by Henry Clark
“None o’ them things!” protested Killbreath. Mishrag threw an arm around his shoulders and hustled him toward a stairway.
I plucked at the back of Clarence’s shirt. “C’mon!” I pulled him back to the engine room.
“They’ve got Frankie!” I told Tom, finding him and Dwina and Seth gathered around a barrel, where Tom had obviously been flipping his quarter and consulting the I-Ching. “We have less than twenty minutes to save her! Otherwise, she’s going sky-high with everybody else when the boilers blow!”
“That would explain the hexagram.”
“What hexagram?”
Tom held it in front of my face.
HEXAGRAM 54
THE WELL-REGARDED MAIDEN.
A GIRL OF SUBSTANCE. MAY NOT KNOW HER PLACE, SO MAKES EVERY PLACE HER OWN. APPROACHABLE, BUT BE PREPARED TO DUCK. A WOMAN TO WALK THROUGH SAND FOR, AND BY THAT I MEAN SAND THAT HAS BEEN HEATED BY THE SUN UNTIL IT’S BORDERLINE UNCOMFORTABLE. USE YOUR JUDGMENT.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “That sounds like Frankie. What’s the Morse?”
“A dot followed by three dots, then a dash followed by a dot and another dot, ending in two dashes. It spells esteem.”
“Meaning what?”
“That we’re supposed to ESTEEM this girl. Value her and respect her. And, I suppose, rescue her.”
“Really?”
“Either that, or it means she’s going to die in ESTEEM explosion.”
I punched him on the shoulder. “What?” I demanded. “Now it’s making puns?”
“Yeah,” he admitted sheepishly. “But not very good ones.” As if that made it okay.
“More steam, Mr. Whiffletree!” came Mishrag’s voice, sounding tinny through a brass speaking tube that hung down from the ceiling between the double boilers.
Clarence shouted “Aye, aye!” and started throwing more logs in the furnace.
“Won’t that make it too hot?” I said, coming up beside him.
“These boilers ain’t blown in fifty trips,” he informed me cheerfully. “They’ll only blow if there’s a flaw in the plates, which more ’n’ more, I’m thinkin’ there ain’t! At least, I hope there ain’t!”
He grinned and threw another log in.
I adjusted my bonnet for maximum concealment and went back outside to check on our progress. The boat had the turn-radius of a Brontosaurus, but it was finally swinging around toward the Greater Gustimuck. The shore opposite the town of Freedom Falls was getting closer and closer. The current seemed less swift. I figured there would be plenty of time to get Dwina and Seth safely away from the doomed boat. Rescuing Frankie was the bigger problem.
A plan popped into my head.
Immediately, I didn’t like it.
As soon as we had seen Seth and Dwina safely on their way, I would play the Time Trombone. I was pretty sure I could hit the right notes to take the three of us home. Mr. Ganto had said he would be within earshot, so he would come, too. We would be whisked away, just before the boat exploded.
And everybody else would die in the explosion.
The two little boys who had used rock-paper-scissors on the dock ran past me, the one with the gun chasing the other and shouting “Ka-pow! Ka-pow!” The one being chased turned, aimed his finger, and shouted “Ka-pow!” right back.
I looked at my phone.
Fourteen minutes.
I had seen two other kids on board, one of them a baby. Clarence seemed like a nice enough guy, helping runaway slaves and all, and I was sure there were other good people on the boat as well.
Frankie had said we couldn’t interfere. What had happened in the past couldn’t be changed, because it would put the future in peril. You couldn’t deflect the bullet intended for Lincoln, you couldn’t warn the Titanic, you couldn’t save the crew and passengers of the Buckeye Beauty if it was their fate to be blown sky-high.
“Oh yeah?” I said.
And I came up with a better plan.
CHAPTER 21
That Which Does Not Kill Me Will Probably Try Harder Next Time
The boat started, at last, to come out of its turn. Straightening, the bow began to point downstream into the Greater Gustimuck, the riverbank on the right about forty feet away from us. The water looked shallow, so I figured it was time for Dwina and Seth to be on their way.
I took two steps toward the engine room and was thrown to the deck.
A grinding roar like boulders rubbing against each other filled the air, and the boat slowed, shook, and shuddered to a halt. I wondered if the boiler had exploded. Tom came running out of the engine room with his arms and legs still attached, so I decided it hadn’t.
“We’ve run aground!” shouted Clarence, following Tom. Behind him, Dwina and Seth peeked cautiously around the corner. Clarence ran to the railing and surveyed the situation. “We’re stuck on a sandbar! I have to stop the wheel!” He raced back to his machinery.
“This is perfect!” I announced, getting back to my feet. The foggy plan I had was suddenly much clearer. I grabbed Dwina’s hand and Seth’s shoulder, gave them both a reassuring squeeze, and nodded toward the shore. “You get ready to swim! We’re going to create a diversion so nobody sees you escaping! When you hear me shout, uh, ‘Mark Twain,’ that’ll be the signal to jump!”
I took Tom by the sleeve and pulled him back into the boiler room with me. “Get the trombone!” I told him.
“Full reverse!” Mishrag commanded distantly, through the tube. “Mr. Whiffletree—get us off this! I don’t care how much steam we have to pour on!”
Clarence threw himself against levers as tall as he was and changed their positions. Steam vented from valves above us and the pistons started to slow.
“What are you doing?” I shouted at him.
“Stopping the wheel! Then I can start it again in reverse. Cap’n’s gonna back us off the bar!”
“Will that take long?”
“Couple minutes.”
It sounded exactly like the sort of thing that might put an extra strain on the “plates” Clarence had mentioned, and send us all on our way to Kingdom Come, which was a small town twenty miles inland. I ran to the railing and shouted “Mr. Ganto!” at the top of my lungs.
The paddle wheel came to a halt just as Tom joined me with the trombone. After a grinding noise and two loud clunks from the engine room, the wheel began to turn slowly in the opposite direction. It picked up speed as I watched, even as the engine noise grew louder.
“MR. GANTO!” I shouted again, alarmed that he hadn’t shown up yet.
Killbreath’s voice bellowed through the captain’s megaphone. “Attention, stowaways! We got your friend Dorothy Gale! If you care one teensy ounce ’bout her well-bein’, you jist get yerselves up here to the wheelhouse, double pronto! She ain’t been hurt none—at least, not yet!”
Something wet, hairy, and Hawaiian passed by us on the outside of the boat, climbing out of the water on its way to the deck above us. I grabbed Mr. Ganto’s leg to get his attention.
“Shofranka is in trouble,” he rumbled. “I must go to her.”
“I want to scare everybody off this boat!” I told him. “Frankie gets saved at the same time. Tom and I run ahead, screaming in terror, you come up behind us, looking vicious—”
“I don’t do vicious.”
“Try.”
“YOU HAVE ’TIL THE COUNT OF TEN.” Killbreath’s voice came through the megaphone. “ONE… TWO…”
“There may be guns,” said Mr. Ganto.
“There always are,” I said. It didn’t seem to matter what century we were in.
“THREE… FOUR…”
Ganto scooped me up with one hand and cradled me in the crook of his arm. He clambered up the side of the boat, past the second deck to the top deck, and dropped me at a spot about thirty feet behind the wheelhouse. Then he slipped back down and fetched up Tom.
“FIVE… SIX…”
I could see the top of the paddle wheel. It was turning faster and faster, churning
up fountains of water and sand, and although the Buckeye Beauty was starting to rock back and forth, the boat wasn’t budging from its spot.
“More steam!” I heard Mishrag shout.
“SEVEN… EIGHT…”
“Run for your lives!” I screamed, and ran at the wheelhouse with Tom at my side. Ganto was about ten steps behind us, waving his arms in the air and acting like a deranged, homicidal orangutan.
Killbreath, who was standing near the wheelhouse with Mishrag’s megaphone, turned in our direction and gaped. A door in the back of the house flew open, and Mishrag stared out at us in disbelief. He was clutching Frankie.
She snatched the megaphone from Killbreath, swung it up, and hit Mishrag in the head with it. As he staggered back, he lost his grip, and Frankie broke away.
Killbreath’s hand shot out to catch her, but she funneled it into the megaphone and it stuck, two of his fingers popping out of the mouthpiece like a snake’s forked tongue. As he struggled to yank it off, Frankie ran to us.
“The killer ape’s escaped!” I shouted to everyone who could hear. “Get off the boat!”
Mishrag was wearing a pistol, and Killbreath pulled it out and pointed it in our direction. He leveled it straight at Mr. Ganto and squeezed the trigger.
Nothing happened. Killbreath looked more closely at the gun.
“You’re still usin’ a flintlock?” he said to Mishrag incredulously.
“I’ve got powder and shot here, someplace,” responded Mishrag, digging into his pockets.
Mr. Ganto grabbed both men by the neck and lifted them off their feet.
“We’re saving your lives!” I informed them. “I have no idea why. You’re a disgrace to humanity,” I told Killbreath.
“Now, don’t go judgin’ a man jus’ ’cause he likes to wear frilly pantaloons,” he snarled.
“I’m not,” I snapped back, waving my apron for emphasis. “I don’t care how you dress. Neither should anyone else. But you’re a mean, nasty person, and that does matter! Bye!”
Mr. Ganto tossed them over the side. They made a satisfying splash.
I picked up the fallen megaphone and ran to the opposite side of the boat. I leaned out as far as I dared and repeatedly shouted “MARK TWAIN!” until I saw Seth and Dwina climb over the railing. They labored across the thin strip of sand closest to the boat, then waded into the water beyond. I was glad to see the water was no deeper than Dwina’s shoulders.
I looked at my phone. Only six minutes remained.
I went into the wheelhouse and found the speaking tube that connected to the engine room. “FULL STOP!” I bellowed into it.
A moment later Clarence Whiffletree’s voice came back at me.
“We are stopped!”
“I MEAN, ER, SHUT DOWN THE ENGINE! TURN IT OFF!”
“Who is this?”
“It’s me. Ambrose Brody. The boy, I mean the girl—I mean the boy who’s friends with the runaway slaves.”
“Where’s the captain?”
“Overboard.”
“Where’s the pilot?”
“Stepped out.”
“Stop joking.”
“I’m not joking! This is an emergency! If you don’t shut down the engine, we’re going to blow up!”
“I only take orders from the captain. If he catches you playing around, he’ll tan your hide!”
I had been hiding my tan all day. Tanning my hide didn’t sound like much of a threat.
“You have to believe me!” I shouted.
The line went dead, or whatever speaking tubes do when no one is speaking. I put my ear to it and thought I could hear Clarence throwing more logs on the fire.
“We have to get down there and stop him!” Tom announced, as if it was news. “Mr. Ganto can grab him and force him to shut down the engine!”
I started for the ladder, but Frankie clutched me by the arm and wouldn’t let go.
“NO!” she screamed. “We can’t do this! We know the boat exploded. It’s part of history. We have to let it happen. Otherwise, who knows what will happen to the future!”
“Maybe something good!” I said.
“And maybe something awful!”
I thought furiously, hearing a clock ticking faster and faster in my head. “All right—we know the boat exploded. But we don’t know how many casualties. I say—there were none! And it was because of us!”
Frankie looked confused and dropped my arm. I turned to Mr. Ganto. “Okay—time for you to chase us all over the boat like you’re trying to kill us. If you don’t do vicious, try ferocious! We have to scare everybody into the water. Come on!”
I jumped off the side, catching the edge of the deck with one hand and swinging, Ganto-like, to the deck below us. I landed a few feet away from a group of passengers who were arguing loudly about what they thought might be going on.
“The ape has escaped! Save yourselves! Get off the boat! Head for the shore!” I shouted at them, waving my arms over my head like I had gone insane. They stopped, studied me, then continued their conversation.
Mr. Ganto landed with a thud behind me. The group screamed in unison and ran down the deck. Frankie and Tom came down the ladder from the top deck and joined me at playing terrified children, something we were getting really good at.
“You better have guessed right!” Frankie hissed at me as we scrambled from one side of the boat to the other, stampeding crew and passengers before us.
Most people froze at our approach, like they had no idea what to do. When we suggested they “jump overboard! Swim for your lives!” and Mr. Ganto added a helpful “BOOGA-BOOGA-BOOGA!” they seemed grateful for the direction and took it.
As soon as the first two or three people jumped ship and set an example, more and more were willing to follow, like cartoons I had seen of lemmings throwing themselves off a cliff. (My science teacher, Mr. Dawkins, says lemmings don’t really do this. I’m pretty sure they would, though, if a crazed giant gorilla were chasing them.)
A crewman stepped out of a cabin in front of us and aimed a rifle at Mr. Ganto. Tom grabbed it by the barrel and shoved it to one side, shouting, “No! No! Bullets only make it stronger! It comes from a planet where they eat lead!” That gave Ganto the time he needed to pluck the weapon from the man’s hands and throw it over the railing. A moment later, the man joined it.
We descended to the main deck just in time to catch Killbreath trying to climb back aboard.
I put my foot on his forehead and pushed him back into the water.
“I’m saving your life, you despicable scumbrain!” I apologized.
Mr. Ganto picked up a barrel and threw it at him, reminding me of a very old video game where an ape threw barrels at people. The barrel missed, but Killbreath got the message and started swimming away from the boat.
We rounded the bow and came upon a defiant group of passengers who were waving pitchforks and brooms. They had broken open a crate labeled ACME PITCHFORK AND BROOM.
“He tore off a guy’s head!” I screamed, pointing behind me in Ganto’s direction.
“And dribbled it like a basketball!” Tom embellished, although I was pretty sure basketball—and, therefore, dribbling—hadn’t been invented yet.
A few of the men made halfhearted lunges with their pitchforks. One, confused with terror, started sweeping the deck with his broom. Mr. Ganto roared, picked up another barrel, and used it to fend off the pitchforks. He plowed five men over the railing with it, and everybody else scrambled to follow, the men helping the women until there was no one left on deck but us.
The Buckeye Beauty was shuddering and shaking like a dog in a thunderstorm. It lurched to one side, then to the other, and pulled free of the sandbar. It shot backward, with all the pent-up energy of a car that had been spinning its wheels on ice abruptly finding a dry spot. The unexpected motion threw us to our knees. The paddle wheel spun crazily.
“Clarence is still on board!” I shouted, getting up and sprinting for the engine room.
&n
bsp; Clarence was doing a victory dance in front of the boilers. The engine pistons were moving so fast, they were a blur, and the needles on two big gauges were pressed as far to the right as they could go. Steam hissed like a chorus of rattlesnakes.
I snatched Clarence by the wrist and tried to pull him out of the room. He resisted, and Mr. Ganto scooped him up, swept him to the railing, and sent him sailing into open water. He splashed and sputtered, and then he fell behind as the boat swept into the channel.
“WHERE IS THE SHAGBOLT?” Frankie was shaking Tom by the shoulders.
Tom jerked his thumb at the deck above us. “I put it down! I kept banging it against things! I was afraid it would get broken! Fiduciary!”
Frankie gave me a wild look. “Time?” she demanded.
I pulled out my phone. “Plenty!” I assured her. “Three minutes!”
“Assuming the clock you set that thing by was accurate!” Frankie screeched. To Tom she barked, “GET IT!”
We followed as Tom raced to the nearest stairway and catapulted up it. At the bow end of the middle deck, cushioned on a pile of cargo netting, was the Shagbolt in its case. Tom stretched out his hand for it. Frankie shoved him aside and reached for it herself.
Unfortunately, she was right.
The clock I had set my phone by had not been accurate.
The boat exploded.
CHAPTER 22
Night of the Floating Dead
With an earsplitting BOOM! loud enough to be heard in Toledo, the deck rose up and came apart around us, the center of the boat flying into the air as though an angry whale had hurled itself against the hull from directly underneath. Steam billowed and fire blossomed, and everything seemed to break into pieces and hang there in space. Then the pieces were spinning in all directions, at first up and to the sides, and then down and into the river.