Scurvy Goonda Read online

  “ERIC!”

  Ted leaped up on the conveyor belt and charged toward Eric, shouting, “I’m coming, Eric! I’ll be right there!”

  “Nah you ain’t!” said a Presidential Guard who popped up in front of Ted, ferociously swinging a hockey stick at Ted’s head. Instinctively, Ted stepped out of the way and smacked the hockey player with his badminton racket.

  “Take that!” shouted Ted, and the hockey player exploded into purple muck.

  Presidential Guards leaped at him from all sides, and he cut them all down—POP-POP-POP! One feathered samurai managed to cut Ted’s T-shirt sleeve, but the samurai burst into sludge a moment later.

  Ted sprinted and jumped onto the powder vat, which teetered back and forth under his weight. He gripped the edge of the vat and tried to pull himself up, but a tiny clown grabbed on to his feet and began to pull him down toward a crowd of Presidential Guards.

  “Let me go!” yelled Ted.

  “No go,” said the wicked clown, climbing up Ted’s legs. “No go a-ro-ro-ro!”

  POP! Brother Dezo’s ukulele smashed into the evil clown, who burst into purple.

  “He bad clown!” said Brother Dezo. “He get da haad rub!”

  His legs free, Ted climbed to the top of the vat and from there made another leap to the glass cylinder that held Eric. The planda, who was pressed against the glass, looked into Ted’s eyes—he had been through a lot.

  “All right, buddy,” said Ted, balancing his weight on one of the pipes leading down to the vat. “Stand back as much as you can. I’m not quite sure how I’m going to do this.”

  Ted flipped his badminton racket around and smacked the butt of it into the glass cylinder.

  Nothing happened.

  “Come on!” said Ted. He tried again and again with the racket’s hilt—wham! wham! Nothing happened. Eric began pushing on the glass where Ted had struck it.

  “I will get you out,” said Ted. His brain started to whir, and he began thinking of all the things he could use to free Eric. If only I had a sledgehammer or a laser or one of those cartoon holes I could stick on the glass.

  Below him, snarling Presidential Guards were climbing up the vat, crawling over each other and getting steadily closer.

  Come on, THINK! Ted told himself. He imagined himself swinging down on a vine from the top of the room to knock the cylinder off its platform, or maybe freezing the glass to make it shatter more easily.

  And then all of a sudden the pain came, a white-hot burning sensation in his forearm. At first he thought that he’d been cut, or splattered with chemicals, but when he looked down at his arm, he saw that his birthmark seemed to glow.

  The skin on his forearm, normally a dull brown, had taken on a reddish tint, and the three circles that sat in the middle of the birthmarked skin—usually a triangle of pale dots—were throwing off three burning colors: green, blue, and orange.

  Could I get Eric out if I had a cutter made from the hardest diamonds on Earth?

  His arm got hotter.

  Or if a guy who got into the Guinness World Records book for eating glass suddenly showed up?

  His birthmark changed colors again, so he closed his eyes. He needed to think. He couldn’t allow himself to be distracted.

  Then he was hit by a strange thought.

  What if I had an opera singer who could hit one of those extremely high-pitched notes?

  The sizzling sensation in his arm stopped. Ted opened his eyes and saw that his forearm and hand were completely missing.

  Missing, as in they were gone. Ted was a one-and-a-half-armed man.

  Then he spotted it. His arm was floating down toward the ground, his hand opening and closing the entire time, as if pleased with its newfound freedom. The limb made its way to a hovering position about four feet above the floor, where it stopped and appeared to think for a moment. Though it had no eyes, it seemed to turn and look at Ted.

  “Hey, get back on my elbow!” hissed Ted.

  His hand didn’t respond. Instead, all at once, the arm started to work in a flurry of activity, as if it were plucking atoms out of the air and rapidly assembling them into a human figure, working from the ground up. The fingers were a blur and the wrist kept snapping back and forth as it flew through its strange building process.

  First a pair of small feet wedged into tiny heels.

  Then plump legs attached to a round torso covered in a white dress from which two robust arms sprouted.

  Next a thick neck, a couple of chins, and then a round Scandinavian face topped by a pair of thick golden braids.

  And finally, the hand rested, clearly exhausted.

  And the woman opened her mouth, and … “LA-LA-LA-LA-LAAAAA!”

  The notes rang out above the blaring alarm and the sounds of fighting below, grinding the battle to a halt as everybody in the room put hands to ears, or whatever body parts were used for listening.

  The glass cylinder started to tremble.

  The opera singer pushed her voice up into the next octave.

  Eric had curled up into a ball inside the cylinder. Ignoring his stinging eardrums, Ted used his one remaining arm to climb away from the cylinder as the opera singer took a final breath.

  “LAAAAAA-LA!”

  BOOM!

  The cylinder shattered into a blizzard of glass splinters. Ted managed to swing his body underneath the powder vat to get out of the way, but the guards weren’t so fortunate. Glass showered down on them, and when they hit the ground, ACORN attacked them with arrows and clubs and other weaponry.

  Hanging underneath the vat, Ted looked at the opera singer, who looked back at him, apparently confused about how she’d gotten here and what she was doing.

  “Uh,” explained Ted.

  The opera singer winked and walked away. Ted’s hand floated back toward him and nonchalantly reattached itself to his elbow. His birthmark returned to its normal color and the skin cooled to the same temperature as the rest of his body.

  Ted dropped down to the conveyor belt and looked up at where the glass cylinder had been moments before. Eric was curled into a ball, unscathed.

  ACORN soldiers took advantage of the bedlam to dispatch what was left of the Presidential Guard. Within moments, ACORN stood victorious amid an ocean of purple muck.

  “Eric!” yelled Ted, and the planda looked up from his fetal position. Seeing that everything was safe, Eric climbed down, toddled over to Ted, and put his thick arms around him.

  “Very nice to see you, Eric,” said Ted.

  Ted turned away from the planda to help ACORN fighters with the boxes of antidote, when he suddenly became aware that nobody else in the room was moving.

  Everybody was staring at Ted. Dwack and Dr. Narwhal were scratched and breathing hard and covered in purple muck, but alive. Even Vango looked like he’d seen some action—he was trembling and suffering from post-conflict trauma, but his hands were stained purple, and Ted could see that the sharp handles of his paintbrushes were coated in muck.

  “Is something wrong?” said Ted.

  “Ted,” said Joelle-Michelle, purple stains up and down her ballet tights, “where did that opera singer come from?”

  “I, my hand, it built her,” said Ted. “I was thinking of ways to get Eric out of the cylinder—by the way, this is my sister’s friend—and the singer, she was my idea.”

  Eric waved a paw at the group.

  “Your arm made an opera singer?” said Joelle-Michelle.

  “This is all new to me,” said Ted.

  Joelle-Michelle nodded. She looked at Ted’s torn shirtsleeve, causing him to reflexively hold his arm against his body. He didn’t want her to see his birthmark, especially after all the weirdness of a few moments ago.

  “Why do you hide your arm?” said Joelle-Michelle.

  Ted stammered and flushed. “I have a birthmark. I usually keep it covered.”

  “May I see it?”

  “Kind of a rude question after what I just told you.”


  “We French are famous for being spectacularly rude,” said Joelle-Michelle, walking over. Ted wanted to resist, but his brain short-circuited. She smelled like vanilla. He extended his arm.

  Joelle-Michelle lightly traced her finger from the bend of Ted’s elbow to the top of his wrist, pausing to look at the three pale circles in the triangle pattern. She stared him in the eye.

  “You were born with this?” she said.

  “It’s hereditary. My father had one too,” said Ted.

  Joelle-Michelle looked sideways at Brother Dezo, who raised an eyebrow. She turned to the rest of the ACORN fighters.

  “Compagnons,” she said. “Gather as many boxes as you can and get outside. Brother Dezo, find a furnace and incinerate the Ab-Com Patches. Our backup should be here by now.”

  The room was suddenly a flurry of activity, with boxes of antidote being stacked and then hustled out the exit and mounds of Ab-Com Patches being destroyed. A group of the larger ACORN fighters went to work dislodging the entire tank of antidote, rocking it back and forth on its hinges until it broke off with a loud snap. Grunting and groaning, they heaved the tank out the door.

  “Wait,” said Ted to Joelle-Michelle, who had also turned her attention to collecting bottles of antidote. “Why did you ask me about the opera singer and my birthmark? Do you know why my arm popped off?”

  Joelle-Michelle paused, and leaned close to Ted’s ear.

  “Because you are more important than you could ever imagine,” she whispered.

  III

  Scurvy was pacing back and forth. He hadn’t touched the set of red bootee pajamas that Persephone had laid out for him. There was only one bed in the room, and he knew that she wanted to pillow talk and snuggle.

  “Cursed bootee pajamas!” said Scurvy. He picked a piece of candied bacon off a silver tray sitting on the nightstand, popped it into his mouth, and felt it plunk down into his belly. Since Persephone had claimed ownership of him, he wasn’t getting that same bacon thrill anymore.

  “Ya okay in there?” said Scurvy to the closed bathroom door. His plan was to enter the bathroom as soon as Persephone exited and spend the rest of the night in there, thus avoiding snuggling.

  “Just freshening up,” lied Persephone. In reality, she was dumping the contents of the plastic bag Bugslush had installed in her empty stomach cavity into the sink.

  “Oh, there’s no need fer that,” said Scurvy. “Ya seem plenty fresh.”

  Scurvy winced. He’d meant It’s useless to even try to fix yourself! But it might have come across as You’re perfect the way you are!

  “Flattery will get you everywhere,” said Persephone through the door.

  With that, Persephone stepped out of the bathroom, and Scurvy’s eyes almost started to bleed.

  She was still wearing her makeup—smeared lipstick, heavy foundation, false eyelashes over empty sockets—but she had replaced her presidential outfit with a silk nightgown that sagged from her bony shoulders, revealing frail wing bones and twiggy legs. She had doused herself in meat-scented perfume, and while the trick almost worked, Scurvy couldn’t lie to himself: when he looked at Persephone, all he saw was a tattered cockatoo skeleton.

  She curtsied.

  “Do you like it?” she said.

  “Ya look … great?” said Scurvy, lying.

  “Kiss me on the forehead,” she ordered, and Scurvy did so. Her skull was hard and cold.

  “Now come and join me near the window for tea,” she said. “We have more wedding details to discuss.”

  “Yep. Sure thing. I’m just gonna use tha facilities,” said Scurvy. “Be right out.”

  “Don’t be long!”

  “Course not,” said Scurvy. “Can’t wait tah talk and talk and talk until tha end of time.”

  Scurvy winked at Persephone and glided into the bathroom. As soon as he shut the door, he searched the wall for a way out. He spotted a window high up—it would have to do. He stood on the toilet, climbed onto the sink, and unlatched the window, which opened with a satisfying whoosh.

  “Are you okay in there, Scurvy-Burvy?” said Persephone.

  “Brushing me chompers,” said Scurvy, leaping from the sink to the window and squirming his way out. He silently cursed his belly—he’d put on more weight than he had realized.

  “Come on!” said Scurvy, talking to his gut.

  Don’t expect too much of me, his gut replied.

  “I expect ya tah suck up and squeeze me through this window,” said Scurvy.

  Do you know how much meat you put in me every day? said his gut. Where am I supposed to put it all?

  “Scurvy?” came Persephone’s voice from the other room.

  “Coming, me fancy fiancée,” Scurvy said before turning his attention back to his belly.

  “Please help me out here,” he whispered to his midsection. “You know I can’t take her anymore.”

  You’ll be nicer to me? asked his stomach.

  “I promise I’ll treat ya good from now on.”

  Against its better judgment, Scurvy’s belly decided to believe him and sucked up into his torso, allowing him to squeeze out the small window. He tumbled to the hard ground outside, climbed to his feet, and started to run—anywhere.

  He hadn’t even made it out of the yard when he felt a knife at his throat.

  “You have no place to go, Mr. Goonda,” said a voice in the dark.

  “Marriage is a sacred commitment,” said another voice. “Them vows, they’re not to be taken lightly.”

  A horde of Presidential Guards stepped out of the night. Scurvy was completely surrounded.

  “Might be less embarrassing for you if you went back the way you came,” said a third voice.

  Scurvy let the guards walk him back to the lodge.

  “Give an old pirate a boost, then?” said Scurvy, and the guards helped him up to the window and shoved him through.

  “You almost done in there, Scurvy-Lurvy?” said Persephone through the door. “I can’t wait to see you in your bootee jam-jams!”

  “Yer Scurvy-Lurvy is going tah sleep in tha bathtub,” said Scurvy, removing his boots. “Better for me back tah sleep on a slightly curved surface.”

  “But our tea.”

  “I’m not much in tha mood fer tea.”

  “You never used to sleep in the bathtub.”

  “Over tha centuries, people change.”

  There was silence from the bedroom.

  “Fine,” said Persephone, pouting. “I’m going to have my tea all by myself. I’ll see you in the morning. And every morning.”

  “Of course ya will, me dove,” said Scurvy, lowering his body into the tub. Through the door, he heard Persephone’s bones rattle as she tossed and turned. It was going to be an uncomfortable night.

  IV

  Ted volunteered to enter the quarantine area first. Because he wasn’t an abstract companion, he wasn’t afraid of the Greenies—and besides, if he was the one who started the plague with his Ab-Com Patch, it was his responsibility to end it. He carried five boxes of antidote in his arms and a camel pack of antidote on his back.

  Once ACORN had made it safely back to the caves, Dr. Narwhal conducted an experiment on a rugby player afflicted with the Greenies. After dosing himself with antidote just to be safe, Dr. Narwhal gave the rugby player a tenth of a drop to see if that was enough to provide a cure, but when that didn’t work, he increased the dosage to half a drop. Still nothing. Another four-tenths of a drop added up to a full drop, at which point the antidote started to have a noticeable effect—the green bumps faded, and the rugby player rumbled away happily.

  “One drop each,” Dr. Narwhal told Ted after the experiment.

  As Ted prepared to enter the quarantine area, he felt the eyes of ACORN on his back. Word of his birthmark had apparently spread, and his fellow ACORN fighters suddenly seemed to have a strange respect for him. They listened to him intently when he spoke, held doors for him, and in general treated him like … a leader?
/>   “I’m not sure what you’ll see in there,” said Joelle-Michelle. “Cure as many as you can.”

  “I will. But later you have to tell me what the heck is going on.”

  Ted entered the quarantine area.

  The room was bigger than it looked from the other side of the door, and the air inside was hazy and stale. Through the vapor, Ted could see figures moving at half speed and shapes lying on the ground.

  “Hello,” said Ted. “I’m Ted.”

  Ted felt everything and everyone in the cavernous room turn toward him.

  “I have the antidote for all of you,” said Ted, opening the first box of bottles. “Everything is going to be okay.”

  The first wave of sick ab-coms made their way over to Ted.

  A man-sized piranha wearing a knitted scarf walked up to Ted and opened its gaping, tooth-filled mouth. Ted reached forward with an eyedropper of antidote and drip!

  He put a single drop on the piranha’s tongue.

  “It will take a second to start working,” said Ted.

  “Obrigado,” said the piranha, which meant “thank you” in Portuguese.

  An elegantly dressed woman stepped up to Ted. Her posture was ramrod straight, and she held a parasol over her shoulder.

  “Young man,” the woman said. It was clearly an effort for her to speak. “I am Czarina Tallow. Vat do I do?”

  “Hello, Czarina. Just open your mouth, please.”

  Drip. Ted placed a drop of antidote on her tongue.

  “You’ll feel it working in a moment,” said Ted.

  “Thank you zo much. Is zere anything I can do to help you?” said Czarina.

  “Please take a few bottles of the antidote and give it to anybody who is too weak to stand in line,” said Ted. “Just a drop each.”

  The Czarina got to work. Each time Ted cured somebody, he gave the ab-com a dropper of antidote, and soon everybody was curing everybody else. As the ill regained their strength, Ted realized how many members of ACORN there might be.

  When he ran out of antidote, he knocked on the quarantine door. Hordes of healthy ab-coms followed Ted through it, hugging ACORN friends they hadn’t thought they’d see again. Joelle-Michelle looked around at her new troops and smiled.