Memories of Boom Boom Mountain (3 page)

‘I’m sorry,’ Finn apologised.

‘Well, you should be,’ said Mountain Man. ‘It’s not fair to those animals. And it’s not fair to me! I might just start to cry again.’

Boulders began to well up in Mountain Man’s eyes.

‘Oh, man,’ Jake sighed.

‘Come on, Jake,’ Finn begged his best friend. ‘I’ve got to give this another shot.’

Jake wasn’t convinced. This Mountain Man seemed to have some pretty kooky ideas, and Jake didn’t think Finn should get sucked into his hang-ups. He told Finn just that.

‘But that’s what I vowed,’ Finn reminded Jake. ‘To help anyone in need, no matter how small their problem. At least I have to try, brother,’ he added.

‘So be it, brother,’ Jake replied.

Finn hopped onto Jake’s back, and they returned to the town of marauders.

‘Hey, guys,’ Finn called. ‘I’m back.’

One marauder with butterflies strapped to his hands battled another who had a pig attached to his elbow. A third marauder got knocked in the face with a turtle-covered fist. An alligator-wielding marauder knocked his opponent to the ground. The sounds of animals bleating, clucking and squawking echoed through the town as the marauders faced off.

‘HEY, GUYS! GUYS?’
Finn called a little louder. ‘Men? Men, please stop for a second.’

The marauders appeared to be too busy in their battles to hear Finn.

‘MEN? BOYS?’
Finn yelled even louder. ‘I have more to ask of you.’ Finn ran over to two marauders who had fish strapped around their faces.

‘BROS? MY BROS?’
he greeted them. ‘Brother?’

Finn gently tapped one of the marauder’s forearms in order to get his attention. The marauder turned around angrily to see who was disturbing his skirmish.

‘What?’ asked the marauder. ‘Did you just pet me? I’ll pet you!’

The marauder knocked Finn in the head a few times. Then he looked down at Finn and smiled.

‘HEY, THIS IS GREAT!’
the marauder observed.

He flung the fish off of his face and petted his opponent’s chest.

‘Hey, did you just pet me?’ the opponent asked.

‘Yeah, I did,’ the marauder answered.

‘Well, I’m petting you back,’ said his opponent.

The two marauders began to pet each other as eagerly as they had battled.

‘THIS IS AWESOME!’
cheered the opposing marauder.

‘All right!’ Finn applauded. ‘This could be it!’

Finn ran over to a pair of wrestling marauders and petted one of their legs. They stopped wrestling and immediately began to pet each other.

Finn petted a marauder with penguins strapped around his head, a marauder who was sitting on another marauder’s shoulder and a beaver-wearing marauder.

Soon all of the marauders in the town were petting each other.

‘Finn!’ the head marauder called. ‘You’re really mixing things up in the best of ways today!’

‘Maybe you can solve everyone’s problems,’ Jake, who was getting petted by an array of animals, remarked.

‘Okay, cool,’ Finn laughed. ‘I’m going to go tell the mountain.’

‘All right,’ Jake replied, feeling incredibly comfortable while sprawled on a sturdy log. ‘I’m gonna stay here this time.’

Mountain Man chuckled happily when Finn told him the good news.

‘So, everything’s fine this time, right?’ Finn asked nervously.

‘Yes,’ Mountain Man replied. ‘Thank you, Finn.’

Finn quickly returned to the village to fill Jake in on the success of the petting plan.

‘So the mountain is totally fine with everybody petting,’ Finn explained. ‘I feel great.’

‘Right on, man,’ Jake said while a pig petted his back. ‘The marauders are going crazy over the petting. Check them out.’

Finn eyed the petting marauders, but instead of feeling satisfied, he started to get worried. When Jake said they were going crazy over the petting, he really meant
CRAZY!
The marauders were petting each other so much that they were covered in sore spots.

‘They look kind of rashy,’ Finn noted.

‘Hey, Finn,’ the head marauder called to him. ‘Hey, man, as you can see, the petting got sort of out of hand. We’re going back to rough-housing.’

‘No, wait, fellas!’ Finn yelled. ‘The mountain doesn’t like rough-housing.’

‘Well, we don’t like not rough-housing,’ argued the head marauder. ‘You see the problem here?’

Finn considered the options. He wanted to solve Mountain Man’s problem, but he didn’t want to create a problem for the marauders.

‘Well, what if…’ Finn suggested. ‘What if…we rotate the entire mountain 180 degrees around, so the mountain is facing the other direction? That way you guys can keep rough-housing, and the mountain doesn’t have to watch it!’

‘Sounds fine with me,’ said the head marauder.

‘What do you say, Mountain?’ Finn shouted to Mountain Man.

‘That’s okay,’ Mountain Man called back. ‘All right, kids. Spin me the math around!’

Finn knew his plan was a good one, but he needed to figure out exactly how he was going to get it to work.

‘I just need some sort of pulley system,’ he said to himself. While Finn was thinking, a new voice came calling from the distance.

‘NO! OVER HERE!’
said the mountain that was located behind Mountain Man. ‘Don’t turn him around! If you do, then I’ll miss looking at his beautiful back!’

‘WHAT?’
Mountain Man gasped, intrigued. ‘Really?’

‘WHAT?’
Finn gasped, not intrigued at all. ‘Okay, um…maybe what we can do is…’