining, winding-down sound, like a giant vacuum cleaner had just been switched off, came through first; then their sight and their thoughts returned too.

Steven looked at Russell and Russell looked at Steven.

They were sitting on the front steps of a wide porch.

Russell shook his head, rubbed his eyes and said, “Man, Bucko, am I ever glad to see you! I'm having the worst nightmare! That terrible monster at Halo Burger finally snatched me and pulled—”

“Russell, it isn't a nightmare, that gnome did get us, we came through the window behind him!”

Russell continued, “… and then in the nightmare you told me that it really happened! I can't wait till I wake up and tell you about this for real!”

“Russell, this
really
is happening.”

A voice from behind them said, “It took you two long enough to get here.”

Steven's eyes rolled.

Russell said, “Richie-Rich! You aren't going to believe this crazy nightmare I'm having, in it Bucko keeps telling me it's real and you're standing over there tapping your foot with your arms crossed and your lips twisted up the same way you do when I'm awake!”

She said, “Russell, I think you've been traumatized again. This isn't a dream or a nightmare, this really is happening. And where did you get that thumb drive? I never noticed that before.”

Richelle pointed at the silvery computer thumb drive that was hanging around Russell's neck.

Russell raised it so that he could get a better look.

The thumb drive said, “Oh! This is a nice change of pace, not only have I lost ninety-nine point nine seven percent of my weight, but if you'll excuse me for a moment, I'm currently downloading information that is increasing my data storage by an amazing seven thousand and fifty-nine percent!”

Steven instantly recognized the voice. Even though he'd never heard it before, he knew this was Great-great-grampa Carter's bad-dispositioned dictionary!

He frowned and said, “Oh, great. Not only is it light enough to carry around, it can actually talk.”

The dictionary said, “Don't hate, celebrate! And please be quiet while I momentarily shut down to gain all of this new knowledge.”

Russell laughed and handed the thumb drive to Steven. “Wow! Here, Bucko, this is yours. This is the weirdest nightmare!”

Richelle said, “Russell, you've got to get hold of yourself, this is not a nightmare.”

Russell said, “Nice try, Madam President! If this was really happening, would Mr. Chickee be sitting under that tree with a newspaper in his lap talking to that tall, skinny African lady? I don't think so. Take my word for it, I've had nightmares like this before.”

Steven and Richelle looked where Russell was pointing,
and sure enough, the man who was sitting in a tall leather chair with his back turned toward them did look a lot like Steven's friend who was blind, Mr. Chickee. But this man
was
reading a newspaper.