The Gorgon Slayer

by Gary Paulsen

  “Right. Like this.” Harry demonstrated the maneuver. “Always use the shield, boys. If you don’t, you’ll end up with a high iron count in your blood.” He laughed. “Get the joke? Iron, mineral, stone, in your blood, you turn to stone … you’re not laughing.”

  “How much?” Warren asked, desperate to change the topic.

  “Let’s see …” Harry stroked the fat hanging beneath his chin. “These things are in high demand nowadays … thirty dollars a day should cover it.”

  “Princey won’t let us go any higher than twenty-five. It’s a standing rule.”

  Harry nodded. “You work for Prince Charming? He’s a very good customer. For you, twenty-eight fifty.”

  “But he just told you twenty-five,” Rick said.

  “And I can’t let them go for any less than twenty-eight fifty. I have a son studying at the Midas School of Business. Do you have any idea what they charge?”

  “But we can’t—”

  “But you’ll have to,” Harry interrupted, “unless you want to try exterminating Gorgons with garbage can lids and Popsicle sticks.” He grinned, or widened the grin he already had. “Should I start calling you rockheads now?”

  A Centaur—half man, half horse—came into the store. Most Centaurs in town were cabbies. It was the only job they were built to do.

  “Well, Ernie!” Harry said, apparently forgetting that Warren and Rick existed. “What can I do for you?”

  “I need a new cabby hat, Harry. A customer stole mine.”

  “How awful!”

  Yeah, Warren thought, how awful How awful it would be if Harry didn’t give his first customers a little attention. Warren half-considered trying the extermination kit out on Harry. If it was going to cost him three dollars and fifty cents of his own, he might as well get his money’s worth.

  “Well, you know the nature of the business.” Ernie reached back and brushed a fly off his withers. “You take a customer wherever he wants to go for fifty cents, then don’t let him off your back for anything less than five dollars. One customer got mad and stole my hat. I need to rent one.”

  “I have just the thing for you.” Harry hurried back along the counter, saw that Rick and Warren were still waiting there, and reached beneath the counter for a magic lamp. He rubbed it and a blue genie appeared.

  No big deal, Warren thought, genies are everywhere. He once switched his dad’s aftershave for a magic lamp. The old man was so surprised he almost dropped the poor genie in the toilet.

  “Yes, master?” the genie asked now.

  “Take care of these two while I deal with a real customer.” Harry shuffled off into his maze of shelves.

  The genie looked wearily at Rick and Warren. “How much was Harry going to charge you for these extermination kits?”

  Warren’s escapade with the witch had taught him never to lie to anything that could throw a spell on him. “Twenty-eight fifty.”

  “I’ll let you have them for fourteen and a quarter.”

  Warren nodded, a little shocked. “Put them on Prince Charming’s account.”

  With the kits tucked safely under their arms, Rick asked the obvious question. “Why so cheap?”

  “That isn’t cheap,” the genie said, “that’s the going rate. Happy Harry is a swindler. There’s nothing in this store worth more than fifteen.”

  “Why do you work for such a cheat?”

  The genie sighed. “Do I have a choice? He found my lamp. But just one more wish and poof! I’m out of here.”

  “Thanks,” Rick said.

  “Yeah, thanks.” As Warren followed Rick out the door, Harry waddled back and tried to settle a tiny hat on the Centaur’s head. He said cabby hats were really in demand nowadays, but since Ernie was such a good customer, he would let him have it for only twenty-eight fifty.

  “Remind me to talk to Princey about Happy Harry when this is all over,” Warren said to Rick.

  “You better write it down,” Rick said, “just in case being turned to stone affects my memory.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Helga Thorensen lived in a white marble temple with five Greek columns across the front, just like every other house in the city. Rick rang the bell. A woman who had probably been old when the gods were babies answered.

  “Ya?” she said in a Scandinavian accent as thick as spoiled cream.

  “Helga Thorensen?” Warren asked.

  “Ya, that’s me.”

  “Mrs. Thorensen, we’re with Prince Charming’s Damsel in Distress Rescue Agency. We understand you have a Gorgon in your basement.”

  Helga blinked her watery eyes. She had long silver hair that instead of staying in the bun on the top of her head was settling down above her eyes, as if she were wearing a sun visor. The last thing she looked like was a damsel.

  “Oh, so that Mr. Charming sent out two more of you, hey? I was thinking of how to get rid of the three already in my cellar. Now I have to deal with two more. Jiminey!”

  “Not to worry, Mrs. Thorensen.” Warren tried to sound as if he did this sort of thing every day, which he pretty much did. “The professionals are here now.”

  “Ya, you bet. That’s what the others said.” She waved a meaty hand in their direction as she stepped back into the room. “Come in, and close the door before you let all the flies in. Jiminey!”

  The living room looked just as Warren had expected it would—stuffed with things that he guessed Helga considered treasures and everyone else considered junk. On top of the television sat a photo of a farmer trying to keep a team of flying horses from dragging a plow through a second-story window. A plaster cast of Pandora’s box rested on the bookshelf near a gilt-edged framed certificate declaring Helga an official voting member of the original Jason and the Argonauts fan club. It reminded Warren of his grandparents’ place.

  “The cellar is down through the kitchen,” Helga said. “If you can’t get rid of the Gorgon, I won’t pay that Mr. Charming to have his rockheads moved out of here. You tell him that, if you aren’t rockheads yourselves.”

  “Don’t worry, Mrs. Thorensen. We’ll take care of everything.” Warren slipped his shield over his forearm and got a good grip on his sword. He turned to Rick, who was doing the same. “Remember, look only into your shield.”

  “Right.” They headed down the stairs.

  Trying to make their feet find the stairs while they looked backward into their shields was tough going. Rick would have fallen if Warren hadn’t been in front of him. Finally their feet found the floor. They scanned the basement.

  Dusty pipes hung from the ceiling, and a large door opened onto the backyard. Lawn implements and hand tools lay everywhere. O’Rourke stood by the water heater, one leg raised as if he were running, his sword in the air, and his shield on the floor behind him. Chen and Harper were by the furnace with their swords locked in their stony fists. Chen crouched with his hands to his face. Harper looked fearfully over his shoulder, his expression frozen rock solid.

  “None of them were looking at their shields when the Gorgon got them,” Rick whispered.

  Warren nodded. Only fools looked away from their shields on Gorgon extermination assignments. O’Rourke, Chen, and Harper might have been dummies—they were all good friends of Rank Frank—but they certainly were not fools. Warren didn’t like it.

  “Speaking of the Gorgon,” he said, “where is it?”

  An old cedar wardrobe stood in the back by the lawn mower—the Gorgon could be in it, or behind it. Warren flicked its doors open with the tip of his sword. Nothing. He stabbed behind it, at nothing but air. Rick checked behind the furnace, knocking over Chen and chipping his nose on the floor.

  “Nothing,” Rick said.

  “That’s impossible—Gorgons don’t just vanish into thin air.”

  “There’s nowhere else for her to hide.” Rick paused. “Unless she’s behind the—”

  His eyes opened wide. A horrid shriek erupted from behind the stairs and clammy, leathery wings exploded into
Warren’s face. He slammed his eyes shut and beat the Gorgon off, hearing Rick’s sword swish through empty air. Warren dove back, rolled on his shoulder, and came up clear, his sword slicing in every direction and his eyes fixed on his shield as he flashed it around the basement.

  The Gorgon was perched on Harper’s stony arm. She was sixty pounds of boiled-down ugly with a face like a living nightmare. Snakes danced around her head, hissing and striking at Rick’s sword as he waved it in the air. Her gold-and-black eyes were slit like a cat’s, and her teeth were in worse shape than Princey’s.

  With one clawed hand, she gathered the dust off the top of a pipe and threw it at Rick’s shield.

  “Aagh! She messed up my shield! I can’t see a thing!”

  Panic crawled across Rick’s face, the same look that was frozen on Harper’s. He dropped his shield and turned toward the Gorgon.

  “Don’t look, Rick!”

  But Rick was thinking—his eyes were closed. He brought his sword around in a long, fast arc, aiming for the Gorgon’s neck. But he was swinging blindly. The Gorgon jumped back, hissing, and Rick’s sword clanged uselessly off Harper’s forehead.

  “Harper is going to hate you for that when he refleshes.”

  “I don’t care about Harper! Where am I? Where is the Gorgon? How do I get out of here?”

  “I’ll get you out!” Warren shouted as he leaped toward his companion, fighting through foul Gorgon breath as the beast fluttered and shrieked in his face. The Gorgon, beating her wings on Rick’s ears like a boxer, was waiting to shout “Surprise!” in whatever language Gorgons shouted as soon as he opened his eyes.

  Warren fought closer. The Gorgon retreated to the water heater. Suddenly she leaped up, wiped a pipe clean, and threw a handful of dust at Warren’s shield. As he sneezed, a wing smacked the back of his head, his sword flew up, and suddenly dust was everywhere.

  When he could see, Warren looked at his shield. If the entire world had turned to dust, then it was still working. Otherwise …

  “Rick, she got my shield, too!”

  “Then close your eyes.”

  Warren had figured that much out for himself. There was a hissing cackle, and scaly fingers hit him first on one blind side, then on the other. His sword clanged against something hard and vibrated so badly that he dropped it. He wondered if Harper would be mad at him, too, when he refleshed. If he refleshed. If any of them did.

  Warren reached for the sword, but the wings beat him silly. He kicked something and heard the sword skitter away.

  “I’ve lost my sword, Rick. Where are you?”

  “Over here.”

  “Over here” could be just about anywhere. As Warren stumbled toward Rick’s voice, his useless shield banged hollowly against a metal cylinder.

  Okay, he thought, that was the water heater. If it’s here, then a step in this direction will put the staircase straight ahead, and if Rick hasn’t moved, then another step this way and …

  The whistle of a blade swished by a quarter of an inch from his nose.

  “Stop swinging your sword, Rick! You’ll behead me instead of the Gorgon.”

  “Sorry. Snaky-brain gives me the willies. Where are you, anyway?”

  “I’m right here, about … Aah!” Clawed fingers dug into Warren’s face, and he fell. Clawed fingers must have dug into Rick’s face, too, because he aahed and fell on Warren.

  “Get off me, Rick.” He was about to open his eyes, to take a chance at turning to stone in order to find their way out, when a hand clamped over his face.

  “No you don’t,” Rick scolded. “No peeking. If you turn into a rockhead, then I have to kill the thing myself.”

  “How did you know I was opening my eyes?”

  “I was watching.”

  Warren slapped his hand over Rick’s face. “Then no you don’t!”

  They lay on the floor, clutching each other’s heads, with the Gorgon flapping and screaming above them.

  “Is this really worth a new camera?” Warren asked.

  “Is this really worth a new bike?” Rick wondered aloud.

  The Gorgon swooped, slapped them with her wings, then was gone. Just as Warren began to believe that she was really gone, she swooped and slapped them again.

  “Where are the stairs?” Rick tried to shake his head free, but Warren held tight.

  “As near as I can figure, about six feet in the direction of your right shoulder.”

  “Then on the count of three we stand and make a run for it. One … two … three!”

  The stairs were only five feet away, and running six feet left Warren and Rick sprawled across them with bruises on their shins and bumps on their noses.

  They struggled up the rest of the way, banging arms, bashing ribs, and jamming elbows into each other’s mouths. The Gorgon backed off just as they reached the top. The two boys scrambled breathlessly into the kitchen.

  “That Gorgon is one tough cookie,” Rick said.

  Warren rolled on his back, panting. “All I know is that it could really use a good hair conditioner.”

  CHAPTER 4

  “Thor’s bolts!”

  Above them, as threatening as an avalanche, towered a scowling Helga Thorensen. From Warren’s flat-on-his-back viewpoint, her hands on her hips looked three miles apart.

  “So that’s the best you can do? You can’t take care of a simple thing like a Gorgon?”

  “That’s no ordinary Gorgon, Mrs. Thorensen,” Warren said. “That Gorgon could be in a horror movie.”

  Helga grunted. “That’s a good one. I suppose that next you’ll say that dandelions should be in horror movies, too, or baby chicks.” She shook her head.

  Warren rolled onto his stomach. “I know it sounds crazy, Mrs. Thorensen, but this isn’t a Gorgon I want to mess with again.”

  “Me either.” Rick nodded. “If I were you, I’d just let her have the basement. There’s nothing down there but a couple of rockheads, anyway.”

  “Ya, sure. Where do you think I keep my lawn equipment, hey? What I’ve got here is a couple of wimps.”

  She stopped shaking her head, rested a minute, and shook it harder. “In my day we didn’t have fancy store-bought swords and shields for Gorgon killing. We had to make our own. If we wanted to kill a Gorgon, we had to find her ourselves. Many was the day that I walked seven miles through four feet of snow, barefoot, to find a Gorgon, and the roads to her and back were both uphill.”

  “Please, Mrs. Thorensen …”

  “And you didn’t hear me bellyaching because the nasty old Gorgon was a little meaner than usual. If you can’t get a simple job like this done, then I’ll have to call your boss and tell him so.”

  “Please, Mrs. Thorensen,” Warren pleaded, “he’ll fire me. I’ve been late for the last three mornings. One more screwup and I’m gone.”

  “And I’m still on a trial basis,” Rick said. “I’m gone, too.”

  “If you can’t do the job, then you shouldn’t be working at it.” Helga picked up the phone. As she began to dial Princey’s number, Warren scrambled to his feet and slammed his hand down on the cradle.

  “All right, Mrs. Thorensen,” he said, “you win. We’ll go back down there and get the Gorgon.”

  CHAPTER 5

  The trouble with the Gorgon was this: Gorgons weren’t supposed to throw dust on shields—they weren’t supposed to be smart enough to know what the shields were for. How many brains can you have with snakes growing out of your head?

  “I suppose it’s evolution,” Warren said. He was leaning against the basement door like a prisoner awaiting execution. He had Helga, who was now puttering around in her garden, to thank for that. “After three thousand years, one of them has finally figured out the Perseus method of Gorgon extermination.”

  “But why did the one have to be ours?” Rick asked. “Why couldn’t evolution have waited until after I got my new bike?”

  Warren shook his head. “Asking questions like that won’t do us any good. We n
eed to figure out how to make the best use of our assets, plan our attack, and then get down there and cut old Snaky-brain’s noggin off. Let’s begin with our assets. We have two brains, both of which are better than the Gorgon’s—”

  “Or should be,” Rick said.

  “Okay, we have two brains that should be better than the Gorgon’s. We only have one sword—I dropped mine in the basement.”

  “And we only have one shield. Mine is lying next to Harper.” Rick leaned back against the refrigerator. “A shield won’t help, anyway. You saw what the Gorgon did to them.”

  “Yeah, you’re right.” Warren rubbed his chin. “But maybe you aren’t. Did you notice how the Gorgon always flew to where she would be in line with the shield, so she could throw dust on it?”

  “I didn’t have time to notice anything.”

  “Well, she did. If the Gorgon follows shields, we can use the one we have to control where she flies.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Let’s say we want her by the water heater. If I hold the shield so the water heater is reflected in it, then that’s where the Gorgon will go.”

  “So what you’re saying is that you can position the Gorgon to where I’ll be standing with the sword.”

  “You got it.”

  “I don’t have anything. How am I supposed to aim my swing when I don’t dare look to aim it?”

  “I’ll tell you where to swing.”

  “You can’t tell a rockhead anything, and that’s what I’ll be. You know how hard it is to keep your eyes closed down there? If you don’t, ask Chen, O’Rourke, or Harper.”

  “We’ll think of something.”

  The back door opened and Helga stuck her head into the kitchen. “When are you two going to get to work, hey? I have a yard to trim. My electric weed trimmer is in the basement.”

  “We’re just about set to go, Mrs. Thorensen.”

  “Ya, ya, sure you are. Lollygagging around is what you’re doing. Don’t expect much of a tip.” She thumped back outside.

  Rick shook his head doubtfully. “I don’t know about this plan. It sounds pretty risky.”