CHAPTER 21
Charlie looked up just in time to see a swirling blur of wheels, wooden joists, and half-bent handlebars come slinging out of midair straight towards the a very high-up window of the Inter-Circumstellar State Observatory. In the melee of flailing soldiers and struggling arms and legs, he dropped to the ground just as Cliff’s unmanned flycycle crashed through the window in a shower of glass and landed in a heap on the floor.
Behind it floated Misty, on a self-satisfied breeze and Charlie could have cried with relief. A moment later he watched as Cliff spring from the fracas on the hallway floor and grab hold of his battered but operational flycycle. A handful of soldiers charged him, but this time Misty was ready. With an almighty, hail forming screech, that probably meant “HANDS OFF MY LOST PERSONS!” she pelted them all with tiny balls of ice. The soldier gripping Charlie by the collar lost hold in his attempt to cover his face and Charlie scrambled for the flycycle and grabbed hold.
He looked back over his shoulder, trying to find any sign of Aunt Annaruth, but Cliff latched onto his sleeve with the steel-like grip common to professional Danger Rangers and shouted over Misty’s cacophony of a hail storm.
“Don’t even think about it, kid! We gots to get a move on or we’ll never get out of here.”
Charlie looked around desperately for Junie, Arlo, anyone, but they had all disappeared.
“Charlie, get up here! We need to go get help!”
Hating that Cliff was probably right, Charlie swung himself aboard and the two of them shot out the shattered window and into the sky once again. Charlie looked up to see Misty zipping around his head, triumphant, shooting out little gusts of rainbow as she flew.
“Misty!” he shouted over the rushing wind. The Morphable paid him no attention. Charlie waved his arms and tried again. “Most stratospherically beautiful, metaphysically magnificent Moraphable to ever exist.”
Misty checked herself mid-rainbow and floated down towards the spinning flycycle.
Charlie pointed back towards the building. “I need you to go back and find Aunt Annaruth!”
Misty harumphed and turned an ominous shade of storm-cloud. Charlie realized he must not be showing the appropriate amount of gratitude for his recent rescue.
“You are the most excellent, fearless, irresistible rescuer that has ever existed, which is why I need you to go find her. You’re the only one who can.”
With every word, Misty’s countenance lightened just a little and at last, with a final just to remind you how magnificent I am rainbow, Misty disappeared back into the maze of the upper levels of the observatory.
Charlie breathed a sigh of relief as he and Cliff sailed out over the city.
“We need to call for help,” Charlie said, pointing back towards the infamous cliffside where the Danger Ranger had found him only that morning. Then he felt his stomach give a nasty lurch. “Oh, no,” he said. “I still don’t have the red pennant!”
Cliff flashed him a toothy grin. “Don’t worry, kid, I do.”
Out of the many flaps of his leather jacket, he produced the all-important scrap of fabric, a little dingy and out of sorts, but exactly what they needed.
CHAPTER 22
“Cliff, this is amazing!”
Charlie would have hugged him if they weren’t more than a hundred feet off the ground. He did, however, hug the red pennant to his chest as they made a beeline for the branch that hung over the cliff’s edge. Charlie had rather hoped to never see that tree again, but at least this time, he would be the one hanging the pennant, and there was less of a chance he’d end up hanging by his belt, as he wasn’t writing a goblin novel and he wasn’t a Deputy Muse of any level.
After more of a glorified crash than a landing (the flycycle was a bit more dinged up than Cliff had originally thought), Charlie steeled himself, ran up to the cliff’s edge before he could change his mind, and hung the all-important pennant from the appointed tree branch. It waved in the late summer breeze, as though it had been there all day instead of being dragged from one side of Knashville to the other and back.
Cliff came over to stand beside Charlie and crossed his arms in satisfaction. “That looks mighty fine.” Then he looked around and raised an eyebrow at Charlie. “Now what?”
Charlie sat down on the grass and rested his chin in his hands. He was more tired than he’d realized. “Now, we wait.”
Cliff produced a rather stale bread roll from another of his many pockets and they shared it while Charlie stared down the canyon. The late summer afternoon was mild, and it would have been pleasant if he hadn’t been so worried about his Aunt. Cliff went hunting for sticks, fiddled with his pocket knife, and paced back and forth between Charlie and the tree. Danger Rangers clearly didn’t enjoy waiting around.
As it turned out, they didn’t have to wait much longer.
Off in the distance, Charlie saw what looked like a little brown speck. As it grew closer, it took on the shape of a dust cloud and then he saw hats and multicolored ponchos and he heard the celebrant sawing of a travel accordion echoing down the canyon.
Charlie looked at Cliff and smiled. The Outlaws were coming.
CHAPTER 23
From their hiding place in the laundry room of the Observatory, Junie and Arlo could hear the raised voices of the guards calling back and forth to each other, and the heavy tromping of boots moving further away down the hall.
Then came the sound of a door slamming. The footsteps grew distant, and the voices muffled.
“I think they’ve moved on,” Junie whispered, pressing her ear to the door for a better listen, “I don’t hear anyone out there now.”
She propped Wampus against the wall, grabbed the uniform Arlo thrust at her, and pulled it over her jeans and t-shirt. Buttoning up the jacket, she asked, “Why do we have to find Ribeye Gwinnett, Arlo? What’s he got to do with anything?”
Arlo, his pockets now bulging with fabric softener pods, replied, “I…I don’t know.”
He paused, took a deep breath, and said, “Listen, Junie, I know this is gonna sound really weird, but I could just kind of hear Granddaddy’s voice in my head, telling me to go find Ribeye.”
Junie, having just been mysteriously guided through the labyrinthine halls of the Observatory by the twanging strings of a guitar named Wampus and some old song lyrics, wasn’t about to question what Arlo had or hadn’t heard.
Arlo continued, “I know Granddaddy’s dead, so it’s not really him talking to me. But while I was hiding here in this laundry room all alone, not knowing where you or Charlie had run off too, not sure if I’d ever see you again, a memory of Granddaddy teaching me how to whittle with his old pocket knife popped into my head. I remember him telling me how he trusted his friend Ribeye with his life, and how we should keep those kinds of friends close.”
Squaring his shoulders, Arlo said, “So that’s how I know we’re supposed to go find Ribeye Gwinnett.”
Junie simply grabbed her cousin and pulled him into a tight hug.
“Okay,” said Junie, “Let’s go find Ribeye.”
Slinging the guitar case on her back, Junie cracked the door open and peeked outside. The hallway was quiet.
“Looks like the guards have moved on. I think we can make it down the hall to that stairwell door if we’re quick about it,” Junie whispered.
“Wait a sec,” Arlo said. From his back pocket, he pulled out his slingshot.
Last summer, during a big thunderstorm, a limb from the old chestnut tree in Arlo’s backyard had fallen. Starting the very next morning, he had spent every spare minute whittling away at that limb. And now, from its smooth-sanded grip to its rawhide sling, that slingshot was a thing of beauty. He never went anywhere without it.
Arlo fitted one of the fabric softener pods into the sling, gave Junie a quick nod, and said, “Okay. Let’s do this.”
CHAPTER 24
Junie pushed the laundry room door open wider, poking her head into the hallway.
“The coast is clear,” she whispered, “Now’s our chance. Come on, let’s get to those stairs!”
Hitching Wampus tight against her back, Junie bolted out of the laundry room, Arlo hot on her heels. Down the length of the hallway they dashed, eyes wild, hearts thudding in their chests.
Reaching the stairwell, they paused, listening for guard’s voices or footsteps. Silence.
Junie pushed open the door, and the kids descended a flight, two, three.
Suddenly, the door banged open on the landing just above them, and a guard loomed over the railing in the echoing stairwell.
Quick as lightning, Arlo took aim with his slingshot, and sent a fabric softener pod rocketing upwards. It hit the guard square between the eyes, exploding in a cloudburst of Fresh Cotton scent, and sent the guard reeling back through the open door, howling and clutching his eyes.
“Faster!” Junie hissed, and down the two children flew.
At the bottom of the stairs, two doors stood before them.
“Which way do we go?” Arlo cried.
Junie hadn’t the slightest idea which direction to take. Then she heard a familiar—and at this moment, extremely welcome—sound. It was Wampus again, playing Granddaddy’s familiar tune.
Plinka plinkety plink plink PLINK.
“Now I know it wasn’t RIGHT.”
“This way, Arlo!” and Junie crashed through the door on the right. The two kids found themselves in a large room full of ductwork, vents, and hissing machinery.
Plink plinka plinka PLINK.
…plinka PLINK.
It was one of Granddaddy’s romantic ballads. Junie had never liked all the songs about swooning and pining and mushy stuff like that. “Quick, Arlo, how does that song go? The one about the Highwayman who’s riding his horse up the road to meet his girlfriend?”
Arlo, listening closely to the plinking of Wampus’s strings, began to murmur the lyrics,
“My black-haired beauty leaned way down low
And a red rose she tossed me from her high window…”
Junie exclaimed, “Window! Arlo, look for a window!”
The kids dashed along the perimeter of the large room, finally coming upon a single window on the far wall. Junie gave it a mighty heave upwards, and she and Arlo stuck their heads out.
The bad news: they were still ten feet off the ground.
The good news: the window was located directly over a bright pink dumpster full to the brim with trashbags.
Several angry guards, one with blue fabric softener still covering his face, burst into the room.
Wampus started plinking again.
“Don’t you lose no sleep,
You gotta take the leap”
“Are you kidding me?” asked Junie. “We’re supposed to jump into THAT???”
*Plinkety plink*
Junie and Arlo jumped.