by Adam Wallace
As soon as he finished the sentence fifty bats descended and swamped him, knocking him to the ground, screeching in his ear, tearing at his clothes. It looked as though Pete wouldn’t make it to the house … but then, with a defiant yell and his magic dagger drawn, Sir Pete McGee stood tall, arm swinging, dagger flashing in the darkness, little bat-bits flying everywhere.
‘I said,’ Pete grunted between breaths, ‘that I am The Man now! Back off, bats! I will not get rabies today!’
The dagger did its job, and the bats moved back, hovering and screeching swear words at Pete in bat language. Pete began walking backwards, his arm throbbing from where the bat claws had dug in. He faced the bats, his back to the house, swinging around every now and again to prevent an attack from behind.
Eventually he backed up against the wall of the house. The bats, sensing their job was done, flew off into the trees and disappeared into the blackness. A giraffe wandered by, giving Pete a mighty shock. He held his breath and moved tight up against the wall. The giraffe glanced at Pete as it went past then moved on. Pete let out his breath and leant against the wall.
Once he had recovered his composure, Pete reached for the doorknob. As soon as he touched it he was shocked by a shocking electric shock. He jerked his hand back and cried out. His arm, still throbbing from the bats, now had a dull tingle running through it.
Pete knew he had to get through the door and inside. He just didn’t know how to do it. He didn’t want to risk touching the knob again as his arm was already weakened. Suddenly a voice called out from inside.
‘It is okay, Pete McGee. You can open the door now. The handle is designed to give off one shock and one shock only. Come in. I am getting bored of waiting now. I give you my word that it will not shock you again.’
Pete didn’t believe Syra Tanooth, and yet at the same time he knew that evil was impatient, and that Syra was probably itching for the showdown.
So he reached out to open the door. As soon as he touched the knob he received another shock, this one even bigger than the first. Pete was thrown off his feet, landing with a grunt on the ground. From outside the darkness, Lightning cried out and stomped the ground, but didn’t move forward; he was following Pete’s orders. Pete slowly got to his feet, the pain in his arm moving to his chest now. He could hear Syra Tanooth’s mocking laughter.
‘Oh, did I say one shock? I meant two. Or was it three? Either way, it doesn’t matter, the door is unlocked now, simply push it open, hee hee hee.’
Pete reached for a branch that lay on the ground. It wasn’t a huge branch, but it still took a great effort to lift it with his one injured arm. He pressed the branch against the door and it slowly swung open a little. Syra groaned.
‘He used a branch, Bob. He used wood. You didn’t tell me he would do that. There were still three shocks left in that door. What a waste. And look. He only opened it a teeny tiny bit. Now I will have to open it the whole way—OW!’
Syra grabbed the door handle to open it fully and received the biggest shock yet. Bob stifled a laugh and sluffed over to help his evil partner out. As he grabbed onto Syra, he accidentally brushed against the doorknob and got a massive shock. It went straight through him and, because he was touching Syra, it shocked Syra as well.
Pete waited for the screaming to calm down and then made his move. He carefully walked through the door to avoid the final shock. When he got inside the first thing he saw was his mother and Marloynne, tied up and hanging upside down over a pool.
‘Mum,’ he cried out. ‘Marloynne. Are you okay?’
‘Mmmmm. Mmm mm mmm m mmmmm,’ said Mrs McGee. Her mouth had been gagged.
‘Mmmmm, mmmmmm, mmmmm,’ Marloynne added. His mouth had been gagged too.
Pete laughed despite himself. He couldn’t resist getting a little dig in at Marloynne.
‘Jeez, Marloynne,’ he said as he moved towards them. ‘I gotta spend my life rescuing you, hey?’
‘MMMMMMMM!’ Marloynne grunted, which I am pretty sure translates to, ‘You are going down after you rescue me from this deadly position I am in!’
Pete stepped around Bob and Syra who lay twitching on the ground, still recovering from their shocks. As Pete reached the edge of the pool, he stopped. He saw what was in the pool. It wasn’t pretty, and he didn’t even know that it was poisonous acid.
He looked up and wondered how he was going to get his mum and Marloynne down without dropping them in the pool. They would have to swing, that was for sure. He noticed that the rope tied to their ankles was fairly thin. He also noticed an axe, used for chopping firewood, leaning against the wall. If they could swing, and if he could time things just right, he could chop the rope and drop them safely on dry ground.
Of course, if he didn’t get the timing right … Pete didn’t even want to think about that. This was his one chance, and he had to go for it. He walked over to the axe. It wasn’t light, but this wasn’t the time for worrying about things like that. He dragged the axe over to the pool, his arm screaming out in protest. He ignored the pain and kept dragging.
‘You have to swing,’ he said to Mrs McGee and Marloynne. ‘When you get over dry land, I’ll chop the rope.’
The two captives looked at each other. They didn’t look too confident, but they both believed in Pete McGee, and they knew he would do all he could to save them. They had to trust him.
And so they started swinging their bodies, trying to build up momentum. Pete was focused on them, and they were focused on swinging; no one noticed that Syra and Bob had recovered and were sneaking up behind Pete.
‘So, Pete McGee,’ Syra said, ‘welcome to my lovely home and torture chamber. I hope you like it.’
Pete swung around, the axe clattering to the floor. He saw, for the first time, the man who was trying to destroy him. Everything merged into one. He was feeling dizzy from the pain of his wounds, and confused about why any of this was happening.
‘Why are you doing this?’ he asked. ‘What’s the point?’
‘The point? THE POINT? I will tell you what the point is … well I don’t have a great point, really, but I do want to be known as the greatest evil being on the planet, along with my good friend Bob here. You are held up as an emblem of all that is good, and so, to be truly evil, I must defeat you. You retrieved the Wilderene Flower where I could not, and so I must defeat you. You are a goody-goody-two-shoes and I don’t like that, and so I must defeat you!’
‘Jolly good show, Syra,’ Bob contributed.
‘Thank you, Bob. Now, Pete McGee. Even though you are not the knight you think you are, I shall defeat you by all means fair and honourable.’
‘Oh,’ Pete said, the pain starting to overcome him now. ‘Fair huh? Like the bats? And the “only one shock” thing?’
‘Well, when I say fair, I am actually talking about the weather. And it is fair with a chance of rain—with rain being cheating; you understand? I had to weaken you a bit to make things easier for me. No one will know exactly how I defeated you, until I write my memoirs. If I happen to turn things to my advantage a little, well, that’s for me to know and everyone else to find out, so ner ner nee ner ner to them and up their nose with a rubber hose.’
Pete realised he was facing an enemy who was absolutely nuts. That made him unpredictable, and Pete began to have doubts that he could win. King Rayon’s words suddenly rang through his mind: ‘… in the end it is something else that will see you are victorious.’ Pete hadn’t found the ‘something else’ yet, and he didn’t know where to look now.
A creaking noise made him spin around. He saw Marloynne and his mum slowly begin to move. They had stopped swinging and were being lowered. Would he be able to save them both? Who would he save first? It had to be his mum, but then he thought of Ashlyn and … Pete stared frantically around the room. The ropes were attached to a pulley system, which started over by the door. He needed to stop that pulley.
Without thinking of anything else he raced to the door and pulled the lever. H
is mum and Marloynne stopped moving. So then, he had saved them both. Well that had been easy. A little too easy it turned out, as it had merely been a distraction, and suddenly Pete McGee was covered by a blobby slimy beanbag that started to crush the breath out of him.
He stared at his mum and Marloynne in disbelief. This wasn’t how it was meant to go. He was meant to win. What was King Rayon’s ‘something’? How could it be over already? The last thing he heard was Syra Tanooth’s laughter, and his words.
‘Now I am the champion, my friend!’
Then everything went black.
Chapter Twenty Two
Lights, camera … ACTION!
Pete McGee slowly opened his eyes. He was still in a daze, and it took a little while to focus. When he did, he realised he was looking at everything upside down: an upside down Syra Tanooth, an upside down blob. Everything was upside down.
He turned his head to the east and saw his mother by his side. She was looking at him, her eyes sad. Marloynne was beside her. He looked away as soon as his eyes met Pete’s.
Pete realised that his ankles were tied, and when he looked up, which was down, he saw the pool of acid with killer sharks and snakes and flesh-eating viruses swimming in it. The one good thing about it all was that he wasn’t dead! He didn’t know why, or how, but he wasn’t dead. He still had a chance.
Syra Tanooth’s voice cut through his thoughts. Pete noticed that the more excited Syra got, the more it affected the lights in the room. Right now it was like a disco.
‘So, the wonderful Pete McGee is trapped like a rabbit!’
‘Why am I even still alive?’ Pete asked, stalling for time as he tried to think of an idea. ‘I thought that big beanbag was going to kill me.’
‘No no, that is the brilliance of it all,’ Syra replied, dancing up and down on the spot. ‘You see, this way I can slow things down, enjoy it a little more.’
‘Syra, old chap, I really do believe you are just giving these folk a chance to escape.’
‘No, Bob, you see, I will not be impatient like all those dumb, evil geniuses! I will not, for the sixth time, rush into something too quickly and be made to look foolish by someone of virtue. And anyway, they cannot escape. Escape is impossible! Even the possibility of escape is impossible! You hear that, McGee, I am the winner! Bob, lower the little boy first!’
There was a creak, and ever so slowly, Pete was lowered towards the acid. He stared at his mum, his eyes frantic. He wriggled and squirmed, but even if he got free of the rope he would just drop in the pool anyway. What was he going to do? How could he possibly save his mum? And Marloynne? How could he face Ashlyn? Especially if he was dead? It all came out then. All the fears and doubts and everything Pete had been holding in came bursting out.
‘I am so sorry, Mum,’ he said. ‘I am so sorry I couldn’t save you.’
‘Mmmm. Mmm mmm mmm!’
Pete’s mum was still gagged. She shook her head, tears in her eyes, but Pete didn’t understand.
‘I go off on these adventures, and I’m the one who wins. I’m the one who saves you. But I couldn’t do it this time. You’re going to die and it’s all my fault. I wasn’t brave enough or good enough. I didn’t have the “something else”. I don’t even know what the “something else” is.’
Mrs McGee grunted, tears streaming from her eyes into the pool below, a pool that was getting closer to Pete by the second. Marloynne grunted.
‘Exactly, Marloynne,’ Pete said. ‘I have let you down too. And Ashlyn. Everyone. Why did I go on that stupid first quest? If I hadn’t gone, none of this would have happened.’
‘Because,’ a voice cut in. ‘If you hadn’t gone on that first quest you wouldn’t have met me. Is that a problem too, Pete McGee?’
Pete knew that voice, but it was a voice he had thought he would never hear again. It was Tahnee! He tried to twist around to see her but he couldn’t. Then she moved into his line of vision, and Pete had never seen anything more beautiful.
Smithers and Molloy also moved into his field of vision, and although they weren’t beautiful, he sure was glad to see them. He was also still being lowered into the pool. Syra and Bob had moved to the other side of the room, and they did not look happy at having new guests. Pete’s hair, floppy and long as always, touched the first bit of acid and sizzled. A killer snake lunged at him but couldn’t quite reach. The sight of his friends, there to save him, to be with him, fired Pete up and out of his self-pitying state. He swung into action … literally.
Using every ounce of strength he had, he built up momentum. With every swing, a bit of hair sizzled in the acid. Soon he was swinging out over the edge of the pool, and Smithers and Molloy grabbed him and cut the rope. Pete fell and they dragged him to safety. He stood and smiled at them, and then everyone noticed that Marloynne and Mrs McGee were starting to lower, faster than Pete had.
‘The lever,’ Pete yelled. ‘You get the lever. I’ll take care of these two.’
Two things happened. The first was a whinny, as Lightning, Pete’s mighty and noble steed, had seen everyone else go into the house and had got sick of waiting outside. He wanted to be in on the action. He burst through the door to stand next to Pete.
‘Sorry,’ Pete said. ‘ We’ll take care of these two.’
A shark leapt out of the water to attack Marloynne but only succeeded in snapping its jaw at thin air. Molloy and Smithers sprung into action, racing up with sticks to poke and prod and swing the two captives to the edge of the pool. They cut the rope and Marloynne and Mrs McGee landed hard on the ground … but they were safe. Pete rushed over to his mum and hugged her as tight as he could.
While they were distracted, Bob started sluffing towards the door. Syra Tanooth, not willing to be defeated, screamed out in rage. His emotions were making the lights flicker on and off like strobe lights. Syra was on the move (which looked really cool with the whole strobe light effect and everything), arms raised, ready to attack Pete McGee. Pete, still on the floor holding Mrs McGee, was helpless. Tahnee, Molloy, Smithers, Lightning and Marloynne all moved to stand in front of Pete and his mum in battle pose, swords drawn, ready to protect Pete to the end.
They didn’t need to.
The second of the two things happened.
Syra suddenly stopped in his tracks. His arms were still raised, but the look on his face changed. There, standing right in front of him, was Ashlyn, eyes blazing. The strobe light effect was still on full show.
‘You ruined my wedding,’ she said in a soft voice, staring straight at Syra, speaking for the first time since the journey had begun.
‘I’m sorry, I did not quite catch that,’ Syra replied. ‘You spoke very softly and yet with quite a scary effect.’
‘You ruined my wedding,’ said Ashlyn in a louder voice, taking a step towards Syra, who took a step back in response.
‘YOU … RUINED … MY … WEDDING.’
Syra was back-pedalling, the lights out of control. Bob made it to the door but had forgotten one thing in his rush to escape. He pulled the door open so he could squeeze through and received the biggest electric shock of them all.
‘Oh drat,’ he said, before slumping into unconsciousness, twitching every now and again.
Pete stood up and moved over to his friends, standing between Tahnee and Lightning. Tahnee took his hand and smiled at him. They all stood in a line behind Ashlyn. Pete was happy to support Ashlyn, to let her be out front. Then he realised. This was it. His friends, his team, they were the ‘something else’. This quest was for all of them, not just him. He had clung to the idea that he had to be the one to do everything, and when he couldn’t he had been devastated. But he didn’t have to be the one to land the defining blow, as long as it was landed. This was Ashlyn’s time, and he would do all that he could to help her. It didn’t seem like he would have to do anything though. Ashlyn made her move and Syra was helpless against it.
‘You,’ she screamed, punching Syra in the chest, ‘ruined my wedding!’ She
followed up with a kick to the knee, and then she really went on the attack.
‘YOU (kick) RUINED (punch) MY (low blow) WEDDING (punchkicklowblowheadbuttsleeperholdnoogieeyegougePUNCH)!’
The final punch sent Syra flying into the back wall, and he slid down it to the ground, unconscious. Ashlyn turned away from him and raced over to Marloynne, holding him tight, never wanting to let him go again. They would be married. Nothing would stop them now.
Chapter Twenty Three
Tell the world I’m coming home
The group walked out of the darkness of Syra’s forest and into the light. Syra was with them, hands tied. Bob, still quivering and twitching from the electric shock, was being dragged along by Smithers. They would be taken to the King to face the full extent of the law.
Pete, leading Lightning, walked at the front of the group with Smithers and Molloy, his two best friends. He had wanted to spend some time alone with Tahnee, but it seemed as though that would have to wait.
‘So then,’ Smithers said. ‘I was just wondering, McGee. The last two adventures you had—you told me you learned things: how you don’t need to have the title of a knight to act like one, that sort of thing. What have you learned this time? How a good leader gives others a chance to shine? How you can be part of a team? How you don’t have to do everything by yourself all the time?’
Pete laughed.
‘Oh, that’s easy. I’ve learned that you never, EVER mess around with a girl’s wedding.’
Molloy and Smithers laughed, and so did Ashlyn and Marloynne, who were walking behind them.
‘Damn straight, Pete,’ Marloynne said. ‘And trust me, when we get back we are going to have the best wedding ever. After I whip your butt for that “spend my life rescuing you” comment, of course.’
Pete smiled and slowed his pace so that he could walk with his mum. Tahnee was at the back of the group, behind Syra, making sure he didn’t try anything sneaky.
‘I am so sorry, Mum,’ Pete said. ‘I am so sorry I couldn’t save you this time.’