The Gewgaws Adventure

by C. M. Bacon

  “Is she coming with us? Has Nico made a different plan?” Arvin asked.

  “Not yet, but he’s working on it,” Cara said, sounding hopeful. “Something about using tar and fire to slowly burn through the ropes. That way, Grandmother won’t have to stay behind.”

  “He’ll succeed,” I said, believing in Nico’s inventive nature. “He is the mender after all.”

  Cara led us to the far end of the shore where Grandmother had laid a row of colorful rocks on the deck of the first boat.

  “What are these?” I asked, pointing to the stones.

  “They’re our sacred stones,” Grandmother said. “Each one was brought from a different island. They are totems of good fortune. You may choose one.”

  Arvin and I examined each of the stones: a smooth purple amethyst, a pink marble with streaks of silver, a little red lava rock, and a perfect sphere of black onyx. They were beautiful, but I didn’t want any of them. “We’re happy you’re all safe, but you don’t owe us anything,” I said.

  “I’ll take the red one,” Arvin said, reaching out and snatching the little red rock.

  “Arvin, put it back,” I said, grabbing at the rock.

  “Why?” Arvin shrugged his flat shoulders. “It’s as red as my hair.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Let’s get to our boat. They’ve already filled it with food and water.” I tried to let go of Arvin’s hand. “Arvin, let go. I don’t like boats, and I don’t want to hold your hand for a month on that one.”

  “Like I do? I can’t let go, either,” Arvin said.

  “Drop it!” I shouted, my widening eyes focused on the rock.

  Arvin turned his hand over, dropping the stone onto the sand.

  POP

  One red rock became two.

  POP-POP-POP-POP-POP-POP

  Two became four, became sixteen, became sixty-four, and continued to multiply. A million little rocks grew up around us from our feet up to our necks. The villagers backed away from the scene.

  Not again. I screamed in my head. As the red rocks reached my nose, I took a deep breath.

  Arvin and I were covered from head to toe in a hill of little lava rocks. Their sharp edges cut my arms and scratched my hands as I tried to push my way out of the pile.

  “Help!” I gasped for breath.

  “Get us out!” Arvin cried, unable to move.

  A woman’s voice pierced through tiny gaps between the rocks. “We’re coming. Don’t move or you’ll hurt yourselves.”

  I heard the rocks slide and tumble, bouncing off one another as someone worked to pull us from our rocky tombs.

  “Cara, is that you?” Arvin asked.

  The woman replied, “Who’s Cara?”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Gone Cold

  The woman shouted over the sound of falling rocks. “Don’t be scared. We’re coming to help.”

  The tiny spaces between the rocks began to multiply and grow, making way for streaks of sunlight to shine through the gaps. Rocky red dust floated and swirled in the light, and a sharp rotten smell forced its way into my nose, causing me to grimace and gag.

  An arm reached into the rubble, grabbing and pulling at my and Arvin’s joined hands. “Gotcha!” a man shouted.

  With a couple sharp tugs on our hands, the mound of rocks fell apart. Arvin and I, scraped and bruised, fell in opposite directions onto the cool, black ground. I tried to look up, but my eyes were burning; they were full of red dust.

  “Close your eyes,” the deep voice echoed again. “Iwa, hand me the other canteen.”

  I felt a gentle hand touch my chin, tilting my head back.

  “Lift up your chin and keep your eyes closed. You’re going to feel some cool water on your face. I’m going to clean away the dust.” I felt a stream of cool water wash over my eyes. “It’s okay. You can look.”

  I opened my eyes, focusing them on the man who had helped me. His brown hair was kept tucked under his gray knitted hat, his beard was neatly trimmed, and he wore a beige button-up shirt with green letters V.E.A.D embroidered in onto the sleeve. He had blue eyes like the sky before dusk. Beside his brown boots, a large red-trimmed beige bag sat with green letters V.E.A.D embroidered on the top flap. The man was not short or tall, nor was he fat or thin. He was an ordinary man. In fact, he was as familiar a man as I had seen in a week.

  “I’m Halvor, and this is my wife, Iwa,” he said, raising the canteen in his hand toward the woman helping Arvin.

  Her brown hair was kept tucked under her gray knitted hat, and her shirt had green letters V.E.A.D embroidered on the sleeves. If Halvor hadn’t said she was his wife, I could’ve sworn they were twins. Iwa held Arvin by the chin as she poured water from another plaid canteen over his face, washing the black and red dust out of his eyes and ears.

  “All better?” she asked.

  Arvin raised a finger to his nose, pressing one nostril closed and, with great force, blew dust and boogers out the other side. Iwa jumped back to avoid Arvin’s snot rocket.

  “Yep. All better,” Arvin said.

  Iwa let out a high-pitched laugh. “Well, that’s one way to do it.”

  “We had finished collecting today’s samples when we heard you call for help,” Halvor said. “Where did you boys come from? And why are you wearing muumuus?”

  “I’m Perry. He’s Arvin. I don’t think you’d believe me if I told you anything else.” Arvin nodded again, trying to shake all the dust out of his various holes.

  Iwa patted Arvin on the back, sending up a cloud of dust into the air. “Be glad we heard you. You’re both lucky to be alive.”

  She coughed and reached into her pocket, pulling out three dust stained rags. She covered her nose and mouth with one and handed the other two to Arvin and me.

  “Samples?” I asked, turning back to Halvor.

  “Yes. Samples to analyze. How else are we going to figure out why it’s gone cold?” Halvor said.

  “What’s gone cold?” I asked, taking the rag off my face, trying not to breathe in more rock dust. “What’s that smell? It’s horrible.”

  “It’s the smell of hydrogen sulfide and a few other gasses,” Iwa said, pinching her nose closed through the dusty rag. “From the volcano.” Arvin and I looked at each other. “From the volcano you’re standing in.”

  I looked ahead as Arvin looked behind. A ten-foot-high wall of black crumbling rocks surrounded us in a circle. Gassy ribbons of smelly white and yellow smoke wafted out of cracks around the edges and from under our feet.

  “Volcano?” Arvin asked, terrified. “You mean V.O.L.C.A.N.O?” Arvin must’ve gotten the idea to start spelling from the acronym on their shirts.

  “You’re lucky this volcano is dying,” Iwa said. “The level of hydrogen sulfide in this crater is low. Let’s not stay too long, though. I don’t want to reek of rotten eggs all day.”

  Halvor said, “Let’s get back to base camp” as he and Iwa started walking to a rope ladder hanging over the wall thirty feet away. “Come on boys. It’s not a long walk.”

  “Wait,” I said, digging through the pile of black rocks. “Arvin, help me find it. Do you remember what it looked like?”

  “It was a lava rock,” Arvin said.

  “What are you looking for?” Iwa asked, kneeling down to help us pick through the pile.

  “A lava rock. But it’s a special one,” I said.

  “It was roundish and rough all over,” said Arvin.

  “So, it was pumice - a lava rock,” Iwa said, shaking her head at Arvin’s universal description of lava rocks.

  Halvor huffed and grunted as he knelt down to help. We looked for a minute, digging with our bare hands, scratching them on the porous rocks. Halvor searched for five seconds and stood up. “Here you go,” he said, giving Arvin a red rock. Arvin flinched realizing he had touched the dangerous multiplying rock again. But this time, it didn’t do anything.

  “How do you know this is it?” Arvin asked, examining the porous red rock.

&n
bsp; “Well,” Halvor said, “because it’s the only red rock here and it’s not a lava rock. Sure it looks and feels like one, but this one has tiny silver flecks all over. It doesn’t belong in this volcano.” Arvin turned the rock in his hand, felt its edges, tossed it into the air, and caught it.

  “Is that it?” I asked.

  “I think so,” Arvin said. “I didn’t notice the tiny silver flecks before, but it feels the same. And it feels a little warm; all the other rocks feel cold.”

  “Too bad this one didn’t put us on another tropical island,” I said, disappointed.

  “Island?” Iwa asked, scrunching her forehead.

  “Nothing. We’re ready,” I said. I put my hand on Arvin’s back and gave him a slight nudge to start walking.

  We climbed up the unsteady rope ladder and over the crater wall. I saw trees at the bottom of the black slope. A forest full of tall green trees and thick underbrush sprouted up in the direction Halvor and Iwa were headed. Behind the sleeping volcano, a dense fog like thick window curtains hung from the sky down to the ground. Arvin and I stumbled down the shallow slope, slipping and tripping on the loose rocks blanketing the cooled black lava ground. Halvor and Iwa must have repeated “Look out for that rock” and “Watch your step” at least a hundred times in the half hour it took to reach base camp. I almost forgot we were wearing banana leaf sandals and floral muumuus until the bottoms of both were torn to shreds. We must have said “Ouch!” more than a hundred times as well.

  Base camp was at the end of the black field in a small grassy area beyond the reach of the volcano’s tumbling boulders. Three beige domes sat side-by-side in the shade. They were identical from the outside in every way. Each was made of many glass and steel hexagons fastened together with green trim with a steel handle on the front to open the door. Red pipes pierced the sides of each dome, passing from one to the next, poking out of the last one and plunging deep into the ground. A beige truck sat parked beyond the domes. The letters V.E.A.D were spray-painted in green on the front of each dome, on the pipes connecting them, and on the side of the truck.

  “We can rest until the other survey team gets back,” Iwa said. “It’s safe, but don’t go into the woods unless you walk on the path. I just saw a large brown snake slither into the brush.”

  “I hate snakes,” I said. “Why are snakes everywh--”

  “Hey Halvor, what’s V.E.A.D stand for?” Arvin asked.

  “Volcanic Energy Analysis Department. Haven’t you heard of us?”

  “I don’t think so,” Arvin said, not ready to share our story.

  “We’re the ones who help keep your lights on. We’re the power company, gents. Geothermal energy - a little short on the ‘thermal’ part of that word.”

  “Is that why you were in the volcano?” I asked.

  “Of course,” Iwa said. “This one’s almost cold. We’ve exhausted most of our backup power. There’s barely enough to keep emergency equipment running. Hospital DP12 shut down last week, killing two patients. If we can’t restart one of the volcanos, we’ll have to relocate about fifty million people.” Iwa sounded overwhelmed by the idea.

  “Restart a volcano? Fantastic! How will you do it?” I asked, amazed at the plan.

  “Beats me,” Halvor said, shrugging his shoulders. “Heck, it’s never been done as far as I know.”

  “Hal - vor,” Iwa said, breaking his name into two distinct syllables, “language!”

  “Oh, sorry kids,” Halvor said, approaching the third dome.

  “I’m not a kid,” Arvin said, feeling insulted.

  I looked down to Arvin, walking next to me. “Let it go, Chipmunk.”

  Halvor opened the front hexagon, motioning for us to enter. “Boys love this kind of thing,” he said, pointing to several tables in the back.

  Various scientific tools of every sort were being used: scales, beakers, computers, microscopes, barometers, thermometers, a gas chromatograph, machines with flashing buttons and digital readouts, a rainbow selection of chemical solutions in vials and jars, and a plethora of other tools and gizmos I had never seen. It’s a science nerd’s dream collection.

  “P.H.E.N.O.M.E.N.A.L.” Arvin said, trying to impress Iwa with a longer vocabulary word. “It’s like ‘The Young Scientists’ Club.’”

  I pulled Arvin away from the gas chromatograph. “Arvin, you sound R.I.D.I.C.U.L.O.U.S. If they can restart a volcano, they can spell better than you.”

  Arvin scrunched his nose and put his hand in his pocket, jiggling the red rock.

  “Leave it alone, Chipmunk,” I said.

  “You promised you’d stop calling me that,” Arvin said, “Besides, you’re doing it, too.”

  “I don’t have a magic rock in my pocket,” I said, realizing I was turning Dad’s coin over and over again, the memory of how the coin had changed flipping around in my head as much as the coin did in my pocket.

  Arvin said, “The rock’s rubbing the hair off my leg and it’s getting --”

  “Heidi-ho!” a low, echoing voice shouted from outside the dome.

  “What?” I asked.

  He said, “I said it’s getting--”

  “Heidi-ho!” a shrill woman’s voice shouted.

  “Fia and Tarin are back with the results of the second survey,” Iwa said, stepping out from the dome into the sunlight. Halvor invited us out to greet them.

  Fia and Tarin walked hand-in-hand into base camp. They carried the same beige bags as Iwa and Halvor, wore the same clothes, and looked like they could be Halvor’s parents. Except for being older, taller and having white hair under their hats, they looked like Iwa and Halvor. Fia was a little thinner than Iwa, but Tarin’s barrel-shaped belly was as big as Halvor himself.

  “Fia, Tarin,” Iwa said, greeting them. “how was the survey? Encouraging, I hope.”

  “No chance. It’s dead. Completely cold,” Tarin said in short bursts.

  “V2 shows no activity at all,” Fia said, confirming Tarin’s assessment.

  “What’s dead? What’s ‘V2’?” Arvin asked.

  “The other volcano, of course,” Halvor growled, pointing back towards twin volcanos sitting side-by-side, the other a little further away. “Pay attention, Arv.” I hadn’t noticed V2 until we were far enough away to see it past V1.

  “Who are these boys?” Fia asked. “One looks like he should be failing his final exams, and the other is the kid he had to babysit today.”

  Arvin snapped at Fia. “That’s not funny. We’re the same age.” Fia’s tasteless joke peeved me, too. Arvin looked hotter than a smoking volcano, giving cantankerous old Fia his most fierce “evil eye.”

  How could anyone be so catty to complete strangers?

  “This is Perry, and the kid who doesn’t pay attention is Arvin,” Halvor said, pointing to each of us.

  “Hey,” Arvin said, crossing his arms over his chest. “That’s not nice, either. If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say--”

  “Anyway,” Tarin interrupted, “we can’t do anything for V2. Have you come up with a plan to restart V1? The city can survive with one volcano to power it.”

  Arvin and I stood still, listening to Halvor’s volcano-starting ideas, nodding our heads as if we understood any of it. He used words like “magma chamber”, “bomb”, “blast radius,” and something scary sounding like “possible radiation exposure.”

  “Perry,” Arvin said, poking me in the side, “the rock is getting--”

  “Quiet. I want to hear his plan,” I said, pressing my finger against my chapped lips.

  “What do you think?” Halvor asked the group, looking for a more experienced opinion.

  “It’s a very good idea,” Tarin said, “if we wanted to blow up both volcanoes and take the whole city with us.” Tarin reached out and patted Halvor’s upper arm. “It’s too dangerous to try your experiment this close to the city.”

  Iwa continued to seek guidance on other ideas. “Well, what about --”

  “Perry,” Arvin s
aid, poking me with two fingers this time, “the rock is getting--”

  “Quiet, Chipmunk. I’m listening,” I said, shooing Arvin away like the island mosquitos.

  “Don’t call me that,” Arvin insisted, looking up to show me his “evil eye,” too.

  “Sorry, Iwa. That plan won’t work either,” Tarin said. “We can’t restart V1 with what we have at our disposal. Unless you can think of something else, we need to get back to the city and start the evacuation.”

  For a minute, everyone considered alternatives, but nobody had any answers or new suggestions. Iwa looked at Halvor, who was shaking his head side-to-side. Halvor looked at Tarin, Tarin looked at Fia, and Fia looked at Arvin - who was jiggling something around in his shorts pocket.

  “Hey, Red,” Fia said, looking at Arvin, “you can go behind the domes. I can’t vouch for the smell, but that’s where the potty is.”

  “I don’t have to pee,” Arvin said, squirming around.

  “Why are you doing the pee-pee dance?” I asked.

  “It’s not the pee-pee dance,” Arvin huffed. “It’s the rock, Perry. It’s getting hotter.”

  “It’s getting what?” I asked.

  “Hotter, H.O.T.T.E.R, Hotter. Geez, Perry. Maybe we should call you ‘the boy who doesn’t pay attention’.” Arvin yelped “OUCH!” pulling the red hot rock out of his pocket and tossing it aside. It bounced off the research dome.

  DING

  WHOOSH!

  The dome burst into flames, forcing us all to duck down and cover our heads.

  “Whoa,” Tarin said, looking up again. His mouth dropped open, and his eyes widened at the sight of the dome, engulfed in red and white flames.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Light It Up

  Within twenty seconds, the dome was half gone. Arvin sped away so quickly, he could’ve left his skin behind. He got almost a hundred feet before tripping over his shredded sandals and falling into the dirt. The metal and glass hexagons melted as white-hot flames grew higher and hotter forcing us to back away to the cooled lava field.