The Splendid Baron Submarine

by Eric Bower

  Eventually, the sun slowly began to set, which was nice for a few moments, but then the cold night winds started to blow, and suddenly we were all freezing. The ghosts regretted leaving their masks and hats and robes behind, and their teeth chattered loudly as they rubbed their bare arms for warmth.

  We heard the howl of coyotes, followed by the screech of a predatory bird, and then the unusually loud yawn of a tortoise.

  Our path grew dimmer, and the shadows cast by the night soon drowned the lumpy sand dunes in blackness as the last ray of the sun disappeared. The light provided by P’s G.P.S. Device began to flicker, and soon he was barely able to see the little line that showed him where to go. We stumbled and shivered almost blindly until I cleverly tripped over something which we quickly realized was the front step to a large white building with tall columns.

  “We’re here!” Rose said through her chattering teeth.

  Since we were all too cold to do any sort of proper happy dance, we sort of waved our hands and hummed happily instead.

  “This is proof that we can do anything we set our minds to,” M said as we all huddled together and hugged. “I am very proud of each and every one of you. This is truly a—”

  “What’s that smell?” Rose interrupted.

  “I have no idea,” said P as he made a sour face. “Phew, it stinks!”

  “Please don’t interrupt me when I’m trying to . . .” M began, but then she trailed off and covered her nose with her hands. “Oh, my goodness! You’re right, it smells awful!”

  I smelled it too. We looked around, trying to see what it was that smelled so badly, and then Rose had the idea that we should all check the bottoms of our shoes. M, P, and Rose’s shoes were all clean. So were the three ghosts’, who checked the bottoms of their ghost shoes just to be certain. That left only my shoes.

  I lifted my left shoe and saw nothing underneath it.

  “It’s not me,” I told everyone. “I’m clean.”

  “Check your right shoe,” Rose said.

  I checked my right shoe.

  Oh.

  Apparently, someone in the area had forgotten to clean up after their dog.

  The last thing I wanted to do was show up to the Vice President of the United States’ office with dog poo on my shoe. So, while my parents and Rose waited, I rushed around to the side of the building and found a broken ice box that was being used as a dumpster. I opened it and found stacks of old newspapers, some of which were ten or fifteen years old. I tore out one of the pages from a newspaper from 1881. I was about to wipe the gross bottom of my shoe with it, when I happened to spot something very interesting printed on the page.

  It was very interesting indeed, as well as very confusing, very educational, and very frightening.

  “Did you clean the mess from your shoe?” one of the ghosts asked as I rejoined my family at the front steps of the white building.

  I nodded yes to him, and then held my index finger to my lips, letting him know that he and the other ghosts should be quiet. And perhaps because the ghosts were so tired from the long walk across the desert, they actually obeyed me.

  We entered the building with my father leading the way. There were no men in long black coats waiting out front like before, but, once we were inside, we could see that the lobby and the hallway were brightly lit, which meant that someone was there.

  We walked quietly through the narrow hall. The pictures and paintings, which had been flipped over the last time we were there, were now turned over so we could see them properly. They were all pictures and paintings of very smug and slimy looking people who were posing in front of various treasures and large stacks of money. We kept walking until we came to the door that Mongo and Knuckles had knocked on before.

  “Look,” M whispered. “The American flag is gone.”

  She was right. The flag that had been tacked to the door was no longer there.

  “Maybe it’s in the wash?” P suggested. “It might have gotten dirty from all the people knocking on it with their filthy knuckles.”

  He leaned forward, and, after wiping his filthy knuckles with his handkerchief, he knocked on the door.

  From inside, we could hear the sound of papers shuffling, drawers closing, gold coins jingling, jewels clacking, and finally the sound of a treasure chest being pushed slowly under a desk.

  “What’s the password?” someone from behind the door called.

  “Weasel face,” said my father.

  We heard someone inside grumble about how stupid it was to keep the same password all the time, but then the door slowly opened.

  It was Weasel Face, and beside him were Knuckles and Mongo. They didn’t look particularly happy to see us, especially not Weasel Face, who probably couldn’t have looked happy even if he tried.

  “Yes?” said Weasel Face in his funny little accent. “What can we do for you?”

  “Our son says he saw you break into our home and steal Captain Affect’s treasure,” P said. “Is that true?”

  “No,” Weasel Face said quickly.

  P smiled and shook Weasel Face’s hand warmly.

  “Oh, well, alright then. Sorry to disturb you. Have a great evening, boys.”

  My father turned to leave, but M quickly caught him by his collar.

  “You didn’t steal the treasure?” she asked Weasel Face, squinting sharply at him until her face began to look a bit weasely as well. “Are you being honest with us? We walked a long way to get here, and we deserve to know the truth. Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure!” he snapped. “Please don’t insult my intelligence. I wouldn’t forget stealing a treasure from someone. I didn’t do it. You have my word as a Veezlefayce, which is the most honorable promise that can be made. Now, if you like, I can arrange for a carriage to take you back to your home.”

  “We don’t have any money with us,” Rose Blackwood told him. “We can’t afford to pay for a carriage ride all the way back to Arizona Territory.”

  “That’s okay,” said Knuckles as he rose to his feet. “We can lend you some money.”

  “Yeah,” Mongo said. “We’ll just give you a couple of gold coins from the treasure we have hidden under this desk.”

  Knuckles pulled Captain Affect’s treasure chest out from behind the desk and opened it, taking a few coins and offering them to Rose.

  Veezlefayce looked at Mongo and Knuckles as though they’d just blown their noses on his mother’s best Sunday dress.

  “Oh . . .” said Knuckles after a moment, understanding what they’d just done.

  “Oops,” said Mongo, “I mean . . . what treasure?”

  With his weasel face burning bright red, Veezlefayce turned back to my parents.

  “I suppose you think I should be embarrassed,” he said quickly. “Well, I’m not. I wasn’t technically lying. I didn’t steal the treasure from you. You were going to give it to us anyway, remember? I can’t steal what’s being given to me. I just took it without telling you. There’s a big difference.”

  “That’s true,” P agreed. “After all, we found that treasure so we could bring it here to save the country from going bankrupt.”

  “But they were supposed to leave us the Wish Diamond,” Rose objected. “It was promised to us by Vice President Morton. It’s ours.”

  Veezlefayce’s weasel face looked so furious, that for a moment I was worried he was accidentally going to swallow his own chin.

  “Fine,” he finally said through gritted teeth. “You shall have your precious little Wish Diamond.”

  He dug through the treasure chest, pushing aside gleaming gems and shining coins and golden crowns until he found the most impressive part of the treasure: the Wish Diamond. As he held up the diamond, it caught the light in the office and twinkled like the night’s brightest star. Mongo and Knuckles stared at it dumbly with their
lower lips drooping like codfish, though to be fair, they usually stared at everything dumbly with their lower lips drooping like codfish.

  I could see from the look in Weasel Face’s eye that he didn’t want to hand over the diamond. While the rest of the treasure would be enough to purchase a small country, that diamond was, by far, the most impressive part of Captain Affect’s loot. As I stared at it from across the room, I had the sudden urge to steal it, despite the fact that it was being given to my family. Something about that diamond seemed to whisper, “Steal me! Do it! I’m yours! I’m alllllll yours, W.B.! Use me to buy alllllll the sandwiches that your belly desires! With extra pickles. I know how much you love pickles. Aren’t you hungry right now? You look as though you haven’t eaten in ages . . .”

  “I haven’t eaten in ages,” I whispered to the diamond.

  “What? You just ate a few slices of cheese two minutes ago in the hallway,” one of the ghosts said to me. “And you ate at least three dozen caramels while we were walking through the desert, even though one of the worst times to eat caramels has to be when you’re walking through the desert. That’s why you kept choking.”

  The ghost gave me a little shove. I looked away from the diamond and rubbed my eyes.

  Had the Wish Diamond actually been hypnotizing me?

  As Veezlefayce was about to hand the diamond to my parents, he was suddenly interrupted by the sound of a very important man clearing his throat from the other side of the room.

  You can always tell when it’s an important man who’s clearing his throat, because it sounds something like “Hummmbullarumpphhrumpphhrumphhff.”

  “Hummmbullarumpphhrumpphhrumphhff.”

  Out of the shadows appeared the man who had asked us to go on the treasure hunt to save the country.

  “What a pleasure it is to see you again, Baron family,” Vice President Morton said with a smile so sugary and sweet, that it actually smelled like fresh caramel (or maybe that was just my breath from my desert dessert). “I’m so glad you found your way here. Although I must ask . . . how did you find your way here? And also, Mr. Baron, why do you have two black eyes?”

  “The answers are actually related,” said P, as he wiped the black shoe polish from his face. “Remind me to tell you about them some other time, Vice President Morton, sir. Now, you’ll be giving us our reward for finding the treasure, correct?”

  Levi Morton’s smile flickered as he walked over to us. He took very slow and deliberate steps.

  “Reward?” he asked with a mischievous sparkle in his eye. “Whatever do you mean, reward?”

  “The Wish Diamond,” M answered. “You told us if we found Captain Affect’s treasure, you would allow us to keep the diamond as a reward, remember?”

  The Vice President pretended to think for a moment, as though he was searching deeply through his memories for that promise. As a person who often pretends to think (it’s much easier than actually thinking), I’m always able to spot a fellow fake thinker. We tend to look up, tap our chins, scrunch our brows, and “hmmmm” a lot more than real thinkers do.

  “Hmmm, no,” he said as he tapped his chin. “I don’t recall that. In fact, that doesn’t sound like something that I would say at all. You must be mistaken.”

  My parents and Rose reacted as though they’d just been punched in the gut.

  “But . . .” M began in a weak voice.

  “You said . . .” Rose said through quivering breaths.

  “I got shoe polish in my eye . . .” P said, but he said it in a devastated sort of way.

  Levi Morton walked over to Veezlefayce and took the Wish Diamond from him. He dropped it back into the chest with the rest of the treasure and closed the lid.

  “I’m sorry, Barons,” he told us. “But you will not be getting the Wish Diamond. I will, however, give you something more valuable than any jewel or treasure. I will give you the sincere thanks of the second most important person in the country, the thanks of the Vice President of the United States.”

  “Great,” I said. “When will we finally have the chance to meet him?”

  The man who had been claiming to be Vice President Levi P. Morton froze in place, his eyes as wide as a pair of Aunt Dorcas’s apple pies. He started to speak and then stopped, as though his mouth had suddenly forgotten how to form words. Mongo and Knuckles looked at him sympathetically. They knew the feeling. They often forgot how to form words.

  My parents looked stunned by my comment as well. Rose raised an eyebrow in curiosity.

  “I don’t understand,” the man claiming to be Levi Morton finally said when he could speak again. “What do you mean? You’ve already met him. Him is me. I am him. I am Vice President Levi P. Morton.”

  I took a brave step forward.

  “No, you aren’t,” I told him, reaching into my pockets. “And I can prove it.”

  From my right pocket, I pulled out the folded up page from the old newspaper I had found outside.

  “Here is the proof that you are a liar and a thief!”

  And then from my left pocket, I pulled several little stones that I’d taken from the bottom of the sea. They were smooth and brightly-colored and would look wonderful in the candy dish that he kept on his desk.

  “And here are the replacement decorative rocks that I promised you,” I added. “I hope you like them. Aren’t they pretty?”

  A Hairy Little Cowboy

  After the man who claimed to be the Vice President thanked me for the decorative rocks, he tried to grab the newspaper away from me. But I was too fast for him. I pulled it away and handed it to my mother, who unfolded the page.

  “Oh,” she said in a mildly surprised tone. “It’s a picture of Levi P. Morton driving the first nail into the toe of the Statue of Liberty.”

  She looked up at the fake Vice President and frowned.

  “You look completely different than you do in this picture.”

  “That picture was taken ten years ago!” the fake Vice President argued. “I bet you all looked a lot different ten years ago. People change.”

  He was right. I looked very different ten years ago. I was mostly bald, could barely speak, and went around in diapers (I was a baby, in case you couldn’t figure that out). But that wasn’t why I was surprised by the article. And it wasn’t why I now knew that the man claiming to be Vice President Morton was a fake.

  “I’m aware that people’s appearances can change after ten years,” I said to the fake Vice President. “That’s not what I found suspicious. What I found suspicious was what you said the last time we were here, when you explained to us the reasons why this country was out of money.”

  “What do you mean?” the fake Vice President asked, his face growing pale.

  I began to pace—explanations often seem a lot better and cleverer if you pace. Try it, if you don’t believe me. But be sure to pace slowly. If you pace quickly while you explain things, people will either think that you’re a lunatic, or that you really need to use the bathroom. Also, try not to hyperventilate while you do it. It might seem like you’re helping your brain by giving it extra oxygen, but you’re actually not. I don’t know the exact reason why, but it has something to do with science.

  “You mentioned that the government wasted a lot of money buying a big copper statue,” I began, “and the big copper statue you were referring to was obviously the Statue of Liberty.”

  “Yes,” the fake Vice President said. “So what?”

  “But the United States of America didn’t buy the Statue of Liberty. It was a gift from France. They paid for the shipping as well. And the cost to put up the statue in New York was covered by over 100,000 donations, many of which came from generous, private citizens of the United States, which you would have known if you were really Vice President Levi P. Morton! Because in 1881, Levi P. Morton was the Ambassador to France! He knew all about it! He dr
ove the first nail into the statue’s big toe! That’s what this newspaper article is about. And the fact that you didn’t know that proves that you are not the Vice President!”

  I want you to take a moment to think about what I just said, and how I figured that all out.

  Why should you take a moment, you ask?

  Because I’m one hundred percent certain that I’ll never be that clever again.

  “He ain’t the Vice President? I’m confused,” Mongo said to Knuckles. “Are you confused?”

  “No,” Knuckles replied. “But then again, I haven’t been paying attention.”

  “You’re an impostor!” P cried as he pointed at the fake Vice President. “I can’t believe we used our inventions to help you! I bet you weren’t even going to use this treasure to save the country, were you? How dare you lie to us, Mr. Morton!”

  The fake Vice President rolled his eyes as he removed his fake mustache, mussed up his hair, untied his tie, and unbuttoned his fake collar. Suddenly he looked much more comfortable, and much less important.

  “Of course I’m not going to use the treasure to save the country,” he said with an ugly scowl. “And my name isn’t Mr. Morton. It’s James Reavis. I’m a professional criminal, not a politician.”

  “What?” P gasped, turning to Veezlefayce. “Can you believe it, Weasel Face? His name isn’t actually Levi Morton!”

  “Of course I believe it!” Veezlefayce snapped. “I knew all along, you chowderhead! I’m partners with him. I’m a criminal too. And my name is not Weasel Face. It’s Veezlefayce! Veezlefayce!!! It means kidney bean! Knuckles! Mongo! Tie up the Baron family! Do not let them escape!”

  Before we could move, the two shaved gorillas grabbed us and tied us to the cushioned chairs in the office. The chairs were really quite soft. I was scared, but at least I was comfortable.

  “You just had to come snooping around here, didn’t you?” James Reavis snarled. “You couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you, Barons? The treasure of Captain Affect is mine, and nothing will stop me from having it!”