A Matter of Temperance (The Adventures of Ichabod Temperance Book 1) (19 page)

It sure is getting colder and darker the deeper I go. What in the world can I be looking for down here? The floor of the Pacific makes the State of Texas look like a postage stamp.

I can see prairies of fans, corrals of corals, and endless meadows of mountains.

Look at all the shellfish! There are fields of mullosks, mussells, oysters, and, oh my goodness, clams.

Clams.

Giant Clams.

Biggus clamus humungous.

Hundreds of the white shelled creatures blanket the sea floor for as far as I can see. Ranging in size from the smallest, little fellows, to the truly titanic, I never dreamed they could grow to such dimensions. I am dwarfed by their enormity.

Somehow, I know.

Somehow I know I am in the right place.

Somehow I know that what I seek is here.

Did I just see a flicker of light?

I think I saw a sliver of dim light escape from an especially large clam.

Everything is so still and silent. My swimming isn’t disturbing anything. The forty foot clam just lies there, immobile.  Covered in barnacles and seaweed, he does not appear to have moved in many years.

Deep within, I catch another flicker of light.

Good Heavens, I think it’s a pearl! It
is
a pearl! Way back there in the back. It’s enormous!

That pearl must be what I came down here after. I gotta get that pearl and hurry it to Miss Plumtartt.

Everything is very still and silent.

Certainly I can just snatch the object, and be on my way.

Hmm, just to be safe, I’ll stick this chunk of driftwood between the open shells.

I’ll take me one more look around.

No-one here but me.

I reckon I’ll just swim on in. I can’t resist that milky luminescence.

Let’s see if I can just pull it out.

Unh, unh!

Dang, this here pearl is really entrapped in all this cloying oyster, muscley tissue. I reckon I’ll have to cut the lustrous prize loose from the tenacious moorings.

Hey, did this place shudder when I started up with my knife?

~eeeeeeee~

~uhrrrrrr~

~Snap!~

~Kuh-
Lunng
!!!..guh...guh...guh...~

- - -

Get off of me, you romantic mussel!

This bivalve behemoth is almost amorous in its pursuit.

I gotta figure a way out of here where the giant clam’s shells have crashed together around me, but this dang ol’ clam’s tongue, muscle, or whatever it is, won’t leave me alone.

It wants to eat me. Come to think of it, maybe it already has.

I give him a couple of pokes with my emerald blade.

He backs off and gives me a moment to think.

This lid is clamped down tight.

I kick at the hard, swervy lips. I pry with the knife. Nothing affects the colossal, contemptuous, koquina. It would take, literally, tons of leverage to crack this determined crustacean’s grimace. That was a stout piece of wood I had used for a wedge, and this brute snapped it without a bit of trouble. A large pneumatic press would be handy, but it would have to be of the highest strength.

Could I kill this creature?

Probably, but would that avail me my freedom? So far, my attacks have only served to encourage the creature to clamp down with ever increasing pressure. If I kill the amazing mollusc, I could very well decide my own fate, trapping myself within.

Think, Ichabod.

Good grief! It would take the hydraulics of the Gods, to pry open this obstinate shellfish.

This lid will not open, unless the creature wants to open it.

How can I make the fishie want to open up?

. . .

(
!
)

Fire!

How can I create fire in this environment?

. . .

( ! )

Taking a deep breath, I remove the G.I.L.L.s.

I continue to let the mechanisms work.

In a short time, a bubble of air develops at the top of the shell.

I have two things on my person that I have kept waterproofed. The first one is my tinder. I felt foolish bringing it with me underwater, but old habits die hard. Now I am glad I brought it. A man should always have an ability to create fire, but the meager sparks that I can create with the tinder will not be enough to shock the creature.

I need more.

I need a something to burn.

I require fuel.

Everything is wet. I cannot burn an article of clothing, unless I can hold it in the bubble of air until it dries out. That might take a week. I do not have the ability to hold my hands over my head that long. Nor have I provisions for that length of time.

My sammich! That’s the other thing I have waterproofed!

I firmly believe in having a sandwich about my person at all times. It saved Miss Plumtartt and me in the desert, recently, and now, it might save me again in a different fashion.

It’s a good thing I’m a peanut butter and jelly man.

I remove my lunch from its special place on my utility belt.

Holding the sammich up in the bubble of air, I unwrap its wholesome goodness, carefully maintaining its dry status. Splitting the two pieces of bread, I consume the jelly side.

Yup, this is some good peanut butter. Most folks know that many oils are flammable, but they only think of petroleums, such as kerosene, or whale oil. People forget that vegetables such as corn can be refined to flammability. Likewise, non-processed peanut butter can burn. The flammability of raw peanut oil can be a life saver in freezing conditions. Perhaps it will provide fuel for my means of escape.

Come on, tinder box, don’t fail me now!

The goober paste is catching! The peanut butter is burning! Smoke is filling the bubble!

I think I felt the chamber tremble.

“
A
H
H
-
C
H
O
O
O
!
!
!
”

I am flung half a league by the calamitous clam’s sneeze.

- - -

I have our prize!

This giant pearl is certainly the Talisman that we seek.

I gotta get this thing to Miss Plumtartt!

“aa
a
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”

Did I just hear something?

“aa
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aah
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I coulda sworn that I just heard some singing, a kind of music, maybe.

“aa
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”

It has a kind of ethereal quality to it.

It’s the pretty music of ladies’ voices, singing in an unusual fashion.

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Gosh, it’s awfully strange, but, I think they are calling to me.

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”

I want to go to them.

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”

I think... I must... go... to... them...

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