The Splendid Baron Submarine

by Eric Bower

  “I don’t know,” it finally said. “I’ll have to ask my fellow ghosts what they think about that. But I have to warn you, I don’t think they’re going to like the idea.”

  “Couldn’t you try to convince them to like it?”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Because we’re best friends?” I tried.

  “Oh really?” the ghost asked doubtfully. “We’re best friends, eh? What’s my name, then?”

  “Uhhh . . . Mr. Ghost?”

  “That’s not even close!” the ghost snapped. “Leave that treasure alone, kid, or I’ll haunt you. And if you try any funny business, I’ll double haunt you. And don’t ask me what double haunting is. You don’t want to know.”

  He was right. I didn’t want to know. To be perfectly honest, I was even more frightened than I was when I was trapped at the bottom of the sea with the shark and the eel. But once again, I was going to have to pretend to be braver than I actually was. I was getting pretty good at pretending to be brave, though I wished I didn’t have to practice it so often.

  “I wouldn’t haunt me if I were you,” I told the ghost.

  “Oh really? Why not?” the ghost asked.

  I thought for a moment before answering.

  “Because I’m a ghost too?”

  The ghost reached out and poked me.

  “You don’t feel like a ghost,” the ghost said. “You feel like a regular chubby kid.”

  I reached out and tried to poke the ghost back, but my finger went right through him. I tried it again, but the same thing happened. I decided to try it one more time, just in case the third time was the charm. Sometimes the third time is the charm. But it wasn’t the charm this time. My fingers, hand, and arm all passed through the ghost as though he wasn’t there. That upset the ghost. Ghosts are polite, but they really don’t like it when you stick your entire arm through them. I don’t think I would like it either.

  “Oops,” I said, as my teeth began to chatter with fear. “Sorry about that, Mr. Ghost. Have I mentioned how much I love your robes? They’re very nice and billowy.”

  “BOOOOO!” the ghost roared, and the next thing I knew, it had shot up into the air, soaring through the sky in a very terrifying and ghostlike way.

  I screamed as I turned and ran, nearly tripping over little Waldo on my way down the path.

  “Lousy, stupid monkey!” I cried. “Run! Run as fast as your stupid monkey legs can!”

  Waldo spotted the ghost in the sky and screamed. He dove further into the jungle and scampered up the first tall tree he saw before jumping to another treetop and then to another, leaping and scurrying while shrieking like a loon.

  When you’re running away from something frightening, like an angry ghost, sometimes you don’t pay attention to where you’re going. This was one of those times.

  After running as quickly as I could for about fifteen minutes, I realized that I was completely lost. I had left the path I’d originally taken to the pond, and now I was somewhere in the middle of the jungle where the trees were so tall and thick that I could barely see the sky through all of the twisted branches. I heard several different animals cry out, and I hoped that they weren’t the sort of animals whose moods would be greatly improved by eating a slow and sweaty kid. I sat on an overturned tree and thought about what I should do next.

  I had nothing with me but my clay jugs filled with pond muck. I had left all my other supplies back at the submarine. Suddenly I realized that I was hungry, maybe hungrier than I’d ever been before.

  Actually, that’s not true. Whenever I’m hungry, I think that it’s the hungriest that I’ve ever been. I’d actually eaten quite recently, and quite a lot too. In fact, my parents and Rose blamed Waldo for eating the rest of our food, but it was actually me who did that. I have a terrible habit of sleepwalking, and sometimes when I sleepwalk, I sleep-cook, and sleep-eat, and then, later on, I sleep-snack on the sleep-leftovers. It’s the strangest thing. It sometimes happens while I’m awake too. I’ll just be sitting there on the sofa reading, and the next thing I know I have a peanut butter, banana, bacon, and jalapeno sandwich in my hands, with a tall glass of milk and a slice of chocolate cake on the side. And since it’s already in my hands, I figure that it would be a shame to waste it, so I’ll eat it.

  So I guess you could say I felt a little guilty that my parents blamed Waldo for eating all of our food. But only a little guilty. That lousy monkey had been picking on me since we found him. And he also got in my father’s way when P tried to close the back of the submarine, which meant little Waldo tried to kill me. Sort of.

  Although, the more that I thought about it, the more I realized that Waldo probably didn’t understand what the control panel was, and how it was being used to save me from the shark and eel. After all, he was only a monkey. He probably hopped onto the control panel for the same reason he hid Rose’s hairbrush, picked at the lice in P’s hair, and ate all of the bananas and peanuts that M packed. He did those things because he was a monkey. And that’s what monkeys do. They don’t know any better.

  Huh. I supposed I did feel pretty bad for the little guy.

  But I didn’t have time to feel bad for him for long. Because as I sat there wondering whether it would be safe to call for help in the middle of the jungle, I heard a bunch of loud screeching noises from up in the trees.

  I looked up just in time to see a dozen angry looking monkeys flying towards me. I screamed as I quickly ducked under the fallen tree.

  The monkeys landed and immediately began to screech, kicking up dirt and slapping the ground, clearly unhappy that I was trespassing on their land.

  “I don’t suppose I could convince you all that I’m actually a ghost?” I said to the monkeys.

  Judging from the expression on their faces, I could tell that I most likely could not.

  “This isn’t fair,” I told the monkeys. “I’ve already been attacked by wild animals this week. I should get a free pass here.”

  The monkeys disagreed, which they did by shrieking and screaming and hurling stones at me. It’s strange that I have crazy dreams about squirrels, and yet monkeys were quickly becoming the animal that gave me the most trouble in real life. I really don’t know why I don’t get along with them better. After all, I love naps and bananas, so you’d think we’d have a lot to talk about.

  When they grew tired of shrieking and throwing things at me, they decided to attack. I’m not much of a fighter, but I still held up my fists as though I knew what to do with them. I’d never hit anyone before, unless you counted all of the times that I’d accidentally hit myself. But I had no choice except to fight. The monkeys were all faster than me, which meant I couldn’t do what I normally do, which is bravely run away.

  I’d recently decided that I could still consider myself brave if I added the word “bravely” to what I’m doing, even if it might seem cowardly to others. For example: last month, when I found a snake in my boot, I bravely shrieked and cried until Rose rushed into my room and took it away.

  See? It works really well.

  Anyway, back to the monkeys.

  The monkeys pounced on me and smacked me upside the head with their strong monkey hands. They pummeled me, kicked me, strangled me, tripped me, bit me, spat in my eyes, and made fun of my haircut. As they beat me, I bravely cried and bravely screamed for help. I bravely begged for mercy as I bravely wet my pants.

  I fell to the ground and covered my head and my face, trying to shield myself from all the monkey punches, when suddenly I heard a very familiar sounding monkey shriek.

  The monkeys stopped attacking me and started to back away. I looked up and saw little Waldo standing there, waving a stick in the air as he screamed at the other monkeys. The monkeys glanced at each other with confused looks in their eyes, as though they were uncertain if they should be afraid or not. There were many of them, and only
one Waldo, but Waldo had a stick. A stick! None of them had ever thought to pick up and swing a stick before. It was a brilliant idea, as far as monkey ideas were concerned.

  I could see why P had taken a liking to Waldo. He was a very clever monkey. He was a little bit evil, but definitely very clever as well.

  “Thanks, Waldo,” I said. “I have to say that I was wrong about you. You really are a good monkey.”

  He quickly spun around and knocked me over the head with the stick.

  “Ow! Lousy, double-crossing monkey!”

  One of the other monkeys took a step towards me, but, before it could get too close, little Waldo swung his stick at it as well. The other monkeys cowered in fear.

  Waldo held up the stick and shrieked as loudly as he could, which caused the rest of the monkeys to turn and run away.

  Even though I didn’t speak monkey, I knew exactly what his shriek meant.

  “Nobody gets to hit W.B. except for me!”

  Does That Mean I Don’t Have To Pay You Back The Seven Dollars That I Owe You?

  Using Waldo as my guide, I was able to find my way back to the shore where my parents and Rose were waiting.

  “Where are the water jugs?” M asked.

  I looked at my empty hands and realized that I had dropped the water jugs when the monkeys had attacked me. It was probably for the best. No one should be drinking that sneezy pond water.

  “And what’s he doing with you?” my father asked coldly as he pointed to Waldo.

  “He saved my life,” I told P. “There was a gang of angry monkeys who attacked me, and then Waldo appeared out of nowhere and saved me by picking up a stick and swinging it at the other monkeys. It was brilliant. Well, it was monkey brilliant, but it was still pretty impressive.”

  I left out the part about Waldo bonking me on the head with the stick. That wouldn’t have made him look very good. Come to think of it, it probably wouldn’t have made me look very good either.

  My parents and Rose shook their heads slowly, looking strangely doubtful and disappointed, which confused me. I would have thought they’d be happy to hear that I’d been saved from vicious monkeys.

  “W.B., you don’t need to lie for little Waldo,” M said.

  Huh?

  “Huh?” I said.

  “There aren’t any vicious monkeys here. I read about this area before our trip so I would know what sort of wild animals to expect. I can understand you feeling upset about your father wanting to get rid of Waldo, but you shouldn’t lie to us.”

  “But I’m not lying!”

  “Monkeys don’t live in this part of the South Pacific, W.B.,” Rose said. “Mrs. Baron is right. I helped her do her research. There are reptiles and birds here, and a whole lot of bugs, but there are no monkeys.”

  “Yes there are!” I objected. “They attacked me. Look, I have monkey fist-sized bruises all over my head. Where do you think these came from, huh?”

  Rose rolled her eyes.

  “W.B. you always have bruises on your head. And you also have a really wild imagination. I suppose the next thing you’re going to be telling us is that there are ghosts on this island as well.”

  Oh, that’s right! The ghost!

  With all the monkey madness, I’d nearly forgotten about the ghost.

  That shows you just how ridiculous of a day I’d been having.

  “But there is a ghost here!” I told her, thinking of what the masked ghost from the pond had said to me. “I saw one while I was collecting water. He told me that he and his ghost friends would haunt me if we stole Captain Affect’s treasure. Then he poked me and called me chubby.”

  “How could a ghost poke you?” P asked. “Wouldn’t his finger go right through you?”

  “There’s no such thing as ghosts, W.B.,” M said with a sigh. “You probably just heard a loud noise or spotted a dark shadow somewhere in the jungle and it frightened you.”

  When I looked back in the direction of the jungle, I saw not one, but three ghosts staring back at me from behind a bush. They all wore the same hideous masks, pointy witch hats, and flowing ghost robes. The one I had met by the pond made a slitting motion across his throat, letting me know that I would be in big trouble if I didn’t listen to his warning. Another ghost mimed breaking me in half with his hands. The third one couldn’t think of a threatening gesture to make, so he danced a funny little jig instead. Then they all three vanished.

  “Leave that treasure alone or I’ll haunt you,” the ghost had said. “And if you try any funny business, I’ll double haunt you. And don’t even ask what double haunting is. You don’t want to know.”

  “Did anyone just see that?” I said as I pointed to the bushes. “Over there in the bushes?”

  M shielded her eyes from the sun as she looked.

  “Nope, I don’t see anything,” she told me. “Maybe you should lie down for a bit, W.B. If you aren’t lying to us, then that means you’ve been seeing things. Maybe you suffered some sort of brain injury when you were underwater. I warned you about hyperventilation.”

  “Or maybe you’re suffering from a brain injury as a result of all the other times you’ve hit your head,” Rose suggested. “You do hit your head more often than anyone I’ve ever met. Your poor brain probably just needs a rest.”

  “There are no ghosts, W.B.,” M said. “Trust me. I’m a scientist.”

  Huh.

  I looked back over towards the bushes. Like M and Rose, I now saw nothing. There was no movement or rustling. Just bushes being bushes.

  The thought that my brain was playing tricks on me and causing me to see things that weren’t actually there was somehow more frightening than any ghost or killer monkey. It meant that I was losing my mind. I didn’t have much in life, but I had always had my mind. It wasn’t a particularly great mind (I had more than one complaint about it and would exchange it for a better one if I could), but I had no interest in losing it without a fight.

  I rubbed my eyes and looked at the bushes again. There was nothing there. I repeated that to myself: there’s nothing there.

  It must have all been in my imagination. It had to have been. M was right. There was no such thing as ghosts. The masked ghost must have lied to me when I asked if he was really there, or if he was just a figment of my imagination. Never trust a ghost to tell you if it’s real or not. Apparently they’re liars.

  I promised myself that I wouldn’t allow my mind to trick me anymore. I would outsmart my brain by no longer listening to it. If my brain told me that I was seeing a ghost, I would simply tell my brain that it was wrong. It was wrong because it was impossible, just like the killer island monkeys. And I only believed in possible things.

  Suddenly, I felt very embarrassed for making a fool of myself in front of Rose and my parents.

  “You’re right,” I quickly told M. “I was lying about the ghosts and also about the killer monkeys. I know they don’t exist. I guess I’m just in a lying mood. But don’t worry. I’m not losing my mind. I’m just a liar. Hey, P, your hair looks very nice today.”

  “Really?” said P with a smile, as he gently patted his porcupine hair. “Thank you for noticing, W.B. It has been much pointier lately.”

  “W.B., stop lying to your father and follow us, please,” M said, as she and Rose climbed into the submarine. “We’ll collect more water after we’ve found the treasure.”

  “Actually, I’ve just thought of a way to filter the salt from the sea water so we can drink it,” my father chimed, pulling his pen and paper from his pocket and jotting down some scientific notes.

  Waldo and I started walking back to the submarine, but before little Waldo could get too far, P turned around and pointed at him.

  “Not so fast, monkey,” P said with a frown. “You’re going to stay here while we search for the treasure. I haven’t decided what we’re going to do wit
h you yet.”

  My father climbed back into the submarine, scratching his itchy head as he slid down the hatch.

  M flipped a switch and cranked a dial on the control panel, and suddenly the torches attached to the sides of the submarine began to glow twice as bright. In an instant we were able to see everything in the dark waters surrounding the island. There were brightly colored fish and coral, as well as a forest of slimy looking seaweed.

  “Everyone, keep your eyes open for any sign of a shipwreck,” said M.

  P steered the submarine around the island, moving slowly to ensure that we wouldn’t miss anything or hit any of the sharp-looking rocks that jutted out from the ground like claws. P and M stared out the large front window of the submarine, while I looked through the eyeball shaped windows on the left, and Rose looked through the eyeball shaped windows on the right.

  As we searched, P began to tell us how difficult it would be to actually find Captain Affect’s ship.

  “I want you all to understand that finding a shipwreck in the sea can be a lot like finding a needle in a haystack,” he said, scratching his chin and neck as he steered. “Though why you’d be so careless as to leave one of your needles in one of your haystacks is a mystery to me. I always make it a point to keep my needles and my haystacks very far apart, thank you very much.”

  It was true. He did. If you want to make my father angry, you need to do one of three things: Be rude to one of his pets. Make fun of his hats. Or place one of his needles near one of his haystacks.

  “Anyway,” P continued, scratching the inside of his ears. “It’s going to be very difficult to find the ship. It might take us days to find it, maybe even weeks. We might be searching for months before we—”

  “There it is,” Rose said as she spotted the old shipwreck.

  “Right,” said P. “That is a sunken ship. But we don’t know if that’s the ship that we’re looking for. It might not be the ship that belonged to Captain Affect. It could have belonged to anyone. We don’t know—”