Ignatius MacFarland, page 16
Foo moved in closer to the glass and raised her other hand. I thought she was going to put that on the glass, too, and so I began to raise my other hand to meet hers. However, all she did was give me a friendly shake of her head and point to something behind me. Before I could turn around to look, a hand clamped down hard on my shoulder.
“YEEEAAAGGG!!!” I screamed as my heart leaped into my throat.
I spun around and was face-to-face with Karen.
“C’mon, lover boy,” she said like she wanted to laugh at me. “Let’s get out of here.”
“How did you get in?!” I whispered loudly, my heart pounding out of my chest from the rush of adrenaline she had just given me. “Weren’t there guards all over the place?”
“Yeah,” she said with a shrug.
And then I heard the sound of tons of guards running through the hallway toward my room.
“Oh, man,” I said as my stomach fell into my shoes. “You just never make stuff easy, do you?”
“What fun would that be?” she said with a smile as I saw the glint of swords and battle-axes appear outside my door.
30
NOW WE’RE IN TROUBLE
Karen reached over her shoulders with both hands and pulled two gorilla guard swords out of the back of a woven battle vest she had made from heavy rope. She tossed one of the swords at me handle-first. I caught it before my brain even realized that my hand had been smart enough to reach out for it.
“Try to do a better job than you did in the forest,” she said as the gorilla guards ran into the room.
Oh, great, I thought. Nothing like heading into battle wearing pajamas.
Karen gave a yell and ran at the guards, swinging her sword in a figure-eight pattern that made it impossible for them to hit her with their weapons. The guards all looked startled at the power of her attack but quickly had to react as she charged toward them. They stuck out their swords. CLANG! CLANG! She swung her weapon into theirs so hard that the guards all spun sideways as the swords flew out of their hands.
“Let’s go!” she yelled as she grabbed my shirt collar and dashed for the door, practically pulling me off my feet. I snatched my backpack and clothes off the chair next to the door, then raised my sword and pointed it rather lamely at the guards as we ran past them, hoping they would think I was as tough as Karen was. But their faces just filled with anger as they grabbed their swords and ran after us into the hallway.
As we sprinted toward the stairs with the gorilla guards running after us, I heard the green door behind us open. I looked back and saw Mr. Arthur emerge.
“It’s the Anti-Art!” Mr. Arthur yelled. “GET THEM!!!”
We tried to run down the stairs quickly without falling and killing ourselves. Running down stairs is hard enough but it’s even worse when you’re carrying a big sword and getting chased by creatures who want to chop your head off. The guards were hopping down the stairs after us but luckily their feet were so big they were having trouble keeping their footing.
We ran down the curving staircase into the lobby and saw the front door. Suddenly, the door flew open and the huge mole commander and several gorilla guards appeared, weapons drawn.
“Well, well, well,” said the mole commander with what I assumed was a smile. “If it isn’t my old friends. You two just keep making it easy for us, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” said Karen with a sarcastic laugh. “You really did a great job catching me last time.”
“Oh, we just let you go,” he said with his own version of a sarcastic laugh. “We were after your friend there. If we’d really wanted you, we would have gotten you.”
“Yeah?” Karen said as she raised her sword at him. “Do you want me now?”
The mole commander and the gorilla guards behind him all raised their weapons threateningly.
“Oh, yes,” said the mole commander. “We do.” He then stepped forward and turned his blade so that the light glinted off it onto Karen’s face. “Nice knowing you.”
And with that, he took a huge swing at both of us that showed he really did intend to detach our heads from our bodies. We both dropped to the floor, the ax literally clipping off the top inch of my hair.
“Don’t kill the boy!” I heard Mr. Arthur yell from the stairs as all the gorilla guards ran toward us.
“Looks like someone made himself a friend,” Karen said to me with a scowl. “Well, guess what? You’re my ticket out of here now.”
And before I even had a chance to process what she said, she threw her arm around my chest, stood up quickly, and pulled my back tight against her, turning me into a human shield as my sword dropped out of my startled hand and thumped onto the carpet. Then she put her sword up under my chin and turned to face the approaching guards.
“One more step and I cut off his head,” she yelled at them.
The guards all stopped and looked up at Mr. Arthur. He put out his hand, signaling them to wait. Then he looked at Karen and made a frustrated face.
“She’s bluffing,” said a voice.
We all looked up at the top of the stairs and I saw the man in the tie come around the corner. He came down a few steps and looked at Karen and me.
“You’re not really going to fall for that old gag, are you, Mr. President?” the man in the tie said with a smile.
“Who the hell are you?” said Karen, sounding very surprised to see another person from our dimension.
“The name’s Golonski,” the man said coolly. “Herbert Golonski.”
Karen burst out laughing, then said, “You’re joking, right?”
“It’s not nice to make fun of people’s names, Miss,” said the man, looking a bit perturbed.
“He’s right, you know,” I added quietly. “I hate when people laugh at my na —”
“Shut up,” she growled into my ear.
“Karen,” said Mr. Arthur, “just let Iggy go. I’m not looking to hurt you.”
“Huh. Really? And exactly how does the phrase ‘Don’t kill the boy’ fit into that?” she said about as sarcastically as anything I’d ever heard anyone say.
“Why wouldn’t he want to kill you?” asked the man we now knew as Herbert Golonski. “You’ve been trying to subvert his presidency and destroy this city. Where we come from, that’s called treason. ”
“Gee, I thought where we came from it was called liberating an oppressed people from a dictatorship.”
“Hey, I’m not a dictator,” said Mr. Arthur, sounding highly insulted. “I’ve done nothing but nice things for the people of this city.”
“Yeah, and if they didn’t agree with you or want what you were giving them they were just free to do whatever they wanted, right?” she said to Mr. Arthur as she slowly backed the two of us away from the guards.
“Mr. President, you don’t have to listen to any of this,” said Herbert with a shake of his head. “She’s not going to kill the boy.” He then looked at the mole commander and got a very angry look. “Grab her!”
The mole commander nodded and then gestured angrily to the gorilla guards. “You heard the man. Grab her!”
The gorilla guards all started to stalk forward as Karen continued to back up. Since we weren’t moving toward the door and seemed to be backing into a corner, I had no idea what Karen was going to do. I felt her sword press harder into my neck.
“Uh . . . Karen,” I said as delicately as I could, “are you really going to kill me?”
“Yes,” she said in a scary tone. “As soon as we get away from these wackos.”
And with that, she suddenly flung the two of us backward, holding on to me tightly.
CRASH!
We smashed through the window. The next thing I knew we were flipping through the air as shattering glass fell all around us.
“Brace yourself !” she yelled as we twisted in the air. Since we were on the first floor, I knew that we were going to hit the ground quickly and so put my hands up to make sure that I didn’t land directly on my head and break my neck. She let go of me and did the same.
WHAM! The two of us hit the ground hard, landing painfully on our shoulders. I felt a shower of glass fall onto me and put my hands up to block it from cutting my face. Fortunately, the glass in this frequency was a lot more like brittle rock candy than the dangerous glass we have back home and so it bounced off our faces and hands like pieces of plastic.
Before we could even recover from hitting the ground, we heard the sound of the guards running out the door.
“Run!” Karen yelled as she jumped up. I shoved my clothes into my backpack and sprinted after her in my Sleepin’ on Arthur Time! pajamas across the White House lawn.
I looked ahead and saw that a bunch of army guys and White House guards, as well as the giant baby in the tie, were blocking the front gate, their weapons drawn.
“Where do we run to? ” I yelled at her in a panic.
“Just follow me,” she yelled back over her shoulder as she veered and sped toward the high fence surrounding the yard. “And don’t twist your ankle or run out of steam because if you do, this time I’m not coming back for you.”
She leaped and landed halfway up the fence, grabbing the bars while still holding her sword, and quickly used her hands and feet to scramble up it like a monkey. I jumped onto the fence and tried the same thing but my now famous lack of upper body strength suddenly found me just hanging on as my feet tried to get a grip on the bars. Karen was already on the top of the fence and squeezing between the spikes when she looked down and saw me.
“Climb, you lame-o!” she yelled as I looked back and saw that the gorilla guards were almost at the fence. “Use your feet!”
My shoes finally got a grip on the bars and I scrambled higher up the fence, which was good because suddenly there was a huge CLANG! I looked down to see that one of the guards had thrown an ax at my legs and had just missed me.
“Hey, I thought they weren’t supposed to kill me!” I shouted as I tried not to freak out.
“Yeah, but he didn’t say anything about not cutting off your legs,” said Karen as she jumped down to the ground outside the White House yard. “That’s just the kind of guy Arthur is.”
Not wanting to lose any of my limbs, I pulled myself up as hard as I could and flung myself into the air. “Oh, man!” was all I heard Karen say as I flew over the fence completely out of control, my arms and legs flailing all over the place like a flying squirrel that suddenly realized it couldn’t fly.
WHAM! I slammed into the ground face-first as my arms and legs smashed down awkwardly.
CLANG-CLANG-CLANG! I looked over and saw all the guards hit the fence, their swords and axes banging against the bars, then saw them start to scramble up using their weird three legs and feet-hands in a way that showed they were pretty good at climbing things.
“Oh, God, C’MON!” yelled Karen as she grabbed my shirt again and pulled me up. Fortunately I didn’t seem to have any bones that were broken, although even if I had I think I was too scared to feel anything.
Karen and I sprinted down the road and into the city as more and more of Mr. Arthur’s army ran out of the White House yard after us.
Man, for a guy who had consistently flunked gym class, I was now doing an awful lot of physical activity.
We flew down the road as I heard the pounding feet of the gorillas behind us. They were our main concern at the moment, since they were one of the few creatures in this frequency that had any speed on the ground. Unfortunately, Mr. Arthur’s army seemed to have an endless supply of them. I looked back and saw a few of the giant babies chugging along behind the gorillas but they looked like sumo wrestlers who were about five seconds away from having massive heart attacks.
It wasn’t until we ran through the first intersection that I realized the gorilla guards weren’t the only army members who were going to cause us problems. Coming down both streets on either side of us were two large groups of the giant rolling potato bug creatures and the four-legged octopus things with the fly-heads. They all seemed to have even more speed than the gorillas, with the potato bugs rolling like speeding tires and the octopuses galloping like some kind of creepy noodle-legged horses.
I could hear the loud metal clicking of the spiked weapons the octopuses had on their feet, which sounded like an enormous stampede of huge dogs whose nails hadn’t been clipped in years. The potato bug guys were all twirling their wagon wheel blades and glaring at us with their tentacle eyes. We zoomed through the intersection and, a few seconds later, the potato bugs and octopuses merged with the gorilla guards and continued to chase us, their weapons ready to do whatever damage to us they darn well pleased.
Karen looked over her shoulder and saw the huge army of creatures that was now hot on our tails.
“We’re not gonna outrun them,” she yelled, then looked forward for some sort of escape idea. She saw the theater where Hamlet was playing up ahead. “Iggy! In here!”
Karen sprinted over to the theater door, where a feel was dressed like an usher, and pushed it open with a bang.
“Hey, where’s your ticket?” yelled the feel as Karen and I ran past him. I saw him look back just in time to see the horde of army guys running at him. “Oh, no!” was all I heard him say as the gorillas and potato bugs crashed into the doors of the theater, knocking them off their cheap hinges and sending the usher flying.
Karen and I ran through the lobby and then through a second set of doors into the theater. We slammed them shut and Karen slid her sword through the handles to keep the doors from opening.
“That’ll hold them for about three seconds,” Karen said with a snort.
“Shhh!” we heard someone say behind us.
We turned and saw that the play was in midperformance. The audience in the large, dark theater was filled with creatures, and onstage was a one-eyed extendable weasel guy who was dressed in tights and wearing an outfit that looked vaguely like a costume you would see someone wearing in a real Shakespeare play. He was talking super loud, way louder than you’re really supposed to talk when you’re in a play even though you have to talk loud enough so that the people in the back of the theater can hear you.
“To be or not to be, that is the questio —”
BOOM! The army of creatures all smashed against the door, which surprisingly withstood their first impact. The sword in the door handles buckled and bent but didn’t give way. The weasel onstage stopped and looked at the back of the theater, completely confused and startled.
“Hey, shut up back there!” he said as he extended his body up to full height and put his hands on his hips. “I’m acting here.”
The entire audience also turned to look, but by that point Karen and I were running up the main aisle.
We jumped on the stage as the weasel spun around trying to figure out who we were. Then he saw Karen and got a terrified look on his face.
“The Anti-Art!” he screamed in a high-pitched voice like a little girl.
BOOM! The army burst through the doors, sending splinters of wood everywhere. As the army guys swarmed through the theater and the audience screamed and ran for their lives, Karen and I bolted into the backstage area.
Karen looked around for a door but there wasn’t one. “You’ve gotta be kidding me! He didn’t even build a stage door?!”
We heard the sound of the army running through the theater and realized we had to do something quickly.
“Oh, man, I don’t even have my freakin’ sword!” said Karen angrily as she stared at the approaching armed creatures. Then she looked over at something. “Quick! We’re going up!”
She ran over to a ladder that was bolted onto the back wall of the stage and started to climb it. I looked up and saw that it led to a catwalk high above. I had no idea what we were going to do once we got up there but since the alternative of just standing still and getting wiped out by hundreds of metal blades didn’t seem very appealing, I ran to the ladder and followed her up.
The army guys all swarmed the stage and ran after us into the wings. Karen was already at the top of the ladder as I struggled to make the halfway point.
“Hurry!” she yelled down at me as she jumped onto the catwalk.
“Why?” I yelled back. “There’s nowhere to go up there except back down.”
“Wanna bet?” she said as she reached up and knocked her hand against the very tinny and cheap-sounding ceiling.
The ladder shook suddenly and I looked down to see gorilla guy after gorilla guy jumping onto it. The ladder started to moan from all the weight, and the bolts that were holding it on to the wall started to pull loose. This gave me the extra adrenaline rush I needed to get to the top.
As I jumped onto the catwalk, Karen pulled a metal pole out of a railing that had a rope tied to it. The rope unreeled off the catwalk like fishing line that had been cast into the middle of a stream and we heard the huge painted backdrop for the Hamlet play go crashing onto the stage, falling on top of the army creatures. They all started yelling and thrashing around under the huge piece of canvas as the gorillas on the ladder looked down, surprised. They then started climbing faster as the ladder continued to creak and more bolts started popping out of the wall.
POONK! Karen punched the metal pole through the ceiling. “Man, this place is such a piece of junk,” she said as she started pulling down on the pole and cutting through the ceiling the same way you would open a can with one of those Swiss Army knife can openers.
Karen and I looked down and saw that the gorillas were almost up to the catwalk.
“Um, unless you want us to get killed, I’d do something about those guys,” she said, nodding her head over at the guards as she continued to open a hole in the metal roof.
