Frankie Fish and the Tomb of Tomfoolery

by Peter Helliar

  ‘Do you … have a couple more fire sticks?’ Frankie asked.

  ‘Sorry, but I usually raid tombs alone, so I don’t have any need for three fire sticks!’ she said, sounding impatient.

  ‘OK, sorry I asked,’ Frankie replied. He was starting to feel REALLY nervous.

  ‘Maybe we should get the map out?’ Drew asked, trying to calm things down a little.

  Salama handed the fire stick wordlessly to Frankie, then unfolded the cloth map. The trio stared down at it, and Salama jabbed a finger at what looked like the central burial chamber.

  ‘To get here, we must pass through some terrifying challenges, designed to stop tomb raiders like me,’ she said in a low voice. Frankie gulped, remembering very clearly the bit about axes swinging from the ceiling. Then Salama added: ‘Obviously, you’ll go first, Frankie Fish.’

  Frankie was gobsmacked. ‘Me go first? Why? You’re the tomb raider with all the experience, you should go first!’

  Salama looked surprised. ‘Because I am holding the map and you have the fire stick. You light our way.’

  ‘Kinda makes sense,’ Drew agreed.

  ‘Oh, thanks,’ Frankie said, sarcastically.

  The trio trudged down the long passage in silence, scraping their shoes along the sandy stone ground. At the front of the pack, Frankie was first to hear the odd rustle and squeak from what he could only assume were venomous man-eating scorpions and deadly asps, but he tried not to think about any of them, and just gulped the horror back down.

  After a while, they came to a fork in the passage and huddled around the map to see which direction to go in next.

  Salama coughed and said, ‘We have two options. We could go left, which is the long way to the chamber and will take, say, three days to get through. It’s a bit of a maze and there’ll be nothing to eat or drink, and there’s a giant snake pit at the end of it ...’

  Frankie’s mouth went dry. Not only did going left sound harder than working out which Mosley triplet was which, but the Sonic Suitcase was programmed to return to the Charging Bench in Frankie’s grandad’s shed unless a secret code was put into it every forty-eight hours. They didn’t have three days to get there. ‘What happens if we go right?’ he croaked.

  ‘It’s a much more direct way to get to the chamber,’ Salama conceded. ‘The main problem will be the RUN OF AXES. ’

  Drew swallowed audibly. He hated snakes. ‘I don’t know what the RUN OF AXES is, but I … guess I vote that way?’

  ‘Me too, I guess,’ Frankie gulped, even though it sounded barely more inviting than a pit of snakes. At least it would be quicker.

  Together, they took the right passageway, creeping ever closer towards the burial chamber – and Frankie and Drew’s only way home. Finally, they came to the RUN OF AXES and stopped dead.

  In the flickering torchlight, Frankie could make out the sharp blades of axes that were somehow connected to the ceiling and seemingly designed to swing down and slice and dice intruders like a crazed sushi chef. As they stood in the narrow passage, Frankie asked, ‘How does this work, exactly? Because I really don’t want to be sliced in half by an axe today.’

  ‘You won’t be sliced in half by an axe,’ Salama reassured him, ‘as long as you step in exactly the right combination of steps.’

  Worst. Game. Ever.

  Frankie decided then and there that he would never complain about playing charades with his parents ever again. Oh, how he longed to be miming Return of the Jedi in the Fish family lounge room once more.

  ‘How do we know where to step?’ Drew asked, freaking out like a frog in a sock.

  Salama thrust the map over to show them where a series of lines zigzagged around a short area. If they followed this exact series of steps across the booby-trapped passage, she told them, then the axes would not swing and therefore not slice them in half. The steps were so complex that they started to swim before Frankie’s eyes.

  ‘That’s it!’ he shrieked, losing whatever shred of cool he had left. ‘Salama, you’ll have to go first. You’re the expert!’

  ‘Well, that’s the thing,’ said Salama, her confidence faltering. ‘I may have, er, slightly exaggerated my tomb-raiding experience.’ Frankie caught her sheepish expression. ‘How … many … tombs … have you … raided?’ he asked slowly, dreading the answer.

  Salama cleared her throat, and Frankie knew the answer straight away. ‘Please tell me you’ve done at least one,’ he said.

  ‘Well, close to one,’ she answered.

  ‘How close to one exactly?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘NONE?!!’ the boys screamed, which set off an echo even louder and more horrifying than the one they had tolerated earlier.

  For a nanosecond, Frankie worried their echo might have awoken any number of mummies from their eternal slumber. Then he found he couldn’t even talk.

  ‘How could you lie to us?’ Drew asked numbly.

  ‘I’ve always wanted to be a tomb raider, like my father and my brothers,’ Salama blurted anxiously. ‘But they don’t think a girl could do what they do, and I SWEAR I was going to do this one on my own to prove them wrong, but when I overheard you two talking about needing to break in, I thought maybe we could do it together …’

  Frankie felt his chest heave, and fought to calm himself with Drew Bird’s famous three-deep-breaths-before-you-kill-someone theory.

  With his first deep breath, Frankie realised he was feeling an uncanny sense of deja vu; he’d felt a similar sense of betrayal when Ping had led them blindly to the Forbidden Kingdom in China. But, he remembered, he’d grown to understand her reasons. As Frankie took his second deep breath, he thought of his sister, Lou. She had recently taught him that throughout history, for extremely stupid reasons, girls were mostly not given the same opportunities as boys. And with his third deep breath, he decided Salama’s reasons for misleading them were frustrating, but understandable.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Salama said, her head bowed. ‘But I thought I could help you. I think I still can.’

  ‘What do we do?’ Drew asked Frankie.

  ‘What choice do we have?’ answered Frankie with a sigh. ‘We need to work together.’

  Salama smiled back nervously. ‘Wow, you boys must really want whatever is in that sarcophagus.’

  ‘I can’t even tell you how much,’ Frankie said with a half-smile, half-grimace. ‘Now, show me that map again – I have an idea.’

  THE DANCE FLOOR OF DOOM

  Now that he was feeling a bit calmer, Frankie could focus on the zigzaggy lines mapping out the safe path through this booby-trapped section. As he followed them with his finger, he started to hear Miss Merryweather’s voice echoing in his brain. ONE-two-three, ONE-two-three. He muttered along under his breath, starting to see a pattern forming.

  ‘Guys,’ he said aloud, looking up at the others with a grin. ‘We are going to dance our way through the RUN OF AXES. ’

  Frankie did actually have some dance experience. His mum, Tina, had forced him to go to ballroom-dancing lessons organised by Miss Merryweather at St Monica’s, so that he could do the waltz with her at her 50th birthday party.

  Frankie wasn’t thrilled about the prospect, and he particularly wasn’t thrilled when he was paired up with Lisa Chadwick for a Viennese waltz. Lisa wasn’t thrilled about it either, openly complaining to Miss Merryweather that Frankie’s palms were ‘gross and sweaty’. The whole thing was made even worse because, although he would NEVER admit it to anyone, Frankie had a little crush on the new girl in class, Kimmy Klute, who had just moved to St Monica’s from a school in Canada. Kimmy overheard EVERYTHING Lisa said, and when Frankie asked her to dance the following week, she flatly rejected him. He was positive it was because of Lisa’s public remarks about his sweaty hands.

  ‘You want us …’ Salama said, agape.

  ‘… TO DANCE?’ Drew finished.

  Now it was Salama’s turn to lose her nerve. ‘I’ve changed my mind. Let’s just go the long way! Th
rough the pit of snakes!’

  ‘We don’t have three days!’ Frankie said quickly, in what he hoped was a persuasive tone.

  ‘Why not?!’ Salama said, gripping her curls in one hand and the map in the other. ‘I’m just raiding a tomb for riches and treasure. There will be other tombs to raid that are less booby-trapped!’

  Frankie put his hand on her shoulder. ‘Remember what you told us earlier?’

  ‘The lie about raiding tombs alone?’ Salama said, grimacing.

  Frankie rolled his eyes. ‘No! That courage comes after the act,’ he reminded her. ‘Anyway, it’s your turn to prove that you can do anything your brothers can do. And all you need to do is … dance with me.’

  ‘I’m pretty sure her brothers wouldn’t want to dance with you,’ Drew smirked.

  But Salama just smiled. ‘I would very much like to dance with you, Frankie Fish.’

  Take that, Kimmy Klute! Frankie thought, grinning inwardly.

  It was a nice moment that was only slightly ruined by Drew making stupid kissy faces behind Salama’s back.

  Frankie did his best to ignore him. He leant the fire stick against a wall and took Salama’s hand. ‘Now, let’s practise. You too, Drew. We just need to think of the steps as though they’re dance moves. One-two-three left, one-two-three right. Good, again …’

  Together the three of them practised their steps until they were feeling more confident. Well, as confident as anyone could be about maybe being sliced up like a ham at Christmas.

  ‘OK, are we ready?’ Frankie called. He took their silence as a resounding YES and picked up the fire stick. ‘Let’s go!’

  One by one, Frankie, Salama and Drew launched themselves down the RUN OF AXES, cha-cha-cha-ing like the professional dancers they certainly were not. As the seconds passed, the only sound that could be heard was the soft grunting of dancers leaping from stone to stone, and the rub of shoes in the dust.

  They were three-quarters of the way down the passage, with no sign of an axe cutting any of them in half, when suddenly Frankie heard a stumbling noise. The next moment, Salama bumped into him, and her map went fluttering to the ground.

  Everyone froze, waiting for an axe to drop from the ceiling, but nothing happened. Carefully, slowly, Frankie bent down and retrieved the map … and dropped the fire stick.

  Luckily, the map did not catch on fire.

  Luckily, the fire stick remained lit.

  Unluckily, it gave off just enough light for Drew to catch sight of a massive, shining axe swinging down from the ceiling.

  SWING!

  Instinctively, Frankie yanked at Salama’s hand and dragged her down. The blade took out a small clump of her curls and Frankie’s heart raced as he realised they’d dodged the blade in the nick of time.

  Frankie had just enough time to think up a good joke – ‘That’s a killer haircut’ was the plan – before Salama launched herself at him and rolled with him to the end zone of the deadly game.

  Frankie looked behind him to see axes swinging back and forth, back and forth. The two dancers glanced at each other, quite sure they had saved each other’s lives, which indeed they had. There was just one small problem. The fire stick was now several metres away from Frankie. Oh, and Drew Bird was still on the other side of the danger zone. And now all six axes had been activated, too. OK, so there were several problems (maths wasn’t Frankie’s strong point).

  ‘Uh, guys?’ Drew called, a tremor in his voice. ‘My dad’s already balding, so I can’t really afford to lose any hair.’

  ‘Hang on, Drew,’ Frankie yelled, ‘we’ll get you out –’

  ‘Oh no, it’s really fine,’ Drew squealed. ‘I’ll just wait here. I’ll keep an eye on the entrance to the pyramid from this side!’

  ‘Who knows what could happen on that side now that this has been set off,’ Salama shouted over the scraping and swinging of extremely sharp axes. ‘I may not be the most experienced tomb raider, but I do know that once one booby-trap goes off, it’s not long before the others go off too!’

  Frankie turned back to Drew, his neck hairs standing on end. ‘It’s best that we all stick together,’ he called, trying to sound calm.

  ‘But I don’t want to be sliced in half,’ Drew screamed.

  ‘You won’t!’ yelled Frankie, losing his chill.

  ‘How do you know that?!’

  ‘Because I won’t let that happen!’ Frankie shouted, before thrusting the map into Salama’s hands and leaping back onto the DANCE FLOOR OF DOOM.

  ‘What are you doing?!’ shrieked Drew as Salama watched, open-mouthed.

  Frankie didn’t answer. He may not have even heard his friend. He was in a deep, focused trance as he darted left and waltzed right, back and forth, the axes missing him as if they too were in on the choreography. He even picked up the fallen fire stick as he went.

  Before Drew could say Dancing With The Stars, Frankie was standing beside him, breathing heavily as axes swung wildly around them. ‘Can I have this dance?’ he said, with a quick bow.

  Drew looked at his best friend and groaned. ‘Courage comes after, right?’ he winced. ‘It could be worse,’ he added. ‘I could be wearing a tutu.’

  ‘It’ll be over too soon,’ Frankie said with a wink. ‘Just hold on and follow me!’

  With a very beautiful leap and pirouette (Frankie had never actually done ballet, but now seemed like a good time to start), the two time-travellers spun around on the dreaded dance floor as the nearest axe narrowly missed them both.

  Drew muffled a scream as Frankie dipped him past the second axe, before gliding past the third. Drew could hear the whoosh of the fourth axe and turned his head to see if it was coming for him.

  ‘Look at me, buddy. Look right into my eyes!’ Frankie demanded of his friend, who was quick to comply.

  Salama watched through her fingers as Frankie and Drew danced past the fifth axe. ‘One more to go!’ she squealed, before Frankie twirled Drew to safety.

  The moment they were on the other side, Drew’s legs collapsed under him. Frankie let out all the breath from his lungs. And they couldn’t help but laugh and laugh.

  ‘That was so intense,’ Salama snorted in relief. ‘I just wish there wasn’t one more booby-trap before we get to the burial chamber!’

  And the laughter stopped immediately.

  NO TIME FOR PERSONAL SPACE

  Along, dusty, narrow corridor confronted the rio. The corridor ran for approximately fifty metres, disappearing into darkness.

  ‘This looks way easier,’ remarked Drew, ‘unless there are more axes that will try to decapitate us?’

  ‘No more axes,’ Salama confirmed, her eyes set firmly on the map. ‘Walls.’

  ‘Cool, the sooner we find this chamber, the sooner we can go home,’ Drew called out as he began to head down the corridor. Frankie stopped him mid-stride by flinging an arm across his chest.

  ‘What’s the catch?’ Frankie asked Salama suspiciously. ‘What kind of walls?’

  ‘I mean, they’re not regular walls,’ Salama said in a seriously serious tone. ‘These walls compress, and they could squeeze us like a snake preparing a mouse for dinner. They call it the CORRIDOR OF CARNAGE!’

  ‘Greaaaaaaat,’ Frankie whistled, offering the full Frankie Fish Sarcastic Experience. ‘Wouldn’t it be easier to take the Corridor of Comfort?’

  Salama grabbed the fire stick from him and brought it down to the floor. In the dim light, they could see that every five or so steps there was a different coloured stone – less dusty brown and more cold grey.

  ‘See those?’ she said. ‘We need to step ONLY on those stones. If we step on even the littlest bit of any other part of the floor, these walls will squash us like grapes under my father’s feet.’

  Wow, she really likes describing our violent deaths in colourful detail, Frankie thought.

  ‘But those stones are really far apart,’ Drew observed, before adding cheekily: ‘I mean, I’ll be OK at jumping from one to another, but
you two might struggle to make the distance.’ For that, he copped a slap on the shoulder from Frankie.

  ‘You might be right,’ offered Salama, and Frankie’s shoulders sagged in agreement. Frankie could dance, but Drew was stronger in the athletics department and, based on Salama’s apparent clumsiness, she’d probably find it hard to land in the right spots.

  ‘But what if …’ Drew said slowly, ‘what if we didn’t JUMP from stone to stone?’

  Salama interjected. ‘What do you mean? It is clearly the only –’

  ‘I’m talking,’ Drew announced, a grin wrapped around his face, ‘about one word: PARKOUR.’ He flung out his hands like he already knew his idea was pure genius.

  Frankie wasn’t sure whether to be excited or dismayed. Sometimes Drew’s ideas were brilliant, and sometimes they were bird-brained.

  ‘Um … two words. What’s parkour?’ Salama asked.

  Frankie facepalmed.

  Moments later, Frankie and Salama watched as Drew demonstrated his method for Spidermaning down the CORRIDOR OF CARNAGE. ‘It’s a bit like rock climbing – just go one hand and one foot at a time. We’re not trying to break any world records here,’ he announced, clearly relishing his position as Head Coach.

  ‘I didn’t know there were world records for parkouring through a pyramid,’ remarked Frankie.

  Drew LOVED parkouring between classes at St Monica’s. It was a sport that included running, jumping and climbing any obstacles in your way, whether they were playground equipment, stair bannisters or desks. He would leap from chair to table (if Miss Merryweather wasn’t watching), from garbage bin to cyclone fencing, off walls and onto benches. He once got Frankie to record his best moves and upload the clip to YouTube, where it had a total of fifteen views (eleven of which were by Drew himself).

  Frankie thought it was a good plan, all things considered. Better than being squashed, anyway. Using their arms and legs to wriggle down the CORRIDOR OF CARNAGE would prevent their feet from touching