by Gary Urey
“Come with me, Mumps,” Vivian said, zipping her jacket. “We’re going shopping to stock up on cayenne pepper and food. We have a long trip ahead of us.”
CHAPTER 21
CRASH LANDING
TJ plotted our course on his laptop. I would fly eastward over the Atlantic Ocean, sailing through European and Russian airspace before finally landing in Mongolia. By his calculations, we should land in the capital city of Ulaanbaatar in just under nineteen hours. Jean Paul would then hire a guide to lead us into the desert after Pierre. I prayed that we had enough cayenne pepper and saline solution to get us there safely.
Everyone squeezed into the gondola. I took a snoot of pepper to ignite my solid rocket boogers and attempted to rise in the air. We didn’t budge an inch. The tremendous weight of the water tower made liftoff nearly impossible.
“Take in more cayenne,” Dr. Wackjöb suggested, tossing me a sixteen-ounce jar. “That should get us airborne.”
I snorted up the fine red powder until my sniffer felt like it was on fire. After huffing nearly a half a bottle and letting out a mighty sneeze, I felt the gondola rising into the air and beginning its ascent over the city. Thankfully, TJ and Dr. Wackjöb had rigged a hose with a spray nozzle to the water tower. They drenched the insides of my burning honker with cool, refreshing H2O.
Smooth sailing lasted only a few moments. When I had finally reached a comfortable altitude, a noisy helicopter buzzed my flank.
“This is the New York State Division of Homeland Security!” a loudspeaker rang out over the whine of helicopter wings. “Identify yourself immediately!”
“Holy schnozola!” I hollered down to the gang. “First, police whirlybirds are hunting me down for something I didn’t do, and now the government is nipping at my nose!”
“They must think we are terroristes,” I heard Jean Paul say.
“What are you going to do?” Vivian shouted.
“I’m going to do what they want and identify myself!” I said.
I closed one nostril with my finger and banked hard to the right. The helicopter was now directly in front of me. We starred at each other like a turkey buzzard and bald eagle squaring off over an animal carcass. Two uniformed men were inside. One flew the chopper; the other clutched a high-powered rifle.
“Identify yourself!” the pilot repeated through the loudspeaker.
“I’m Super Schnoz!” I yelled and then inhaled another snoot full of pepper. The blistering sneeze that followed was so powerful it propelled me away from the helicopter and over Long Island Sound. The skyscrapers of Manhattan slowly faded away in the distance. The waters of the Atlantic Ocean lay below like a giant green carpet. Mumps turned on the hose and gave my hard-working honker a well-deserved nasal flush, and we were on our way to save the Bactrian camel.
Four hours and two jars of cayenne pepper later, the European continent came into view.
“Land ho!” Jimmy shouted. “We made it!”
“We haven’t made it anywhere,” I heard TJ say. “We still have a good fifteen hours of flying left before we land in Mongolia.”
“My sinuses need another blast of water!” I yelled from up above. “I feel a bloody nose coming on.”
Jean Paul grabbed the hose and fired a round of warm water into my dried mucous membranes. The relief was instantaneous. Without the water, the trip would not be possible.
“Thanks,” I said. “Now, toss me up one of those chocolate protein bars. I’m starving.”
Night fell as we passed over Paris. Below my feet, the Eiffel Tower looked like a bright Christmas tree. While Jean Paul entertained Vivian and the Not-Right Brothers with stories about his native city, I focused on the stars. The alien Apneans, who just a few months earlier had collected my snores to take over the world, were up there somewhere. I wondered if they had found another planet to take over. Or were they planning another invasion of Earth?
Hundreds of miles later, the lights of Europe’s major cities gave way to utter blackness. TJ had calculated we were somewhere in the middle of Siberia. Exhaustion tugged at my flapping nostrils. I desperately wanted to land in some desolate patch of woods and rest, but every lost second meant the life of an endangered camel. I caught a gust of wind, inhaled more pepper, and kept sniffing along.
Finally, as I neared my nineteenth hour of continuous flying, we crossed over the Russian border into Mongolia. The gang let out a loud whoop, but the grueling trip had fried my nose so badly that I couldn’t show any emotion. The first rays of morning sun peeked over the horizon. Below us, the Gobi Desert stretched as far as the eye could see. The landscape was harsh, barren, and completely void of life.
“Are you sure we didn’t blow off course and land on Mars?” Jimmy joked.
“The Gobi is rocky with very sparse vegetation,” Jean Paul explained. “Unlike deserts we are all used to seeing, there are very few sand dunes. The harsh terrain discourages human habitation except for rubuste souls.”
“Like Sarantstral and her fellow desert dwellers?” Vivian asked.
Jean Paul nodded. “Yes. She came from very résilient stock. Also, the Gobi is known for extrêmement violent and unpredictable dust storms with very high wind …”
Before Jean Paul could finish his sentence, a huge, tornado-like dust cloud appeared out of nowhere. A blast of yellow sand blew directly in my face. Dirt and debris clogged my nose, causing my nostrils to deflate. The ropes over my shoulders that I used to carry the gondola twisted up like a kindergartner’s shoestrings. The water tower tipped over, dumping gallons of water and nearly crushing TJ and Dr. Wackjöb under its weight. We then went into a deadly tailspin and plunged toward the desert floor.
“Throw me some pepper so I can keep us from crashing!” I yelled.
Mumps dove for the last jar of cayenne that was rolling around inside the gondola. Just as he wrapped his fingers around it, another fierce blast of wind whipped us sideways. The jar popped out of his hand and disappeared over the side.
“It’s gone!” Mumps cried out. “We’re going to die!”
I shoved two fingers deep inside my nose, desperately trying to scrape my nostrils free of sand so I could get some wind. It was useless. The more sand I picked from my snout, the more that came flying right back in.
Vivian, the Not-Right Brothers, Dr. Wackjöb, and Jean Paul grabbed hands, praying for their lives. I tilted my nose down, closed my eyes, and awaited impact.
CHAPTER 22
MY KINGDOM FOR A HORSE
An image of Jimmy’s black cat, Igor, flashed in my mind as I plummeted to the ground. One afternoon we were all hanging out inside the Nostril when Vivian noticed Igor on top of Jimmy’s roof. The cat had climbed from an attic window to stalk a flock of pigeons roosting near the chimney. What happened next was the most amazing feat of aerial acrobatics I had ever seen.
A stray pigeon wandered within Igor’s striking distance. The cat pounced from his hiding spot, but instead of getting the pigeon, he accidentally leaped off the rooftop. I remember watching in amazement as Igor twisted in midair like an Olympic diver until all four of his paws were squarely under his body. He landed with a thump in a patch of mulch. I thought for sure the cat was dead or badly hurt. But he just gave his body a quick shake and then trotted back inside the house.
If we were to survive this fall, I would have to perform the same daredevil act as Igor.
The cat had used his tail and flexible backbone to right himself. I, on the other hand, needed to use my bendy booger beak. Everyone has a tiny nasalis muscle whose sole function is to flare the nostrils. The difference between my nasalis and one of a normal person is like the Thing and a little old lady flexing biceps. There is no comparison.
I squeezed my nasalis muscle with all my might. Slowly, the mass of fleshy cartilage in the center of my face started wiggling. My mutated mucous monster jiggled faster. The dirt and sand clogging up my snot sewer began falling away. I was getting air! Just before we crashed, the external openings of my nas
al cavity inflated like a stuntman’s air bag. Vivian, the Not-Right Brothers, Dr. Wackjöb, and Jean Paul crashed on top of me, my bouncy nose breaking their fall.
“Is anyone hurt?” I asked, panting for breath.
“Owww!” Mumps cried out in pain. “My ankle!”
The gang jumped off my muzzle and rushed to help Mumps.
“Careful,” Vivian warned. “He may have a broken bone.”
Dr. Wackjöb gently rolled up Mumps’s pant leg. “It’s bruising already,” he said. “Can you move it?”
Mumps gritted his teeth. After a moment, his foot moved a couple millimeters.
“If you can move it, then it’s not broken,” Dr. Wackjöb said. “It looks to me like a very bad sprain. You just need some R-I-C-E.”
“I’m not hungry,” Mumps groaned, still obviously in pain.
“RICE is an acronym that means rest, ice, compression, elevation,” Vivian said. “My grampy’s an emergency-room nurse.”
“Rest, compression, and elevation we can do,” Jimmy said. “But where do you expect to find ice? We just crashed in the middle of a dry desert!”
Everyone stopped what they were doing and gazed at the vast horizon. As far as the eye could see, there was nothing but a foreign landscape of rocks, pebbles, boulders, and dirt.
“What do we do now?” I groaned. “We’re out of food and water.”
“Plus, my laptop was completely destroyed in the fall,” TJ added, salvaging the computer’s hard drive.
Jean Paul climbed a small, rocky hill and surveyed the surroundings. “This is the landscape of northern Mongolia,” he said. “If TJ’s calculations were correct and we crossed over the border between Russia and Mongolia, then Ulaanbaatar is somewhere south of here. Schnoz, can you fly there to find us help?”
I lifted my nose in the air. Only a moment ago a wicked windstorm had been blowing dirt and sand everywhere. Now, the air was still without even the slightest breeze.
“Not without wind or cayenne pepper,” I said. “Until Mother Nature decides to whip up a gust, I walk like everyone else.”
Vivian tore a hunk of fabric from her jacket and wrapped Mumps’s injured ankle. TJ and Jimmy helped him climb onto Dr. Wackjöb’s back.
“Mumps cannot put any pressure on his ankle or it will never heal,” Dr. Wackjöb said. “I will take the first shift carrying him. Fortunately, my young friend is a pipsqueak and doesn’t weigh much.”
Using the rising sun as our guide, we walked south toward Ulaanbaatar. By nine a.m., the air was already dry and hot. By the time noon rolled around, the temperature was scorching. We all huddled against a big boulder that offered a minuscule amount of shade.
“Water,” Vivian said. Her voice was weak and her lips chapped from sun exposure. “I’ll give my kingdom for a glass of water.”
“That is from a Shakespeare play,” Dr. Wackjöb said and then lifted Mumps off his back. “Richard III, I believe. But the line is ‘My kingdom for a horse,’ not water.”
“I’d rather have water right now instead of a horse,” I said, trying to shield my already sunburned nose.
Jean Paul abruptly stood up. “Look in the distance,” he said. “Do you see that kick-up of poussière?”
I assumed that poussière meant dust, because that is exactly what I saw on the horizon. It wasn’t huge like the dust storm that had crashed the gondola, but several small dust devils whirling like spinning tops.
“I hear hoofbeats!” Jimmy cried out. “They’re horses!”
“You are correct,” Jean Paul said. “Men are riding them—at least a dozen—and they are coming this way!”
The only thing I could think of was Genghis Khan and the Mongol horde. Were these men going to rob us and leave us for dead in this forsaken desert? Before we had time to react, the horses had reached us.
The riders wore long, elaborately decorated robes with hoods that concealed their faces. Long swords, sharp knives, and bows with quivers dangled from their mounts. They shouted at us in a foreign language I assumed to be Mongolian.
The rider in front, obviously the leader, drew his sword, hopped off his horse, and approached us. I thrust out my nose, ready to defend my friends. The sudden appearance of my menacing honker took the man by surprise. He took a step back and yanked off the hood hiding his face. That’s when I realized that he was really a she. The other riders yanked off their hoods as well.
They were all women!
CHAPTER 23
FLYING DRAGON NOSE
The woman standing before me looked slightly different from the others. She was young, with long, black hair and intense dark eyes, but her face was angular and not as round as the rest of the women. Under her robe, she wore what I assumed to be a traditional Mongolian outfit—except for her shoes. On her feet was a brand-new pair of red Converse sneakers, just like Jean Paul was wearing.
Jean Paul stepped forward and took one look at the woman, and his mouth dropped open in shock. “Sarantstral,” he blubbered. “Is it really you? You haven’t changed one bit in trente years!”
The woman clutched her sword. “I was not even alive thirty years ago,” she said. “And why do you call me by my mother’s name?”
Her perfect English and the fact that she knew the word trente meant “thirty” in French surprised me. The other women slid off their horses. They huddled around their leader with weapons drawn.
“I will ask you again,” she said. “How do you know my mother’s name?”
Jean Paul stared at her deeply, his eyes carefully studying her face. As he reached out to touch her, the woman grabbed his arm and flung him to the ground like a wet towel. The other horsewomen rushed toward us, ready to fight if we made any sudden moves.
“He was in love with a Mongolian girl named Sarantstral a long time ago,” Vivian said, trying to diffuse the situation. “You must have reminded him of her. That’s all. We’ve flown here from the United States and crashed in the desert. A very bad man wants to capture a bunch of wild Bactrian camels, and we need to stop him.”
A shocked expression washed over the woman’s face. She turned to her fellow horsewomen, jabbered something in Mongolian, and then faced us.
“I don’t believe you,” the woman said angrily “You are with the Frenchman and his foreign fighters. You have invaded our villages and forced our husbands and brothers to help you search for our sacred camels. You want them all!”
“We don’t want to take camels,” I said. “We want to save them. The Frenchman you’re talking about wants the camels to make an ingredient for his horrible perfume.”
“Just like when my mother was young, when foreigners invaded the desert to collect camel urine for shampoo.”
One of the horsewomen gave me a sinister look. She raised her sword in the air, seconds from be-nosing me, chopping my cookie detector right off my face. That’s when Jean Paul struggled to his feet, reached into his pocket, and pulled out the fading photograph of Sarantstral wearing the purple tunic and Nike running shoes.
“Her name is Sarantstral,” Jean Paul said, handing the photo to the head horsewoman. “We once loved each other.”
The woman studied the photo, looked up at Jean Paul, and then stared back at the photo. “This is my mother as a young woman,” she said. “And you … you …” The words became stuck in her throat. She took a deep breath. “You must be Jean Paul … my father.”
Jean Paul and the woman collapsed into each other’s arms, tears flowing down their cheeks.
“What is your name?” Jean Paul asked his newly discovered daughter.
“Bayarma Juliette,” she answered. “My mother wanted me to have a Mongolian first name and a French second name in honor of my father.”
“Where is Sarantstral now? I must know.”
Before Bayarma answered, the sounds of gunfire blasted in the distance.
“Sorry to interrupt the father and daughter reunion,” I said. “But we came here on a mission. We need to think of a way to save those
camels!”
Bayarma composed herself and then clustered with her crew. The horsewomen debated loudly back and forth with each other.
“What are they shouting about?” Jimmy wondered.
“Something about how they are considérablement outnumbered,” Jean Paul said. “It’s been a long time since I’ve heard anyone speak the Mongolian language, but I can make out a few words here and there.”
Bayarma turned to us. “I am sorry to say that our cause is lost. The Frenchman …”
“The rat’s name is Pierre,” TJ interjected.
“The Frenchman, Pierre, has at least one hundred heavily armed men. They are not Mongolians, but from different European countries.”
“He employs criminels from Germany, Spain, France, Austria, and even the United States,” Jean Paul said. “I saw their destruction firsthand in Venezuela when they hunted the bloated toad to extinction.”
A rush of wind whipped through the dry desert valley. I braced myself for another dust storm, but the breeze was clear of any dirt and debris. I inhaled a big gust, and my nostrils inflated to the size of a camping tent. My toes dangled above the ground. I let out a big snort and rose about twenty feet in the air.
The horsewomen took one look at me hovering in midair and ran to their horses like a herd of frightened sheep.
“Luu khamar nisdeg … luu khamar nisdeg!” they shouted in Mongolian.
“What are they saying?” Vivian asked.
“Flying dragon nose,” Bayarma answered. “They think he has the powerful nose of a flying dragon.”
Mumps lifted his head and snickered through the ankle pain. “Give him some cayenne pepper, and Schnoz will be a flying dragon nose who breathes fire.”
“Schnoz, come back down!” Vivian shouted to me. “You’re freaking these ladies out.”
I closed one nostril and drifted to the ground. “It feels so good to fly,” I said. “The wind is pretty strong right now. I can do a reconnaissance flight and see if I can locate Pierre and his men.”
“That won’t do any good,” Jimmy said.