Scurvy Goonda (19 page)

“We’ve got to save him! He’s being forced into this marriage,” Ted explained. “That’s
not
my Scurvy.”

“Ted, Scurvy’s nuptials are the least of our problems,” said Dr. Narwhal.

“I’ll determine the importance of our problems,” said Joelle-Michelle, standing behind the fire. She turned to Ted.

“Walk with me,” she said.

“Is it possible to go aboveground?” said Ted, crumpling up the newspaper. “I need some air.”

“Come,” said Joelle-Michelle. She offered Ted her hand. “I know a place.”

With the wedding less than a week away, Persephone made the tough decision to move out of her apartment high above Ab-Com City and into the Presidential Palace. She had avoided this arrangement throughout her short term in office because she found the palace too drafty, and she could never quite warm up her bones while she was there. It was a strange-looking structure. Constructed of porous rock, it stood three stories tall and was formed in a square around a large central courtyard that was filled with citrus trees and flowering bushes.

“Cut
everything
down,” yelled Persephone from her balcony overlooking the courtyard. She had assembled a landscaping crew to rid the courtyard of all the plants prior to the wedding, but a tree-hugging type was refusing to cut down the redwood in the center of the courtyard.

“Just
do it
!” shouted Persephone. Chairs for thousands of guests needed to be set up! A dance floor needed to be installed! Where would the wedding band set up if there were lavender gardens and water lily ponds in the way? Couldn’t the landscapers see the
stress
Persephone was under? Did she need to have them all killed?

“Use a flamethrower!” she yelled. “Use an atomic bomb! I don’t care! Just get
rid
of those
plants!”

She stalked off the balcony and went back inside her
bedroom, puffing loudly from her nonexistent lungs. “Worthless! Bugslush!”

Bugslush rushed, shaking, into the room, his skinny possum tail dragging behind him.

“Y-y-y-y-y-y—” said Bugslush.

“The word is ‘yes,’” said Persephone. “Say it!”

“Y-y-y-y-y—”

“Oh forget it!” said Persephone. “Just bring in another three space heaters
immediately
—big ones that have some power. It’s
freezing
in here.”

“Y-y-y—”

“Away!” said Persephone, sending Bugslush hustling out of the room. She looked down at her feet.

“Scurvy!” she yelled.

No response.

“Scurvy!” she yelled. “My foot massage!”

She stepped back out onto her balcony. Beneath her, the landscaping crew toiled in the courtyard.

“Have you seen my Scurvy?” Persephone asked the land-scapers, who shook their heads silently.

I can’t plan this wedding ALONE!
thought Persephone.
Doesn’t he know how much this MATTERS to me?
She wished she had tear ducts so she could cry. Planning a wedding
and
an invasion—it was all so
much
.

Scurvy was also making plans. Just a few minutes before, he had made another escape attempt, this time by hiding in the truck the landscapers were using to haul away the foliage, ducking under a bushel of hydrangeas to cover his head. But the truck had barely rolled out of the palace driveway before it was besieged by guards who poked and stabbed the enormous pile of
dead plants. Scurvy was jabbed in the ribs and he caught the end of a pole in the eye.

“ALL RIGHT,” said Scurvy. “I’m coming out, I’m coming out!”

He wiped the dirt and leaves off his body and stepped out of the truck holding his hands above his head.

“Yar gotta stop dis,” said one of the guards, picking leaves out of Scurvy’s hair. “Yar lucky we like yar—if we told Persephone yar keep tryin’ to run, she wouldn’t be so forgivin’.”

“Why haven’t you turned me in?” said Scurvy.

“None of us would want tar marry Persephone either,” said the guard.

“I appreciate yer understanding,” said Scurvy.

“Let’s get yar spiffed up and back dere den,” said the guard.

A pair of guards whisked Scurvy away to the palace basement, where a brigade of dalmatians rinsed him with a fire hose. He was then delivered to a stylist, who tamed and blow-dried his hair, after which he was hustled to a menswear specialist, who outfitted him in a stylish seersucker suit. A few moments later, he was delivered to Persephone’s bedroom, all spick-and-span and perfect husband material.

“There
you are,” said Persephone.

“No, there
ya
are,” said Scurvy. “Always, always there. Right there in front of me, everywhere I go.”

“I was
calling
for you,” said Persephone, dangling her bony legs in the air. “My feet
hurt
and I’ve been under so much
pressure
.”

“I know, Poppy,” said Scurvy.

“Ploopsie.”

“Popsie.”

“Start with the left one,” said Persephone.

Scurvy bit the inside of his cheek and sat down on the bed. Persephone put her feet in his lap. Scurvy popped out the rocks and clumps of dirt that were stuck between the bones, and then began to rub them down, trying to make himself believe that he was rolling Cuban cigars instead of massaging Persephone’s revolting talons.

“Mmm,” said Persephone, “that feels
wonderful
!
”

“But ya don’t have any nerve endings,” said Scurvy.

“I know, but I can
imagine,”
said Persephone.

KNOCK-KNOCK!

“Bring the space heaters in and leave!” said Persephone. The door opened, but it wasn’t Bugslush.

“I’m sorry for interrupting, President Skeleton,” said a guardsman. “But one of the work crews is here with a prisoner. They’re saying she’s a murderer.”

“And why am I supposed to deal with this?” said Persephone. “I’m sure the work crew has its own notion of justice and can punish the prisoner accordingly.”

The guard nervously shifted his weight from foot to foot, to foot to foot. He had four feet.

“It’s just that the prisoner is … human, President Skeleton.”

“Human, as in, from Earth?” said Persephone.

“Precisely, yes,” said the guard. “Specifically, she says she is from Falmouth, which is a town somewhere on a peninsula called Cape Cod.”

Scurvy stopped massaging Persephone’s bones.

“Bring the prisoner in,” said Persephone.

The door closed and reopened.

“G-got th-the s-space h-heaters!” said Bugslush, out of breath, dragging the heavy radiators behind him.

“Not now, Bugslush!” said Persephone.

The guard shuffled the shackled girl into the room. She was obviously scared, but she held her head high and kept her posture straight.

Scurvy took one look at the prisoner and flipped Persephone’s feet off his lap, sending the president somersaulting on the bed.

“Carolina Waltz!” he shouted, thunderstruck.
“Here
is a monster if ever I’ve known one. Tha meanest girl in New England, this ‘un.”

“H-how do you know me?” said Carolina, looking at the strange man who was wearing a seersucker suit and a pirate hat.

“Yes, how do you know
her
?” said Persephone.

“This lass was tha tormentor of me Ted!” said Scurvy.

“Oh my,” said Carolina, stunned. “You’re Ted’s pirate.”

“She was all Ted ever wanted, this one,” said Scurvy, “and she treated him like something she’d just as soon scrape off shoes. Oh, tha gallows are too good for Miss Carolina Waltz, head executioner of Falmouth High School!”

“Well then,” said Persephone. “There doesn’t seem to be a question of what we should do with her.”

“No!” said Carolina. “Please, pirate—”

“It’s Sir Scurvy Goonda tah you!” said Scurvy.

“I’m sorry, Sir Scurvy Goonda, sir,” said Carolina. “The reason I came here, wherever I am, is because I was looking for Ted because I wanted to apologize to him.”

“A convenient yarn, considering yer current predicament,” said Scurvy. “Ya and I both know Ted is back on tha Cape, just
as ya and I both know that there is no room fer remorse in tha roach nest where your heart is supposed to be.”

It had been a long time since Persephone had seen Scurvy deal with a prisoner in such a manner. He was thrilling.

“PLEASE, Scurvy, sir,” said Carolina, babbling and on the verge of falling apart. “I came here because Ted has
vanished
. He’s not at school or anywhere in Falmouth. I went looking for him at the supermarket, and a disgusting man told me he was crushed in this machine they have that compacts cardboard, and I took a look inside it and found a passage and I ended up here and I think he might have come here too, and everything happened because I wanted to tell him I was sorry.”

Scurvy looked at Carolina for a long time.

“Space h-heater?” said Bugslush, interrupting the silence.

“Out, Bugslush!” said Persephone, sending the honey possum scurrying from the room.

“Persephone,” said Scurvy. “May I speak tah the prisoner alone fer a moment?”

“You may not—” started Persephone, but a look from Scurvy cut her short. “Oh, all right. But be quick about it. My right foot awaits.”

Persephone left the room with her guard. The door shut behind them.

Scurvy stared at Carolina.

“Ya think Ted might have gone through tha tunnel in tha Crusher as well?”

“The gross man in the soup aisle told me it was the last place he was seen,” sniffled Carolina. “I crawled and crawled. Incidentally, there was a lot of rotting bacon down there.”

Ted could have followed the bacon.

“Huh,” said Scurvy. “Me Ted’s in Middlemost.”

“I think so,” said Carolina.

Scurvy smiled.

“Why are you smiling?” said Carolina.

“Because,” said Scurvy. “It means he’s exactly where he needs tah be.”

Joelle-Michelle tiptoed her way through crowded caves as Ted attempted to keep pace, squeezing past the teeming hordes of ab-coms who were trying to find places to eat or converse or sleep for the night. He was smeared with slime and had been showered with sprinkles when he smacked into an enormous frozen yogurt. By the time Joelle-Michelle found the staircase she was looking for, he looked like he had rolled around on the ground at a petting zoo and then been attacked by a dessert truck.

When Joelle-Michelle finally turned to look at him, she couldn’t stop laughing. She, of course, was spotless.

“Your style is so
creative,”
she said. “And slime is good for the skin, I hear.”

“I got some in my mouth,” said Ted.

“Bon appétit!”
said Joelle-Michelle, walking up the staircase.
“Suivez-moi!
Follow me!”

Ted looked at her legs and forgot he was covered in glop. He followed those legs.

At the top of the steps, they emerged from the caves and were in a simple garden with a walkway, a few rosebushes, and a stone bench. Willow trees surrounded the garden, closing it in, though there was no canopy above to hide the night sky. Ted looked up and saw the same unfamiliar stars he had stared at the day he’d arrived.

“Here,” said Joelle-Michelle, handing him some leaves. “Clean your face.”

Ted wiped down his face as Joelle-Michelle sat on the bench. The garden was blissfully silent.

“This is my favorite place in Middlemost,” said Joelle-Michelle. “The circle of trees was already here when we found it. I just had a few rosebushes put in. It didn’t need anything else.”

“It’s really nice,” said Ted.

“It’s quiet,” said Joelle-Michelle. “I come here when I don’t know what else to do.”

Ted couldn’t imagine Joelle-Michelle not knowing what to do.

“I’m going to unpin my hair,” she said, reaching back to undo her ponytail. “Having it back so tight all the time, it gives me headaches.”

“A ballerina’s cross to bear,” said Ted, without having the faintest idea what he was talking about.

“That and weighing ninety-five pounds, wearing tights, and being considered over-the-hill at age twenty-five,” said Joelle-Michelle.

“So you’ll have another decade of peak performance.”

“I’m a hundred and twenty years old, Ted.”

“Wow. I mean, you must have taken excellent care of yourself.”

“Thank you for saying that,” said Joelle-Michelle. “But it’s simply how I was made. Eternally a teenage ballerina.”

“Who made you?” said Ted.

“Wished
for me is a better term, I think,” said Joelle-Michelle. “It was a French girl named Maryse. She had never been to a ballet, but there was an art gallery near the tiny apartment in
Paris she shared with her poor mother. She would look at the ballerina figurines in the front window, and one day she wished for me.”

“Why did you have to come to Middlemost?” said Ted.

“She didn’t need me anymore,” said Joelle-Michelle. “One Christmas an uncle bought her a pair of ballet slippers, and she could
be
her dream. So I came here.”

“Did she become a dancer?” asked Ted.

“I have no idea,” said Joelle-Michelle. “I wish I did. I cared very much about that little girl.”

Joelle-Michelle was staring down at her slippers. Ted didn’t know what he should say. The quiet of the garden felt over-whelming.

“Ted,” said Joelle-Michelle, “do you know why we’re sitting here?”

“You wanted to talk to me,” said Ted.

“Oui
, of course, there is that,” said Joelle-Michelle. “But you must have a suspicion
why.”

“It has something to do with what happened at the factory,” said Ted. “The opera singer.”

Joelle-Michelle nodded.

“May I see your arm?” she said.

He held out his left arm.

Joelle-Michelle took his wrist in her hand and ran her finger over the birthmark.

“I’ve never seen one up close before,” said Joelle-Michelle. “You keep this hidden?”

“It’s ugly.”

Joelle-Michelle looked at Ted.

“It makes you insecure, this mark?” she said.

“Sometimes.”

“You’re too handsome to be insecure. Don’t worry about this.”

Handsome.
Handsome?