The Neddiad

by Daniel Pinkwater

  "Yep, that's how it looks to me too," Melvin said. "I'm sorry to have to break this up, but it's time I went on duty at the school. Mr. Finn, could I trouble you for a ride back to town?"

  CHAPTER 67

  Gave It Away

  Al stayed behind at the circus farm. The last thing he said was "So, if I understand this correctly, there may soon be more ice age animals for us to catch? Neat!"

  In the car I asked, "What can we do about this?"

  "Oh, I wouldn't plan to do anything, Neddie," Melvin said.

  "You wouldn't?" Iggy asked him.

  "Oh, no. And I wouldn't worry either. It never helps to worry."

  When we got back to the Hermione, after dropping Melvin the shaman off at Brown-Sparrow, Billy the Phantom Bellboy was haunting the lobby.

  "Guess where I've been," he said.

  "We saw a mammoth," I said. "And we found out that evolution might start running backwards, and we'll be living in the ice age, and Sholmos Bunyip works for a prehistoric earth-god named Kkhkktonos, and the world as we know it might sort of be ending."

  "I've been visiting Sholmos Bunyip," Billy said.

  "You've been what?"

  "I went over and observed him. Just walked right in, invisible. I know what's going on—the whole megillah—and I can tell you, I was never happier to be dead."

  "It's bad?"

  "Depends how you look at it. Bad for you life-os, certainly. But only temporarily."

  "How so?"

  "Well, you'll be like me pretty soon, I expect. It's not so bad, really—of course, you'll miss having solid bodies, and food, and sleep, and since everybody else will be ghosts too, there will be no one to haunt. I guess we'll have to haunt each other."

  "You want to get specific?"

  "Well, in a nutshell, Sholmos Bunyip is not only bad, but also crazy and stupid—put this together with always having his own way, and you have a recipe for disaster. He has somehow hooked up with this ... thing. I don't know how to describe it—it's like the devil, only I always pictured the devil as nicer."

  "This is Kkhkktonos you're talking about?"

  "That's the one! He ... it ... whatever, was the head spirit for thousands and thousands of years. Sort of sank out of sight as the last ice age ended. During the period when he was in charge, it was all things eating things, and blood and violence, and sharp claws and crunching teeth. Personally, I don't see the appeal, but Kkhkktonos wants to bring it all back, and the idiot Bunyip, who is only going to get eaten himself, is helping him do it.

  "Here's how it works—Kkhkktonos is underground, literally. He lurks around deep in the earth. There are a couple of places where he comes to the surface. One is the La Brea Tar Pits. Did you know that 'La Brea' means 'the tar' in Spanish, so when you say 'the La Brea Tar Pits' you're actually saying 'the the tar tar pits'? Anyway, he can make his way to the surface there, and also through a small turtle pond outside Sholmos Bunyip's office at the studio. Bunyip goes down there and makes kissy-kissy noises, and Kkhkktonos rants and raves, and promises Bunyip he will rule as a king, and tells him what to do.

  "By the way, Bunyip's collection of turtle art, and his turtle shrine and turtle zoo, are pretty impressive. He'd have been after that turtle of yours, Neddie, even if he wasn't hooked up with the old earth-demon.

  "Kkhkktonos can't do much for himself. His powers have diminished, I guess because he was left behind by evolution, but he's still able to dominate the weak-minded studio chief Bunyip.

  "Now, it turns out there is a periodic natural event—think of it as a volcanic eruption—when a sort of pressure builds up, and Kkhkktonos, and I suppose there are other prehistoric earth-gods or powers, sort of try to bust out, and with them come glaciers, and actual volcanos, and your saber-tooth cats and giant sloths, and so on."

  "And one of those events is fixing to happen," I said.

  "More than fixing to, I think," Billy said. "It may be by way of happening, or starting to happen, already. Hence that mammoth you were talking about."

  "And is there anything to stop this?" I asked.

  "I was coming to that. It's all up to some designated hero—there's always a designated hero—and you can tell who he is because he has a certain sacred turtle."

  "I guess that was supposed to be me, only now I have no idea what to do."

  "Plus, you don't have the turtle," Billy said.

  "Bunyip has it," I said.

  "Bunyip had it," Billy said. "You know, he was sure Nick Bluegum had fobbed off a fake on him, when it was the real turtle all along."

  "He still doesn't know he has the real one?"

  "He doesn't even have it. As far as I could tell, he gave it to some kid. But Bunyip and Kkhkktonos think you don't have it either, plus, as you pointed out, you have no idea what you're supposed to do, and they know this."

  "So they're going ahead with the de-evolution thing?"

  "It's going to happen no matter what they do. Bunyip is just going to help Kkhkktonos so he can be the head devil when it is all done happening."

  "Oh, woe is us," Crazy Wig said.

  "You can say that again, brother," Billy said.

  "Oh, woe is us."

  CHAPTER 68

  Shoe-la Hoop

  My father came out of the elevator. "Oh, Neddie! There you are! And all your friends. I was hoping to meet you. I want you to look at this." He had a cardboard carton with him. Out of it he pulled a multicolored tangled thing. "I just invented this. It's a new kind of toy. It's going to be a fantastic sensation, the next yo-yo."

  "It looks like some kind of lasso," Iggy said.

  "It has things in common with the lasso, or lariat, or throwing rope," my father said. "You've all seen cowboys in movies doing fancy rope tricks."

  "I can do a few myself," Iggy said.

  "Then you know they're very hard to learn," my father said. "With my invention, which I call the Shoe-la Hoop—it's made of shoelaces—anyone can do rope tricks, just like the cowboys. Here, little Yggdrasil, and Neddie, and Seamus, here are Shoe-la Hoops. Try them out. You see, the woven shoelaces keep the hoop in shape, and you can swing it around your shoulders, your waist, your hips, your wrists or ankles."

  For a moment, I considered telling my father about the ice age coming back, and the world being dominated by the unspeakably evil Kkhkktonos, and saber-tooth cats eating people alive on Hollywood Boulevard—but what good would it have done? Besides, those things seemed sort of unreal, remote and far away ... and also, for some reason, I wasn't all that worried. Melvin had said not to worry. He said worrying never helped. And the truth was, ever since I had met the great turtle in the deserted swimming pool, I'd had this calm, happy feeling that nothing could shake. The other kids, and Aaron Finn, and Billy, and Crazy Wig, all seemed to be in a similar mood somehow. Even Nick Bluegum, formerly the stooge of the evil Bunyip, was interested in the Shoe-la Hoop, and didn't seem to be thinking about all the horrible catastrophe stuff that was supposed to happen.

  So, we all took turns learning to work the Shoe- la Hoops, there in the lobby of the Hermione Hotel, on the eve of total destruction.

  CHAPTER 69

  Nothing

  Nothing happened over the next few days. That is, nothing abnormal or unnatural. I went to school—the usual kids were there. I hung around with my friends after school. My family carried on with life as usual. Except for Don the mammoth, I knew of no other Pleistocene animals turning up.

  More days passed. We went out to the circus farm a couple of times and watched them training Don, there was a swim meet against Black-Foxe, the other military school in town, we studied ancient Rome in Miss Magistra's class, we ate doughnuts. Sergeant Melvin was at his post, hollering at us to button our buttons and walk in a military manner, and suggesting jazz musicians to listen to in the booths at the music store.

  The whole idea of there being some kind of prehistoric devil trying to make a comeback, and de-evolution to the ice age, started to blend with things like the Jap
anese ghosts nobody ever saw in the pagoda at school, or the plots of serials we saw at the Hitching Post theater. Al had never acted as though he thought it was anything else—just a good imaginary game he was going along with.

  I even thought that perhaps Don the mammoth was just the last of his kind, wandering around the San Fernando Valley without anyone ever noticing him, until the circus people found him. Such things happen. There are holdovers and throwbacks. Cadet Bruce Bunyip, for example, was a whole lot like a Neanderthal, if you went by the pictures in the Natural Sciences textbook.

  "Hello, fellows," Bunyip said to Seamus, Al, and me. He was chewing some tar he had pulled up from the road.

  "Go away, Bunyip," we said. "We just had lunch, and you might make us lose our Spam."

  "You guys are not afraid of me. I like that," Bunyip said. "And sometimes you are nice to me."

  "Are you referring to the time I threw a tennis ball and let you fetch it?" Al asked.

  "Look what I have," Bunyip said. He was tossing a small object in his palm. It was the turtle! The original sacred turtle!

  "Where did you get that?" Seamus asked.

  "Father gave it to me. It's real old. I'm going to drill a hole in it and keep it on my key chain."

  "Say, may I see it?" I asked.

  Bunyip hesitated.

  "Show your turtle to Cadet Wentworthstein," Seamus said. "He will give it right back."

  "Promise?" Bunyip asked.

  "I'll just look at it and plunk it right back into your paw," I said.

  Bunyip handed me the turtle.

  "Look! Is that an eagle?" Seamus shouted, pointing into the sky.

  Bunyip looked up while I made the switch, but it wasn't necessary—I did the French substitution so smoothly, even Seamus wouldn't have spotted it.

  "No, I was mistaken. Not an eagle," Seamus said.

  "Aww, too bad. I wanted to see an eagle," Bunyip said.

  Sometimes I felt sorry for Bunyip. Then he would bash someone in the nose, or bite someone, and I would get over it. I plunked the fake turtle into his sweaty palm. The real one was in my pocket! I had it back!

  "My father is going to do something nice for the whole school," Bunyip said.

  "What is that, transfer you someplace else?"

  "He is going to invite the whole school to see a circus," Bunyip said.

  "It's true," Al said. "Sholmos Bunyip is hiring the Gibbs Brothers Circus for a special performance. I heard my father telling my mother."

  "I have to go threaten some third-graders," Bunyip said. "You want to come and watch?"

  "No, you go ahead and have fun," we said. Bunyip loped off evilly.

  "There goes a slow-witted bully we can be proud of," Seamus said.

  "Yes, he's a fine boy in his very special way," I said.

  "It wouldn't be the same without him," Al said.

  CHAPTER 70

  Turtle, Turtle, Who's Got the Turtle?

  "I have the turtle back," I told Sergeant Melvin.

  "See? I told you not to worry," Melvin said.

  "Seamus Finn knows I have it. I'm not telling anyone else, except you."

  "That's probably a good idea," Melvin the shaman said. "I will make a point of trying to remember not to tell anyone you have it."

  "Oh! I forgot," I said. "You can't keep a secret, can you?"

  "No. I'm just a blabbermouth," Melvin said. "But I'll make a special effort if you don't want me to tell."

  "The reason I mention it at all," I said, "is that I still don't know what I'm supposed to do with it."

  "Do with it?"

  "In the event ... if things should happen ... if that stuff we were talking about, the ice age coming back, and that old-time earth-god ... what I'm supposed to do then."

  "Have you seen any signs of things like that starting to happen?"

  "Well, except for Don the mammoth turning up, not really."

  "So, why worry about it?" Melvin asked. "It may never happen."

  "You don't know what I'm supposed to do—with the turtle, I mean—do you?"

  "It's perfectly simple. If that thing you were talking about—where the old powers try to come back, and the planet is plunged into chaos, and civilization is destroyed, and it gets all violent and evil—if that was to start happening, the old legends tell that a hero, identified by his connection with the sacred turtle, always stops it, so the normal order of things can continue."

  "Yes, I get that. But how? How does he do it? And am I that guy?"

  "Well, you have the turtle. I guess if it happens while you have it—happens on your watch—then you are the guy."

  "When you had the turtle, before you gave it to me, were you the guy?"

  "Interesting question. No, I don't think I was. I think I had the turtle so I could give it to you."

  "Can I give the turtle to someone else? Can I give it to someone more heroic, like Clive Montague? Can I give it to you?"

  "No. You have to keep it. You can pass it on to another only when the turtle itself tells you to do that."

  "Did the turtle itself tell you to give it to me?"

  "Must have. I gave it to you, didn't I?"

  "And you're sure you gave it to the right person."

  "I'm a qualified shaman. I wouldn't make a mistake about a thing like that."

  "Okay, okay, now listen carefully. What exactly would I be supposed to do, assuming I am the guy who is supposed to have the turtle? What would I be supposed to do if the deal where evolution goes backwards and all that happens? That is what I am asking you."

  "Don't worry, Neddie. You always worry. A hero knows. He knows what to do. That's why he's a hero."

  "So I'm a hero?"

  "You will be if you save civilization."

  Then Sergeant Caleb told me to put my hat on straight, and hurry to my next class.

  CHAPTER 71

  I Have the Turtle

  That night I went down to the deserted swimming pool behind the hotel. This time I was not in my pajamas, and I didn't actually get into the water. I sat cross-legged by the side of the pool, and waited. I didn't have to wait long. The black dome of his shell rose above the surface, and I felt joy rise in my heart.

  He was bigger than he had seemed the first time I saw him. It was no trouble for him to step onto the poolside tiles and haul himself out of the water. The great turtle towered over me. Then he settled down beside me, his great feet tucked under him, and I caught the glint of his wise eyes in the light of a street lamp that shone through the trees.

  It was beautiful listening to him breathe. I breathed too, and I knew he was listening to me. After a while, we began to breathe a song. Old song. Oldest song ever. It went on for a long time. The song was showing me things, teaching me things. I became aware that I knew things I had always known, and things I had never known before. I saw back in time, saw the whole life of the turtle, and all turtles. I saw a world that no longer existed, under a sun that had not shone for thousands of years.

  There were things about me too. I had done this before. The turtle had always been my friend. In some strange way, I was as old as the turtle, and he was as old as creation. We sang. We breathed. Our breaths and our song were part of a bigger song that everything in the world was singing, was always singing, had always sung.

  At one point, the great turtle rested his huge old head on my knee. I put my hand on his head, and my eyes filled with tears.

  "Thank you, turtle," I whispered. "Thank you, Grandfather."

  He slid into the water and sank out of sight.

  CHAPTER 72

  The School Outing

  "Put on your Windbreakers," Miss Magistra said first thing in the morning when we came to class. "Go directly to the parade ground, and form ranks. There is a surprise for you today." Bunyip and Al Crane were not in class. I thought I knew where they were, and I was pretty sure I knew what the surprise was.

  There were buses on the parade ground, and Colonel Groscase, wearing his beautiful camelhair c
olonel coat. "Cadets, you get a treat today," Colonel Groscase bellowed. "The great studio executive Sholmos Bunyip, father of our own popular Cadet Bunyip, has invited the entire school to a circus! You will board the buses by platoons, in an orderly fashion. There will be no singing, shouting, or exposing of backsides out the bus windows. Upon arrival at the studio, you will disembark the buses. Studio employees will give you special garments, which you will put on over your uniforms. You will then be directed to your seats, where you will enjoy the circus, applaud, cheer, and wave your arms. Company commanders, direct the cadets to board the buses!"

  "Special garments? What's that about?" I asked Seamus Finn.

  "No idea, old pal," Seamus Finn said.

  When we got to International Mammon Studios, the buses pulled up outside the life-size Roman Coliseum, which I had watched being built a long way off from my window.

  We knew all about the Coliseum because we had studied ancient Rome in Miss Magistra's class. For example, I knew that the Romans didn't call it the Coliseum—its name was the Flavian Amphitheatre, and it was built between A.D. 70 and A.D. 80. It could seat at least forty-five thousand people, and it had a movable roof, called the velarium, which was rigged like sails, and raised and lowered by sailors. Also, they could flood the arena, and it was big enough to stage naval battles. The reason the Coliseum is not one of the Wonders of the Ancient World is that the list was composed in the third century B.C., more than two hundred years before it was built. Otherwise, it would have been number eight for sure.

  They had chariot races, and gladiators fighting—which was sort of sick because they had real swords and spears—and sicker yet was turning wild animals, like lions and tigers, loose on people. However, it was a lot of fun to read about.

  As we got off the bus, studio employees handed us togas and told us to put them on. Togas? We pulled them on over our uniforms. It was sort of neat, to be going into the fake Coliseum dressed up as fake Romans.

  "I am Julius Greaser," Cadet Merriwell said.