The Splendid Baron Submarine

by Eric Bower

  “You’re right,” Rose said miserably. “I guess your inventions can’t help us this time.”

  “Maybe they can,” one of the ghosts muttered out of the corner of his mouth.

  I looked at the ghost and raised an eyebrow, as if to say, “What do you mean?”

  The ghost shrugged, as if to say, “I mean what I mean.”

  I raised my other eyebrow, as if to say, “Yes, but your meaning wasn’t very clear.”

  Another ghost coughed into his fist, as if to say, “I’m coughing into my fist.”

  I wiggled both eyebrows at him, as if to say, “Quiet, you. We’re trying to have a silent conversation here.”

  “I happened to notice that your father has a new invention in the pocket of his coat,” the shrugging ghost said to me as he continued to shrug. “Maybe that new invention can help?”

  “P, are you sure that you don’t have something that can help us?” I asked him. “Maybe you have something useful that you’re keeping in your coat pocket.”

  P reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a Swiss cheese sandwich with extra tomato.

  “You’re right, W.B.,” he said as he began to eat the sandwich. “Maybe eating this sandwich will give me the strength to think up an idea.”

  “Other pocket,” the ghost whispered to me.

  “Other pocket,” I told my father.

  After P finished his sandwich, he reached into his other pocket and pulled out a little invention which looked a bit like a mechanical pickle.

  “Ohhhh,” he said, as he whacked himself on the forehead. “That’s right! I had forgotten about this!”

  “What is it?” Rose Blackwood asked.

  Instead of simply answering, P pressed a little green button on the side of the invention before rushing outside.

  We all grabbed our coats and followed him, with the three ghosts floating right on our heels.

  “Would you mind not floating right on our heels?” I whispered to one of the ghosts as I tripped over my feet while attempting not to trip over his nonexistent ghost feet, and fell into the dirt. “I just washed my face, and I’d prefer not to get dirt on it.”

  “Sorry. Sheesh, you’re clumsy, kid. I didn’t think it was possible for a ghost to trip someone. We don’t even have real feet. I’ll bet you sometimes trip over your own shadow, don’t you?”

  “No, I don’t,” I lied. “Now hush.”

  P had stopped beside our white picket fence, and we all lined up behind him. We stood in front of the Baron Estate as the morning sun rose over the sloping sand dunes of the Pitchfork Desert, shrinking the shadows and bathing everything in gold. It was usually warm in Arizona Territory, but I could tell that today was going to be uncomfortably hot.

  The six of us (three people and three ghosts) watched as P held one end of his mystery invention up to his eye, while pressing the little buttons that ran across the length of the device. It sort of looked like he was playing a clarinet, but, instead of putting one end to his mouth, he put it to his eye.

  So I suppose it was nothing like playing a clarinet. Sorry. I was just trying to find a good comparison. I guess there isn’t one.

  “McLaron, what is that thing?” my mother asked.

  “Hah!” P said as he lowered the invention.

  There was a black circle painted around his eye.

  “It’s a device that I invented a few months ago, and I forgot to tell you all about it,” P said with an excited gleam in his blackened eye. “When we were traveling around the world in the Air Oh! Plane, I was a tad bit worried that we might misplace our map and get lost. So I invented something that would record where we had gone, the entire route we traveled, and it would show us how to get back home again.”

  “Fascinating,” M said.

  “Interesting,” Rose commented.

  “Defenestrating,” I added.

  Alright, I didn’t know what that word meant. And I didn’t really understand my father’s invention and how it could help us. But everyone else had said something, and I felt left out.

  “I accidentally left the invention on,” P continued, “and it’s recorded every place we’ve gone over the past few months. If you look through the picture end of the invention, you can see the route we traveled to get to the island. And if you go a bit further back, you can see the route we traveled to get to Vice President Levi Morton’s office. We now know how to get there!”

  That was fantastic news! We were so excited that we started to do our family happy dance, spinning around and slapping our hands against our knees, when I noticed out of the corner of my eye that the ghosts were staring at us strangely.

  “Are you alright?” one of them asked with a frown. “You look as though you’re being attacked by your own underpants.”

  My father used to have a horse named Magnus, but he gave that horse to a friend of mine who had helped us defeat Benedict Blackwood. So now we’re horseless. Having no horse would make travel difficult for some people, but not for my family. P’s oldest and most reliable invention is his horseless carriage. It’s a large buggy with two rows of comfy leather seats, and four wooden wheels with metal rims. It has a lever to control the speed, and a little handlebar to control the direction. There’s a metal crank at the front of the carriage that you have to wind up every hour or so in order to make the carriage go. The carriage makes a terribly loud noise as it travels down the road, but it gets you from Point A to Point B pretty quickly, unless of course you accidentally wind the crank too much, in which case you’ll end up at Point R, or in some horrible cases, Point Ψ. But if you know what you’re doing, there are very few better ways to travel.

  We all packed overnight bags (just in case), and quickly boarded the horseless carriage. As M began to wind up the crank at the front of the carriage, my eggy Aunt Dorcas suddenly came rushing out of the Baron Estate.

  “Wait!” she screamed. “Wait! Don’t leave me alone again!”

  Her face was still bright purple from her bad experience with the Gravity-Switcher-Ma-Thinger. It was beginning to look as though her face would be that color permanently. She’d tried covering it up with powder, but, when she’d sweat beneath the desert sun, her true purple color would shine through.

  “There’s no time to wait, Purple Dorcas!” P declared as he slipped on his driving gloves, driving cap, driving goggles, driving shoes, and driving nose plugs. “We’re on a mission to save the country!”

  “But we can’t tell you anything else about it,” Rose added. ‘Sorry. Top secret.”

  “There’s egg salad in the ice box for you to eat if you get hungry!” M called.

  Aunt Dorcas looked as though she was going to explode. Her purple face turned a deep and dark color that I can only describe as zorple. Her angry little hands formed angry little fists, and then she began to run as quickly as she could.

  I have to say, she moved much faster than you’d expect a person of her size and shape to be able to move. In fact, she looked a bit like an eggy bolt of lightning, jumping over the white picket fence with a single leap, and dashing across the dunes with the grace and agility of a pregnant cheetah.

  Never underestimate an angry Dorcas.

  P pressed the lever to direct the horseless carriage forward, but before the buggy could move an inch, my zorple faced aunt dove into the air and landed in the seat between me and Rose Blackwood.

  “I’m coming with you,” she said through gritted teeth. “Accept it.”

  “But Aunt Dorcas,” Rose began, “we made a promise to—”

  Aunt Dorcas shot Rose a look so angry and severe that it made the sister of the most dangerous man in the world close her mouth in an instant.

  “Alright,” M said slowly. “I guess Dorcas will be joining us.”

  Aunt Dorcas smiled brightly, excited to finally be a part of one of our adventures.

/>   I suppose it was a bit unfair for us to leave her at home alone all the time. After all, she was a part of the family. Even if it was the annoying part.

  As my mother adjusted the speed of the carriage and steered, P held his invention up to his eye in order to see the path that we had traveled to Vice President Morton’s office.

  “What do you call that invention, Mr. Baron?” Rose Blackwood asked.

  “Good question, Rose. I call it my G.P.S. Device.”

  “What does G.P.S. stand for?” M asked. “Global Positioning System?”

  “Of course not, that would be a silly name,” P said with a chuckle. “It stands for Going Places, Stephen?”

  “. . . Oh.”

  “Where are we going?” Aunt Dorcas asked as she settled into her seat. “How long will it take to get there? Will we be stopping for lunch? Did someone pack a lunch or will we be eating in a restaurant? If we eat at a restaurant, they better serve soup. I want soup. The soup better not be too salty though. Soup is so salty nowadays. It makes my tongue itch. Does anyone have a blanket? I’m cold. But I’m also a bit thirsty. Is there any water? Any cold water? What about a handkerchief? May I use someone’s handkerchief? I would use mine, but it’s too pretty, and I don’t want to use it to blow my nose. The sun is really bright today. Does anyone have an umbrella? Or sunglasses? The sun is bothering my eyes. And I can already tell that it’s giving me a sunburn. Does it look like my skin is burnt? I’m probably as red as a lobster’s behind. Do I look like a lobster’s behind? Waldo, please scoot over. I need to put my feet up. In fact, Rose, would you please scoot over as well? I’d like to lie down. Sharon, I’m going to take your coat and use it as a pillow. Oh, this is an uncomfortable coat. It’s so itchy! Does anyone have a more comfortable and less itchy coat that I can use as a pillow? Sharon, stop driving over those big bumps. The bumps are upsetting my stomach and giving me a headache. Drive slower, please. Slower! Oh no. I have to use the bathroom. You’re going to have to drive me back to the Baron Estate because I refuse to use a public bathroom, and I absolutely won’t be using a public outhouse. The thought of using a public outhouse is enough to give me an even more upset stomach. And it’s making my eye twitch. I need my eye medicine. Why is this coat so itchy???”

  My mother obeyed, turning the horseless carriage around and driving back to the Baron Estate while Aunt Dorcas continued to complain about everything and anything. Rose and I found little pieces of inventor’s putty which we jammed into our ears with the hopes that it would block out my aunt’s voice. Unfortunately, it didn’t work. Aunt Dorcas was just too good of a complainer.

  We pulled up to the white picket fence of the Baron Estate. As my aunt left the carriage and disappeared through the front door of our home, my father and mother silently nodded to one another, before winding the carriage and driving away as quickly as they could.

  “Oh my goodness,” said one of the ghosts who’d been sitting behind me. “I would gladly suffer through a hundred thousand pirate curses if it meant I never had to spend another moment with that woman.”

  “I know,” another ghost said as he clutched his head. “I didn’t know a person could complain that much. I still have her voice echoing in my skull.”

  I leaned back and whispered to the ghosts in a low voice.

  “See, this is why your double haunting didn’t bother me that much. I’ve spent my entire life being double Dorcased.”

  Aren’t They Pretty?

  We continued to follow the route that P had recorded in his G.P.S. Device, which led us all the way across Arizona Territory and into New Mexico Territory. We’d been blindfolded during our original carriage ride with Knuckles and Mongo, but the familiar smells and sounds let us know that we were headed in the right direction.

  The horseless carriage traveled through several small towns along the New Mexico Territory border, and it received the same strange looks that my parents’ inventions tend to get when seen by people who aren’t familiar with wacky inventors. Several cowboys and farmers and ranchers stared slack-jawed at the puttering horseless carriage, with its leather seats and mechanical engine, but the biggest reaction to the invention came from their horses. The horses all turned up their long noses and made “Hmmmphhh!” sounds of annoyance at the brass and wood buggy which basically did their job for them. I suppose I would react the same way if I came downstairs for breakfast one morning and found a mechanical son sitting in my place. Knowing my parents, that’s a definite possibility.

  After we passed through several smaller New Mexico Territory towns filled with more slack-jawed ranchers and annoyed horses, we found ourselves riding up a long and empty road. Aside from the clockwork chugging of the horseless carriage and the soft whisper of the winds, it was dead quiet. It seemed as though there wasn’t another living creature within ten miles.

  “Are you sure this is the right way, McLaron?” M asked.

  P lowered the G.P.S. Device from his face. It had once again left a thick black ring around his eye. The black ring looked a bit like shoe polish.

  “Of course I’m sure. Has the G.P.S. Device ever been wrong before?”

  “I don’t know. We’ve never used it before.”

  “Good point,” my father admitted. “But I trust this device, just as I trust all of my inventions. I swear on my life that if I build something, it will be built to last.”

  Suddenly the horseless carriage began to sputter. And it wasn’t the good kind of sputtering. It was the kind of sputtering that let you know that there was a problem, a serious problem that was about to get a whole lot worse. The carriage made more loud noises as the wheels began to slow, and soon the invention came to a complete stop. A thick cloud of smoke began to pour out from underneath the buggy.

  My parents got out of their seats and went to the front of the carriage, where they proceeded to turn the crank over and over again. But the winding did nothing but exercise their arms. The buggy would not move. My father opened the front panel of the carriage and waved away the black smoke, before leaning forward and staring at the clockwork parts which normally worked together in perfect harmony to make the invention move.

  “Hmmm . . .” P said, as he stared at the clockwork parts while stroking his chin, “I think I know what’s wrong with it.”

  “You do?” I said hopefully.

  “Yes. It’s broken.”

  Unfortunately, we didn’t have any tools or materials that my parents could use to fix the horseless carriage, which meant there was only one thing left for us to do.

  “I guess we give up,” I said as I lay down on the side of the road. “I think I’ll take a nap. Wake me up if another carriage comes by to save us. Otherwise, I’ll just lie here and wait to become a ghost.”

  “Good plan,” said one of the ghosts, and he and his ghost buddies joined me on the ground.

  “Not so fast,” M said as she pulled me to my feet. “We aren’t giving up. And for the last time, W.B., there is no such thing as ghosts.”

  “Yeah, W.B.,” said one of the ghosts as he gave me a shove. “There’s no such thing as ghosts.”

  “I suppose we should start walking,” Rose Blackwood said with a frown, as she lowered her hat brim to shield her eyes from the sun. “Lead the way, Mr. Baron.”

  My father held the Going Places, Stephen? Device to his eye, and pointed us further east. We had no choice but to follow.

  Walking in the desert at the height of the summer afternoon’s heat was just as miserable as it sounds. After an hour, we were all covered in sweat, and our tongues hung from the corners of our mouths like old shriveled socks. The long and empty road appeared to go on and on with no town or building or even a single tree in sight. There was no water, no shade, and we were beginning to lose hope.

  Even the ghosts were miserable in the heat. They kept muttering to each other about how they should have never left their trop
ical island to follow a chubby fool like me into the desert. I couldn’t help but agree with them. I wished I was relaxing on a tropical island as well. I wouldn’t even mind the killer monkeys.

  “Are we close?” M choked, as a hot desert wind sent a spray of sand into our faces.

  “Close to what?” P asked as he lowered the G.P.S. Device.

  There was another thick, black ring around his other eye.

  “P, did you know that every time you hold that thing up to your eye, it leaves a black ring?” I asked.

  “Yes,” P told me with a devilish giggle. “You know I have a wicked sense of humor, W.B. I coated the eyepiece of the G.P.S. Device in shoe polish. What a great gag! Hahaha!”

  “But you’re the only one whose eye keeps getting blackened,” Rose pointed out, as she mopped her forehead with her red bandana.

  P shrugged. “It’s still funny.”

  The three ghosts collapsed on a sand dune by the side of the road. They looked terrible, even for ghosts. They had removed their masks, caps, and flowing ghost robes, and were wearing three of the silliest looking bathing suits I’d ever seen. I pointed and laughed but then got a mouthful of sand when a desert wind blew in my face.

  “Serves you right,” one of the ghosts muttered bitterly. “This is awful. I hate the desert. I’ve got sand in my ear.”

  “I’ve got sand in my nose.”

  “I’ve got sand in . . . other places.”

  “P, can’t you think of an invention to help us?” I wheezed. “Maybe you could invent us some sort of flying machine out of . . .” I looked around the desert to see what he could use as building material. “. . . I don’t know. Sand?”

  P shook his head as he wiped the sweat from his face, smearing the black shoe polish into his spiky white hair.

  “I’m sorry, W.B.,” he said. “There is nothing that we can do but walk. Come on, everyone. The G.P.S. Device says we’re almost there.”