THE ADVENTURES OF DALE AND FOXGLOVE: EPISODE SEVENTEEN: PERIL AT THE CENTER
OF THE EARTH!
by Jeff Wikstrom
One of the few things Dale ever regretted was not getting enough
sleep. He liked sleep, loved sleep. He needed sleep. But every so
often, and truth be told slightly more often recently, what with Foxy
and her sleep schedule and all, although there had always been late-
night television and marathons et cetera... every so often Dale didn't
get all the sleep he needed. "No matter how much sleep you get, you
can never get all the sleep." He'd said that once to Foxy (and she had
laughed, which was the idea) and it was, after all, true. Take last
night, for instance. Last night Dale had not gotten all the sleep he
would have liked. At the time it had not seemed like a big deal... but
back then, he hadn't known what he was going to be doing what he was
doing now.
At the moment he was clinging to the side of a deep shaft,
hanging on for dear life, and hoping Foxy would be able to find a rope-
or-something before his fingers went all numb and he fell to his death.
Nonetheless, morale remains high, he thought to himself. It was
just a bit of bad luck that kept them from returning home to the Tree
and going to their beds filled with the knowledge that they had done a
lot of Good and really made a nice, Rescue-Rangery kind of difference.
He was worried about the index finger and thumb on his left hand.
He used them more than most. They were always holding onto sandwiches
or pencils or things, and they might get tired before the others. On
the other hand, they were in better shape... "Any luck, Foxy?" he
asked. He couldn't hear her answer, coming from wherever she was, but
knew she could hear him, easily. "I'm kind of worried about this..."
Really, he ought to be able to just climb up. It was the kind of
thing he was expected to do, both as a Rescue Ranger and as a small
gnawing-type mammal. He'd tried it, sure, but the bricks gave him no
real purchase on the wall, and the crack in the mortar his hands were
currently jammed into wasn't very big. As near as he could tell he
wasn't in a very good position. But he trusted Foxy. She'd either
find him a piece of rope-or-something, or cry for months and months
about how much she had loved him and would miss him and all.
Nonetheless, he reminded himself firmly, morale remains high.
ROUGHLY EIGHT HOURS EARLIER
"Now that," Dale said empathetically as, Foxy on his arm, he
stepped out of the movie theater, "was a great movie!"
Foxglove smiled. "What did you like best?" It was a question
which she knew would keep him talking until they were back at the Tree.
"I liked the secretary." It had started to rain after all while they
were inside, so Dale opened the red-and-blue umbrella he'd borrowed
from Gadget for the occasion.
They'd just finished watching one of Dale's favorite films at the
local Midnite Friday Film Fest, a double handful of blocks from the
Tree. Foxglove, of course, could have flown back to the Tree in just a
few minutes, but then she wouldn't have been with Dale. The shortest
way back to the Tree was through a block of old commercial buildings,
once small and independently-owned storefronts, now an upscale walking
mall.
"The secretary? She was just a little gag! The best part was
Peter Sellers's speech at the end," Dale said authoritatively.
"'Someday I'm going to make you Mrs. General What's-his-face...'"
Foxglove smiled.
"'Animals will be bred and slaughtered!!'" Dale crowed, twisting
his voice into a vaguely German trill. "'Mein Fuehrer! I can walk!!'"
"Well," Foxglove said thoughtfully, "I don't think I really like
the idea of those poor animals being slaughtered -- Dale! I hear
something!"
Dale, who had been about to point out that the movie had ended
with global thermonuclear holocaust, closed his mouth and stayed as
quiet as he could while Foxglove closed her eyes and cocked her head,
listening. He wondered what she heard, but didn't say anything. Her
expression was slowly shifting from quizzical to extremely concerned.
"There's a little boy, probably a mouse. He's that way," Foxy
said, pointing a wing at one of the buildings which formed the alley
down which they walked. "And he's crying. And there's another person,
an older mouse I'm pretty sure, who is telling him to be quiet or he'll
hit him again, and the little boy says he wants his mother and the
older mouse says he'll never see his mother again and that his mother
doesn't love him and that he has to go and work and not see his
mother." Foxglove bit her lip and turned her wide eyes to Dale.
"Uh..."
Dale stood up straight, jutted his chin out and balled his hands
into fists. "Let's go!"
"Rescue Rangers, away!" Foxglove shouted excitedly. "They're
over on the other side of this store. I'll fly over, and meet you
there!"
Dale nodded, and ran off.
ABOUT A MINUTE LATER
"I told you to quit crying, kid," the gruff mouse said. He was
wearing a reddish pullover and a flat cap low over his eyes. His pulse
rate indicated that he was agitated, presumably by the crying child.
Angry, too. Foxglove's eyes narrowed.
She was perched on the fire escape, well above the two mice,
waiting for Dale to arrive so she could swoop down like a fiery angel
of righteousness. Listening to them talk, she was rapidly piecing
together the situation. Gruff-mouse had kidnapped boy-mouse and was
taking him forcibly to some kind of hideous underground sweatshop,
there to spend all his time making little wallets-or-something.
"I don't wanna go!" The little boy, who Foxglove suspected was
no more than eight on the outside (and probably closer to six) was
extremely agitated, bawling, et cetera. Dale had better hurry.
"Oh, good, there he is," Foxglove said out loud, and stepped off
the fire escape.
LESS THAN A SECOND LATER
Dale turned the corner into the alley on all fours, the umbrella
closed and between his teeth. He was running at top speed (which he
hated doing, both on the grounds that it involved a great deal of
physical exertion and that running on all fours made his butt stick
out) so Foxy wouldn't have to endure watching the described scene very
long. He kept close to the wall on one side, and arrived at the bit of
ground under the fire escape just as Foxy fell out of the sky and
landed on the larger mouse in a flurry and sweet-smelling heap.
"Gotcha!" he said to the, as predicted, little mouse-child who
had panicked and started running. Dale held him tightly and let the
kid calm down while Foxy scared the living bejeezus out of the older
mouse. Kid was soaking wet, but that was all right; the umbrella was
closed.
"Booga-booga! Booga-booga-boo!" Foxglove said in her most
frightening voice, waving her wings in the mouse's face.
"Okay okay okay I surrender I surrender!" he shouted. "Stop it
stop it stop it please!"
"You know," Foxy said conversationally as she helped the
trembling mouse to his feet and confirmed he was undamaged, "bats eat
insects, fruit, stuff like that. Not rodents."
"Uh-huh," the mouse said numbly.
"But that's beside the point," she added. "Now, how's about you
tell me just what you and little... uh..."
"Tibby, ma'm," little Tibby said.
"Of course. You and little Tibby: what's up with that, huh?"
Dale cried. "With the yelling and the, the..."
"Meanness!" Foxglove interjected. "Meanness! In this day and
age... it's a disgrace. I'm just having to wonder, now," she
continued, looking up at him and shaking her head, "I just wonder what
you really thought you were going to accomplish..."
The gruff mouse, who still hadn't identified himself, swallowed
back a rejoinder. Freebody considered his situation. One of his arms,
and his tail, were shaking of their own accord. Clinging tightly to
the chipmunk, little Tibby was staring at him with big, hurt-filled
eyes. And a bat was glaring at him, lecturing him on the evils he was
inflicting on the kid.
An SC$800 bounty wasn't worth this. "Okay, then," Freebody said
meekly. "I can see I've really gone wrong, fallen in with the wrong
crowd --"
"Are you being irreverent and... hiply ironic... at me?"
Foxglove's eyes narrowed, and her voice assumed a tone both deeply
wounded and deeply suspicious.
"No, ma'am!"
"Good. I hate hip irony." Foxglove heard Dale sigh inaudibly at
this (he kind of liked hip irony and irreverence, though admittedly
not when it was pointed at him) and quickly changed the subject. "What
are you up to, huh, you... mean person, you?!"
"Uh, well, then, uh..." Freebody thought desperately. He had to
put a positive spin on this. "I'm, uh... sort of... in, uh,
business..."
"You kidnap children for money?" Foxglove asked him.
"He what?!" Dale was so shaken he almost stopped comforting
little Tibby.
"I heard him, Dale." Foxglove's righteous anger was briefly
displaced by a desire to explain herself to Dale and maybe impress him
a little bit. "He was talking about how he was going to put the little
boy --"
"Tibby, ma'am."
"...Put little Tibby in a factory floor sweatshop sort of
thingy." Freebody chose this moment to make a run for it. His plans
were foiled when Foxglove grabbed him by the collar and he eventually
stopped.
Dale scratched his head. This was a lot to take in. "Gee,
that's pretty low, buddy."
"Freebody," Freebody muttered. "My name is Freebody."
"Freebody?" Dale couldn't let this one pass.
"My brother's name is Venn and my sister's name is Vectorina,"
Freebody spit.
"Vectorina? Foxy, make a note. Some mice have weird names."
Foxglove made a mental note, but didn't release Freebody. "What
should we do, Dale?" She was glad the mouse was cooperating; Foxglove
hated violence more than anything else in the world, even magic.
"Well..."
AROUND AN HOUR AND A HALF LATER
Dale slapped himself in the forehead. "Oh, man..."
"What? What's the matter?" Foxglove asked him.
They were lying flat on their stomachs, on the roof of a small
and rickety building someone had erected at the base of a storm drain.
Water rushed all around the building, but it remained tight below the
waterline. Light from streetlamps far, far overhead trickled down into
the factory through skylights. It was through one of these skylights
that the two Rescue Rangers peeked.
Below them, in the factory, without any regard for proper
bedtimes et cetera, a dozen small rodent-children (the usual mix of
mouse, chipmunk, and squirrel) were silently stitching large men's
wallets, several inches on a side. Five or six children were crowded
around each wallet, in a textbook example of violation of OSHA
regulations on workplace space and crowding. Three adult mice, ranging
from tall-and-thin to tall-and-fat, watched over them with beady eyes.
This was just the sort of thing the Rescue Rangers watched out for.
Well, this and mad scientists with earth-shattering inventions which
threatened the global balance of power. And overweight housepets who
wanted gold and jewels for no particular reason. And Widget. They had
to watch out for Widget...
Dale had come up with what he was fairly sure was a reasonably
clever plan. He would jump through one of the skylights, and rapidly
the three mice would be on him. Then Foxy would fly down with a rope-
or-something, and, with the three toughs distracted, tie them up no
problem.
He'd been forced to abandon that plan, however, when neither he
nor Foxy had been able to find a rope-or-something. Plan B was a
little riskier. He and Foxy would position themselves on either side
of the front door of the factory, on the little walkway built out of
Popsicle sticks. Then they would make some kind of racket (Dale hoped
he could make a noise like a Freebody), and when the mice came up the
short flight of stairs inside and out onto the wharf -- they would do
this one at a time, hopefully -- they would hit them on the head with
the umbrella and/or Popsicle sticks they'd pried loose.
Something had been nagging him about this plan ever since he'd
proposed it and Foxy had unquestioningly agreed. As they made their
final preparations and started to psych themselves up, it hit him.
Dale wasn't the Rescue Ranger who usually did things like this.
Normally it was Monty.
Then he realized what else had been bothering him. No Chip, no
Gadget, no Monty, no Zipper. Just him and Foxy. And he was in charge.
If Dale messed up, then Foxy would pay, too. And there wouldn't be
anyone to bail them out. He could have gone back to the Tree with
little Tibby, either woken everybody up or told them about it in the
morning, and followed Freebody's directions and found the factory and
raided it in force. Heck, he could have, instead of letting Freebody
go with a stern warning, dragged him back to the Tree, there to spill
his guts before the collected team.
Could have, didn't. Dale made an executive decision. He turned
to Foxy and smiled nervously. He didn't want her to know he'd messed
up; he couldn't tell her they ought to turn around and go back.
"Nothing, Foxy. Let's do this." Still, he wished Monty were there.
Foxglove could hear that Dale was worried, both from his tone and
from the flow of humours through his body. But, after all, there was
plenty to be worried about, wasn't there? She had never done anything
quite like this before; were she with any other Ranger, she would have
suggested they radio for backup. (Although they didn't have a radio or
a backup, exactly, she thought getting the rest of the team from the
Tree about counted.)
But, of course, Dale knew exactly what he was doing, so...
"Right, sweetie."
FIVE MINUTES LATER
Dale wasted no time in dropping his makeshift umbrella-club and
grabbing the stunned mouse. Tall-and-Thin Thug Number One, stunned as
he was by the twin blows to the back of the head, proved no trouble in
a quick rolling-him-off-the-wharf maneuver. Into the fast-moving water
Tall-and-Thin Thug Number One was plunged, the splash drowned out by
the noisy current.
"I hope he wasn't hurt too bad," Foxy said as she dropped her
Popsicle-stick onto the wharf and watched the thug. He was washed
rapidly downstream, floating blissfully on his back while struggling
uselessly against the current.
"Ssh!" Dale made a shushing gesture, then pointed to the
factory. According to Dale's Clever Plan for Rescuing the Children, the
next thing that was supposed to happen was Tall-and-Fat Thug was
supposed to come out looking for Tall-and-Thin Thug Number One, so they
could bonk him over the head. This would leave only Tall-and-Thin Thug
Number Two inside to deal with. Tall-and-Thin Thug Number One had
closed the door behind him just before Dale and Foxglove had hit him,
so the mice inside shouldn't know what had happened.
Foxy hushed, and they waited for a bit.
"I don't think he's coming out," she whispered.
"What does it sound like?" Dale whispered back.
Foxglove concentrated. The noise of the rushing water, just a
short distance below, coupled as it was with the smooth, rounded walls
of the storm drain, was making her hearing far less sensitive. But she
could hear a dozen small bodies pressed up against the far wall of the
factory. And one of the grown mice. She was pretty sure she couldn't
hear the other one. It was hard to be certain.
Dale's mind started racing when she relayed this information.
What, he thought desperately, would Superman do? Something involving
use of one of his many super-powers, probably. Batman was almost as
bad. Robin. What would Robin do? If Robin were being assisted by,
let's say, Flamebird. The Flamebird from "Titans West." Dale mentally
reviewed everything he could remember about Robin and Flamebird and how
they might behave in this kind of situation. Still, he wished Chip
were there.
"Okay," he muttered. "Foxy, fly up onto the roof and look down
and see what they're doing, then come back here to me, okay?"
"Gotcha." Foxglove nodded and silently flew up a foot, onto the
roof of the factory.
Dale watched her go, up and out of sight over the edge. Then
someone tapped him on the shoulder.
"Excuse me," someone behind him said.
Dale sighed and screwed his eyes shut. He knew what was going to
happen. He would turn, and then the mouse Foxy hadn't heard inside
would punch him in the face. Dale would get punched in the face, and
he would fall to the wooden flooring. Then the mouse would say some
kind of quip, and Dale, stunned, would slowly rise to his feet. Then
Foxy would rescue him.
Dale had watched plenty of action comedies; he could spot a setup
like this from a good long way off. So, instead of putting his head
where the mouse's fist was going to go, the chipmunk ducked down
towards where the mouse's stomach probably was, extended both arms
outward, and squeezed what he felt as hard as he could.
"Oof!" His attempt at genre convention ruined, Tall-and-Thin
Thug Number Two doubled over, then fell down. Simultaneously, Dale
rolled to the side, out of Number Two's area of fall. A swift kick,
and Number Two joined Number One in the wash of rainwater. Dale
watched him float away.
Dale hummed a few bars of "Bad" under his breath as he rubbed his
hands together excitedly, and looked around for Foxglove. No Foxglove.
He looked around the wharf again.
Still no Foxglove. He stepped back, so as to check the roof of
the Popsicle-stick building. Nope.
He checked the spot where he'd been standing a moment before. No
good.
Surely she hadn't snuck inside while he was distracted by the
mouse trying to kill him. And she wouldn't have flown off without him.
He'd need to think about this for a minute, and he was starting to get
a headache.
FIFTY-FIVE SECONDS LATER
Foxglove's mind was going around in little tiny circles. She'd
been up on the roof, watching what was happening down below, when she'd
snapped. One of the little mouse-children was acting up, and the last
thug -- who, she was a little relieved to hear, had a nice simple name,
Lox -- had started slapping her around...
Well, she'd burst through the skylight, and landed on Lox, and
waved her wings at him and said booga-booga-booga, and... it hadn't
worked. Lox knew all about bats, darn it. She'd frightened the kids,
though. Darn it to heck, she thought, and chastised herself for strong
language.
She didn't know how to fight, and anyway she didn't really want
to, so she quietly allowed Lox to overpower her and tie her up. She'd
tried calling out to Dale, who was still 'outside,' but she didn't want
to give away his position to her new hated enemy, Lox. So she'd called
out with sonar, which he probably couldn't hear, but it was worth a
shot.
Lox brandished his knife, made from a sharpened sliver of
aluminum off a soda can. "Stay quiet!" he hissed to Foxglove and the
children, sounding kind of like Jack Nicholson. The door at the top of
the stairs, which led out to the little pier, was slowly opening.
Dale's headache got better as soon as Foxglove stopped emitting
high-frequency sounds. He tried to decide what the cliche was for
going into obvious danger: head first, backwards, what? He almost
crawled in, but then he remembered he'd done that against Thug Number
Two.
Aw, heck. He strode confidently forward, chin held high, and
fell down the stairs. He'd forgotten the floor inside was even with
the bottom of the rainwater-river outside.
"And check it out," Lox said to no one in particular. "It's
Batgirl's boyfriend, come to make like a white knight and do a little
rescuing." He kept the pointy end of the knife aimed at Dale's head.
"Heh. You sound like Christian Slater," Dale said amiably,
rubbing his head. "You okay, Foxy?" he asked when he saw her.
Foxglove nodded, and shrugged helplessly. "I kind of jumped the
gun," she said apologetically.
"Aw, that's okay," Dale said, hoping to cheer her up. "I make
mistakes like that all the time, honest."
"Oh, Dale, that's sweet of you to say..."
"Excuse me! Mouse with weapon here!" Lox advanced on Dale, who
was now sitting cross-legged on the floor of the factory. "I'm in
charge here!"
"Oh, right, yeah. You want I should tie myself up?" Dale
offered. He scanned the room, able to see things much more clearly
down here than through the skylight above. Hmm. Skylight busted open.
Only one room in the building, this one. The children were sitting
fairly quietly against the far wall -- scared out of their wits,
probably. Foxy was tied to a table with some thread. A stack of
partially-completed wallets filled one corner. And there was a big
mouse, wearing an orange bobble hat and sweatshirt, pointing a
sharp bit of metal at him. On the whole, things could be worse.
"Uh, yeah." Lox appeared to be trying to think. "Are you trying
something?"
"Naw, not really," Dale said sadly. "You've really got me at a
real disadvantage, what with your little knife and me sitting down and
Foxy tied up over there and all..."
Foxglove frowned as she listened attentively. What Dale was
saying and what the noises his body was making were saying weren't the
same things. Dale was talking about how they didn't stand a chance, and
his body was talking about how everything would be fine in half an
hour. It was confusing, sort of like listening to Gadget or Widget and
their bubbles.
"Yeh," Lox said. "Don't you forget it, either!" He waved his
knife around a little more.
"So," Dale said as he glanced around. "Got any rope?"
"Uh..." Lox bit his lip.
"There's the thread over here, on me," Foxglove offered
helpfully.
"Hey, yeah. Or you could take apart one of the wallets," Dale
pointed out. "One would make for enough thread, I betcha."
"Shaddap!" Lox evidently didn't want to compromise the
structural integrity of his wallets. Sweat beaded on his forehead as
the thug tried to think. "Get over by the bat and untie her, then tie
yourself and her up together."
Dale shrugged. "If you say so." He rose and nonchalantly walked
over to Foxglove. "Hey, uh, guy," he said over his shoulder as he
examined the rope.
"Yes?" Lox asked icily.
"You really did a number on tying Foxy here up -- can I borrow
the knife for a second? I don't think I can work these knots." Dale
struggled to keep his voice even. Please, please, please...
"But Dale," Foxglove protested, "if he gave you the knife then...
oh! Oh! Oh!" She giggled excitedly, understanding what her handsome
genius of a boyfriend was playing for.
"Huh? Oh, yeah, sure. Hold on a second." Lox walked over to
Dale and handed him the knife. "Here, see, you have to hold it right
or it'll bite into your hand..."
"You mean like this?" Dale brandished the knife. It was really
cool, just like he'd hoped. "Oh, it's a horrible weapon." He thrust
it at an imaginary foe. "'In the end,'" he intoned solemnly, "'there
can be only one, or three at the absolute most.'" He winked at
Foxglove, who giggled.
"No, no," Lox interrupted. "It's not a sword -- you need to get
your elbow into it. Like this." He stepped behind Dale, grasping his
wrist like a tennis instructor.
Life with Dale was an endless cavalcade of wonder, Foxglove
mused. Here he was, distracting their enemy like a pro, absorbing all
his attention, leaving her free to... uh... darn it, something.
Something, something, something...
"Psst!" she whispered to the nearest child, a little boy-
chipmunk. He was watching Dale and Lox with rapt attention. "Psst!"
she tried a little louder. He finally noticed her.
"Yus?" he hissed as he leaned over to her.
"What's your name? I'm Foxglove," she whispered. It was
important to get off on the right foot.
"Butch," he whispered.
"Hi there, Butch, I'm pleased to meet you," she whispered, as
friendly as she could be under the circumstances. "Can you bite
through some of these knots tying me to this here table?"
"Uh, m'kay," Butch said doubtfully. He stood up and walked
slowly towards the table to which Foxglove was tied. "Where should I
start?" he asked, scratching his head.
"Anywhere!" Foxglove said, a little abruptly. "Just quickly,
please!"
"Well..."
Butch had leaned over the big knot by Foxglove's left shoulder
and was about to take a big bite out of it when Lox suddenly remembered
to check on his prisoners and ended the impromptu lesson.
"Hey! What kind of cleverness have we got going on here, huh?"
he spat. "Sit back down, you little squirse!"
"I'm not a squirse!" Butch said defiantly, but sat back down
nonetheless.
"Well, thanks for the lesson, anyway," Dale said. He sighed.
"Yeh, sure. Now, let's see about getting you tied up..."
TEN MINUTES LATER
Lox and his two prisoners and his stable of child labor marched
through the tunnel. It was dark, but Lox had a homemade-looking
flashlight hat. In fact, he had three of them, and distributed the
others to two of the children. They were marching in a line: first the
children, then Foxglove, then Dale, with Lox bringing up the rear.
Both Dale and Foxglove were tied up from the waist up, leaving their
legs free for walking. Neither knew where they were going, but the
children seemed to have a destination in mind, and Lox was making sure
they followed along.
"Did I ever tell you how the storm drains and pipes and stuff
mess up my hearing?" Foxglove asked Dale.
"Mmm..." Dale mulled this over. "Couple of times, yeah."
"Well, it does."
"Uh huh," Dale said absently. He was wondering why the children
didn't try to rush Lox, in a madcap comic wacky scene like in a kid's
movie.
Foxglove misinterpreted his inattention as irritability. "Sorry.
I just think it bears repeating." When Dale didn't respond, she added
"Just trying to make conversation."
"Huh? Sorry, what was that, Foxy?"
"No talking!" Lox hissed.
"Right, right, sorry." They marched along in silence for a
while. Down a little slope, through a big empty tank, left at a
fork...
"Where are we going?"
"No talking!"
"Sorry, I forgot."
Left at one fork, then right, then left again, then left...
"Hey," Dale observed. "It's been raining all day. Why isn't
this all flooded, like the channel with the factory?"
"Hm? Oh, that's because of the... hey! No talking!" Lox shoved
Dale from behind.
"I'm sorry, I forgot again. Guess I just have a lot on my mind."
"I think that's understandable, honey," Foxglove reassured him.
"I mean, we're prisoners and we don't know where we're going and anyway
it's all my fault..."
"Aw, it's not your fault, Foxy! It's not."
"Yes, it is," Foxglove insisted. "If I hadn't burst in we could
have taken Lox down together, like we did Freebody, and..."
"No, it's not your... Lox!" Dale turned around. "Tell Foxglove
it's not her fault!"
Lox was starting to get tired of these two. "Oh, all right.
Foxglove, I was able to defeat you both not because of anything foolish
either of you did, but because I am a superior being to you two
losers."
"Feel better, Foxy?" Dale asked hopefully.
"A little," Foxglove sighed. "Can I have a hug?"
"Fine, fine, if it'll shut you up. Hey! Thirty-second break!"
Lox called to the children in front. After the procession ground to a
halt, the thug stepped forward and gave Foxglove a quick hug.
"Uh, thanks," Foxglove said when he finished. "But I kind of
meant from, you know, Dale."
"Oh." Lox cast his eyes down to the ground, a little embarrassed.
"I should have guessed." The children suppressed giggles.
"Hey, uh, could you help me out a bit here, with my armed being
bound and all?" Dale asked.
"Oh, right." Lox pulled out his little knife and cut Dale's
bonds. "There you go."
"Thanks." Dale gave Foxglove a warm hug.
"Uh, Lox? Little help? I'd like to be able to hug Dale back..."
"Sure, sure..." Lox sighed -- these two! -- and cut Foxglove's
bonds as well. "Better?"
"Much," Foxglove said as she melted into Dale's arms.
"Ooooooh," said all the children in unison, until Lox made them
quit.
A few seconds later, Lox coughed politely. "Can we get going
now?" he asked.
"Right, right," Dale said, disengaging. "Let's go."
As they started marching again, Lox couldn't shake the feeling
that he had forgotten something, but couldn't think what.
"That was very clever, Dale," Foxglove whispered.
"What was?" Dale whispered innocently.
Foxglove giggled.
TWENTY MINUTES LATER, MORE OR LESS -- IT'S HARD TO JUDGE TIME DOWN IN
THE STORM SEWERS
Dale had one word. "Wow!"
They had emerged from the tunnels to a large, vaulted chamber,
possibly a disused pumping station or something like that, Dale didn't
really know. He stopped at the entry-way and looked down into the
room. At the bottom of a flight of stairs were indications of
activity: a sort of ranch house and several outbuildings. They were
all made from Popsicle sticks and caulk, like the "factory" above.
Various pieces of junk lay strewn around the concrete floor, and a
dozen candle-ends provided illumination.
"Hey, keep moving," Lox ordered. He prodded Dale lightly with
his knife, and the chipmunk raised his hands in the air and nodded.
The children must have been here before, Foxglove observed; they
scarcely paused when the room came into view, and started on down the
stairs to the building.
"So what's up with all this?" Foxglove asked as they followed.
"I could have sworn I said something about no talking," Lox said
meaningfully.
"Aw, c'mon," Dale protested. "We've reached your incredible
stronghold. Now you're supposed to fill us in on your incredible plan.
Then you put us in some kind of elaborate deathtrap and head off to
carry out your evil whims! Do the pre-reading, for heaven's sake!"
"No, no, no," Lox said dismissively. "I'm the
henchman-slash-trusted-lieutenant, not the mastermind," he pointed out
(actually, he was exaggerating his position, but Lox figured they
wouldn't know). "The boss will fill you in, I figure."
"Boss? Aw, man..." Dale went over the list in his head.
Definitely not Nimnul, of course; it wasn't his style. Fat Cat
wouldn't have mice for henchmen, and besides he was out of town. Rat
Capone, maybe? He hoped it was Rat Capone. He'd beaten Rat Capone
before. "Is it Rat Capone?"
"Who?" Lox asked blankly. "No, no, it's... well, you'll see."
"Great," Dale muttered as the group approached the little house.
He looked around for anything he could use to escape: there was a lot
of Popsicle sticks (left over from construction?) and random bits of
junk just laying around. If Gadget were around, she could have made
some mecha or a hovercraft or something out of them in a handful of
seconds, but she wasn't. He also counted five other adult mice, all
big ones with leering smiles, lolling around.
Foxglove could hear that Dale was worried. She smiled at him,
hoping to signal her boundless optimism and total faith in him. He
smiled back, but she could tell he was still upset.
Once near the compound, Lox barked an order and the children
hurried off to one of the outbuildings, which seemed to be their
quarters. "Okay," he said to Dale and Foxglove. "Now you two get to
meet the boss." He cackled evilly.
"Okay," Foxglove said.
"Looking forward to it," Dale agreed.
Scowling, Lox led the duo into the largest building. The first
room seemed to take about half the space available in the
building, and was full of tables made from empty boxes of kitchen
matches. There were also three more guards inside, Dale noticed, and
also a heck of a lot of little pieces of jewelry, old coins, et
cetera, heaped on the tables. Lots of Staten City dollars, too. It
sure looked like a Rat Capone operation...
"So where's the boss?" he asked impatiently. "The sooner he
fills me in on his plan, then leaves me for dead, so I can rescue
everyone and so on, the better."
"Right in here," Lox said, shoving him through a doorway into
another room.
This room actually looked livable -- there were several chairs
made from scraps of wood, a bit of carpeting, and Sugar Ray Lizard,
looking very pleased with himself as he leafed through a Big Little
Book.
"Who are these two?" he asked Lox angrily. "They're too big to
work!"
"They attacked the wallet works, sir," Lox said meekly. "They
got rid of Bela and Nat. I was barely able to capture them."
"Sugar Ray! How are you doing?" Foxglove asked excitedly.
The lizard shook his head. "And you are?"
"Foxglove," she said, graciously forgiving him for forgetting her
name. "And this is Dale."
"Oh, yeah, I remember this one -- the cross-dressing, um,
transvestite," Sugar Ray said as he set down his book.
"Cross-dressing?" Foxglove turned to Dale, confused.
"Not now, Foxy," Dale said with emphasis. "So, you're in charge
here?" he asked Sugar Ray.
"Yep," the anole said, smirking. "I worked under Rat Capone long
enough to get the hang of criminal masterminding, and now I've struck
out on my own."
"Hey," Foxglove protested. "You promised Gadget you'd stay
good!"
Sugar Ray shrugged. "I guess I'm just a bad little boy."
Lox cleared his throat.
"Hm? Oh, yes, Rye, you can go."
"Lox, sir," the thug said.
"Whatever," Sugar Ray said dismissively and waved him away.
"These two are professional do-gooders. They're too smart to try
anything, here in my stronghold."
"I wouldn't count on that," Foxglove said slyly.
Dale tapped his foot, eager to move the plot along as quick as
possible. "So what's your game, Sugar Ray? Recruiting an army of
slaves, like your old boss?"
"Oh, no," Sugar Ray said. "Feel free to have a seat, by the way,
while I explain my plan."
"Cool," Dale said, and sat down. Foxglove, slightly confused,
sat next to him. Suddenly Dale slapped his forehead. "Shoot!"
"What's the matter, honey?"
"We should have gotten away from Lox after he untied us and
forgot to tie us back up again!" Dale shook his head. "I feel so
dumb," he muttered.
"Aw, honey," Foxglove said. "It didn't even occur to me! I
thought you were just trying to make us more comfortable..."
"You know, Chip would have thought of that right away..."
"Don't talk like that!"
"Hello? Villain about to spill his guts? Over here?" Sugar Ray
scowled at the two of them.
"Right, right," Dale said. "I guess if we'd gotten away early,
we wouldn't be following the script."
"There you go," Foxglove said encouragingly.
Sugar Ray cleared his throat and began. "After I escaped the
employment of Rat Capone, I wandered the storm sewers aimlessly for a
bit. Then I traveled cross-country as a roadie for a small band of
bugs, who did covers of hits of the Sixties... they were too small to
carry their instruments around, see. I was forced to leave my new job,
though, when one bug got in a disagreement with the others and the band
broke up and I ate one of them... well."
Dale was a little disturbed to see Foxglove nod sympathetically.
"So there I was, alone in Little Rock, without so much as two
dead beetles to rub together. I decided then and there that I'd never
take orders again, not from bugs, not from food, not from Rat Capone.
I headed west, to Arizona -- I'm not allowed to talk about that -- but
the upshot is I ended up back here, in New York, with three boxes of
tongue depressors.
"I used the techniques I'd seen so many times before to recruit a
band of worthy followers, like Whassisname, Cream-cheese, who you met.
We made a few deals, and now we're in the sweatshop business. We get
raw materials, mostly leather and stuff, and we have them made into
purses and wallets and things up above, so we don't need to move them
all the way down here and back. They get sold on the street for cheap,
and we convert the funds into durable goods, then into Staten dollars."
Foxglove raised a wingtip. "How do you get them sold?" she
asked.
"That's a smart question, Foxglove," Sugar Ray said, sounding
inordinately proud of himself. "I have a couple of humans on the
payroll. I don't see them in person," he added quickly. "They get
their orders over email. I use the computers at the public library, at
night."
"Clever," Dale admitted.
"Yep. Of course, I use slave labor to keep costs down. Children
work best, because they're easily intimidated... been taking orders all
their lives, right? There was a little trouble at first, but we beat
'em into line." Sugar Ray leaned back and grinned.
"Aren't you a little worried about, you know, being incredibly
horribly terribly just way too much for words evil and all?" Foxglove
asked.
"Nah. I'm more worried about attracting Sewer Al's attention.
Considers the whole underground property, after all; probably think I'm
trespassing. Sewer Al frightens me. But I've been lucky so far. Do
you have any more questions?"
"I don't think so, no," Dale said. Foxglove shook her head. "So
what now?"
"Well..."
"I was thinking tying us up in a storm pipe that doesn't have any
flow right now. Then when the rainwater comes through, we'd drown,"
Dale suggested.
"Hmm... a good old-fashioned deathtrap. Sounds good to me,"
Sugar Ray said. "Let's get to it."
TWO HOURS LATER
Things were definitely moving ahead, Dale thought as he stared up
at the inside of the pipe. Now he just had to escape, make his way
back to the compound, free the slave-children, and get back to the tree
for breakfast. Piece of cake.
"Dale?" Foxglove asked behind him. They were tied back-to-back,
in sitting positions, so she couldn't see his face. She could hear the
blood coursing through his veins, of course, but that wasn't quite the
same. "What now?"
"Uh, give me a second to think," Dale said. "Have we got
something to cut the string with? I should have brought that spy
equipment suit thingy I made. It had a little cutting blade on it...
oh, well."
"There's your teeth," Foxglove suggested.
"Hmm... no good; I can't reach anything with my mouth. I wonder
if they did that on purpose or if it's just bad luck," he mused.
"Maybe it's because I've used that trick before too many times."
"Not lately," Foxglove pointed out. "I mean, I tried to get
little Butch --"
"Who?"
"One of the children at the wallet-place. A chipmunk. I tried
to get him to eat my bonds, but it didn't work out."
"Hmm. It's probably just bad luck." Dale sighed. "So, what
else can we use?"
They both looked around. The interior of the pipe was smooth,
with no sharp edges for cutting. There weren't any pieces of glass or
anything, either. And it was dark, almost too dark to see, though a
little indirect light was coming from nowhere in particular.
There was a long pause. Dale wished he had a utility belt.
"Wait a minute," he said. "Did they remember to tie us up from
the waist down after they walked us in here?"
"Hey, no, they didn't!" Foxglove replied excitedly.
"Then we can just stand up and walk out!"
"Right!"
"On three... one... two... three!" They both began to struggle.
Nothing happened.
"Hmm," Dale said after a few seconds.
"Maybe if we push against each other with our backs?" Foxglove
suggested.
That didn't work, either.
"Darn it," Dale said. "It seemed like a good idea."
Foxglove almost nodded sadly, then remembered Dale couldn't see
her, so she sighed mournfully instead.
"Oh!" she said, struck with a thought. "Maybe we can scoot along
the bottom of the pipe!"
"Hey, that's an idea," Dale said. "Here, you're lighter than I
am, so let's twist around so that you're facing the direction of the
compound. Then you lift your legs up, and I'll push us along with my
legs. You'll have to steer."
They began to struggle, twisting in the same direction.
"No, no," Dale said. "You go left, and I go right."
"Whose left?"
"Oh, never mind. Just... yes... like that. Good. Here we go."
At last they were able to begin moving.
"Oh, how clever!" Foxglove said. It was kind of fun, sliding
along on her bottom. "A little bit to the left, Dale. My left.
Your... right."
"Uff," Dale grunted. It was hard work.
"I hope we can find something with a sharp edge to cut the
string," Foxglove added.
"Me... umph... too..."
TEN MINUTES LATER
"I'm... about... ready... to take a... break... Foxy," Dale said,
panting.
"Okay," Foxglove said. They slid to a stop.
Dale sighed contentedly, glad to be in a magic land of no-
scooting-along-ground-with-legs, however briefly.
"I'd get you a drink of water, or a pillow, or, you know,
something like that," Foxglove said over her shoulder. "But I'm tied
up."
"That's okay, Foxy," Dale said.
"Your heart rate is going down nicely," she offered after a
pause. "Comfy?"
"Sure."
"I bet it goes back up, though," Foxglove said sadly. "I'm
sorry."
"It's not your fault," Dale said automatically. "Why do you
think it's about to go back up?"
"Because I'm going to have to tell you about the roaring,
rushing, water-splashing kind of noise coming from up-pipe." She
sighed again.
"Oh, dear." He could hear it too, now. "What kind of noise
would you call that?"
"It's the sound of an overflow pipe getting filled and sending
rainwater further down towards the, what's the word, exhaust?
Exhaust," Foxglove said authoritatively.
"Oh, here it comes," he said gloomily. "I can see it."
"Where? Oh, right, behind me..." She braced for impact. It
didn't sound bad, yet.
"It's just a trickle," Dale said. "Ooh, chilly. Feel that?"
"Uh-huh. I guess it'll get worse pretty soon."
"Yeah... hey, Foxy? How buoyant are you? Maybe we can float
along."
"What if we tumbled over, and one of us was on top and one of us
was on bottom and the one that was on bottom couldn't breathe and the
one that was on the top tried and tried but couldn't get air to the
one on bottom and the one on bottom drowned?"
"Well," Dale admitted, "that would be bad."
"It's getting louder," Foxglove observed. "We'd better do
whatever quickly."
"Yeah -- here, let's start scooting again," Dale said. "Lift
those legs..."
Foxglove couldn't resist crying 'whee!' as they slid down the
tunnel. The wet pipe was slick, and the water was fast-moving. They
were starting to pick up speed, skimming along.
"This isn't going to end well," Dale muttered as he kicked them
along.
"Why not?" Foxglove asked over her shoulder. "We're really
making much better time, now."
"It's been a really long stretch since the last action sequence
or plot development," Dale explained. He'd forgotten Foxy could hear
him mutter.
"I think you're taking the whole drama thing too seriously,"
Foxglove protested. "Oh! Quick quick quick right! Right! Your
right! Right now!"
"Gotcha." Dale banked hard to the right, and saw a nasty-looking
clump of sewer ooze or something slide past to his left. "I'm telling
you, it's worked so far," he continued. "Something bad is going to
happen, any second now."
"You're such a mister frowny face," Foxglove chided, and giggled.
"Left!"
Dale steered around another patch of muck. "Are we getting
anywhere?" he asked.
"Sure, we... uh-oh," Foxglove trailed off, and Dale could feel
her shoulder muscles tensing up. "Uh, up? Over? Backwards?"
"Foxy?"
"Ooh, now we're in trouble. Brace for impact!"
"What?"
Suddenly the pair plowed into a mess of debris partially blocking
the pipe: twigs, Styrofoam cups, part of an old issue of Cosmopolitan,
all melded together into a loose conglomerate of trash which allowed
water through but blocked rodents. It wasn't actually at all that
painful; the massed junk flexed slightly and assimilated them into the
collective, adding their uniqueness to its own. Dale ended up in a
relatively high place, up near a round plastic lid that had once kept
coffee from spilling out of the cup.
"You okay, Foxy?" he asked over his shoulder.
"Sure! Hey! Look!"
"I can't see anything but the top of the pipe, Foxy."
"Oh, sorry. There's a broken aluminum can, right by me! We can
cut ourselves free with it!" Foxglove was pelted with a number of
conflicting emotions. Pleased, because they had to get untied-together
to save the children. Disappointed, because she kind of enjoyed the
closeness only being tied together could bring to a relationship. And
embarrassed, because she hadn't detected the can before with her
echolocation.
Whoops, Dale was talking. "How can we get down to it?" he asked.
"We're kind of stuck up here."
"Um... the water level is rising, too."
FORTY-FIVE MINUTES OF HARD WORK LATER
"Man, that tired me out," Dale said. "Let's take a break." He
stretched and tried to think of something funny about being tied to
Foxglove and risking drowning. He came up with a dozen different
lines, but none of them seemed very good; he was very tired indeed. "I
think we're pretty near the compound," he added. "Hear anything?"
They were in an innocuous stretch of pipe, a short stretch from
the morass of material which had freed them, otherwise just like the
hundreds of other lengths of pipe in the system. It was very dark; the
only light came from those same vague, indirect sources he'd noticed
before. There wasn't any water in this pipe, which was a plus.
Something about the way the dull metal shone seemed familiar, however,
and Dale believed they had been marched through here before, when Sugar
Ray Lizard was sending them to a watery grave.
"Mmm, no," Foxglove said after cocking her head for a second.
"It's probably me, though."
"Well, let's come up with a plan of attack," Dale said. It was
what the other Rangers would want to do.
"Okay... um, how?" This was outside Foxglove's range of
experience.
"Uh, I don't really know... we need to get the children out,
right? But there's probably a bunch of them. I got the impression
that there was more than just the one workshop, and there were a dozen
kids working in that one. So there's going to be a lot of kids to
move, and it'll be real... uh, what's the word..."
"Hard? Tough? Confusing? Chaotic?"
"Chaotic, that's it. So we definitely won't want any of Sugar
Ray's mice, bothering us. Or Sugar Ray, for that matter. I don't mean
we don't want them bothering Sugar Ray..."
"I understand," Foxglove said, nodding.
"I mean we don't want them OR Sugar Ray bothering us. Okay.
That means we have to contain the whole bunch of them."
"No fighting," Foxglove said. "I know you could take them all
down if you needed to, of course," she added, "but I don't think
violence is good."
"Right," Dale agreed quickly. "I wish Gadget were here," he said
after a moment's consideration. "She's good at coming up with
distractions."
"Well, what does she do? Let's do that," Foxglove suggested.
"Aw, we can't built a killer robot from Popsicle sticks," he
protested. "We aren't touched."
"Oh, yeah," she said. "Shoot."
"All right," Dale said as he began pacing. "What would Batman do
in this situation?"
"I don't know," offered Foxglove.
"Hm? Don't worry, Foxy; I'm talking to myself." Dale wiped his
damp brow. "Uh, maybe he would set up some kind of strange noise in
some side tunnel or something. Then all the thugs would go check it
out..."
"And we could trap them in there?" Foxglove asked.
"Right!" Dale grinned. Coming up with a plan wasn't that hard
after all.
Foxglove closed her eyes and tried to visualize it. "Wait a
second, honey. How can we be sure that they'd all go down the tunnel
together? Wouldn't they just send one or two?"
"Gee, I don't know. You think?" Dale asked uncertainly.
"Wouldn't you?" Foxglove replied. "But it's a good way to get
rid of one or two of them," she added encouragingly.
"Yeah, yeah. Batman would sneak in and scare Sugar Ray Lizard
into giving up," Dale mused. "He's not scared of us, though... Okay,
who else is smart?"
"Gadget and Widget and Chip and you are all smart," Foxglove
pointed out.
Dale cleared his throat and mulled this over. "Gadget would
build something out of rubber bands and Popsicle sticks... there's no
way we can duplicate that," he said firmly. "Widget would... hm, I
guess, IF Widget wanted to rescue the children, which is kind of a big
leap right there, she would assemble a commando team and fight her way
in to Sugar Ray Lizard, then violently intimidate him into surrendering
to her."
"Oh, ick," Foxglove muttered.
Dale nodded, although he thought it would be fun to watch, but
not participate in. "Chip would... he would... he'd probably go get
some help. Which we can't do, because that would --"
"Violate troap," Foxglove agreed. "So you said."
"'Trope,' Foxy. It's the set of conventions to which a story
element must adhere, if it can be considered part of a genre... oh,
well, anyway. What else have we got?"
"Who else is smart?" Foxglove asked rhetorically. They both
thought about this for a while.
"Jeeves!" Dale cried. "Jeeves," he repeated. "Jeeves would do
something based on the psychology of the individual."
Foxglove shook her head blankly. "Who's Jeeves?" she asked.
"What do we know about Sugar Ray Lizard?" Dale asked her. "He
used to work for Rat Capone. He's greedy and lazy and not very bright.
He's afraid of Sewer Al." He ticked these points off on his fingers,
one by one.
Foxglove nodded.
"So, what does that tell us about his surprisingly clever leather
goods racket? There must be some kind of problem with it, something
that he -- as a foolish anole -- didn't take into consideration," Dale
said decisively. "Stands to reason, right?"
"Sure!" she agreed eagerly.
"That's the psychology of the individual," he concluded with a
confident grin.
Foxglove beamed at him. He was so smart! "So how do we use that
to save the kids?" she asked.
Dale was a little taken aback. He hadn't really thought that far
ahead. "Uh, well, we'll need to do a little recon. Maybe ask around,
do a little research, you know, stuff like that."
"I can go scout ahead," Foxglove said. "I mean," she added,
"it's dark and hard to see and I can hear really well, although to be
fair only if the pipes open up a little."
"I guess that's the best option," Dale said reluctantly. "I'll
wait here and think. Don't try and do anything risky," he cautioned.
"You might get hurt or spotted or lost or something... huh, I sound
like Chip, don't I?" Dale snickered to himself.
"I'll be careful," Foxglove promised. "I'll just move ahead to
where I can hear what's going on in the compound, and maybe hear
something we can use to free the kids."
They hugged briefly, and then Dale was alone in the pipes below
the city. He began to pace back and forth, trying to remember some
kind of 007ish super-spy stunt which would be applicable in this
situation.
ELEVEN MINUTES LATER, or ABOUT TWO HOURS AND FORTY-FIVE MINUTES BEFORE
DALE IS CLINGING FOR HIS LIFE TO THE SIDE OF A DEEP HOLE
Foxglove, Champion of the Oppressed and Beloved of All Nice
People Everywhere, Consort to a King among Chipmunks, strode cautiously
down the pipe. She listened intently, her preternaturally keen ears
scanning, scanning, scanning for any hint of activity. Nothing...
nothing... something? Something. She froze in her tracks.
"Bela! Bela! Where the heck have you been, man?" The speaker
was a mouse, female, habitually insincere. "You look like a wet hen,
so to speak."
"Hey, hey, freezing, hey, hey," answered another mouse. The
voices were badly muffled, echoing down the pipes from several feet or
yards away. Foxglove doubted the other mouse, the male Bela who was
all cold and wet, had actually said "hey hey" like that, but that's
what it had sounded like.
"What happened?" asked the female as they started moving.
Foxglove started walking too, trying to keep them in range without
getting close enough that they could hear her. Since she wasn't sure
which way they were going, it wasn't easy.
"Hey hey hey hey Sewer Al hey hey hey," explained Bela. Well,
probably not, but that was what Foxglove heard. Darn it, they were
moving out of range! She decided she must have been walking the wrong
direction and doubled back.
"Sewer Al? You mean... Sewer Al is on to us? Sewer Al has a
grudge against us? Sewer Al wants to take us out, and not to dinner,
so to speak?" The female mouse, whom Foxglove had mentally labeled
Francine for no very good reason, sounded frightened and highly
agitated. Maybe. Francine was louder than Bela, which helped.
Foxglove couldn't hear Bela's reply at all, but it didn't matter.
Francine's case of the nerves had given her an idea. It was a
brilliant idea: an idea capable of lighting the darkness between her
and Dale and her and Dale's goal of rescuing the children. She spun
around and hurried back to her partner in heroism.
NEARLY SIMULTANEOUSLY
Dale gave up pacing after a bit and just sat there, on the bottom
of the pipe. "Okay," he said out loud. "Psychology of the individual.
Something about Sugar Ray Lizard. I'm Sugar Ray Lizard," he tried.
"I'm mean and green and not real clever. I used to work for Rat
Capone. I'm afraid of Sewer Al. I have a lot of mice and rats and
people like that working for me..."
He leaned back, too far, and fell on his back against the curved
bottom of the pipe. "Mean... green... not clever... worked for Rat
Capone... afraid of Sewer Al... people work for me... mean... green...
not clever... worked for Rat Capone... afraid of Sewer Al... people
work for me..." he chanted, his eyes screwed shut.
"I'm afraid of Sewer Al..."
Deep within the bowels of Dale's brain, two neurons struggled out
of their lethargy. The dendrites of the one cell slowly twisted around
to line up with the axon of the other, forming a synapse.
Macromolecular engines, mostly protein enzymes, caused the properties
of the cellular membranes changed slightly, and potassium and sodium
cations flooded out of the first cell and into the second, minutely
changing the electrochemical makeup of the local tissue. A tiny spark
of potential leaped from one neuron to the other: the synapse fired.
"Of course!" Dale rose to his feet and hopped up and down,
excited by the brilliance of his new plan. "Sugar Ray is scared like
to death of Sewer Al! If we pretend that we aren't Dale and Foxglove,
but rather other people, he'll fear us! We'll be clever and quick,
sneaky and smart, and we'll get Sugar Ray to do what we want him to do
without him knowing that it's us who want him to do what we want him to
do, he'll think it's Sewer Al doing the controlling! You see, Foxy?"
Dale asked as she appeared from around a bend in the pipe.
"Yes, what?" Foxglove had been turning her clever notion over and
over in her mind. Sugar Ray was afraid of Sewer Al. Dale could make a
Sewer Allesque voice, and she could probably feed him enough
information using echolocation to make a credible go of it...
Distracted by all these thoughts, though, she hadn't listened to a word
Dale had said. Instantly she knew she had to convey her clever plan to
him.
"We can pretend to be Sewer Al!" they exclaimed in unison.
"Yes, exactly!" they agreed, in unison.
"Why are you repeating everything I say?" they asked each other,
in unison.
"Why are you repeating what I say?" they responded, in unison.
"I'm not!" they said, reproachfully and in unison.
"Well, I'm not!" they quickly responded, in unison.
"What?" they asked in unison... you get the idea.
"What?"
"Stop this!"
"I can't!"
"All right, we'll do it on the count of three!"
"On three, or do we stop on three?"
"One!"
"Two!"
"Three!"
"Now we stop!"
"So stop already!"
"I did stop, you're still doing it!"
"Am not!"
"Are too!"
"Am not!"
"Wha--" Foxglove gripped her head, screamed in such a manner that
no one could hear her, and winced. This was seriously messing her up.
"Dale!"
Dale blinked twice, then closed his mouth. His head was spinning
like a top. "What just happened?" he asked slowly. "Did I just blow
my own mind? Is my head spinning like a top?"
"I had an idea..." Foxglove began.
"Never, ever, have an idea again, Foxy. I mean that," Dale said
as he slumped down into a sitting position and began taking an
inventory of which parts of his brain were hurting.
"No, you silly," Foxglove said affectionately. "I had an idea
and *then* the world stopped making any kind of sense."
"I had an idea, too..." Dale considered. "Foxy, what was your
idea?"
Foxglove bit her lip. She didn't want to make Dale feel bad if
her idea was better, and at the same time she didn't want to look too
bad if her idea wasn't as good as Dale's. "You first," she said.
Dale scowled to himself. Foxy could be so insecure, and he
didn't want her to be hurt if his idea was much better than hers. But
on the other hand, he was a Rescue Ranger and professional hero, and
she was just apprenticing. "No, I want to hear yours," he said
carefully.
Foxglove considered, then sighed. "I thought we could pretend to
be Sewer Al," she said. "Sugar Ray Lizard and all his cronies are all
afraidy of Sewer Al, and I don't think they've ever met, so all you'd
have to do is use a fake Sewer Al-type voice and speak from the
shadows."
"That was my idea! You stole my idea!" Dale leaped to his feet
and pointed accusingly.
Foxglove's jaw dropped. "I did no such thing!" she huffed, then
crossed her arms and turned her back to Dale. "I don't know how you
could possibly think that," she said over her shoulder. "I bet you
didn't even have an idea! You just said it was your idea to cover up!"
"I did too! It's a good idea, and I had it first!" Dale snapped.
"I bet you read my mind with your ears and got it that way!"
"Did not!" Foxglove couldn't deduce actual ideas from the noises
people's brains made, just their general emotional state. "I can't do
that, anyway. I heard one of the thugs we put in the stream get found
by a different thug, and they were talking about it and it gave me the
idea. So there!" She turned her head so Dale could see, and stuck out
her tongue at him.
"Oh, you did?" Dale asked weakly. "I was pacing around and I was
thinking about the psychology of the individual some more, and how
Sugar Ray Lizard kept saying he was afraid of Sewer Al and I thought of
it then."
"Oh, you did?" Foxglove asked in much the same tone.
"Yeah, but it's not important," Dale said quickly. "I'm sorry,
Foxy, I didn't mean to make you mad --"
"I'm sorry, too, Dale!" Foxglove cried dramatically. She spun
around, with much theatrical flair, and wrapped her wings around her
chipmunk, showering him with kisses.
Foxglove hated to fight. But she liked to make up.
QUITE A WHILE LATER -- TIME AT HOLE MINUS FIFTEEN MINUTES
"All right," Dale whispered. "Here's what we do."
They were in what Dale figured was the perfect spot. It was a
cranny on the edge of Sugar Ray Lizard's compound, a little bracket not
far from the main building, but also very near a wide and exceptionally
dark side tunnel. The only downside was that they couldn't actually
see the large chamber from where they hid.
"I'll stay here, and you stay here," he continued, "and we wait
for one of the thugs to come within earshot. Then I'll start talking
in my Sewer Al voice, and you feed me any information you pick up with
your ears."
"Right!" Foxglove whispered excitedly. "Ooh, ooh, I hear someone
coming!"
"What's he look like?"
Foxglove screwed her eyes shut and listened intently. "Oh, I've
heard her before! It's Francine. She's a mouse. She's not very
nice," she added after a moment.
"FRANciNE," Dale said, in an almost-but-not-quite perfect
imitation of Sewer Al's majestic intonations. He'd spent about an hour
practicing; any more and he'd be hoarse. (Hoarse, not alligator, he
thought to himself. Shame he didn't have anything he could stick that
pun on...)
Out in the open, the mouse, whose name was actually Linda (after
the woman on "Sesame Street"), froze. The darkness was talking to her.
"FranCINE," Dale tried again.
With an "eep!" Linda surrendered to instinct, and curled up in a
little ball so as to resemble a brownish inanimate object, such as a
furry stick or a very overripe ham sandwich. She didn't know what was
going on but it was scaring her breathless.
"It's not working," Dale whispered to Foxglove.
"No, no, she's really frightened," Foxglove reassured him. "Try
again."
"FRANCINE. THIS is SEWER AL. ANSWer ME."
There was a long silence. Linda pulled her head out of her navel
long enough to make sure that yes, she was the only person around.
"...do you mean me?" she finally asked.
"YES," Sewer Al answered with a slight edge of exasperation.
"WHAT toOK YOU SO LOng?"
"My name isn't Linda," Linda said meekly. "I mean, my name isn't
Francine. It's Linda."
There was another long, pregnant, silence.
"I KNEW THAT," Sewer Al eventually responded. "FETCH me SUGAR
RAY LIZARD. I WILL HAVE WORDS WITH HIM."
"Yessir. I mean, Yesma'am. I mean --" Linda shuddered and ran
in the direction of the compound at top speed.
"What made you think her name was Francine?" Dale hissed.
"Well, I... I don't know, come to think of it," Foxglove said
thoughtfully. "She was just a voice, so I kind of, assigned her a
name."
"Why Francine?"
"Well, I... I don't know that, either."
JUST ABOUT THE SAME TIME, BUT QUITE A WAYS AWAY... UNDER THE LIONS
Radio on, static and improbable transmission.
"'What? Sewer Al here? Sewer Al has come at last?!'"
One eyebrow, above a glowing eye, perks up.
"'That's what he.. she... it... said!! Al is here and wants to
talk to you!! We're up the creek without a paddle, so to speak!!'"
"'This can't be good...'"
Radio off, silence and tranquility once more under the Lions.
Heated discussion, plans formed, argument and disagreement.
Resolution reached, Hands summoned. Hands briefed. Hands dispatched.
BACK AT THE COMPOUND, A COUPLE OF MINUTES LATER
"SUGar RAY LIZARD," Dale said as powerfully as he could. "I HAVE
WORDS for YOU."
"Hello, Sewer Al, uhm, your eminence." Sugar Ray wiped his brow;
he was sweating bullets. Funny, that. He didn't think he had sweat
glands.
"Are they buying it?" Dale hushily asked Foxglove beside him.
"I think so," she replied with equal hushiness.
"How many?"
"Sugar Ray and Fran... Linda," she corrected herself. "And Lox
and another one I don't know who is."
"SEND THEM AWAY, SUGAR RAY," Dale ordered. "ALL of THEM -- LOX
AND LINDA AND EVERYONE."
"Right away, your grace!" Sugar Ray took three involuntary steps
backwards. He turned to the spot where his henchthings had been
standing, eager to pass on Sewer Al's order, and saw they had already
skeddadled.
"Done, your excellence."
"OKAY, well, uh, I'VE BEEN PAYING ATTENTION TO YOUR LITTLE
PROJECT HERE, SUGAR RAY, AND I DON'T PARTICULARLY LIKE WHAT I SEE. NO
SIR, NOT ONE LITTLE BIT. NUH-UH."
There was a pause. Sugar Ray wondered whether that was good or
bad.
"I WANT YOU TO SHUT IT DOWN, SUGAR RAY. SHUT IT DOWN AND RETURN
THE CHILDREN. IF YOU DON'T YOU'LL REGRET IT."
"You aren't going to eat me, are you?" Sugar Ray asked meekly.
"No no no, OF COURSE NOT. I WOULDN'T DREAM OF IT. BUT IF YOU
DON'T CLOSE EVERYTHING DOWN I'LL FLOOD THIS SECTION OF MY SEWERS AND
YOU KNOW I MEAN IT, suGAR RAY, BECauSE YOU REMEMBER WHAT I DID TO RAT
CAPoNE!"
Sugar Ray did in fact remember what had happened to Rat Capone,
until Capone had surrendered and accepted Sewer Al's dominion over him.
He shuddered at the thought. "So you want a cut?" He'd expected it
would come to this eventually.
"HEck NO. I WANT *cough* YOU SHUT DOWN, SUGAR RAY. I want THE
KIDS PUT BACK WHERE THEY *cough* BELONG."
"But --"
"IF THEY aren't BACK WHERE THEY BELONG BY THIS TIME TOMOrrOW,
I'll KNOW. I'LL KNOW *cough* and I WON'T BE HAPPY ABOUT IT, SUGAR
RAY."
"Oh, all right," Sugar Ray said dejectedly.
"NOW *cough* LEavE. GO ON, GIT! *cough*"
SHORTLY
"Is he gone?" Dale wheezed.
"Yes!" Foxglove leaned over and kissed Dale on the nose. "This
is going to work!"
"My voice hurts," he replied.
"The Al does punish the wicked," Tobit agreed.
"Naughty boy, pretending to be the Al," Noah said softly.
Dale and Foxglove looked at the two mice, one in a little red
cardigan and one in a green one. They weren't very big, and they
didn't look very tough, but they did look extremely confident. 'You're
mine,' that was the look in their eyes. 'I can do anything I want to
you and there's not a thing you can do about it. You have no chance.
You are mine.'
They'd probably snuck up the side tunnel, all stealth and
silence, while Dale was pretending to be Sewer Al.
"You work for Sewer Al, don't you? You're Hands, right?"
Foxglove asked slowly.
Noah nodded.
"And you're mad that we've been pretending to be Sewer Al, aren't
you?" she asked.
Tobit nodded.
"And you're going to hurt us?"
Both of them nodded.
Foxglove and Dale exchanged glances. Then, as one, they leaped
up out of their cranny, past the two Hands in a single bound, and
scurried down the side tunnel away from the compound.
"Oh, good," Tobit said. "We get to chase them... through the
sewers."
Noah just smiled. The Hands were at their best in the sewers.
The Hands of Sewer Al lived in the sewers, were at home and at play
there.
HOLE IN TEN... NINE...
Dale and Foxglove ran at Foxglove's top speed through the pipes.
It was a veritable maze of twisty little passages, all alike: damp and
stagnant and identical. They took one turn after another, hoping to
evade the two incarnations of Nasty they knew were hot on their heels.
Left, left, right, straight, left, right, right, straight...
"Whoopsy!" Foxglove suddenly dropped out of sight.
"Foxy!" Dale, trotting along on all fours, skidded to a halt and
peered down. She had been running just ahead of him, and then she'd
fallen right down a vertical shaft. A deep vertical shaft.
"Foxy!"
Nothing.
Dale thought for all of half a second before jumping after her
into the unknown.
FIVE SECONDS LATER
"Hey, great. Scratch two Sewer Al impersonators," Noah said
cheerfully as they surveyed the scene. "Worked like a charm."
"Was that a bat?" asked Tobit. "Bats can fly up things."
"Nah, bats never come down here. It must've been a mouse in a
cape." Noah smiled -- actually, he had never stopped smiling, but at
that moment the smile intensified -- and the two of them returned to
Under the Lions, flush with the satisfaction of a job well done.
HOLE!
There are many differences between bats and chipmunks. Chipmunks
have sharp, gnawing teeth, while bats have the ability to echolocate.
More significant in this case, though, is that bats, unlike chipmunks,
have wings and can fly.
Foxglove was flying back up the shaft -- she'd been more than a
little discombobulated when she found herself all of the sudden falling
down it, and it had taken her a moment to recover sufficiently to spread
her wings and start an ascent. She was almost out when Dale fell right
into her, and the two of them started falling all over again.
"Dale! You didn't have to jump in after me." Foxglove smiled at
him. It was sweet, really.
"Hiya, Foxy," Dale said sheepishly. "Can we fly out of here?"
"Well..."
She spread her wings again, and gripped Dale with her feet, and
tried her best to gain altitude, but nothing doing. He was still too
heavy -- bats just couldn't fly around carrying a chipmunk like that.
After it became clear to her this plan wasn't going to work, she
deposited Dale against the side of the pipe.
"You just cling here, and I'll fetch a rope, or something, and
then we'll be able to go on home, okay?"
"Yeah, I guess," Dale said. This whole misadventure was starting
to get him down.
"I'll be right back!"
END OF FLASHBACK
"Excuse me," Foxglove said.
Linda ignored her as she continued stuffing her cheeks with
Staten City dollars.
"Excuse me," Foxglove repeated.
"Little busy here, so to speak," Linda muttered around a mouthful
of small green pieces of paper.
They were standing in Sugar Ray Lizard's great hall, that wide
and large building through which Lox had led Foxglove and Dale some
hours before. The tongue-depressor furniture was all overturned,
however, and the previously relaxed atmosphere was spoiled by the large
number of small animals running around in circles, screaming and
shouting. The entire compound was in a state of chaos: Sugar Ray had
disseminated Sewer Al's instructions, then grabbed an Altoids boxful of
gold and other shiny things, and split.
"I just need a spool of twine," Foxglove said, a little
petulantly.
"In the storehouse." Linda had been entrusted with the job of
rounding up all the finished wallets and hauling them to high ground
before Sewer Al flooded the chambers. Never one to waste time carrying
out orders, though, she was instead grabbing all the money she could.
"Where's that?" asked Foxglove. "How does that taste, by the
way?" She'd always wondered -- the SC$1 bill was almost exactly the
same color as one of her favorite flavors of gnat.
"It tastes dirty." Linda pointed out the door and to the left.
"It's out the door and to the left, about two feet as the crow flies,
so to speak." She was too distracted by her task to as much as glance
at Foxglove.
"Thanks, Francine," the bat said automatically, and hurried off
without noticing Linda gagging. No one hassled her as she searched
through the tongue-depressor-and-LEGOS-constructed building for the
thickest spool of twine in the place, then rolled the spool off down a
side tunnel. Butch waved at her as she left, and she waved back.
Dale had just about given up hope of ever getting home to bed
when he felt a gentle tickling on the top of his head. He looked up
and the end of the twine started to tickle his nose.
"This next bit is going to be very tricky," he said aloud, and
walked through the process in his head.
First, let go of the wall with one hand.
Second, use that hand -- NOT the other hand! -- to grab the end
of the string.
Third, shift your weight from the hand clinging to the wall to
the hand grasping the string.
Fourth, let go of the wall with your other hand.
Fifth, grab the string with your other hand, so that both hands
are on the string.
Sixth, tuck your legs up so that you're not dangling from the
string but standing sideways on the side of the shaft while holding the
string.
Seventh, walk up the wall, being careful not to release the
string and plummet to your death.
Eighth, be very careful not to release the string and plummet to
your death.
Ninth, be very careful not to release the string and plummet to
your death. This bears repeating.
All very good in theory, but the first, fourth, and sixth steps
turned out to be a lot harder than Dale had expected. Still, the
alternative was to spend the rest of his life halfway down a very deep
and big hole to nowhere, and he didn't want that...
"Hiya, cutie," Dale said after an eternity of climbing.
"Dale!" Foxglove embraced him yet again. Oddly, neither of them
had grown tired of the experience.
"Now, we can go home to bed," Dale said triumphantly.
Foxglove yawned. "Hey! You're right! It must be after dawn by
now!"
"Past our bedtimes," Dale agreed. "Do we need to go back and
check on Sugar Ray, do you think?"
"Naw," Foxglove said cheerily. "I was just there and it's a real
huddub --"
"The word is 'hubbub,' dear --"
"Hubbub of commotation and action. They're letting the kids go,
too."
"Well, then, this case is solved. All wrapped up, like a nice
little present," Dale said smugly. "We didn't do such a bad job,
either."
"I think we did a wonderful job! But Dale..." Foxglove began
slowly.
"Yes, my little turnip?"
"I've gotten so turned around, I swear it took me half an hour to
find this shaft from Sugar Ray's compound. How do we get back to the
surface?"
Dale opened his mouth, then thought better of it and closed it
again. "That's it?" he asked, incredulous.
"What's it?"
"At the end of a romantic comedy-adventure, like this one," Dale
explained, "you have one of two things. You can have a funny quip or
pun or something, that's one way. And Foxy, what you just
said..."
"But Dale, I wasn't trying to be funny!" Foxglove interjected,
confused.
"That's not the point, see. Most humor is funny, or at least
funnier, when it's accidental. But that line about how we get out of
here... I mean, sure it's a reversal of my thesis about us being
competent, funny in that sense..."
"Dale..."
"But it's not really ha-ha funny, it's like a shaggy dog
story..."
"Dale, honey..."
"What?"
"You said there were two ways to end a comedy-slash-romance.
Since the humor isn't working for you, let's try the other way."
Which they did.
TUNE IN NEXT TIME FOR
DALE AND FOXGLOVE: EPISODE EIGHTEEN: PERIL AT NINETY MILLION FEET!