by C. M. Bacon
“Iwa and Halvor didn’t come. Their walking sticks must’ve been duds,” said Arvin, looking to his left and right.
“Where are our walking sticks anyway?” I said.
“Ouch!” Arvin almost fell over. He grabbed ahold of my arm to steady himself.
“What?” I asked.
“My leg,” Arvin said, wincing in pain.
“Sorry, Arvin. I forgot you your leg was hurting,” I said, feeling sorry for him. Arvin reached down with his other hand to examine the bandage.
“Ewwww,” he said, pulling his hand up to his face.
The tips of his fingers were covered with mud. It dripped down the length of his hand and onto his ripped, floral muumuu. I looked down at the mud below, worried the bandage on his leg had gotten the ooey-gooey mud in it. But I couldn’t see his legs. I couldn’t see mine either. I saw mud - lots and lots of mud. I was stuck all the way up to my knobby knees. Arvin was in mud just shy of his waist. It pressed against our bodies, holding us upright like little branches in the dirt.
“There it is!” Arvin shouted. Looking at his dripping muddy paws, he had spotted my brown walking stick, sparkling a few feet behind me. “But where’s mine?”
“Arvin, maybe you should look down,” I said.
“How bad is it?” Arvin asked, his attention focused on the mud dripping off his fingertips.
“Bleh,” Arvin said, shaking his hand. The mud flew in every direction, splattering in nasty gobs on everything.
“Do you mind?” I said, trying to wipe the mud off my muumuu. I pointed down again.
Arvin finally realized he was up to his waist in the sticky stuff. “Ahh, geez. Nasty. How are we going to get out of this one?” he asked.
“Try to move your legs,” I said, trying to do it, too.
“Perry, I can’t move,” said Arvin, “I’m in too far. Can you help me?”
I moved my legs side to side and back and forth. Each time, the mud opened up a little around my legs and SLURP collapsed back down. I felt the mud release a little around my toes, giving me another idea.
“We need to get it,” I said, pointing backward to the walking stick sitting on top of the mud. Arvin tried to move again.
“Nope. I’m stuck like a square peg in a round hole,” said Arvin.
“Square pegs don’t go into round holes,” I said.
“No Duh,” said Arvin, biting the bottom right corner of his lip. “That’s my point, Einstein.”
I tried pulling my right leg up at the knee. I lifted it a few inches out of the mud. My knee almost reached my waist.
SLURP
The mud made a gross, wet sucking sound as I lifted - SLURP - each leg - SLURP - one after the other - SLURP - trying to turn back - SLURP - to reach the stick behind me. “I almost have it,” I said, struggling- SLURP - to reach the walking stick - SLURP - after several awkward minutes. “Another foot…. almost there…. almost there…. almost…. got it!” I said, slamming my hand down on one end of the stick.
PLOP
The mud splattered all over, but my hand didn’t sink or make a horrible sucking sound. I held one end of the stick and plunged the other end into the ooey-gooey mud in front of me.
WHACK!
The stick hit something five or six inches into the mud. I moved my foot forward until it bumped into a solid shelf under the mud.
SLURP
My leg moved inch by inch through the mud. I put all my weight onto the walking stick and stepped up as hard as I could.
SLURP
I fell, face first, into the shallow mud, covering myself from head to toe in the cool, wet goo.
“Here Arvin, grab it and hold on,” I said, passing one end of the walking stick to Arvin. He was trapped in the same place I had left him.
Arvin laughed. “You look like a mud monster.” He pointed at my muddy face. “Go ahead. Pull me out, mud monster.” Arvin grabbed the end of the slick stick and held on as best he could.
“I’m almost free. You need to pull a little harder,” said Arvin, moving another inch toward me. “Pull!”
“I’m trying. It’s too slippery,” I said.
“Yes. You. Can,” said Arvin.
I pulled with every ounce of my couch-potato strength.
SLUUUUURP PLOP
Arvin came flying out of the mud pit, landing face first in the mud. The walking stick did a somersault in the air, hitting and breaking in three with a CRACK One piece stuck straight up in the slick mess. The others sank out of sight. I reached out, grabbing a broken third of my walking stick and digging with my hands to find the other pieces. Arvin laid still, face first, in the mud for several seconds.
“Arvin!” I said, “Sit up, Chipmunk.”
Arvin sat up and saw me dig around for something. “What are you looking for?” asked Arvin, not noticing we had only a third of the stick.
“My walking stick broke,” I said. “Help me find the two other pieces.”
We dug around with both hands, our bodies covered with the brown sludge. I glanced Arvin’s way, expecting another “evil eye” coming at me, but all I saw what his pitiful muddy body sitting like a toad after a romp in the swamp. I made a chuckling SNORT.
“Mud Monster?” I said, grinning.
He wiped the mud off his face and head. “Double mud monsters,” he said. We gave up our search for the pieces and stood up in the ankle-deep, sticky wet, muddy mess.
“Oh!” Arvin said, looking down at his muddy appendages.
“What now? I asked, looking around, seeing only gross glistening mud in every direction.
“It’s my leg,” Arvin said. “It doesn’t hurt anymore.”
“Arvin, you have a bloody gash on your leg three and a half inches long. That’s gotta hurt.” I said, pointing down to his mud-and-blood soaked bandages.
Arvin said, “I have to see something. Don’t worry. I don’t puke at the sight of blood.” Arvin reached down to untie the bandage. He unwrapped the gauze, taking great care not to rip off the soft bandage underneath. He let the bloody bandage fall PLOP onto the wet mud. The wound, which should have begun to bleed again, was gone - not even a scratch in its place. Arvin’s pale skin was clean where the bandage had been. The bandage was, however, sitting on the ground soaked in Arvin’s blood.
“What do you think happened?” Arvin asked, touching his leg where the gash had been, smearing mud on the only part of him that had been clean.
“I’m not…,’ I said hesitating, feeling my own feet were no longer blistered and hurting. “Magic mud?” I guessed, shrugging my shoulders. I felt something tingle in my stomach. “Arvin?”
“What is it?” he said, looking at something far in the distance.
“I have to do my business,” I said, doing the poo-poo dance. “I’ve held it in for as long as I could.”
“Does it look like there’s a bush or a tree or a rock or anything else? You should’ve ‘done your business’ before we reached the ranger station,” Arvin said, my mother’s voice coming out of his mouth. “Neither of us are going to have any privacy.”
“Turn around, Arvin. Don’t look. Plug your ears and your nose,” I said, chuckling.
I dug out a small hole with my hands to “do my business.” Arvin stared at something under the horizon, fingers in his ears singing “LA-LA-LA-LA-LAAA.” I finished the ‘job’ and pushed some mud over the hole, filling it in and covering the smell. This stuff is magical.
Arvin yelled, pointing to the horizon. “Look! Is that a lake?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe it’s a mirage. You know - an optical illusion.”
“I know what a mirage is.” Arvin showed me his “evil eye” again. “Do you know what a lake is?”
“Of course, I do. But we should look for people or plants or something.”
“Do you see any plants, birds, animals, footprints in the mud or any signs of life at all?”
“No.”
Arvin pointed back to his mystery lake. “Do you see th
e shimmer?”
“Yes. I see it, Arvin.” I was starting to get annoyed.
“Do you see other shimmers in any other directions?”
“No. All I see is mud, more mud, and the sky.”
Arvin glared at me. “So do you see any interesting spots of mud worth checking out?”
“Have it your way, Mud Monster.”
We started out in the direction of the mirage or lake or whatever it was. The more footsteps we took, the more mud splashed onto our muumuus. Arvin had a thoughtful expression and turned to face me.
“Perry, what’s up with you and mud anyway?” asked Arvin.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“The sinking island and this mudflat. Do you think they’re connected?”
“I hope so. I don’t want the next gewgaw to set you on fire.”
He growled, grabbing the broken walking stick out of my hand. “I’ll hold onto this. You can’t be trusted with gewgaws.” Arvin lifted his muumuu and stuck the short piece into his waistband. He turned towards the horizon and continued on ahead.
As Arvin led the way, I looked at his bald head from behind. As kids, our mothers put us together because we didn’t have other friends. I thought it’d be fun to be friends with the sole “little person” at school. We liked history and science, his gewgaw collection was way better than mine, and we enjoyed swimming and reading stories about imaginary knights and their fire-breathing dragons. Aside from those things, I wondered if I ever knew him at all. Despite our occasional bickering, Arvin was starting to make more and more sense. This red-haired, pocket-sized boy is smarter than I’d given him credit for. Well, a muddy bald pocket-sized boy. I let out a chuckle with a SNORT.
“What are you laughing at?” Arvin asked, hearing me snorting and giggling to myself from behind.
“Nothing. It was a nervous laugh,” I said. “How much further do you think?”
“We’re getting close,” Arvin said, pointing to the misty shimmer coming up ahead.
“Where do you think all this mud came from anyway?” I asked. “We haven’t seen a cloud anywhere in the sky, and it’s as warm as the island. Why doesn’t it dry out?”
“I don’t know, but you’re right,” said Arvin. “The water has to be coming from somewhere.” He came to an abrupt stop. “Pretty.”
I walked up to Arvin’s left side to see what was so special.
Arvin and I stood at the edge of a large sparkling lake. “And you thought it was a mirage,” he said, reminding me it was his idea to head in this direction. He looked to his right. “Are those plants?”
“There’s one way to find out,” I said, pushing Arvin aside, heading towards something green and leafy. Two large bushes grew, wild and intertwined, on the one patch of dry ground in sight. They had large, jagged green spade-shaped leaves and hundreds of little reddish-purple berries.
“Wow!” Arvin said. “They look like mulberries. Do you think we can eat them?”
He plucked off a large berry and smashed it in his hand. Reddish-purple juice burst out, staining his palm. He stared at the berry mush for a moment and said, “Well, there’s one way to find out.”
Arvin grabbed a dozen more mulberries off the bramble and stuffed them into his mouth. As he chewed, their reddish-purple juice squirted between his chapped lips, staining his chin.
“How are they?” I asked, feeling like I could almost eat Arvin himself.
“Ware wood,” he said, mashing the berries between his teeth.
“What?” I asked.
He finished chewing and swallowed the berries down with a GULP. “I said, they’re good. Sweet and delicious.”
I grabbed a handful of berries and shoved them into my mouth. He grabbed another handful while I was chewing my first.
“Save some for me,” I said, plucking off more berries, packing them into my mouth.
Before I knew it, we had stripped one bush of half its berries.
Arvin paused, seeing the bush empty of our sole food source. “Let’s not eat all of them,” he said, finishing off his mouthful and pulling my hand away from the bramble. “We should save some for later,” he said.
“Don’t be such a stick in the mud,” I said, laughing. “Sorry, I’ve been holding it in all day.”
“I don’t doubt it,” he said, glad I managed to get it out before it killed me.
“What’s that?” I said, pointing to a strange loopy pattern in the mud a foot away from the mulberry bushes.
“Looks like a twisty-twirly snake trail. See, it goes into a burrow,” said Arvin, pointing to a small hole where the mulberry bush roots sank into the mud. “It makes sense if a mud snake lives here, it would live by the mulberry bush.”
“Why?” I asked, looking around.
“Well,” Arvin said, his science club senses kicking in, “the mulberry bush is the best shade we’ve seen, and the lake might be the only source of fresh water. Whatever it eats probably lives nearby, too.”
“Why do we keep meeting snakes?” I asked, hoping we’d never meet this one. “If it’s a mud snake, I hope there aren’t anymore - and it stays asleep in the mud.” I turned to the placid lake. “What about the water?”
Arvin said, “If we can’t drink it, we’ll die anyway. We might as well get it over with.”
He knelt down, cupping the fresh water into his hands, and took a cautious sip. Without a word, he began gulping it down. I joined him, drinking at least a gallon. The crystal water was pure and delicious. My eyes focused on my reflection.
“Yikes,” I said out loud. “I do look like a Mud Monster. Arvin, do you remember our swimming lessons at Shelby Lane?”
“Of course. I bet I can swim faster than you, Perry Dobbs!” he shouted, jumping into the crystal clear lake with his muumuu on. He swam from the shore, leaving a streak of muddy water behind. I hesitated, nervous to enter the water again. “What are you waiting for? It’s great.” Arvin said, waving for me to follow after him.
I waded into the cool water and then plunged under the surface. I hadn’t noticed a sharp cliff under the motionless, mirrored surface. I could see all the way to the muddy bottom far below. I swam after Arvin, leaving behind a second streak of dirty water, washing off my skin and clothes.
“I won,” Arvin shouted, reaching the middle of the lake.
“Because you had a head start - and you’re bald, too. It makes you swim faster,” I said.
“You have longer arms and legs. You should be faster nonetheless.”
I splashed water on his face. “Look down,” I said, pointing towards the bottom of the lake.
“Geez. I don’t see any plants. No fish, either.”
“Too bad we won’t be doing any fishing,” I said.
Arvin challenged me again. “I bet I can reach the bottom before you.”
We took a deep breath and dove under the water. Four feet down, a rush of cold water passed, flipping us heads over feet, like a penny tossed in a bet. When we came to a stop, I saw something amazing under the shoreline of the lake. Dozens of submerged caves stretched out in every direction, encircling us with a grey-green hue. I grabbed at Arvin’s kicking feet and pointed over toward the caves under the shoreline. Arvin pointed to the surface, and we both swam up. We exhaled the spent air from our lungs as we reached the tranquil surface, sending ripples to every corner of the lake.
“Do you think it’s an aquifer?” I asked.
“I bet it is. Looks like a big one, too,” Arvin said.
“How far around do you think those caves go? Do you think--?”
“The water must be seeping up into the ground from the aquifer? Yes, I do.”
“But it shouldn’t be overflowing. Should it?”
“I don’t think so. Mulberry bushes couldn’t have grown unless mulberry plants and seeds were already here. This is something recent.” Arvin’s brain was already working on a whole “mulberry versus mudflat” scenario. “There could’ve been many more brambles and other plants before the
ground became too soggy for them.”
“How would the aquifer refill without rain? We haven’t seen any clouds at all. Could water refill the aquifer from somewhere else?”
Arvin smiled. “Let’s check out that cave again.”
We swam back out into the lake, took a deep breath, and dove into the water. We peered into the mouth of the cave. I noticed something peculiar and tapped Arvin on the shoulder, gesturing for him to look up. Hundreds of six-foot-long roots jutted down from the roof of the cave. They crossed and wove into one another, swaying as the water flowed out of the cave. Dozens of silvery air bubbles bounced around on the cave ceiling on the spot where the mulberry brambles grew. It looked like their roots were getting enough oxygen. That’s why those brambles are alive.
The water current increased from inside the cave, sending us into a panic. Arvin barely escaped being flipped upside down as the water rushed through his short, kicking legs. We swam up to the roof of the cave and grabbed hold of a strong-looking root. Squeezing it with all the strength we could muster, we held on. The current grew stronger, forcing Arvin to let go of the root, blowing him out of the cave. Then, it was over; the current settled down to a gentle flow and stopped. I swam through the muddy swirls created by our clothes, following Arvin back to the surface. We emerged unharmed from the water and sat on the muddy shore to rest and count our blessings.
“The current’s coming from that direction,” Arvin said, pointing north over the mudflat. “An underground river or another aquifer must connect to this one somewhere in the cave. If we get stuck for a while, we’ll need to grow more mulberry bushes for food. We need to lower the water level in this aquifer.”
“How are we going to do that?” I asked, already feeling defeated.
“First, you need to find where the other aquifer is connected to this one, so you’re going to have to swim deeper into the cave.”
“Me? Why me?” I asked, shocked he would suggest I attempt such a dangerous plan.
“You’re a better swimmer than I am. We both know it. You’re strong enough to do it,” Arvin said, trying to reassure and inspire me, taking his own self-esteem down a few pegs.