by Obert Skye
None of us believed that.
“This is the sort of thing Zeke should save us from,” I whined. “But no, he’s too in love and busy working for the very person who’s going to kill us and every real bunny here.”
“This sucks,” Rain said.
I sighed long and loud, like a blowfish filled with extra air. “I’m really sorry about all this, you guys.”
“I know you are,” Rain said, sounding more compassionate than usual. “We should have believed you about the robots in the first place.”
“That’s true.”
“Besides,” Rain said, “we seem to make as many bad decisions as you. I mean, who first suggested we ride that conveyor belt?”
“Juliet,” I said.
“Perry agreed with me,” she reminded us.
“I can’t help it if I’m easily persuaded.”
The darkness around us was suffocating. We could all feel a tension building, knowing that at any moment Fuzzy would activate the rabbits and bring destruction to everything.
Rain groaned. “So, Perry, what would your comic squid do in a situation like this?”
Things had to be bad for Rain to be asking about Admiral Uli.
“Well,” I said, “Uli has a steel-tipped tentacle. He also has a beak he can chew through rope with. I’m sure he would have already gotten free by now and be home enjoying a cup of hot plankton.”
“You’re ridiculous,” Juliet cried. “I’m going to miss that.”
“I’m going to miss it too,” Rain admitted. “I know I give you a hard time about all that crab stuff. But the truth is, you being you has made the island better.”
“Except for this part,” Juliet said.
“I had no life before you guys,” I admitted. “Don’t tell anyone, but you guys mean more than squids to me.”
“Who are we going to tell?” Rain asked.
Rain was right. We were alone, and there was no way out of what was about to happen. I thought of all the things I loved and would miss. Thanks to my time on Bunny Island, it was a long list.
An inky darkness blacker than the air around me flooded my mind as the fear of what was about to happen crushed the life out of me. My arms hurt from the ropes, my back hurt from being crammed up against the metal door, and my bladder had had just about enough.
CHAPTER TWENTY
HAVING A VISION
In Ocean Blasterzoids, when someone dies they move on to a place called the Endless Tank Above. It’s a tank as big as the sky and filled with all the things to make the after-ocean life wonderful—things like salt water, food, angelfish, and pearls.
Now things had turned inky for me and my friends. By all accounts, we were done for. But as I thought of the things I would miss, we all heard a loud clicking from the great beyond. The door we were tied to was being opened, and the ropes around us fell away.
Light flashed on while I fell to the ground.
I didn’t see fish angels, but I did see Juliet and Rain, and my dad and Zeke.
“Is this the Endless Tank Above?” I whispered while rubbing my eyes.
“Nope,” a voice said.
Turning my head, I saw Sheriff Rolly.
“Are you okay?” my dad asked forcefully.
“I think we’re fine,” Juliet answered for both Rain and me.
I wanted to point out that I still needed to use the bathroom, but it didn’t feel like the right moment.
Sheriff Rolly and Zeke were looking up at the cavern and all the thousands of holes.
“What is this place?” the sheriff asked in awe.
“It’s the master hub,” I said loudly. “All those holes are stuffed with thousands of robot bunnies that are about to tear this island apart when Fuzzy sets them off.”
Sheriff Rolly swore. “How do we stop him?”
“He’s got a button around his neck,” Rain told the sheriff. “If we get that, he can’t turn them on.”
“And where is he now?” my dad asked.
“He was going to the bun-fire,” I shouted.
“Come on then,” Zeke said.
We went to the conveyor belt, and my dad hit the reverse switch. He helped Juliet and Rain onto the belt and then pulled me over. I climbed on and instantly began to move quickly back in the direction we had come from.
Zeke, my dad, and the sheriff got on behind me.
“What happened?” I asked while looking back at my uncle. He was kneeling on the moving belt with my dad right in back of him.
“You said you’d check in,” my dad answered. “And for some reason I began to worry.”
“So you came looking for me?” I asked in disbelief.
“I found your uncle, he found the sheriff, and we followed the clues. Zeke thought that maybe you had gone back to the warehouse, even though you had been told not to. I also thought that, seeing how I’m your father and I know you struggle with staying away from adventure.”
“I just figured you three would be doing something you shouldn’t,” Sheriff Rolly said.
“We came down the thoroughfare,” my dad continued. “Zeke saw your bikes near those three stones, so we entered the warehouse and looked in the cabinet.”
“It’s hard not to jump on an unknown conveyor belt and see where it goes,” Zeke pointed out.
“Tell me about it,” Juliet said.
“It was a good ride,” my dad admitted. “When we reached the end, we opened the door and there you were.”
We told them everything that had happened and what Fuzzy was up to. Sheriff Rolly was shocked and upset. I was on my knees dancing to keep from using the bathroom.
The conveyor belt finally angled up, and we rose quickly to the cabinet, where we were then dumped out into the warehouse.
“When did he say he was going to turn those rabbits on?” the sheriff asked as we exited the building and got into the golf carts they had brought.
“When they light the bun-fire,” Rain answered.
“Then we have no time to lose.”
There was only one thing I needed to do before we took off. So, after a quick visit to some trees behind the warehouse, the six of us raced down the Port O’Hare thoroughfare, knowing there wasn’t another second to spare.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
URGENCY OF THE BUN-FIRE
When we reached Rabbit Road, there was barely any room for our golf carts to move. It was packed with people all walking to see the bun-fire. I was in the lead cart with my dad and Sheriff Rolly, and Zeke was driving Juliet and Rain behind us. We weren’t really driving, though, because the crowd was too thick.
“What time is it now?” the sheriff asked.
My dad looked at his watch. “We have three minutes before they light the fire.”
Sheriff Rolly stopped his cart completely while a crowd of people blocked the road.
“We won’t make it on time,” my dad said. “You need to run, Perry!”
It was a weird thing for my dad to say, but I had changed so much that for the first time in my life I was glad to have legs and not tentacles.
I jumped out of the cart and took off down the stone path, weaving and darting between people.
“What are you doing?” I heard Juliet scream from behind me. She had jumped off her cart to follow me.
“We’ve got to stop him!”
“Then run faster!” Rain yelled as he caught up.
It was hard to run too fast due to the mob of people. But I pumped my legs as hard as I could as I slipped around and through the crowd. I didn’t want to be a squid at that moment. I didn’t want to have three hearts and two ink sacks. I didn’t want to live beneath the ocean and hang out with Admiral Uli. All I wanted was to stop one of the most unlikable people I knew from destroying thousands of real rabbits and their homes.
The tall wooden bunny rose up as we got closer. The crowd circled around it, chanting, laughing, and waiting for it to be lit. We couldn’t run anymore; there was no space. People were packed in like sardines. Th
rough the various bodies and heads, I saw Fuzzy sitting on a wide foldable chair surrounded by everyone. He was about a hundred people away from us and eating something! It appeared that he was enjoying the last few moments before the bun-fire was burned and he ushered in the reign of his robot rabbits.
A man who called himself Neil stepped up to a microphone near the large wooden bunny and wished everyone a happy Bunny Break. Neil was the president of the Bunny Island Chamber of Commerce, and it was his responsibility to inform everyone that it was time for the bun-fire. Neil was a skinny man. He had a gob of gray hair on his head and was wearing a T-shirt with a tie and shorts. A woman near him handed off a lit torch, and Neil raised it above his head.
The crowd clapped and cheered as Neil began the countdown.
“Ten!”
“No!” I yelled, but nobody could hear me.
We couldn’t move due to the crushing amount of people. Seeing no other option, Rain and Juliet shoved me through a thick bunch of tourists.
“Stop Fuzzy!” Juliet yelled.
I popped through a dozen people and squeezed closer to the captain.
“Nine . . . ,” Neil continued to count.
I pushed between two women and three men.
“. . . eight, seven . . .”
A group of Bunny Mooners were blocking my way, so I spun around them.
“. . . six, five . . .”
I dashed under the legs of three unsuspecting people.
“. . . four, three . . .”
Standing up, I shoved my way even closer. As I pushed, I saw Fuzzy look up from his greasy plate of food. He saw me in the crowd, and his blobby eyes went wider. He held the red remote in his right hand and scowled.
“. . . two, one!”
Neil threw the torch onto the wooden bunny and it . . . didn’t light. Everyone was stunned, but the recent rain had made the bunny too wet. People began to boo as my heart lifted. This was just what we needed. Fuzzy wanted to set things off when the rabbit was burning, but the rabbit was not cooperating.
I looked at Captain Fuzzy, and he looked at me. Then with a menacing smile he shrugged and lifted the remote.
“Noooooo!” I screamed as I lunged in a last-ditch effort to stop Fuzzy. Unfortunately, I was too far away to lunge effectively. I flew forward, slamming down hard on the sand, ten feet short of him.
Captain Fuzzy looked down at me from his seat and smiled.
“Nice try, Perry, but you’re too late.”
He laughed aloud and pushed the button.
All around me people were shouting and complaining about the bun-fire not burning, but I knew that would soon be the least of their problems.
I stood up and saw that Fuzzy was smiling like he had just eaten the world’s most valuable and important piece of cake. Juliet and Rain had finally gotten through the crowd and moved in to help me up.
“Did he press the button?” Juliet yelled.
I nodded violently.
“What do we do?” Rain asked.
“Yes,” the captain hollered. “What do you do?” He stood up from his chair. “I have no idea how you escaped, but it’s too late. At this moment thousands of bunnies are digging beneath the mountain finding my . . .”
Fuzzy stopped talking.
The crowd around us was still shouting with disappointment over the non-burning bun-fire. They were clueless as to the real problem. There were people booing and laughing and talking. None of that bothered me. What bothered me was the look on Fuzzy’s face. He was chewing his bottom lip and looked worried.
The ground beneath my feet began to buzz.
“What is that?” Juliet asked.
Other people began to notice the buzzing ground.
“Earthquake!” someone yelled.
People began to scream and run, thinking the island was experiencing an earthquake. They were wrong, and as they panicked the ground began to buzz even harder. Then, like a thousand corks popping, bunnies started to shoot out of rabbit holes and leap through the air. A woman near me was knocked down as a rabbit clawed at her hands, trying to get her bracelets.
All over, robot bunnies were springing out of holes and tearing at the ground. They were hopping after anything or anyone that had gold on them. I saw a rabbit stick its paws into a man’s mouth to get his gold fillings. Someone was screaming about their earrings and earlobes.
It was a bun-bardment.
The ground shook while bits of the beach collapsed due to wild robots burrowing below.
“You have to stop this!” I screamed at Fuzzy. “Turn them off!”
Instead of cooperating, he began to push and barrel his way through the frightened mob and away from us. Rabbits were appearing out of nowhere to bring people down. Real bunnies were hopping for their lives as the heavy fake ones blasted out of the ground and began to tear at people, plants, and soil in search of gold.
A black rabbit zipped past me and knocked over Rain. The scene was a mess! Only Fuzzy could stop it.
Juliet began to chase him, but she was waylaid by two bunnies that flew through the air and slammed into her legs. I stopped to help her.
“Don’t help me!” she ordered. “Get to that button!”
I did as she said.
Using the kind of elite squid skills that only a true squid could, I slipped and squirted through the crowd, chasing down the blob fish. Fortunately for me, he couldn’t run very fast or for very long. He knocked a few people over before quickly falling to his knees out of breath. I ran up to him and reached for the red remote that was still hanging around his neck.
“No!” he screamed, holding his right hand over the remote. “I want that treasure.”
“Look around you!” I screamed back. “What good is treasure if you destroy everything?”
“Boohoo,” he growled while still on his knees. “Not my problem.”
“You’re going to kill every rabbit and person on this island,” I yelled.
“I don’t care! The booty will be—”
Right on cue, a rabbit came flying through the air and hit Fuzzy squarely in the back of his big blobby head. The smile on his face was knocked clean off, and he went down face forward into the sand. He was out cold.
“Perry!” I heard my father yell above all the other noise. “Perry!”
My dad had finally caught up to me, but I didn’t have any time to waste. I dropped onto my knees near Fuzzy and tried to roll him over.
There was no way.
“I need to turn the robots off!” I shouted. “He’s lying on the controller.”
My dad tried to help me, but we still couldn’t roll him over. Fuzzy just lay there, facedown on the sand like a beached blob fish. Rain escaped a couple of attacking bunnies and found us as we were kneeling over Fuzzy.
“What are you doing?” he yelled.
“He’s on the control,” I told him. “We need to turn him over.”
Another bunny hit Rain.
“He’s too heavy,” my dad said, still struggling. “We need . . .”
“I know what you need,” Zeke said as he and the sheriff dropped down next to us. Together we all pushed on the unconscious Fuzzy, trying to flip him over.
“Push!” I screamed.
He was moving slightly, but it was taking every bit of strength we had. Also, it didn’t help that there were still rabid robots chasing screaming people around and filling the air with sand and fake fur.
“If we don’t turn these things off, this island is over!” Sheriff Rolly yelled. “Push!”
All five of us strained.
“Wait for me!” Juliet shouted.
She dropped down and leveraged her arms to help push up as we pushed over. The six of us gave it everything we had. Fuzzy turned just enough so that I could reach under him and grab the remote.
I yanked it off his neck with one hand as we let him drop back onto his stomach.
“Press the button!” my dad yelled.
My life was usually better when I did wh
at my dad suggested, so I pressed the button and . . . nothing happened.
“Press it again!” Zeke shouted.
I pressed it ten more times, but it still didn’t do anything.
“Maybe it takes a fingerprint!” Juliet said. “My mother’s cell phones can do that.”
Sheriff Rolly grabbed Fuzzy’s right arm as he lay on the sand. He then shoved Fuzzy’s pointer finger onto the button as I held the remote.
Nothing happened!
“I think his finger’s too greasy to read the fingerprint!” I told them. “Wipe it off.”
“Gross!” Rain complained as a rabbit ran up his back and jumped onto a screaming lady who was trying to protect her gold earrings.
Zeke grabbed Fuzzy’s hand from Sheriff Rolly and wiped his finger on his own T-shirt. The sheriff then tried again by smashing the finger onto the button.
This time it worked!
All at once, every robot rabbit shut down. Bunnies in midleap fell to the ground. They all stopped what they were doing and instantly became furry, lifeless hunks of metal and hair.
Juliet began to jump with joy. She hugged me so long that I did a little joy jumping (and some crying as well). Sheriff Rolly instantly got up and went about trying to calm the crowd down as everyone on the island tried to figure out what the heck had just happened. The bun-fire statue had been trampled by all the action and was now just a large pile of wood.
“Perry,” I heard my father say.
I turned around, and he patted me on the shoulder in a way that made me feel as if he approved of everything that I had ever done. Zeke was next to him smiling proudly.
“What do you think of Bunny Island?” I asked my dad.
“It’s spectacular,” he said with excitement. “Of course, what I’m most impressed with is you.”
“I told you,” my uncle Zeke said to his brother. “This island needs Perry.”
“Well, I’d be dead if you hadn’t come looking for me,” I reminded them.
“Just know that I always will,” my dad said.
“Actually,” Zeke said as he looked around at the confused, loud, and crazy scene, “you both picked the perfect time to visit. Bunny Break is always fun.”
I looked around at the disoriented tourists and Bunny Mooners and the hundreds of robot bunnies lying on the ground.