Pieces of Gax Read online

  “DO BE CAREFUL, SIR,” said Gax, buzzing nervously in my hands, “IF NOT FOR YOUR OWN SAKE, THEN FOR THE SAKE OF MY NECK.”

  “Well, if you all got any better ideas for gettin' the li'l sucker offa this thing”—Spuckler stopped pulling on Fofo's tail and closed his fingers around her body—”I'd appreciate hearin' 'em.”

  Fofo was now purring in a way that was less playful than before. In fact, I think it had crossed the line from purr to growl.

  “Let go, ya crazy li'l varmint!” said Spuckler, yanking this way and that in mounting frustration. “We're on a schedule here!”

  “Spuckler,” I said, trying to keep my eyes on Fofo's body as it swung from side to side, “y-you'd better take it easy. I think Fofo's”—I swallowed hard—”getting bigger.”

  Spuckler stopped for a moment and held Gax's neck before his eyes. Sure enough, Fofo had expanded in both length and girth. She was now as big as a good-sized raccoon and—more disturbingly— had somehow acquired bigger, sharper teeth in the process.

  “A folvering quog-nat,” said Mr. Beeba, his voice trembling with either fascination or terror (probably both). “I've read of them before but never seen one up close.”

  “Well, whatever she is,” said Spuckler, raising Gax's neck high into the air so that Fofo teetered precariously at the very top of it, “she's about to get some flyin' lessons, Spuck style.”

  “No!” shouted Mr. Beeba and I simultaneously.

  But it was too late: Spuckler had started whipping Fofo around and around and around in an attempt to fling her into the air, spinning her like some sort of enormous living noisemaker. With every spin Fofo grew larger and more muscular.

  “MY NECK” was all Gax could say. He had reason to wonder if it would survive the ordeal. Fofo was already as big as a German shepherd and showed no sign of halting her sudden growth spurt.

  All was a blur as Spuckler whirled with tornadolike fervor, pouring every ounce of strength he had into the effort. When he finally slowed to a stop, dizzy and exhausted, Fofo was precisely where she'd been at the start, with one important difference: she was now the size of a fully grown lion, and every bit as ferocious looking. She let out a thunderously loud roar and planted her muscular legs firmly on the ground.

  Gax's neck was in surprisingly good shape (I guess Gax units really are the toughest little 'bots in the universe). Spuckler, on the other hand, was looking a good deal the worse for wear. He was panting, coughing, and wheezing and—now on all fours—had actually let go of Gax's neck altogether.

  “Oh dear,” said Mr. Beeba.

  Against all expectations, Fofo then released Gax's saliva-drenched neck from her teeth and let it thud to the ground in front of her. She was panting cheerfully, her massive tongue hanging out one side of her mouth. She looked like a dog that wanted to play fetch.

  Spuckler rose up on his elbows and eyed Gax's neck hungrily. It was well within arm's reach, but so were Fofo's formidable jaws.

  “Don't do it, Spuckler,” said Mr. Beeba. “It's a trap.”

  “I can snag it, Beebs,” said Spuckler. “I'm fast enough. Plenty fast enough.”

  “No, Spuckler,” I said. “Fofo's too close. She'll bite your arm off!”

  There was an excruciating silence as Spuckler and Fofo maintained their positions, neither of them moving forward, neither of them backing down. They were like gunslingers at high noon. All that was missing was the tumbleweed.

  “IF YOU CAN WAIT JUST ANOTHER MINUTE, SIR,” said Gax, “I BELIEVE I WILL BE ABLE TO FACILITATE THE PROCESS.”

  “We ain't got another minute, Gax,” said Spuckler between clenched teeth. “It's now or never.”

  “THIRTY MORE SECONDS, SIR,” said Gax. “THAT'S

  ALL I NEED.”

  “Sorry, Gax.”

  It happened in a flash, in a blaze of movement that was barely perceivable: Spuckler leaping forward … grabbing Gax's neck … Fofo lunging … her mouth drawing open … wider, wider, and wider still … Spuckler looking up only when it was too late … and then, incredibly, impossibly, sickeningly … Fofo's enormous mouth rushed forward like an ocean wave … swept over Spuckler … and closed around the entire upper half of his body.

  “No!” I cried, tossing Gax's head to the ground and scrambling forward to grab hold of Spuckler's leg. Mr. Beeba grabbed the other leg, and we both pulled as hard as we could.

  An earsplitting stream of warbly gurgles filled the air as Poog unleashed a series of incantations presumably designed to throw Fofo back on her heels. But Fofo was a force of nature beyond even Poog's powers, and the best Poog could manage was to slow the progress of Fofo's jaws as they inched past Spuckler's waist.

  “Harder!” I cried, pulling with all my might even as Fofo gulped her way down Spuckler's thighs.

  Mr. Beeba was panicked beyond words, his face bathed in sweat and contorted into an expression of boundless terror. “We're … we're losing himl”

  Poog's voice grew high-pitched and shrill, the gurgly syllables blasting from his mouth in an endless torrent.

  ULK-ULK-ULK-ULK

  Fofo lunged past Spuckler's knees in a final bid to swallow him whole. I thrust my arms up to Spuckler's calf. My forearms were now entirely inside Fofo's mouth, and the rivers of saliva made it almost impossible to maintain my grip. Mr. Beeba was faring no better and had begun whimpering like a child. I pulled as hard as I possibly could, digging my nails into Spuckler's leg in a last-ditch effort to hang on, but…

  GUGGLE-GUGGLE-GUK!

  … Fofo's lips closed around Spuckler's ankles, forcing Mr. Beeba and me to let go. We both watched in horror as Fofo sucked Spuckler all the way in like a strand of spaghetti and …

  SSSLLLURRRRRT!

  … he was gone.

  “Spuckler!” I screamed, my eyes wide in disbelief.

  There were several agonizing seconds of motionlessness as Mr. Beeba and I stared helplessly at Fofo's mouth while her tongue slithered back and forth over her lips in triumph. Poog's incantations slowed, grew quiet and uncertain, then petered out altogether. Fofo parted her lips for a surprisingly dainty burp, and Spuckler's doom seemed utter and complete.

  Then…

  … somewhere deep inside Fofo …

  … there was a muffled POP …

  …a FFFT…

  … and a ZZRRRITCH of electricity.

  A second of silence, then …

  ZUP-ZUP-ZUP-ZUP-ZUP-ZUP-ZUP

  … Fofo's lips peeled back and her jaws flew open wide. Spuckler somersaulted out of her mouth and plopped onto the ground in a splattery saliva-covered mess. He was still clutching Gax's neck in his hands, only now it was a living creature, writhing back and forth, sparks shooting out one end and smoke billowing out the other.

  In a matter of seconds Fofo lost all the size and ferocity she had gained over the course of the battle, and returned to her original small and harmless state. She moaned ruefully and bounded through a flap in Mrs. Slarf's back door, like a cat that had been smacked hard with a rolled-up newspaper.

  Only then did I turn to see Gax's head, upside down on the ground, rocking back and forth in exhaustion. As promised, he had facilitated the process with—I now understood — a remotely triggered burst of electricity deep inside Fofo's throat at the last possible moment. Leave it to Gax to save his own neck and that of his master at the same time.

  “Tsk, tsk, tsk.”

  It was Mrs. Slarf, stroking Fofo's fur and staring down at Spuckler from a second-story window overlooking the backyard. Or rather, she was staring at the pool of saliva in which Spuckler was seated.

  “Fofo, girl,” she said disapprovingly. “I thought I told you not to make a mess.”

  Within half an hour we were back in the foggle-naut and sailing away from Bwibblington at top speed. Mr. Beeba manned the controls while Spuckler reattached Gax's neck to the base of his head. Gax was still a very long way from complete—he looked more like a discarded desk lamp than a full-fledged robot—but the addition of his
neck made a surprisingly big difference. We were making progress, at least, and Gax was just that much closer to being his old self again.

  “I reckon I owe ya one there, Gax,” said Spuckler. “If I hadn't been holdin' your neck, I'd be a nice big bucket of Fofo chow right now.”

  “YOU'RE TOO KIND, SIR,” said Gax, wagging his neck back and forth like a newly acquired tail, “I AM CERTAIN YOU'D HAVE FOUND A WAY OUT OF YOUR PREDICAMENT EVENTUALLY.”

  “Don't be so sure, Gax,” Mr. Beeba said. “When it comes to predicaments, Spuckler is far better at getting in than getting out.”

  “So where are we going now?” I asked. “And which part of Gax are we going to find there?”

  “Next on the list is Gax's body,” said Mr. Beeba. “It has been purchased by a scientist on the island of Vorf, not so very far from here. A fellow by the name of Gridstump.”

  A scientist, eh?” I said, turning to Gax. “Jeez, I hope he's not performing weird experiments on your body.”

  “I SUPPOSE HE COULD BE,” replied Gax, “BUT I DOUBT IT. MORE LIKELY HE IS SIMPLY MAKING USE OF THE EQUIPMENT WITHIN THE HULL. AS YOU MAY RECALL, THERE ARE A GREAT NUMBER OF USEFUL TOOLS CONCEALED WITHIN MY BODY.”

  I thought back to that night we were in the Sprubly Islands, when I had started pushing buttons on Gax in hopes of getting a torch. I couldn't help chuckling as I recalled all the things I had gotten instead: a boxing glove, a bicycle horn, a bottle of window spray.

  “Who knows,” I said to Gax with a wink, “maybe your body will have knocked the guy out with the boxing glove by the time we catch up with him.”

  “IT'S ENTIRELY POSSIBLE, MA'AM,” said Gax with a hint of pride.

  After an hour or two spent crossing the choppy waves of the Moonguzzit Sea, the island of Vorf came into view. It was dominated by an enormous mountain that cast a menacing black shadow on the horizon. I'd say it was like Mount Fuji, except Fuji is majestic and snowcapped, whereas this thing was monstrous, ugly, and capped with nothing but charred black volcanic rock. Add the fact that several plumes of thick black smoke were billowing from its peak, and we're not exactly talking about something you'd buy postcards of (unless you're looking for postcards to mail to members of a biker gang or a punk rock band).

  “Mount Vorf,” said Mr. Beeba. “Not to worry: it's very nearly extinct.”

  “Very nearly extinct?” I asked. “Isn't that the same as not quite extinct?”

  “Oh no, Akiko,” said Mr. Beeba. “Far from it. Very nearly extinct is much more along the lines of won't erupt unless we are almost unimaginably unlucky G.

  I decided to let it drop, even though unimaginably unlucky seemed the perfect description of everything that had happened to us since this whole trip had started.

  Mr. Beeba guided the fogglenaut up to a small dock and we all climbed out. A wide stretch of pitch-black sand separated us from a bank of smoke-tinged palm trees and scraggly gray grass.

  “Well, we've got one thing working in our favor this time,” said Mr. Beeba. “Dr. Gridstump is the only living soul on this island, so we're not likely to confuse him with anyone else.”

  “Let's just find him and get this over with,” I said. “The sooner we get off this island, the better.”

  But before we could even set foot on the beach, we were halted by an ominous announcement from Poog, who had returned to the spot where our fogglenaut was roped to the dock.

  “Good heavens,” said Mr. Beeba after joining Poog, who was inspecting a number of slimy gray eel-like creatures attached to the side of the foggle-naut. “Hurpleskaps. Dozens of them!”

  “Man alive,” said Spuckler. “They're gonna sink the thing in no time.”

  “These creatures spell doom for any seafaring vessel,” said Mr. Beeba. “Or anything made out of metal, for that matter. They secrete an acidic substance that eats through the hulls of ships in a matter of minutes.”

  Poog had begun a series of quiet incantations designed to lure the eels away from our fogglenaut. Sure enough, after several seconds, the hurpleskaps began to drop off the hull, splash into the water, and swim away. Before long the fogglenaut was entirely free of the “dagnabbed little steel-suckers” (as Spuckler called them).

  Poog paused to say something to Mr. Beeba, then returned to his incantations.

  “Poog has got the situation well in hand,” said Mr. Beeba. “Hurpleskaps are among the many creatures over which he is capable of exerting mind control. Unfortunately, he will have to stay here with the ship to ensure that the hurpleskaps don't return.”

  “YOU mean we're”—I looked back and forth between Poog and Mr. Beeba—“splitting up?”

  “Unfortunately, yes,” said Mr. Beeba. “Poog doesn't like the idea any more than you do, but there's simply no alternative. It won't do us any good to stick together if that means returning to a sunken fogglenaut.”

  There was no arguing with that. So we all bid Poog a temporary farewell and made our way up the beach in search of the island's lone inhabitant.

  It didn't take long to find him. There was only one building on the whole island, and its white domed roof stood out in sharp contrast to the blackness of Mount Vorf behind it. As we drew closer to it, it became clear that we were approaching a combination laboratory/observatory

  When we got to the front door, we found that there was no doorbell, no knocker, nothing at all that we could use to announce our presence. So Spuckler—our resident presence announcer—began yelling, whistling, throwing rocks on the roof, and (almost as an afterthought) pounding on the door with all his might.

  Sometime after Spuckler's third barrage of noise calculated to wake the dead, we heard a voice.

  “Looking for someone?”

  The voice had not come from behind the door. It had come from behind us.

  We spun around and found ourselves face to face with Dr. Gridstump.

  He was bathed in sweat and was wearing a hat with a thick net hanging off it, the sort of thing you see on beekeepers. In one hand he was holding a giant butterfly net; in the other, a basket filled with an enormous quantity of dead insects: the product, I assumed, of a busy morning studying what little flora and fauna he could find on the island.

  But even without all that, he'd have been a very odd man to behold. He looked like he'd been put together by someone who wanted him to fall over: his squareish head was too big for his body, and his chest was too big for his legs. His eyes were so small they vanished beneath his eyebrows, and his nose was almost laughably pointy. His mouth stretched so far across his face it looked as if the upper half of his head were capable of tilting back on a hinge.

  “Well, well, well,” said Dr. Gridstump, removing his hat and stepping over to Mr. Beeba. “If it isn't the legendary Beeba: genius, philosopher, and man of letters.”

  Mr. Beeba blushed and broke into a pleased—if slightly confused—smile. “I'm sorry, my dear fellow, but… do I know you?”

  “Do you?” said Dr. Gridstump, nodding mysteriously. “Do you indeed?” He grinned and raised a long finger. “Maybe you do, old boy. Maybe you don't.” He chuckled. “But I know you. Yes, my word, yes. How could I not? Why, you're a legend in these parts.”

  “I am?” said Mr. Beeba, his smile growing along with his confusion. “Hm, well, I suppose I've … er, made a bit of a name for myself, yes.” He paused, then added: “I do know you, don't I? The face is ever so familiar….”

  “Gridstump,” said the man, stepping forward and giving Mr. Beeba's hand a vigorous shaking. “Eckston B. Gridstump, at your service. You and I were at school together. The University of Malbadoo.”

  “Aaaah!” said Mr. Beeba, in the manner of someone finally having put two and two together. “But of course. How could I have forgotten!” Something in Mr. Beeba's voice didn't quite ring true, though, and I wondered if he had any real memories of this old classmate of his. “Eckston Gridstump. What a pleasure it is to see you again after all these years.”

  “When Knowledge and Ignorance meet…,
” said Gridstump.

  Mr. Beeba grinned.”… let them shake hands and agree to have lunch sometime!” Mr. Beeba turned to me and explained: “The old school motto.”

  “Yes,” said Dr. Gridstump, still shaking Mr. Beeba's hand, “but which of us is Knowledge, and which of us is Ignorance?” He smiled with all his might, his mouth full of slightly yellowed teeth.

  Mr. Beeba laughed good-naturedly. “Which, indeed!”

  “So tell me, old boy,” said Dr. Gridstump as he led Mr. Beeba inside for a guided tour of his laboratory. “What brings you to my island retreat?”

  Spuckler and I (carrying Gax's head and neck) followed them indoors. We eventually came to a large, well-lit laboratory filled with all sorts of tables, tools, textbooks, and test tubes. After a bit of small talk about old professors at Malbadoo and the difficulty of finding good litmus paper these days, Mr. Beeba finally brought up the matter of Gax's missing body. As soon as he did, Dr. Gridstump's face lit up with understanding, and he led Mr. Beeba into an adjoining room where he said he'd been storing Gax's body and—just as Gax had predicted— making use of some of its tools.

  “I don't know about this guy,” I said once Mr. Beeba and Dr. Gridstump had left the room. “He's … strange. It's not just that he looks funny. He talks funny and acts funny too.”

  “Yeah,” said Spuckler. “I know just whatcher talkin' about.” He paused and added: “And Gridstump's kinda weird too.”

  I stared at Spuckler, realized he wasn't joking, and decided not to say anything.

  “DO YOU THINK DR. GRIDSTUMP IS REALLY THE OLD CLASSMATE HE CLAIMS TO BE?” asked Gax.

  “If he is, he certainly didn't make much of an impression on Mr. Beeba.”

  “People don't make impressions on Beebs,” said Spuckler. “He's always too busy doin' crazy math stuff like addiction an' substraption an' multi-crustacean.” I marveled for a moment that Spuckler had managed to get all three words so thoroughly wrong. “Why, they coulda been sat next to each other for twenny-five years an' Beebs wouldn't've even known the guy was there.”