by Chris McCoy
“What time does the wedding start?”
Everybody looked at Bugslush, who was tied up in the corner.
“Twelve-thirty,” said Bugslush.
Ted’s eyes flicked to a clock hanging on the wall. They only had eleven minutes.
“Get your group together,” said Joelle-Michelle.
“How many should I take?”
“You probably couldn’t even get into the palace with more than ten.”
Ted nodded. He looked around.
“Carolina?” said Ted. “You in?”
“Yep,” said Carolina. “Can Czarina come?”
“Of course,” said Ted. “Dad?”
“Side by side with my boy,” said Declan.
“Swamster?”
“At your service.”
Ted nodded. “I’ll be right back,” he said, and pushed his way through the throng of ACORN fighters until he found Dwack, Dr. Narwhal, and Vango.
“Guys?” he said. “Feel like going on a doomed mission?”
“I’m in,” said Dr. Narwhal.
“We’ve done it before, haven’t we?” said Dwack.
“Hold on,” said Vango, removing a bottle of something from his painter’s bag. Vango uncorked the top and drank all that was left. “All right. Now I’m good to go,” he said.
Ted spotted Eric.
“Eric?” he yelled. “You in?”
The planda nodded.
“If we’re going with such a lean group,” said Ted, “we’re going to need all three fire extinguishers.”
“Take them,” said Joelle-Michelle.
“And some decent weaponry,” said Ted.
“Whatever you want,” said Joelle-Michelle. “And take lab coats with you for extra protection.”
Ted had his racket, and he took one of the fire extinguishers. Carolina and Declan took the other two fire extinguishers. Swamster found his umbrella in the pile of confiscated weapons. Dwack took another cane, while Dr. Narwhal grabbed a plumbing pipe. Vango would use his paintbrushes. Eric decided upon a stalk of bamboo he had found in the laboratory.
“If you get tempted, eat the handle, not the part that has touched the solution,” Swamster advised Eric.
Ted looked at his odd, brave group, all of whom were pulling on lab coats.
“This should be interesting,” he said.
“One more thing, Ted,” said Joelle-Michelle.
“Yeah?”
Before he could turn around, Joelle-Michelle leaned in and kissed him. On the lips.
“Bon chance. Good luck,” she said.
“Oh. I mean. Er,” said Ted. He turned to his troops. “Let’s go.”
Carolina shot a sharp look at Joelle-Michelle and got a wink in return.
XVI
Two weight lifters had tossed Scurvy’s cage onto a wheelbarrow and hauled it to the wedding gazebo, where the cage sat next to the bespectacled justice of the peace who would be conducting the ceremony. The assembled guests stared at him, whispering to one another.
Once Scurvy’s cage was in position, the organist plinked out music as the wedding party entered. Because Persephone didn’t have any real friends or family, she had hired the best-looking wedding party she could for the grand entrance and the photographs. The trio of bridesmaids, none of whom Persephone had ever met, looked like they could have stepped off a fashion runway. A pair of enchanting little flower girls, having been paid handsomely for their adorableness, sprinkled lilacs on the red carpet. Three buccaneer groomsmen had been hired as Scurvy’s buddies.
“Good luck, pal,” said one of the groomsmen to Scurvy.
“Who are you?” replied Scurvy.
Finally, when the wedding party was in place, the organist started the wedding march:
Da! Dah da-da! Da! Dah da-da!
Everybody stood, and there at the end of the center aisle, Persephone appeared.
Da, dah, da-da!
Teetering in her high heels, she walked down the carpet while guests, most of them on the presidential payroll, oohed and aahed and snapped pictures. She reached the gazebo and stood next to the justice of the peace, opposite Scurvy’s cage.
Persephone waved coyly at Scurvy, as if it were perfectly natural that he was caged. The justice of the peace cleared his throat.
“We have come together this afternoon to join two individuals who are lucky enough to have found the truest of true love,” said the justice. “President Persephone Skeleton.”
Persephone curtsied.
“… and Admiral Scurvy Goonda.”
“Admiral!” shouted Scurvy. “I was never commissioned!”
“HUSH, darling,” warned Persephone.
Scurvy clawed at the bars of his cage.
“As Scurvy and Persephone take their vows this afternoon, we are reminded that a necessary component of marriage is a balance of love and commitment,” said the justice. “May they remain as devoted as they are now.”
Scurvy shook his cage.
“Help!” he said.
“He’s just excited,” Persephone explained to the justice of the peace. “Go on.”
“Persephone Skeleton,” said the justice. “Do you take Scurvy Goonda to be your true love, to trust and to honor him?”
“Do me a favor and replace that with ‘tell him what to do,’” said Persephone.
“Oh,” said the justice. “Well, then. Do you take Scurvy to be your true love, and to tell him what to do?”
“I do.”
“And do you, Scurvy—” said the justice.
“Nope,” said Scurvy.
“You don’t?” said the justice.
“Not a chance,” said Scurvy. “No way. Never. No how.”
The crowd mumbled.
“Scurvy,” hissed Persephone. “Say you do.”
“But I don’t,” said Scurvy. “I won’t, and I can’t.”
Persephone grinned.
“Say ‘I do’ or the moment we get to Earth, I send troops to your beloved Cape Cod,” said Persephone. “And I’ll instruct those troops to wipe out the entire Merritt family—and then they’ll sink that sandbox under the Atlantic!”
Scurvy hesitated.
“Ted, Adeline, Debbie, Grandma Rose,” said Persephone. “I learned all about where you’ve been all these years. Say no, and they’re the first to go. Say ‘I do,’ and I’ll spare them.”
Scurvy considered this. Then he took a deep breath.
“Well,” he said, “they’re me only real family, so then, I guess, I d—”
“DON’T,” yelled a voice that bounced off the walls of the courtyard.
Thousands of heads turned in the direction of the interrupter.
And there stood Ted, with his motley group of ACORN fighters behind him.
“You can do better,” said Ted. “She has bad bone structure.”
Scurvy grinned.
“AHOY, TED!” he roared. “I knew I was right about you!”
“We are trying to get married here!” shouted Persephone. “Guests may not speak!”
“We weren’t invited,” said Ted. “So you see, we’re not guests.”
“USHERS!” yelled Persephone.
Persephone’s thick-necked ushers stomped down the aisle toward Ted and his cohorts.
“Raise extinguishers,” Ted told Carolina and Declan, and all three of them lifted their fire extinguishers.
The ushers got closer.
“Hold,” said Ted.
Dwack, Dr. Narwhal, and Vango buttoned up their lab coats.
“PULL!” shouted Ted, and with that, he and his father and Carolina dosed the approaching ushers with the fire extinguishers.
A volcano of purple erupted in the center of the courtyard, but it wasn’t just the guards who were exploding. Solution also rained on both the spectators and the guests who had been sitting at their tables enjoying their cocktails. All were now spots of liquid on the ground.
“RELEASE!” said Ted. He took his finger off the extinguisher trigger, and Ca
rolina and his father did the same.
The remaining guests were bewildered. Several ushers hid underneath the tables, and the organist peeked out from behind his piano. Where the justice of the peace had been standing, there was only a pair of eyeglasses sitting in a purple puddle.
In the gazebo, Persephone looked completely shell-shocked.
“What the—” she said, ignoring the carnage, looking down at herself. Her bridal gown had a purple stain.
“My dress!” she said. “Oh, this is too MUCH!”
Ted walked toward her holding the fire extinguisher.
“I’d like my pirate back now,” he said.
“Oh, I don’t think he’s yours anymore,” said Persephone. “But if you want him, HERE he is!” She zinged the cage and wheelbarrow down the aisle at Ted. The wheelbarrow hit him in the gut and knocked him onto his back, and an usher fell on top of him.
Ted was defenseless. The usher locked in on his neck and reared back with a claw, but before he could attack, he was smashed in the side of the head with a fire extinguisher.
The usher looked up in surprise at Ted’s father.
“Don’t you touch my boy!” said Declan, giving the usher a shot from the extinguisher. POP!
“Thanks, Dad!” said Ted.
Declan helped him up.
“Running bones! Heading upward!” yelled Vango, pointing. Ted saw that Persephone was bolting up the stairs.
“Swamster, go get her!” said Ted. Swamster followed on the president’s heels. “The rest of you, take care of any ushers you find, and let the rest of the guests go—we’ll be seeing them soon anyway.”
Ted looked into Scurvy’s cage. He and his friend made eye contact.
It had been so long.
“Hey, Scurvy,” said Ted.
“Hey yerself, Ted,” said Scurvy. “I kept hearin’ things that made me think ya might be here. Seein’ ya, it’s like seein’ the sunrise again.”
“I’m so sorry for everything.”
“No hard feelin’s,” said Scurvy. “Yer a stupid teenager. Get me out of this cage and we’ll call it even.”
“Allow me,” said Dr. Narwhal, who reared back with his pipe and—bang!—knocked the padlock off its latch.
Scurvy Goonda threw open the door of his cage, brushed himself off, and bear-hugged Ted.
“Too tight, too tight,” gasped Ted.
“Ya did good, Teddy me boy,” said Scurvy.
“Scurvy, there’s somebody I want you to meet,” said Ted. “Come here, Dad.”
Declan stepped forward.
“Scurvy, this is my father, Declan. Dad, this is my abstr—my best friend, Scurvy Goonda.”
“I’m honored to meet you,” said Declan.
“It’s darn good tah meet ya too,” said Scurvy.
Most unfortunately, this tender moment was shattered by an earsplitting siren coming from the top of the palace: Baaa-raahhh! Baaa-raahhh!
Signal flares rocketed from the top of the palace and exploded in the sky, where they formed letters: C.H.A.R.G.E.!
Ted and the rest of his small group stared at the message.
“Looks like Swamster didn’t catch President Skeleton,” said Vango. Underneath them, the ground started to rumble.
Persephone’s army was coming.
XVII
Persephone took her finger off the alarm button and then calmly looked back at Swamster.
“My goodness,” said Persephone. “I thought athletes were faster than that.”
“You had a head start,” pointed out Swamster, who was standing at the top of the stairs holding his umbrella.
“Yes, but I’m just an old set of bones,” said Persephone. “Perhaps betraying our cause has drained you.”
“It just took me a long time to see how awful you really were,” said Swamster, walking toward Persephone with the umbrella.
“I went easy on you,” said Persephone. “A crocodile once worked for me for thirty years, and I had her turned into a pair of pumps.”
“You don’t care what lives you ruin,” said Swamster, getting closer.
“If I’m not mistaken,” said Persephone, climbing onto the windowsill, “you wrecked my wedding and turned my guests into purple sludge. But don’t worry. My cleaning crew will be here in a moment. And with that, I say goodbye.”
Persephone spread her bony wings and fell out the window backward, her wedding dress fluttering above her.
“No!” screamed Swamster, watching out the window as Persephone landed in the middle of three ghosts forming a cradle.
Swirling and translucent, the ghosts carried Persephone over the heads of her charging army. She blew Swamster a kiss goodbye.
“Is she gone?” said Dwack, walking into the room.
“I couldn’t catch her,” said Swamster.
“Come into the courtyard,” said Dwack. “We need to secure the palace.”
“I don’t think it’s going to matter now. Her army is on its way.”
“Come on. I want you fighting next to me,” said Dwack. “This is the night you’re going to earn those medals of yours.”
XVIII
Through a pair of field binoculars, Joelle-Michelle watched from the woods as President Skeleton’s army charged past her hidden troops toward the palace. There seemed to be no end to the throng of angry, adrenaline-filled ab-coms—even though they had the element of surprise, ACORN was outnumbered ten thousand to one. She could see that many of President Skeleton’s troops were holding the solution-coated weapons they had confiscated from ACORN’s hideout. No matter what happened, there would be heavy losses.
Joelle-Michelle looked across the stampeding army to a small canyon on the other side of the battlefield, where Brother Dezo would be positioned. Once the army had completely passed by, she and Brother Dezo would attack it from behind with their own forces.
The huge shiny vent loomed at the far end of the battlefield. If President Skeleton’s army made it through, Earth didn’t have a chance.
Back in the palace, Ted and his small battalion had managed to close the palace gates, but legions of Persephone’s troops were hurtling toward them. And all Ted and his troops had to defend themselves were three fire extinguishers and a handful of crude weapons.
Ted, Carolina, and Declan stood behind the gate with their extinguishers pointed determinedly forward.
Dwack, Dr. Narwhal, and Vango stood behind them, along with Swamster, Czarina Tallow, and Eric, who took a small nibble of the handle of his bamboo rod—just a taste in case he never got to eat bamboo again.
“Zis might be an appropriate time for vun of you gentlemen to use your imaginations,” Czarina Tallow suggested to Ted and Declan. Ted had already been trying to get his brain going: What if a massive geyser blew Persephone’s army into space? What if the outside wall of the palace was carved with a giant Medusa head that turned the army to stone?
Ted looked over at his father, lost in his thoughts, trying to make something happen. Declan looked back at Ted.
“Sometimes it happens,” Declan explained. “Sometimes it doesn’t. The only one who figured out how to use it consistently is Cousin Lloyd.”
“Who is this Lloyd?”
“A rogue,” said Declan. “A bad man who happens to be related to us.”
Outside the palace walls, the army was close enough that Ted could hear their howling, and then …
BOOM!
A battering ram smacked into the palace gate, followed by the sound of laughter from the army.
Ted glanced at Scurvy.
“Goodbye, Scurvy,” said Ted.
“Thank ya fer bein’ tha best friend I ever had,” said Scurvy.
“Thanks for being my only friend,” said Ted.
“One good friend is all ya need,” said Scurvy.
BOOM!
Ted turned to Carolina.
“If we get back to high school,” said Ted, “maybe you’ll have lunch with me in the cafeteria?”
Carolina laughed
.
“If we make it back to high school, I’ll take you to homecoming,” said Carolina.
“I hate football,” said Ted.
“You have no idea how happy that makes me,” said Carolina.
BOOM! The bolts on the gate were almost broken.
“Dad!” said Ted.
“You’re all that kept me going when I was in jail,” said Declan. “I love you, Son.”
“I guess—I mean, I love you too, Dad.”
BOOOOOM!
The gate fell with a tremendous THUD! in front of Ted and his band of soldiers, and the army streamed into the courtyard, claws, teeth, and weapons out.
“PULL!” said Ted, and he, Carolina, and Declan soaked the attackers with the fire extinguishers, holding the triggers until all the solution ran out. The purple dregs of a hundred soldiers pooled at the gate entrance, but there were more soldiers ready to rush in.
Ted wrapped his hand around his badminton racket.
From far away came the sound of drums, followed by a rumbling and a surprised ROAR—Joelle-Michelle and Brother Dezo had started their attack from the rear. The soldiers who had been rushing into the palace whipped around to see what was happening, and Ted saw an opportunity.
“Charge!” he yelled, and sprinted forward with his battalion rushing behind him.
POP-POP-POP-POP-POP!
“Keep going!” yelled Ted.
XIX
Joelle-Michelle’s forces had slashed their way through Persephone’s army, but the enemy had adjusted and was retaliating furiously against ACORN. The weapons the army had taken from ACORN’s hideout had been distributed to Persephone’s best soldiers, who were cutting energetically through Joelle-Michelle’s troops.
Joelle-Michelle saw her best soldiers burst into purple. The tailor who repaired her tutu whenever it ripped fell to a blank-eyed poltergeist. The gardener who took care of her flowers had his hoe torn from his hands and used against him. She saw one of her mummies cut down and one of her magi explode. Rushed from all sides, she was kicking furiously with her pointe shoes. The purple mist hanging in the air around her blocked her view of the other side of the battlefield, where Brother Dezo’s brigade was hopefully doing better than her own.