by James Kahn
An entire curve of wall crumbled away, leaving an enormous opening, high up, on the other side of the ship. An opening to daylight.
Wind filled the sails, and the ship half righted itself, just as the Fratellis ran up on deck. The tilting threw them across the floor to the rail, where stones and rubble rained down on them.
The ancient anchor began raising on some reactivated pulley system, its rusted chains groaning in all the other noise. This caused some additional lurching, which tossed the Fratellis overboard.
It was like an earthquake. The ground was breaking up, the walls cracking, rocks crashing to the ground, the whole place shaking so bad, you could hardly stand.
And then we saw the exit. Light at the end of a long tunnel, light to the outside. We ran for it.
The Fratellis were moving in our direction but not getting very far. They were being pelted with rocks and dirt, and the lagoon was getting wavy now, too.
We made it to the tunnel entrance, but it started collapsing, like everything else. Boulders clunked down in front of it, earth started shifting, piling up. We all held back, except Sloth, who went right on ahead. Went up to the entrance and held his arms out against the walls and wedged his back up against the low ceiling. And held the damn thing up!
“Rrwrgh,” he said to us, and it was pretty clear what he meant. One by one we crawled between his legs, into the tunnel. The rocks kept comin' down everywhere, man, but he didn't flinch, didn't move a muscle.
Chunk was the last one in. He called back, “Sloth, c'mon, take my hand, you come, too!”
Sloth still didn't move, though. He just kept starin' out at the lagoon. I followed his eye. He was lookin' at his mama and his brothers, in the water, half-drowned, struggling for their lives. He was probably thinkin' about all the shit they'd dumped on him all those years and how he was finally gonna be free of it, but then I guess he must've thought about how he loved them, too, and they were part of each other, I guess the way I feel about Brand even when he's being a royal pain in the ass.
Anyway, I thought all that because Sloth just turned his head toward Chunk, with a tear in his good eye, and said, “Mom,” and gave Chunk like a little kiss on the cheek and then turned and stepped back into the cavern, back to his family
“Sloth! No!” called Chunk. But too late. Falling boulders sealed off the entrance forever.
And that's not all.
The exit to the daylight was buried in the same moment.
We were sealed in the tunnel.
No way out.
Well, obviously Brand started freaking right away.
“We gotta get outta here,” he said in this real thin voice.
No lie. The ground was still rumbling, stones were falling in on us—it was like major bad news.
Brand's voice was getting louder. “Data, we need one of your lights!”
Data fumbled in his backpack for one of Chester Copperpot's flares, then lit a match, then lit the flare. The sparking light just showed us that the situation was even worse than we'd imagined—the tunnel was smaller, dirt was filling in at both ends like there was no tomorrow. Like there wasn't even any tonight.
And that wasn't all. In the dim flickering light Data noticed something funny about the flare. “Hey, this isn't a road flare,” he said. “It's… it's… dynamite!”
He dropped it, and we all ran to the near end of the tunnel, crying, huddling, and shouting. The stick just lay there, its wick sparking lower, ten feet away. Suddenly Data jumped up, ran over to it, carried it to the far end of the tunnel, stuck it in a crack there where the earth just kept falling in, and ran back to us. We all closed our eyes, held our ears, and pretended it was an air raid drill.
There was a giant BOOM, and the ground shook even more, and more dirt fell. When it quieted some, I opened my eyes to find a large hole blown in the wall.
Beyond the hole was ocean.
We ran like crazy through the hole and stumbled out into a little rocky alcove, just as the entire passageway collapsed in a cloud of rock dust.
Pebbled beach spread out in two directions, and the great Pacific Ocean washed up on our feet.
It was over.
The heavy rumblings changed to muffled echoes in the background, like it was already a memory or a daydream. Willy's caverns and tunnels were being buried forever. Only his story was left.
I breathed in the fresh sea air and looked at us. Bruised, scratched, dirty, and tattered. We'd been through so much, so together. It made me feel… strong. Like we weren't Goony kids anymore. Like we were heroic.
I took another deep breath, and I don't know what it was, but somehow I just knew my asthma was gone, too—buried in the tunnels somewhere.
We hugged and cheered and jumped up and down and like were totally stoked, except Chunk was kind of bummed out about losing Sloth. That's when he told us about his adventures.
I told you most of it already. Him and Sloth went into the skull tunnel right after the Fratellis and followed them down the river to that giant, foggy lake. Chunk said Sloth had a real hard time handling the fog—he just sat in the middle of their raft, all hunkered down, sort of whimpering and tryin' to swat at the mist like it was flies on his neck. Chunk said he just sat there and comforted the big guy the whole time—petted his back and scratched behind his ears and sang him jingles of all the TV commercials he could remember, especially food commercials. So Sloth started doin' better by the end and even started singin' along with Chunk a little, like a regular hootenanny.
Anyway, they finally made it across the lake, and the fog lifted, just like for us, and they tiptoed over the mast through the cave of rushing waters and up into the organ chamber, too. It turned out that the entire floor of the organ chamber didn't fall away—there was still a little lip of ledge around the wall from the entrance to the exit, and they inched over it and made it to the water slides and into the lagoon.
And then, in the lagoon, they saw the Fratellis sneaking up on us, so they snuck up on the Fratellis, and the rest, as they say, is history.
We started walkin' up the beach, talkin' all at once about everything, and it wasn't a minute before two Beach Patrol guys in a dune buggy zoomed around the bend and tore over to us. One of 'em ran up, while the other one was sayin' on his walkie-talkie, “I don't know where they came from, they weren't here a minute ago,” and the one who ran up was sayin' to us, “You kids all right?”
They took us to the Ranger station down the beach, and it looked like Disaster Central. The place was packed with cops, reporters, ambulances, rubberneckers, coast guard. And parents.
Mom rushed up and hugged me, with the arm that wasn't broken, and Dad hugged Brand and said, “Where have you been?” But he didn't sound angry like I thought. Even Rosalita was standing there, crossin' herself to beat the band.
I felt kind of embarrassed. “Hi, Mom. I guess we're in deep, huh?”
She just cried and hugged me again, though, and then she started unbuttoning my shirt and told Rosalita to help her get me out of these wet clothes and into some dry ones they'd brought.
I just let myself be passed around for a while. I watched Chunk regroup with his parents. You couldn't miss 'em, they were the same shape and wore the same clothes as Chunk, down to the same tacky Hawaiian shirts. After their hugs were over, his mom gave him a cardboard box wrapped in tinfoil.
“Lawrence, we were so worried,” she said. “Here, darling, I wrapped supper for you. It's your favorite.…”
Chunk ripped the foil away, and there it was—a Domino's Pizza with the works.
When Data's family finished with their first round of hugs and kisses, Data's father stepped back and pushed a button on his chest, which released a snap on the camera around his neck, so the lens cap flipped open and the shutter clicked and a flash went off, all automatically.
“Dad, you're the greatest inventor,” said Data, and hugged him again.
“And you're my greatest invention,” said his father.
I saw Mouth talkin' to Stef over by themselves, 'cause their parents weren't there yet. “I just wanna say… well, you know, you were gonna save my life, and I… well, I… just wanna say… thanks.”
“What?” she said. Her eyes got real wide. “What was that?”
“Thank you,” he said real fast, so it was hard to hear.
“Was that you talkin'?” she said, kind of shocked. “Wow. You know, Mouth, you sound kinda nice… when your mouth doesn't screw it up.”
He nodded. “You know, Stef, you look kinda pretty… when your face doesn't screw it up.” Then he laughed. “Hey, kidding. Just kidding.”
I saw Andy with her mom and dad. They were wrappin' her in a cashmere sweater and scolding her for doin' such a terrible thing to them, as if it had anything to do with them. But parents are just like that, sometimes—kinda self-centered.
Andy came up to me then, while all the parents were signing some forms or something. She smiled at me. “Mikey, you just keep kissing girls the way you do, and the parts of you that don't work so well are going to catch up to the parts that do.”
That was when I realized that she knew it was me who'd kissed her in the cave. I don't know if she knew it then, but she knew it now. She knew it, and she liked it.
I guess it's like Willy said, I was on my way to being a man now. It felt okay, too. Especially now, the way Andy was lookin' at me.
Brand walked up before I could say anything and put his arm around her. I didn't want to deflate his ego, though, or undermine his psychological defenses or anything like that. You know? So I didn't say anything about me and Andy. I figured we were all adult enough to handle it, but why hurt someone if you don't need to, especially a friend, right?
So I let 'em just walk away together. Made me feel a little like Humphrey Bogart at the end of Casablanca.
I heard Brand say to her, “Okay, so what's it gonna be? You a full-time Goony? Or a part-time Goony?”
“I'm a lifetime Goony,” she said, and kissed him the way she used to kiss me. On their way to catch the plane to Lisbon.
I coughed, so I didn't have to hear what they were saying, and then from reflex, because I was coughing, I got my mist inhaler out of my jacket and was about to take a puff, when I realized… I didn't need it anymore. So I tossed it. More growin' up.
I noticed my dad watchin' me, and I saw him smile.
All of a sudden there was a big commotion, and the cops and paramedics ran to the shoreline. And what do you think?
There was Sloth, walkin' out of the ocean, dragging Mama, Jake, and Francis, all of them totally waterlogged.
The police took Mama and the boys into custody right away, but Chunk was the first one to Sloth. “Sloth! Sloth!” he shouted.
Sloth gave a happy grunt and picked Chunk up in the air for a big Sloth-hug. Chunk held out his box of dinner to share. “Look, Sloth. Have some.”
There was this great look of instant recognition on Sloth's face, and he immediately started singing the Domino's Pizza jingle. Then he devoured a slice in a single gulp.
Chunk's parents got over to 'em by then, and they didn't look too thrilled.
Chunk spoke up. “His name is Sloth, and he's my new friend. And Dad? If they take away our house and we have to move to New York… I thought maybe we could adopt him? 'Cause they're gonna take his mom to prison for sure, so they'd just put him in a home somewhere, and that wouldn't be any good for him, and he's my friend. So maybe we could adopt him and get him a job with the New York Jets or with the Rangers as head goalie? Now, I been thinkin' it out, and…”
Sloth, meanwhile, destroyed another slice of pizza and, let loose a volcanic belch. Chunk's parents just looked kinda glazed.
Mr. Perkins and Troy drove up, then, in a big white Cadillac convertible. They came over to where me and Dad were standing. Mr. Perkins was waving a paper at us—that guy never missed an opportunity to be the jerk in every crowd.
“Trying to avoid me, eh, Walsh? Well, running away from your problems won't solve them. Neither will this little beach party. Midnight tonight is your deadline, and the sun's nearly down, so let's sign these papers and get it over with.”
“Please, Mr. Perkins,” Dad said, “if you could just hold off—”
“Hold off? Walsh, your home is blocking the start of our first fairway. We've got to begin with you.”
“But if you just give me a little more time, I might find—”
“C'mon, Walsh,” piped up Troy, that chip off the old blockhead, “my daddy doesn't have all day. There's fifty more houses to trash after yours.”
Dad looked at the papers, then reached into his pocket and took out his Promotene mist inhaler—oh yeah, did I mention that my dad, had asthma, too?
It made me so sad to see him beaten like this. I felt like somehow it was my fault. “I'm sorry, Dad. We had our hands on the future, but… we blew it.”
Dad looked like he was gonna start bawling any second. But in some weird way he looked real strong, and sure of himself, too. I don't remember seeing him look much like that before.
He looked down at me and said, “You and Brand are back. Safe. With your mother and me. That makes us the richest people in Cauldron Point.”
And then you know what he did? He threw away his mist inhaler. I guess maybe he'd grown up a little over the past day, too.
“Walsh?” said Perkins. “You're looking at the richest people in Cauldron Point. Now sign it.”
Troy propped the paper against his father's back and whipped out a fancy fountain pen. “Here,” he said to my dad, “use my pen. I'll even let you keep it as a souvenir.”
The crowd seemed to know what was going on, and I was suddenly aware that everything got a lot quieter. Everyone was watchin' us. I think my dad trembled a little.
I heard Data whisper, “I sure am gonna miss bein' a Goony.”
The wind was blowing. The sun was setting. I remember everything about that moment. The way the blanket was wrapped around me for warmth, the sadness in Mom's eye as she watched Dad take the pen from Troy. The way it was so quiet, you could hear someone cough, and someone else rubbing his hands together. The way the salt air smelled, with the coolness coming on, and the long shadows and the gritty sand in my hair and the way my tears tasted.
And I felt so close to everyone here. There was so much love and loyalty, it was like hard to even work up a big hate against these ignorant clods who had money and now had our houses but who somehow seemed so pathetic and pitiful for everything they didn't have.
“Sign,” Perkins said again. It sounded like a sound an insect makes.
I remember the way the Fratellis looked, handcuffed to a patrol wagon. I remember the way Rosalita looked, trying to keep from being sad by folding my wet clothes on a big rock. I remember the look of shock on her face as Dad started to sign, and suddenly started shouting in Spanish.
It made Dad pause, her shouting. Made the whole crowd look at her. She just kept shouting.
I heard Stef say to Mouth, “Okay, Mr. Mouth—what's she saying?”
Mouth listened carefully, but he wasn't like real good at understanding spoken Spanish. “Don't… sit down … no… don't shoot… no… don't throw up… no… don't sign!”
I heard him before Dad did. As Mouth and Stef ran up I grabbed the paper out of Dad's hand, so the fountain pen kind of dribbled down Mr. Perkins's back.
Rosalita ran over, then, carrying what she'd found in my pants when she was folding 'em on the rock—my bag of marbles. Except it wasn't marbles in it anymore. Remember?
“Look,” whispered Chunk at Rosalita's cupped hands.
It was jewels.
Rubies, emeralds, diamonds, sapphires. All choice. All sparkling like an extraterrestrial fire in the rays of the setting sun.
Dad turned to Mr. Perkins. “I don't think I'll be signing anything today, Mr. Perkins.” Then he tore the contract in two.
The crowd cheered.
The Goonies all formed a huddle, and gave each other
a huge Goony hug.
Suddenly the police couldn't hold back the reporters anymore, and they rushed forward, snapping pictures of us and asking a million questions.
“Are those stones real? How the hell did you kids…”
“What happened out there? Were your lives in danger?”
Data talked first. “Well, the giant squid was pretty bad.…”
Andy said, “But walking the plank was even scarier.…”
“Walking the plank?” said one reporter with that adult know-it-all sound in his voice.
“Well, see, we found this pirate ship,” said Brand.
“And when we tried to take the treasure…” added Chunk.
But the sheriff arrived just then, and he hadn't seen the jewels yet, but he had experience with Chunk's powers of description. “You tellin' more stories, Lawrence?” he said.
“Wait,” said Chunk, “this time I'm really tellin' the truth, sheriff, honest.…”
The sheriff nodded patiently and turned his head a second to give Chunk some time to think up another one, but when he turned his head, he saw something in the distance. Out on the water. “Holy Mother of God,” he whispered. And then, louder, “Look!”
We all looked toward the sea. And we saw the ship.
Sailing free, to the horizon, the last edge of the sun just dipping below the line.
Willy was going home, too.
“Thank you, One-Eyed Willy,” I whispered. And I know he heard me. 'Cause I was the melody in his head that finally set him free, just like he was the melody in mine.
And everyone on that beach watched him sail away. Nobody moved or said a word, until the ship was just a dot on the horizon.
And then it was gone.
Epilogue
One last thing I wanted to say.
I got to read the police report on the Fratellis, and this is what happened, according to Mama.
After we jumped ship she woke up Jake and Francis and took 'em to the captain's cabin, to gloat over their find. And the first thing Mama grabbed for was the gold on the scales in front of Willy. Willy's gold.