The Yggyssey (19 page)

"We seek the sacred amulet," Viknik said. "We seek the magical turtle."

"Or bunny," Neddie said under his breath.

"That's a big feat, and fairly important," the giant head said. "You kids got a corn muffin?"

"In my leathern bag," Viknik said.

"You know that to find the sacred amulet you have to cross the quivering bog, and nobody has ever done that?"

"We know that."

"And you want to see the king of the ravens, because ravens go everywhere and see everything, and you hope he will give you a hint about how to cross the bog?"

"Yes."

"All right. I'm going to let you see the king of the ravens," the giant head said. "Tell him the giant head sent you."

"Which way should we go? How do we find him?"

"Take the uptown express," the giant head said. "The uptown express?"

"Go right through there," the giant head said, shifting its eyes. We looked in the direction the giant head was looking and saw a doorway among the trees. Over the doorway were the letters
INTER-REALM TRANSIT
.

"Through there?"

"What did I say?" the giant head said.

We thanked the giant head and went through the doorway. There was a flight of stairs leading down to a platform, and a train was just pulling in. We got on board. The car wasn't crowded—there were three or four ravens and a couple of trolls, reading the newspaper. We rattled along through a dark tunnel. We sat in our seats and stared at our reflections in the grimy windows and the darkness rushing past.

"How do we know when to get off?" I asked.

"I don't know," Seamus said. "It's supposed to be an express. Or we could ask a troll."

"The trolls don't look friendly."

"Or ask a raven."

"Talk to a bird?"

"Why not?"

It turned out we didn't have to ask anyone. The train pulled into a station. There was a sign on the wall: king of the ravens. We got off the train and went upstairs. It was another clearing. On a low branch we saw the biggest raven anyone could imagine. He had on a beautiful white cape, with a stand-up collar, all covered with rubies and emeralds. He also had fancy sunglasses. There wasn't any question—this was the king.

Also in the clearing was a piano—there was a fat guy wearing a derby hat and smoking a cigar, seated at the keyboard. The fat guy was playing, and the king was listening.

"What can I do for you, babies?" the king said in a soft voice.

"The giant head said we could come see you," I said.

"Did you bring a corn muffin?"

Viknik reached into his bag and brought out the corn muffin. He handed it to the king.

"Thank ya very much. Now, tell the king your problem," the king said.

"We need to cross the quivering bog," Seamus said.

"We need to find the sacred amulet, the magic turtle," Viknik said.

"Bunny," Neddie whispered.

"Why do you want to find the magic turtle?" the king asked.

"We want to liberate the Valley of the Shlerm and get rid of Uncle and his fershlugginer helpers," Viknik said.

"Don't criticize what you don't understand, son. You never walked in that man's shoes," the king said.

"But they are oppressing us," Viknik said.

"Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away," the king said.

"Will you tell us how to cross the quivering bog and where to find the amulet?" Neddie asked.

"What you're considering is a big feat," the king said. "Fats, sing them the song."

Fats sang a song about how somebody's feet were too big, and they looked like a fossil, and their pedal extremities were colossal. He was a great piano player, and we were all tapping our feet, big and small. At the end, we all clapped and shouted, "Yay! Yay! Your feet's too big!"

"Nice song," Big Audrey said. "Now will you tell us how to cross the quivering bog?"

"You already know," the king of the ravens said.

"Beg pardon?"

"Take the number four train to the end of the line, and start walking," the king said. "Good luck, babies, and thank ya very much ... for the muffin."

And then he spread his enormous wings and flew off.

An hour later, we were at the edge of the quivering bog.

"Why is this called a quivering bog, anyway?" I asked.

"It just looks like some huge meadow to me."

"I know about quivering bogs," Neddie said. "We studied stuff like this in Miss Magistra's class at Brown-Sparrow. Just walk about ten feet out onto the 'meadow,' then stop and sort of bounce up and down rapidly. Then come back and I will explain it to you."

"This isn't some kind of trick, is it?" I asked Neddie.

"It's a trick, but not a dirty trick," he said. "Just do it. It will save explanation."

I walked about ten feet from where the trees stopped
growing. It felt perfectly normal, like walking on a lawn. Then I stopped and bounced up and down. The ground under my feet started to bend and bounce back, like a trampoline, and I could see ripples, like ripples on water, radiating out, maybe ten feet from where I was bouncing. I had stopped bouncing, but the bog hadn't. It was undulating and quivering under my feet. It was weird to see what looked like solid earth behaving like water, and the sensation made me feel a little sick and woozy. I walked, carefully, back to where Neddie and the other kids were standing.

"That was sort of disgusting," I said. "What's the deal?"

"Underneath, it's liquified mud and water," Neddie said. "On top is a thin layer—think of a carpet of peat and plant life, sphagnum moss, grasses. The layer is likely to be thicker close to the margins, but as you get out into the middle, it is probably thinner in places—thin enough for you to sink right through."

"And never be seen again—I get it. So, what would be wrong if we just went around, staying close to the edge, where the carpet is thicker, and crossed it that way? Why isn't that a good idea?"

"It isn't a good idea because the sacred amulet is right in the middle of the bog," Viknik said. "Ahhh!"

"Of course, there may be hummocks that are safe to walk on all the way out, and in theory we could step from one to another," Neddie said. "But how are we to know what is solid enough to support our weight, and what isn't?"

"And this is why we went to the king of the ravens," Viknik said. "All the stories say that he can tell you how to cross the quivering bog."

"Instead of which, he told us bupkis," Big Audrey said.

"Bupkis?"

"Bupkis."

"Maybe it can't be done," Neddie said. "The giant head told us that it was a big feat, and the king said the same thing. Maybe it is too big a feat."

"But he also told us we already knew how to cross the quivering bog," Seamus said.

I got it! "And we do! We know how to cross the bog!" I shouted, jumping up and down.

"We do?"

"We do! We do!" I yelled.

"We don't—anyway, I don't," Viknik said.

"We do! We were told! Remember the song?"

"The song Fats sang?"

"Yes. Your feet's too big."

"That's it!" I shouted. "Big feet for a big feat!"

"Wait a second!" Neddie said. "Are you thinking..."

"Yes, I am!"

"Seamus, do you have your scout knife?" Neddie asked.

"Yes."

"And I have mine. Viknik, you have some kind of knife in your bag?"

"Sure, I have a knife for cutting the garlic."

"Okay! We can do this!"

"What? What?"

"Make snowshoes," I said. "Or, in this case, bog-shoes. There are plenty of bendy saplings and reeds, and vines and creepers around here. We make big feet to distribute our weight widely, and a-bogging we shall go!"

"Oh, it's beautiful!" Seamus said. "And I have made snowshoes before, when I went to ski camp, so I know just how it's done!"

It was simple. It only took about an hour. We bent flexible branches or sections of sapling into an oval and tied them fast with lengths of vine. Then we crisscrossed them with a couple of sticks, filled all the open parts with loosely woven vine or long grasses, and twisted grasses together to make loops to hold them in place on our feet. The results were crude, and wouldn't last a long time, but we were sure they would be good enough to get us across the bog.

"Let's try them out," I said.

The bog-shoes worked! It didn't take long to get used to walking on them. We discovered it was best to spread ourselves out and put our feet down gently to keep the bog from starting to quiver—but they worked! We made our way out to the middle of the quivering bog. There was a fairly large hummock, rising up a foot or so, and in the middle of that was a cairn, or pile of stones. They'd been carefully stacked, not a natural or random thing.

"I think old Shmoonik must have piled up these stones," Viknik said. He removed the top stone and reached down into a hollow that had been beneath it. He pulled out a little wooden box, covered with moss. We were all holding our breath. Viknik opened the box, and his eyes filled with tears.

"It's here," he said.

He carefully handed the box around, and each of us had a look. In the box was a little carved stone. "Oh, yes. A little stone bunny," Neddie said.

"It's a turtle," Viknik said. "I want to say that you are all great. By helping me do this feat, you have brought happiness to the people of my valley."

"What happens now?" I asked. "Do we have to do something with the amulet?"

"As I understand the legend, once the amulet is in the possession of the people, whoever is oppressing them will become powerless. I am one of the people, and I claim the turtle in the name of the people, so I would assume it will just work automatically."

"We ought to check and see if that is so," Neddie said. "Is there a way we can do that?"

"We could go to Old New Hackensack," Viknik said. "The big festival is going on there, and there will be all kinds of witches, also Uncle and his so-called helpers. We could go there and see if anything has changed."

"That's where we wanted to go in the first place," I said. "Is Old New Hackensack far from here?"

"If we continue to the other side of the bog, we will be quite close," Viknik said.

"Well, pop that amulet into your leathern bag, and let's get going," Big Audrey said.