by Obert Skye
Summer walked into the room carrying bottles of water.
“Oh,” she said sadly. “Where’s your father?”
“He’s looking at mountains.”
“How serene,” she said. “Are you coming to the pool party tonight? Finding the carrot in the pool is so much fun. I promised your dad a swim, but there will be plenty of time for you to swim with him too.”
“No, thanks,” I said. “If you do see my dad, tell him I went on an adventure.”
My dad wouldn’t worry if he thought I was doing something adventurous. The whole reason he had first let me come to Bunny Island was because he was tired of me always just staying in my room, playing on the computer and reading comics.
“Have fun,” Summer said.
I didn’t have the squid hearts to tell her that I wasn’t planning on having any fun. I was planning to rescue my uncle.
CHAPTER SIX
ATTACKED ON A TRACK
I didn’t have a plan. All I knew was that I was going to head back to the Crosshair Building to find a way to break Zeke out. I couldn’t stand to see him trapped in a cubicle like the winter edition of Ocean Blasterzoids where cube fish were trapped in Ice Tray Cove.
The sky above me was filling up with clouds and getting darker as I jogged through the palm trees.
A cluster of bunnies hopped in front of me.
“Move!”
Two large gray rabbits hopped out of the trees and blocked the way. One of them turned its head to look at me and I saw its eyes glow red like the tip of a laser pointer. I stopped dead in my tracks.
“Soft soggy clam,” I whispered. “What’s your deal?”
The bunny didn’t blink; he just kept his glowing eyes pointed directly at me.
I slowly stepped forward trying to shoo him away with my hands.
“Seriously, move!”
The bushes on both sides of the path started to rustle as rabbits by the dozen emerged from the jungle and closed in. I turned to look behind me and saw more of them coming in.
“I should warn you all,” I yelled. “I’m recently self-trained in Cephalopodian Slap Dancing.”
The bunnies drew closer and began to chatter and squeak violently.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” I tried to reason with them. “I’ve never really harmed a bunny before.”
The ring of rabbits got tighter still.
“Okay,” I admitted nervously. “I did have a rabbit’s-foot key chain once. But someone gave it to me. And anyway, I threw it away because the fur made my eyes water.”
The bunnies screamed.
All at once they leaped up and lunged forward. Their furry paws and heads pushed me down to the ground and covered me. They were so heavy that I couldn’t push them away. A dozen rabbits pinned my right arm down. I swung my body around to kick some off my legs and twist my arm. Flipping myself over, I tried to push up on my hands and knees, but there were too many bunnies and they were too heavy.
The weight of them flattened me.
I grabbed one bunny tightly by its leg and it screamed. I screamed right back at him, summoning my inner squid and flexing my skinny, tentacle-like legs and arms.
“Get ready to get squished!” It really didn’t matter what I shouted because I was so buried by bunnies that all my words were muffled.
Just as I thought my life was going to slip away under a mountain of weighty rodents, the pile on top of me began to get lighter. For some reason, bunnies were jumping off and heading back into the jungle. In just a few seconds all the attacking rabbits had disappeared.
Coughing and spitting, I lay there alone, still holding the one bunny I had grabbed. A steady rain was falling from the sky and making my clothes and hair wet. It was clear now why the rabbits had fled.
The bunny in my hand wasn’t moving. I let go of it so it could run off, but it didn’t. I poked the lifeless creature and it still didn’t flinch. As I poked it, I could feel that it wasn’t a fluffy bunny. It felt more like a furry rock. Scooting on my knees, I pulled the rabbit closer and bent the bunny’s leg. It was hard and clicked as I moved it.
“What the crab?”
I picked the bunny up and realized that it was heavier than twenty normal rabbits. Rolling it over, I saw a small seam on the belly. I pushed the fur aside and discovered a latch. When I moved the latch, the belly of the bunny popped open to show a small compartment full of wires and metal pieces.
“Fnaf,” I whispered as I gazed at the robot bunny.
I inspected it as the rain continued to fall. It made no sense. My mind raced over the possible people who could have created it. Mayor Lapin had turned people into mutant bunnies, but he was in a jail in Florida. Lady Beatrice had created Big Bun, but she had been shut down. Or maybe . . . in Issue #37, Admiral Uli had had to fight off an army of metal marlins who had been built by Figgy. In the end, Uli had sunk all the marlins using sand bombs.
Standing up, I took the mystery robot and carefully hid it behind some bushes and two palm trees. I considered going back to the hotel, but I needed Zeke now more than ever. So, with wet hair and soggy clothes, I continued my quest.
CHAPTER SEVEN
WRONG FLOOR
By the time I got to the Crosshair Building I was soaked, a little nervous, and mad—soaked by the rain, nervous about getting past Captain Fuzzy, and mad at my friends for not coming with me. I would have quit my job to help them. Well, I think I would have quit my job to help them. I’ve never really had a job, but I like to think that I’d be really good at quitting one if I did. Heck, I’m not great at starting things, so ending them would probably be a breeze.
Entering the building, I heard the waterfall and saw the pond. The space above the pond was open all the way to the glass ceiling on the top floor, and the sound of rain hitting the glass was competing with the waterfall for biggest noise hog.
The Crosshair Building was cold and bland inside. It felt like a hotel that was decorated in shades of gray and grayer. It was all business, and the business seemed unpleasant and unimaginative. There was nobody around, and some awful flute music still played lightly.
I walked to the elevator and stood in front of it.
I’ve always really hated elevators. My dad always says that they are the safest form of travel after walking. I don’t care: I hate walking too. I’m prone to tripping and falling. Besides, my dad sticks up for elevators because there are grain elevators used in the production of wheat.
“What would Uli do?” I whispered to myself.
For one thing, Uli would never take an elevator, seeing how there aren’t any in the ocean. Their buildings just had things like buoyancy tubes, where you rise and descend depending upon the will of your gills.
I pressed the elevator button and the doors opened immediately. I don’t know why I was so nervous. I wasn’t doing anything wrong. Sure, Captain Fuzzy could catch me and then fire my uncle. But that might be a good thing. He didn’t need to be working for the man. He was a squid, and squids are their own person, or cephalopod.
I stepped into the elevator and the doors closed. After I pressed a button, the elevator rose quickly. I closed my eyes and thought of things less claustrophobic and confining. When I opened my eyes, the elevator stopped and the doors split, and I stepped out as quickly as possible.
I could tell almost instantly that something was off. There was no big desk, no lady with square glasses, and no potted plants.
I had gotten off on the wrong floor. I heard the elevator doors close behind me.
“Clam it.”
Turning around, I pressed the button hoping the doors would open right back up, but they didn’t. Someone on some floor below me had summoned the elevator to them.
I pushed the button ten more times.
Standing there waiting, I felt like a fool. I looked around nervously at the small foyer with two couches and a couple of tables. Nobody was there, but I heard a voice coming from a hallway. I would have ignored the voice, but it sounded a lot like a talking blo
b fish.
“Captain Fuzzy,” I whispered.
He was talking to someone about something important. His voice was animated and strong and slightly incoherent. I could hear words like mess and Hutchman’s and nom-nom.
“It’s a perfect plan,” he said.
The elevator arrived and the doors opened. I should have gotten back in, but I really wanted to hear more of what Fuzzy was saying.
He said the words foolish, treasure, and a few other things I couldn’t understand. My tentacles were tingling, and I had to hear more.
Slowly I squid-toed down the hallway toward his voice.
“Make sure everything is ready,” he said. “You must stuff every one of them.”
With my back to the wall, I scooted down the hallway. I could see an open door with a plaque next to it. I inched closer until the words were clear.
CAPTAIN FUZZY NEWTON CEO
My three hearts sank into the tips of my tentacles. Captain Fuzzy Newton? Figgy Newton was Uli’s nemesis, and now here was someone named Fuzzy Newton? Sure, I know the comics I read aren’t 100 percent real. But there were times when the line between reality and Ocean Blasterzoids gets blurry. And now here was a blob fish named Fuzzy Newton.
I willed my hearts to start beating again and continued to inch along the wall toward the office. I had no ink blaster or steel-tipped tentacle. All I had was the Squid Tenacity body wash I was wearing. I thought of and repeated Admiral Uli’s motivating words to the Whale Calves of Coral who had accidentally eaten a shipload of baseballs.
“When in doubt,” I whispered to myself, “blow it out.”
I took a deep breath and exhaled before scooching even closer. Using my superior peeking abilities, I peeked around the door frame and looked in.
There sitting behind a desk was Fuzzy. He didn’t look at all like Figgy, but it was possible that they were cousins or stepbrothers. I hadn’t done a lot of research on Figgy’s family line, but I figured that Figgy’s evil family was filled with horrible freshwater creatures of all shapes and sizes. And Captain Fuzzy was definitely an evil creature of a certain shape and size.
There was a plate of food in front of Fuzzy, and he was eating with his right hand while talking on the phone with his left.
“This is going to work,” he said into the phone. “Once the rabbits are engaged and set in motion, no one can stop them except me. Is everything ready at Port O’Hare?” Fuzzy took a few bites of the fried chicken he was eating and listened to what the other person was saying. After a large and loud swallow, he said, “Good, and warehouse fifty-six is ready. The Lost Hutchman’s Booty is finally going to be mine. It’s about . . .”
Someone grabbed me from behind and pulled me up onto my feet.
“Shrimp ship!” I swore.
Captain Fuzzy looked up from his food and glared at me angrily. A tall man in a green shirt and black pants was holding me up by my arms.
“Let me go!” I demanded, but the man held tight.
Fuzzy hung up the phone and stared at me with his fleshy face and eyes.
“He was listening,” the man with the green shirt said. “I spotted him from the hall.”
“Help him sit down, Steve,” Fuzzy ordered.
Steve pushed me toward a chair in front of Fuzzy’s desk. He shoved me down onto it and then stood behind me.
“You can go, Steve,” Fuzzy said. “Now, Perry, what are you doing here?”
Steve walked out as I tried to think.
“Well?” Fuzzy asked.
“So . . . I left my glasses here by accident when I came to see my uncle earlier.” It was a lie, but it was all I could think of. “I must have pushed the wrong floor on the elevator.”
“That doesn’t explain why you were crawling around by my office door.”
I had to think fast. “I . . . I lost one of my contacts. I was searching for it on the floor.”
“But you just said you wear glasses.”
“Right, right, I had to wear my contacts to come find my glasses.” My lies were hard for even me to believe. “So, I was searching—”
“What did you hear me saying?” he interrupted.
“Nothing,” I insisted.
“I’m surprised to see you here,” he said. “I thought you had been worked over by the rabbits.”
“What?” I asked in shock. “How did you know about . . . Oh, I get it, you made those steel bunnies?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, smiling. “But I think you need to remember that you are an outsider here. This island is not your home. You have no idea what’s happening or how things really work. How would you feel if something happened to your uncle or father, or Juliet and Rain?”
Fuzzy stopped talking.
It felt like he was waiting for an answer to his question, so I said, “How would I feel if something good happened to them?”
The hair on top of Fuzzy’s head seemed to sizzle.
I know that Captain Fuzzy didn’t want to do anything good to my friends or family, but I had learned this tactic from Admiral Uli. In Issue #12, he kept acting like everything was positive as bad things were going down. Eventually the bad guys let him go because his positivity had confused them.
“Because,” I continued, “if it’s something good, then I’m fine with that.”
“It’s not good,” he said.
“It’s a surprise?”
“It’s not a surprise, Perry,” Fuzzy said, frustrated. “You have no idea what’s happening.”
“That’s kind of what a surprise is.”
Fuzzy growled. “Why were you listening? You know eavesdropping is a very rude habit.”
“I wasn’t listening, I was looking for my contact.”
“Did you find it?”
I shook my head.
“Would you like me to help you look?”
“That’s kind of you, but no.”
“If you did lose a contact, then you should still have one in the other eye. How about you take it out and show me?”
I laughed like he had told a fun joke. “If I did that, I wouldn’t be able to see.”
“Take it out,” Fuzzy insisted.
“Actually, they both fell out.” I was an awful liar. Not that I lied a lot, but when I did it was awful.
“But you just said you still had one in to see.”
All I could do was gulp.
“I don’t think you know who I am,” Fuzzy said sharply. “I own this building. There are over three hundred employees here, and they all do as I say. For example, if I were to ask them to help me deal with you, they would.”
“Not Zeke.”
“Maybe not Zeke,” Fuzzy said sadly. “What a shame. I know he needs this job, and yet here you are making things messy.”
“I’ll go then,” I told him while standing up slowly.
“Wait,” Fuzzy said. “Maybe I should call the sheriff.”
“That’s okay. Sheriff Rolly and I don’t really get along.”
“That’s right,” Fuzzy gurgled. “You’ve caused trouble before. So how about you keep your nose in your own business and forget anything you might have heard today. It’s the only way I can guarantee someone you love won’t get hurt.”
Fuzzy clapped and Steve came back into the room. Steve then escorted me down the elevator and out of the building to make sure I didn’t attempt to see Zeke.
As we stepped outside, I looked at Steve. “It must be fun working here.”
“Yeah, a blast.”
I ran away and into the pouring rain. Then, as much as I didn’t want to, I ran all the way back to the hotel without stopping.
CHAPTER EIGHT
DESPERATE TIMES
I don’t want to disgust you, but when I got to the hotel I found a disturbing scene. The Angora Room was filled with old Bunny Mooners and tourists eating appetizers and shuffling around slowly. My father was there dancing with Summer. There was no music, but the two of them were swaying like there was. He w
as supposed to be lying on his bed and staring at the volcanto, but his plans had obviously changed.
Running up to my father, I grabbed the sleeve of his shirt and tugged.
“I need to talk to you, Dad.”
“Perry,” he said, smiling and dancing. “You were right about this island, it’s enchanting. Did you know Summer has a brother that works for an insurance company in Boston?”
I wondered why my dad thought I would know that, or how that fact made Bunny Island enchanting.
“She also used to have a gluten allergy, but she got over it when she grew up.”
“Congratulations, Summer,” I said. “Dad, I need to talk to you.”
“Let me finish this dance,” he said happily.
“There’s no music,” I pointed out.
“And I probably should be working,” Summer said. She stopped dancing and let go of my dad. “But I’ll be done in an hour.”
Summer walked off, and I pulled my father out of the Angora Room and into a hallway for some privacy.
“Zeke’s in trouble,” I whispered urgently.
“What?”
I told my dad a condensed version of everything that had transpired, from the steel bunnies to Fuzzy’s phone call about warehouses and booty.
“Where does your octopus friend come in?”
“Admiral Uli’s a squid, and I’m not talking about him. I’m talking about your brother Zeke being in trouble.”
“Zeke’s at work,” my dad said, confused.
I slapped my mantle with my tentacle.
“I know you think I’m always making things up, but this is for real,” I insisted. “Just like the last two times I was here. Remember, things went down and my friends and I had to save the island.”
“I remember you having some terrific adventures.”
“They turned Zeke into a rabbit.”
“I’m glad he got better.”
“Dad, I really need your help.”
“Listen, Perry,” he said, putting his hand on my shoulder. “There is nobody I believe in more than you. Your whole life you’ve been different from me, but I’ve always admired it. You jump into things I can’t even imagine. Now we are here on this island and you are talking about something that seems to be a problem only you could fix. A problem that . . . Wait, I forgot what the actual problem was.”