Brass Monkeys (18 page)

I stared at him, totally puzzled. I couldn’t see anything but the stones and the sandy side of the hill. Ray bent down and lifted some camouflage netting out of the sand, revealing the burned-out remains of a big Stormie truck. All that stuck out was the front end, because sand had shifted and settled over the rest.

Ray pulled the netting completely back to reveal some kind of homemade go-cart parked next to the front bumper of the truck. The cart body was a mix of jungle-gym parts, while the tires and pedals had obviously come from bicycles. Topping it off was a yardstick aerial and a “flag” made out of somebody’s basketball shorts.

“This little baby is my ‘Hru-tu-du.’ Know where I got that name?”

“I sure do,” I said. “You got it out of the book
Watership Down
. The rabbits thought cars made that kind of sound.”

“Very cool, Bumpus-man. I figured you were a big reader. I only take the old Hru-tu-du out at night when it’s safe, but I love her.” He pulled the net back over the cart, then opened the truck door.

“Okey-dokey, Bumpus-man,” he said grandly. “Come on in to the most secret, magical, mysterious hideout in the entire world! The Cat’s Pajamas!”

I followed him inside and right away I had to agree. The place was a knockout.

The cab led into the big cargo box at the rear, and that was the living quarters. Somehow Ray had removed some of the sand overhead and then put in a piece of Plexiglas, which gave him tons of light. The walls were decorated with comic books, and it was obvious who his heroes were. The Hulk was everywhere, along with Spider Man and the Fantastic Four.

“I’ll give you a quick tour,” said Ray. “First, here’s my electric keyboard. I took it off an old piano and rigged it up with batteries. Works real good!” He tinkled out a few notes. “This is my sax. I borrowed that from the piles around the marketplace.” He honked out some notes and then began playing a song I vaguely recognized.

He stopped and grinned at me. “Know what that tune is?”

I shook my head. “I’m not sure. Sounds familiar.”

“That’s my favorite song. It’s called ‘These Boots Are Made for Walking.’“

I let out a little laugh. “You’re joking, right?”

Ray’s eyes narrowed. “Ain’t joking, man. That’s my tune.”

“Don’t you like rap or hip-hop?” I said. “I mean, most guys—”

Ray held up a hand and stopped me. “Whoa, you mean, because I’m a black kid, I’m supposed to like that kind of stuff?”

“No,” I said, lamely, “I hope I didn’t mean that.”

“Listen, Bumpus-man,” said Ray, “don’t put me in some kind of little box. I ain’t like other kids—any other kids! So, don’t do that kind of thing.”

I bit my lip. “You’re right, Ray. I shouldn’t have said that. ‘Cause I got this Spanish tune called ‘Malagueña’ that I like and everyone else thinks is stupid.”

“See, it ain’t stupid! That’s your song! That’s all that’s important. I heard ‘Boots’ when I was little, and me and my Ma used to march around the kitchen table and sing it.” Ray’s voice got thick. “That’s my tune and I don’t care what anyone thinks. Heck, I play it once every day. And man, I’ve had lots of days.”

“How long have you been down here, Ray? I mean, hiding out like this?”

He squinted his eyes in thought. “Hard to say. Maybe a couple of years.”

“Two years!” I whistled in amazement. “That’s like forever.”

“Don’t remind me,” said Ray. “It seems like yesterday I was sitting in my seventh grade class in Shabbona, Illinois, just doing my tats—”

“Tats?” I said.

“Tattoos, man. You know, drawing cool stuff on my hands and wrists. I wasn’t even listening to old Ming-daddy doing her dark and bleak yabba-ding-dong poetry. Man, I was just trying to relax in back, and the next thing I know I’m on the Big Monkey going straight down. And it ain’t to the mall either!”

I grinned at him. “So you never transformed, right?”

“You kiddin’? I never even developed a stubby tail. Man, I was out of that roller coaster like my pants was on fire and the Stormies never got close to me since. I’ve been living out here free as the breeze and getting what I need off the discard piles. My only problem is, sometimes I get a little lonesome.”

“I’ll bet your folks miss you,” I said.

“I doubt it,” replied Ray. “My old man ran off and my ma’s dead.”

“Oh,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

Ray wrinkled his nose and laughed. “Hey, we’re getting way too serious, Bumpus-man. Let me finish up my tour.” He moved on to a piece of trampoline stretched between two student lockers. “This here is my couch.” Then he showed me his “bathtub,” which was really a big plastic wastebasket. Finally he pointed out his “kitchen,” which was jammed with dozens of cafeteria-sized tins of food and a metal library cart that had been hammered into a sink. “I got enough peanut butter and jelly to last me a hundred years,” said Ray, happily. “In fact, I got some sandwiches already made up here, if you’d like one?”

I shook my head. “No thanks, not now anyway.”

“Okay, let’s play some tunes then. C’mon, I want to hear you play that stuff I heard you do out at the band shell.”

“I don’t think so, Ray. I just don’t feel like it.”

He blew a few jazzy riffs on “These Boots” that made me laugh.

“C’mon man, join in.” Ray’s eyes sparkled. “Make you feel a lot better.”

I joined in half-heartedly and pretty soon we sounded just like a little New Orleans’ jazz band. We must have played for maybe five or ten minutes, going back and forth between “Malagueña” and “These Boots.”

Then, without warning, it all swept over me. I felt tears coming to my eyes. I saw Harriet, Weeser, and Alvin marching toward Ming’s horrible school. Then the awful scene at the band shell replayed itself. I saw Teddy as he was hit, then Lilah being struck down and making those last pathetic signs to me. What was she trying to tell me?

I guess Ray knew I was stressed out. He patted me on the shoulder.

“You’ll be okay, Bumpus-man. Just take it easy.”

I turned to nod at him, but he had frozen and was looking off in alarm.

“Did you hear anything?” he whispered.

“Like what?”

He stared at me. “Like bells.”

Ray moved quickly to the cab of the truck and peered out. I followed him wordlessly. I was so tense I could barely breathe.

“See anything?” I whispered.

He shook his head. “Nothing. I think I’m just a little jumpy with all the excitement.” He glanced at me. “And man, I know you’re feelin’ it. So why don’t we just relax? Maybe you’d like to do some reading or sleeping.” He picked up a dog-eared copy of
Watership Down
. “This is my only real book, but you’re welcome to it.”

“Thanks Ray,” I said. “I know you’re trying to be nice and all, but the truth is, I can’t take time to relax. I’ve got to find McGinty, and if you know where he is, you’ve gotta tell me and fast. I’ve only got three days to save my friends—”

“Save your friends?” Ray stared at me. “Whooee man! No way can you do that. They’re done for.”

I held up my hand real fast and I know I looked irritated. “Ray, don’t do this to me, okay? I’ve already heard all that baloney and I can’t take it.” I took a deep breath and tried to control myself. “Look, I’ve got to find McGinty and give him his book and then get him to help me—”

Ray shook his head sadly. “You don’t get it, Bumpus-man.”

“What don’t I get? You know where McGinty is, right?”

Ray nodded and sighed. “I know exactly where he is, and that’s the problem.”

“So, just tell me,” I begged. “Don’t stonewall me.”

“Okay,” said Ray. “Take it easy, I’ll tell you everything.”

“And fast, right?”

“Fast as I can. But you gotta sit still for the background. Otherwise it won’t make sense. First off, McGinty and Webster came through here about two weeks ago, like I said. They’d been hiding in Adjana’s old ruined school, and now the Storm boys were hot on their trail. So I go out and save their butts, then bring ‘em back here to rest up. That’s when they started arguing. It was all about how they were going to defeat Ming-daddy and save every school kid in the country. Webster, that crazy old dude, wanted to find a tunnel to the surface and try to get McGinty’s book back down here. He thought that was the way to expose Ming-daddy. But even though McGinty wanted the book bad, he thought he had a better idea. And that was to develop a weapon to use against Ming-daddy.”

“Weapon?” I said eagerly. “What kind of weapon?”

“Beats me. I think it might be a bomb or some kind of big gun. Anyway, McGinty said he had to go down to this place called the Blue Grotto to work on the weapon. He said he needed help from some fantastic teacher named—”

“Adjana,” I burst out. “Has to be.”

Ray grinned. “Right on the nail, Bumpus-man. And this is where they got real hot in their argument, and it’s the real kicker as far as you’re concerned. Old Webby says there’s only three ways to get to the Grotto and all three are stupid and impossible. One was trying to go down the original tunnel, which is totally blocked with boulders. Two was going down the Cliffs of Notes, which he said was too dangerous—and I have to agree ‘cause I’ve seen ‘em myself—and the third was going down a drainage pipe inside Ming-daddy’s school.”

“A drainage pipe in her school?” I said. “That sounds really dangerous.”

“Of course it does! Webster kept saying no one in their right mind would go into that old dingbat’s school just to crawl into a stinky drain pipe and then slip and slide down to this Grotto place.
Especially if there’s no way out!”

I nodded. “Right, you’d be stuck down there for good.”

“Absoltootly,” said Ray. “But then McGinty ups and says he ain’t worried about that because he thinks he knows a secret way of sneaking back out.”

“So what did they decide, Ray? C’mon, I’m going nuts here.”

“All right, easy. I’m coming to the end. What happened is this. McGinty was feeling kind of sick after all the running around, so Webster tells him to rest up with me for a few days. Meanwhile, Webster says he’ll go and look around for a tunnel to the surface. He says he’s got some buddies in Monkeyopolis who he thinks he can trust to help him.”

“That’s got to be Teddy and Lilah, my friends,” I said eagerly.

“Maybe. Anyway, Webster tells McGinty to rest up and then meet him back in the ruins of Adjana’s old school. Then they’ll decide which plan to follow.”

“But Webster didn’t come back, did he?” I burst out. “He found a tunnel and went for it.”

“Exactly. But here’s the snapper. McGinty didn’t follow the plan either. He waits until Webster is gone, then he ups and heads for Ming-daddy’s school.”

“Duwang,” I said softly.

Ray grinned at the word. “Duwang is right. Anyhow, I saw him go inside her rotten old school, and I think he must have made it down to the Grotto.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Hey, if Ming-daddy had caught him, it would be news from one end of the underworld to the other. I think he went down that pipe and she never knew it.”

I began pacing tensely. “So, what the heck,” I said. “If he made it, I could make it. I could go down that pipe right to the Grotto and find him.”

Ray looked heavenward. “Are you listening to me?” he snapped. “First of all, McGinty might be able to sneak into her school, but you sure couldn’t! Not and live to tell about it! Number two, you couldn’t do all that in three days.”

I shook my head stubbornly. “Ray, what if I told you I had a map inside the book? And if I showed the map to McGinty, he could get us all out of here and back home in time for Christmas?”

Ray gave me a skeptical grin. “I wouldn’t believe it. But even if you got some old map, it ain’t gonna help you when you try sneaking into—”

He stopped suddenly. This time we both heard it:
the faint sound of bells
.

“Holy Crow,” whispered Ray. He rushed to the truck cab and looked out the door window. He jerked back as if he had been burned.

“Stormies,” he said hoarsely. “Some of their special tracking unit. And those guys don’t miss a thing.”

“How many are there?” My voice went right up to a squeak.

He took a quick glance. “Looks like two or three. I don’t know, maybe more.”

“What are we going to do?”

Ray wasn’t answering. He was down on his knees wrestling with something under his sink. He was muttering, “We’ll need the gas …” He surfaced now and whispered, “Bumpus, get my slingshots out of the pack. Move, man!”

I stumbled toward his pack and banged my shins painfully on the library cart sink. While I rattled through the junk in the bag, I heard him play a few soft notes on the keyboard.

“Are you nuts?” I hissed at him. “What are you doing?”

“Ssshh! You got the slings?”

I nodded and held them up. They were pathetic homemade things with rubber slings attached to a couple of crossed drum sticks.

Ray nodded. “And get the stones. They’re in that small leather sack.”

I grabbed the sack and slithered over to Ray. “Listen, we can’t fight these guys with two stupid—”

Ray turned a fierce look on me. “Don’t get picky now, man. This is a fight to the death, ‘cause these Storm boys ain’t going to take us prisoners. They’re going to shoot us right in the head and you know what that means? We’ll be like Chickenhead Fred for the rest of our lives!”

I shivered violently. “Then let’s run for it.”

He shook his head. “Too late for that. Here’s what we have to do—”

The netting over the front door was ripped back and two Stormies stuck their heads in. Their gray, windswept hair looked scarier than ever in that light, and their eyes glowed with hate.

“Surprise!” the lead guy rasped out. The next thing I knew he was swinging his big eraser gun around.

Ray yelled out something, then pulled his sling back and let go. I saw the stone fly across the room and catch the lead Stormie smack on his ear.

“Ow! Ow!” he bellowed. He fell back, grabbing at the side of his head.

I pulled back my sling, but the dumb stone tumbled out.

“Retreat!” Ray screamed. He let go with another stone and this made the second Stormie duck out of sight. Ray grabbed me and hauled me toward the rear of the cargo box. He pulled aside some stacked suitcases, revealing a small exit.