Zits from Python Pit #6 (3 page)

I slipped closer to the edge of the waterfall. I turned my head and saw the drop-off only thirty feet away. I could hear the CRASSHHHHHHHHHHH of water spilling over the side. My body shuddered as I thought of what it would feel like to have my bones crushed on the rocks.

“Some . . . body,” I gasped, “help . . . me!”

I was fifteen feet away from the edge and moving faster. My arms and legs burned.

“Can . . . any . . . crocodiles . . . help?” I said, though I doubted any crocs could actually hear me.

I was ten feet away from the edge and moving terrifyingly fast. I turned toward the drop-off and tried to figure out how to position my body for the most comfortable death possible.

“Chris,” yelled Shane, “don't stop fighting!”

I turned back and swam as hard as I could, but it only slowed me down a little.

“FIIIIIIIIGHT!” my friends yelled.

“They're almost there,” said Shane.

Who's almost there?
I thought.

I could feel myself slipping over the edge, and just as I began to fall . . .

BLLLLLLLLLLLUUUUUUURFT!

A great stinky wind blew me off the edge of the waterfall and up into the air.

I corkscrewed through the air, and as I turned, I saw the same group of African swamp creatures that had saved me once before. Now they were flying out from the waterfall, farts blowing majestically upward as they tumbled down to the rocks below.

I landed with a SPLASH and sank deep into the water. I had survived the waterfall thanks to the swamp creatures, but I was too weak to swim. I drifted helplessly, scraping against the muck at the bottom of the river.

Webbed hands slapped my face, and I opened my eyes to see Gil in front of me in the murky water.

Bubbles escaped from his scaly backside. “I told you I was coming to get you,” he fartspoke. He grabbed me and used his powerful webbed feet to push us up to the surface of the river.

“You'll be okay,” said Gil. “I've got you now!”

He towed me to the riverbank and laid me on the hot sand.

I lay and breathed in the air. I finally started to feel better. So good, in fact, that . . .

“I'm ready to go, Gil,” I said. “Thanks for your help!”

“Oh, no you don't!” said Gil, and he lifted his scaly arm to reveal a hairy, dirty armpit.

“That's disgusting,” I said. “I'm getting out of here.” I stood up, but was immediately dizzy from the stench of the swamp creature's slimy pit. Gil grabbed me with his other hand and stared into his armpit intently.

“You were almost just killed for the third time in ten minutes,” said Gil. He steadied me and then dug around in the hair of his armpit, searching for something. “We can help you get to wherever you need to go, but you need to be sane while you do it. AHA!”

With a slight wince, he pulled out a small brown something. It looked like a raisin.

“Eat this,” he said.

“No WAY,” I said. “What is it?”

“It's a—”

But Gil was cut off by Director Z. “Back up!” he yelled from the water.

We both looked up to see the pirate ship sailing directly toward the beach we were standing on.

“It's going to crash,” yelled Director Z. “The African swamp creatures lost control when they focused all their flatulent energies on you!”

“I don't think it's going to stop this time,” said Gil. He grabbed me and jumped up into the jungle above the riverbank.

The ship hit the sand and kept going.

SSSCCCCCCRRRRASH.

Gil and I stuck our heads out of the jungle vegetation and saw the front of the ship twist in the sand and get pulled back out into the current.

“Everyone out!” yelled Director Z. “The current is going to pull the ship to the waterfall.”

Roy threw a huge, thick boa-constrictor rope over the side of the ship as it slid away from the shore. The monsters that were able jumped over the edge with a SPLASHSPLAT, and everyone else quickly shinnied down the snake rope.

“Hurry, hurry!” yelled Gordon, who was practically pushing Ben down the rope. “Just jump, it's probably deep enough now.”

“Fine, I'll jump if you help me swim to shore,” he said.

SPLASH SPLASH SPLASH.

Everyone was on the shore or in the water helping one another keep from getting sucked into the current as the ship was swiftly pulled away.

“Are the swamp creatures okay?” Nabila asked Director Z as he pulled her up onto the shore. “Is there something we can do?”

“They're probably just stunned by the current under the waterfall,” said Director Z. “They'll be fine, but I'm afraid they won't come around quickly enough to save the ship.”

“But they did save Chris,” said Shane.

“Yes, they did, indeed,” said Director Z.

The great pirate ship, its sails completely slack with a lack of stinky winds, tipped over the waterfall with a great CREEEEEEEEAK.

There was silence and then . . .

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

“So much for our monster transport,” said Gordon.

“That's all right,” I said. “I need to go into the jungle now, anyway, I think. Thanks for all the help, guys.”

I turned to leave and was immediately grabbed by Roy.

He flipped me, and Gil once again held up the gross brown armpit raisin that he had tried to feed me before.

I smacked it out of his hand before he could get it to my mouth. It tumbled into the dirt.

A small monkey darted out of the jungle and picked up Gil's sick little treat.

“Give it back!” yelled Gil.

But the monkey ran right past him and scurried up my legs.

“Hey!” I yelled, but Roy held on tightly.

The monkey shoved its hairy black little hand right into my mouth, depositing the putrid armpit raisin into the back of my throat. I swallowed and gagged almost immediately. My throat tasted like the moldiest mushroom pizza in the world.

HWARRRRF.

I dry-heaved so hard that I flung the monkey down onto the sand. It ran back into the forest.

“For the love of Neptune, keep it down!” yelled Gil. “It took years to make.”

Tears welled up in my eyes, and my stomach cramped terribly. I squatted on the ground and clutched my knees.

Shane walked up to me and patted my back. “How do you feel?” he asked.

“I feel like I want to throw up through my eyeballs,” I said. “And I still feel like I have somewhere to go. But I don't need to rush there anymore.”

Shane sat me up on a nearby rock.

“Welcome back, dude!” yelled Clive, and he slapped my shoulder so hard, I fell off the rock.

“Sorry, I got a little too stoked,” said Clive.

I passed out in the sand.

I woke up in the shade, but I was still sweating through my clothes.

“It's so hot,” I moaned. “I feel terrible.”

Above me, beautiful tall trees rustled with birds and monkeys that jumped from branch to branch.

Shane walked over and helped me off the ground. Large wet leaves were stuck to my back. “Yeah, Director Z said that you'd be affected by the heat a lot more now that you're not as driven to go south. You were running on pure adrenaline!”

“Where are we?” I asked.

“First of all,” Shane said, “
who
are we?”

“You're Shane,” I said. “I'm Chris.”

“Awesome!” he said. “I just wanted to make sure we hadn't lost you again.”

“So, where are we?” I asked again. I looked around to see I was in a rain forest with massive trees. Huge trunks shot up from the ground into the air and were crisscrossed with vines.

Nabila, Ben, and Gordon walked over to me. Nabila held Ben's hand.

“For the record, these two are still boyfriend and girlfriend,” said Gordon. “BLECH.”

A few trees over, in front of the biggest tree trunk I had ever seen in my life, the monsters stood in a circle with Director Z, quietly reviewing the supplies from Roy's massive messenger bag and planning out our next move. Director Z saw that I had stood up, and walked toward me with a smile.

“We're not sure where we are,” said Nabila. “Director Z's not sure. Before you passed out, you told Gil you wanted to go into the jungle. So we headed in.”

“How long ago was that?” I asked.

“Two days,” said Gordon.

“How do you know we're going in the right direction?” I asked.

Director Z stepped up to us. “Since then,” he said, “you've woken up in a feverish panic a few times and pointed in the same direction. You probably don't even remember doing it. But we're assuming that, even with Gil's possession remedy, you know where we should be headed.”

“Ugh,” I said. My mouth got dry at the thought of the moldy mushroom taste of Gil's armpit raisin. “I had almost forgotten that happened. I wonder where that nasty little monkey is.”

“I think he's been following us,” said Shane.

Ben raised his eyebrow at Shane.

“I'm pretty sure my barfing scared him off,” I said. “That thing tasted so terrible. What was it, anyway?”

“That was a rare fungus that can only be grown in the darkest reaches of the deepest, dankest, moistest cave,” replied Director Z.

“That sort of sounds like Gil's armpit,” I said. “You just forgot ‘hairiest.' So what did it do to me? Is that why I slept so long?”

“No, no, you slept so long because you were finally unhooked from the power that was compelling you to flee south and deep into the jungles of Africa,” said Director Z. “The remedy reduced the intensity of the call you are receiving by adding a protective slime layer between your brain and your skull. It's a very effective treatment for migraines as well. Now you can talk with us like a normal human being, and we can all figure out together where it is you need to go and why this is happening to you. I, for one, would like to know what . . . or who is calling you so urgently.”

I looked past the monsters standing in a circle a few trees over and thought,
It's that way.

“It's that way,” I said, pointing confidently.

“What makes you think it's that way?” asked Shane.

“What is the ‘it' in question?” asked Director Z.

“I'm not sure,” I said. “I just know it's that way.”

“Well, that's certainly consistent with the direction we've been headed in so far,” said Director Z.

“We can't just keep going because Chris
thinks
he needs to go in a certain direction,” said Gordon. “What if that armpit raisin scrambled his brain? I need more details. It's hot. I'm starved. My face is breaking out all over. Look at this zit!” He pointed above his nose. Between his eyes was the biggest zit I had ever seen on anyone from Rio Vista Middle School. “It's so big, I can look at it cross-eyed. So how long will it be before we get to wherever it is we're going, and do they have showers?”

“I feel like it's close,” I said, but I had no idea why.

“What about the showers?” asked Nabila. “I could really use one.”

I thought long and hard about it, but my brain came up empty.

“I don't know,” I said. “I just know that we need to keep going. I've got something really important to take care of.”

HISSSSSSSSSNO!

A snake fell out of the branches above Gordon.

In a flash, Director Z took off his suit coat and whipped the snake before it crashed into Gordon's head. It quickly slithered away.

“AHHHHH!” yelled Gordon.

“Did it bite you?” I asked.

“Are you okay?” asked Director Z.

“Did that snake just say ‘no'?” asked Shane.

“My zit,” gasped Gordon. “Now my zit feels like it's going to explode.”

“So why don't you just pop it?” Ben asked Gordon.

“I need a mirror or something,” replied Gordon. “I don't even know how to attack it without one. So why don't
you
pop it for me?”

“Gross,” said Nabila. “Just gross.”

“Yeah, no thanks,” said Ben.

“Director Z,” said Gordon, “do you still have that magic telephone that called us on the moon?”

“Yes,” said Director Z. “But if you're thinking about calling Gallow Manor, think again. The rest of the monsters are just fine where they are. I can't risk having them take part in what could turn out to be a wild-goose chase.”

“Hey!” I said. “This isn't a wild-goose chase!”

“It doesn't matter. I don't want to use it to call anyone,” said Gordon. “But a phone that's smart enough to make a call on the moon must also have a camera, right?”

“Yes, it does,” said Director Z.

“Can you give it to me?” asked Gordon.

“Do you really think taking a selfie right now is the best idea?” asked Ben.

Director Z handed Gordon the cell phone.

“I'm not taking a selfie,” said Gordon. “I'm taking care of business.”

Gordon lifted up the phone in front of his face.

“Oh man, you're worse than I thought,” he said to the zit. “You've gotta GO.”

He brought his thumb and index finger up to the zit, and before Director Z could say
What are you doing?
, Gordon did it.

SPLOPP!

Gordon popped the zit with a satisfied grunt and wiped the pus off of the telephone with his shirt.

“Sorry,” he said as he handed the phone back to Director Z. “I wasn't aiming for it or anything.”

“Thanks,” said Director Z, and he slowly put the phone away in his pocket.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Over by the tree, Roy started to scream.

The other monsters backed away from him as he flailed and jumped around, crazed.

We ran over to see what was happening.