Cats in the Crater Read online

  We watched as one by one Dustin, Sanj, Bob, Diablo and Ezmirelda danced really, really terribly. Like the worst dad-dancing at a wedding that you could imagine. And one by one they all fell through the floor and down one of the impenetrable plastic slides. The last one to fall was Igor. He gave us a nod and gripped Lucky in a strong bear hug as the floor dropped away and he was gone.

  “OK, so that either worked or we just sent all of our friends and our enemies crashing down into a bath of fire,” Geeky Girl said.

  “Hey, I think Bath of Fire is one of the metal bands that Bob plays sometimes,” I said.

  “Reeeeooooowwwwlll!” Fang jumped against the plastic wall and scratched as hard as she could.

  “It won’t work, kitten. We can’t break it.” I looked at Geeky Girl. “There is only one way out of here for us, and that’s up. With the wings.”

  “But it will only take one of us,” she said.

  “Maybe.” I paused. “So what have we learned so far from this game of your grandmother’s?” I asked.

  “That Grandma has a thing for board games and overly dramatic bad rhymes?” Geeky Girl said.

  “Yeah, definitely that. But also, that if you think you aren’t gonna win, what would any self-respecting evil scientist do to change that?” I asked.

  “Cheat!” we said together.

  “So let’s see what I’ve got left in my backpack of inventions that might help.” I sat down on the tabletop and started to unpack while Geeky Girl got the jet wings ready to use.

  I had one nearly used-up spray can of Insta-Sticky.

  One Invisible Lair Trap Detector.

  A bunch of Grandma’s peanut butter cookies.

  And a piece of string.

  Geeky Girl looked at the stuff all spread out on the table.

  “OK, we don’t have enough of the sticky stuff to use to climb out, right?” she said.

  “Right,” I said.

  “Maybe I can reconfigure the Invisible Lair Trap Detector to help us?” Geeky Girl said.

  “We are already in a trap,” I said. “I figured that out without the detector.”

  “Then we have to use the jet pack,” Geeky Girl said.

  “But that will only take one of us,” I said.

  “If we use it as a jet pack,” she agreed. “But what if we use it to start an explosion?”

  “Um, then we would die in the explosion instead of dying by lava,” I said.

  “Meoooow,” Fang agreed.

  “No, we slide the jet pack under the table and puncture it at the same time as we start a spark. It will ignite and blast us up out of the tube,” she said.

  “Or it will ignite and blast us to kingdom come,” I said.

  Geeky Girl gave me a look.

  “It’s a thing my grandma says, OK? It means we’ll blow up,” I added. I reached down to console myself from our impending death with a peanut butter cookie. That’s when I saw the sticker.

  “Hang on, the table is made of the same impenetrable plastic.” I pointed to the sticker. “If we are all on this side of the table when the blast goes off underneath, then we should be protected,” I said.

  “And it should be enough force to blast us out of the volcano,” she said.

  “And Fang and Boris?” I asked.

  “You can put Fang in one pocket and Boris in the other. They can grip on with their claws so they don’t fall out,” she said. “I think it’s our only shot.”

  “OK, we can stick the jet pack canisters under the table with the last bit of Insta-Sticky spray,” I said.

  We could feel the heat of the lava through the plastic walls of the tube. “OK, let’s do it,” I said.

  We took the wings off the jet pack and rigged the canisters to propel us up out of the tube. We slid them down the sides of the table and we secured them under the table with the sticky stuff. It was a tight squeeze to get it down there, and neither of us could fit under the table to set off the explosion.

  “Lava incursion imminent,” the voice said.

  “We know,” Geeky Girl said.

  “Breach of wall in one minute,” it said.

  “We got it!” I shouted at the voice.

  I reached my arm down under the table but couldn’t get near enough and definitely couldn’t puncture the tanks. Fang jumped down next to the jet pack canister. She sharpened her claws on the floor.

  “Fang, do you think you can puncture the jet pack?” I asked.

  “Reeeeoooowwwll,” she purred.

  “But we need a spark to ignite it,” Geeky Girl said. “Do you have any matches?”

  “No,” I said. “Must remember to add matches to my bag of evil gadgets.”

  “You bring peanut butter cookies but not matches?” she said.

  While we were arguing Boris flapped down onto the table. He chipped his beak against the metal clasp on my backpack and it made a spark.

  “Pretty cool,” I said.

  “Yeah, but too dangerous. If Boris creates the spark down under the table, he’ll go up in the explosion,” she said.

  “What if we had a fuse that Boris could light while he’s up here safely out of the way?” I said, and held up the string.

  “Lava breach in thirty seconds,” the voice said.

  “OK, let’s try,” Geeky Girl said.

  I passed the end of the string down to Fang, who laid it next to the canister. Fang bared her claws and got ready to puncture the tank. Boris had his beak over the clasp.

  “Ready?!” Geeky Girl shouted.

  “Lava breach in ten seconds,” the voice said.

  “Go!” I said.

  Boris nodded to Fang, and she clawed. Her razor-sharp claw went straight through the coating on the tank. Gas seeped out.

  Fang nodded and jumped up onto the table, out of the way of the spark.

  Boris chipped the metal clasp, and a spark flew into the air and caught the end of the string, and the spark sped down the fuse under the table.

  The pets jumped into my pockets. We heard the voice say, “Three, two…” and then we were off!

  15

  It was like riding a surfboard on top of a hurricane. Geeky Girl held on to the wings she had taken off the jet pack, and I had my backpack on with the Trap Detector in my hand.

  As we neared the top of the crater, we could see the lava rising up next to us.

  “Here we go!” I shouted as the explosion propelled us up and out of the volcano top!

  We were flying!

  You know the expression “What goes up, must come down”?

  Well, we had gone up, so there was only one thing left.

  We were free from the lava crater, but our new problem was that we were now falling toward the outside of the volcano. Geeky Girl extended the wings to slow our descent. It was working. We were heading toward a sandy slope.

  I patted Fang on the head as she peeked out of my pocket. “Hold on, little one,” I said. “It’s gonna get even bumpier.”

  “Have you ever sand-boarded?” I shouted to Geeky Girl.

  “No!” she yelled.

  “Well, get ready to learn! Lean when I lean and close the wings when we touch down. Ready? Here we go.”

  Geeky Girl let the wings drop as we touched down on the sand, and we started to slide. The table legs were burned off in the explosion (guess they weren’t made of the plastic stuff), so when the tabletop hit the ground, it acted like a surfboard.

  “Woooooo!” I shouted as we sped down the hill.

  “Head for the water!” Geeky Girl shouted from behind me on the tabletop. “We can slide right into the lake and it will break our fall.”

  Then suddenly the Trap Detector started pinging. “Oh great. It’s detecting traps on the slope of the volcano!” I shouted.

  “Lean left!” I yelled as we banked sideways to avoid some spikes that popped up in front of us.

  “Go right!” I said as a trapdoor opened up in our path.

  “More security traps?” I shouted.

&n
bsp; “She probably wasn’t thinking there would be people breaking out of her volcano lair,” she answered.

  We were now nearly at the lake. “OK, Boris, you might want to fly off before we hit the water,” I said. “And, Fang, you don’t like swimming too much either, do you? Why don’t you hitch a ride?” Boris gripped the scruff of Fang’s neck and they fluttered off.

  “I’ll put up the wings again to slow us before we hit the water,” Geeky Girl yelled.

  We slowed a little and then—sppploooosh!—we were in the lake.

  I must have blacked out for a second, because the next thing I remembered someone threw me a life preserver labeled “Evil Aqua Rescue.” I grabbed it and let myself be towed to the side of the lake. Trevor hoisted me out of the water. “Zat vas not vhat ve expected,” he said. “Vhen Madame Mako brought us out here to vitness ze victor fly out to claim zher prize, we did not expect two of you. Nor did ve expect to have to rescue ze vinners.”

  Then I looked over and Kirsty was pulling Geeky Girl out of the lake a few yards down. Her grass skirt was singed from the heat of the explosion and she was soaking wet, but she was smiling.

  “We did it,” she said. “We won.”

  I walked over to her “Yeah, that was not really how I saw us winning. You know, less lava and near death and water would have been better.”

  “Agreed,” she said. “But we did it.”

  Madame Mako then stepped out onto the shore, holding a remote control in her hand. She pressed a button and the bridge extended as before.

  She walked up to Geeky Girl and smiled. “You have earned the right to be my successor,” she said. “Maybe you did it in a slightly unconventional way and you weren’t as completely ruthless as I would have liked, but we can work on that.” She looked over at me. “But you did it, and I suppose this means that as you both completed the test, you both get to become my successors and take over my empire.” Her face had gone back to the slightly irritated face rather than the smiling one.

  It didn’t matter, though. She said that Geeky Girl and I had won. We had beaten the odds and both of us had made it through. We would be epic at running an empire.

  We could both have crowns and everyone could still call me Emperor Mark. We had gone from going out the Lose door to flying out the top of the volcano.

  Then it hit me. The Lose door.

  16

  “What about the others?” I said.

  “Have you seen them?” Geeky Girl asked.

  Madame Mako nodded. “I saw on the sensors that they landed safely in the volcano base earlier. I didn’t check how many were there, though, and I didn’t open the door to let them out, because it would ruin the suspense. I wanted to see who would fly out the top. I had not anticipated two flying out, though. They might as well come out now.”

  Trevor walked over to the side of the volcano, looking for an emergency exit sign.

  “Here, let me.” Kirsty karate-kicked the door, and the vibrations crumbled the rock around it.

  We rushed over. We could hear voices inside.

  “Apparently someone is trying to break in just when we are trying to break out,” Dustin said.

  “Urgh, urgh, urgh!” Igor shouted.

  “He said, ‘Stand back,’” I echoed as Igor kicked the door from his side just as Madame Mako pressed another button on her remote control. The door burst open.

  Igor, Bob, Diablo, Dustin, Sanj and Ezmirelda all walked out onto the shore.

  “Igor, you are stronger that I thought!” Sanj said.

  Igor smiled.

  Madame Mako walked over. “No, he is not. I did that.”

  Igor slumped his massive shoulders. “Urgh.”

  She continued. “You have all lost the contest. You may go back to your camp now,” she said. “It was a pleasure testing you.”

  “Testing, we don’t mind, but it was no pleasure being trapped in a volcano that’s filling with lava,” Ezmirelda said.

  “The slides are impenetrable. The lava was just there for effect. You can’t have a volcano lair without a lava trap.” She shook her head.

  “Anyway, we took Lucky with us too,” Ezmirelda said.

  “I would have whistled for him and he would have gone down a slide too.” Madame Mako shook her head. “None of you were ruthless enough.”

  “I just want to say that I was completely against taking the lizard, but she insisted,” Sanj said.

  Lucky strode up next to Ezmirelda and licked her hand. She reached down and scratched him under the chin.

  “Hmmmm … you are all here and you have all your limbs. So he didn’t even bite anyone?” she said, shaking her head. “I suppose Lucky is not as fierce as I had thought.”

  Ezmirelda stepped forward. “Lucky is the fiercest pet Komodo ever, and I think he’s decided that he needs an owner who appreciates him. Don’t you, boy?”

  Madame Mako got out her whistle. “Heel, Lucky,” she said, and blew.

  He rolled over on the beach and Ezmirelda stroked his tummy.

  “I think he made up his mind,” I added.

  Phillipe spoke, “But you can’t take on an evil pet Komodo dragon. They are not allowed at camp.”

  Lucky stood and walked toward Phillipe, backing him up against a palm tree. He reared and stood with his claws on Phillipe’s chest and breathed dragon breath in his face. “Unless … perhaps the dragon could be employed by the camp as a guard dragon? Maybe?” Phillipe said.

  Fang slunk over from the bushes and jumped back into my pocket. She looked over at Lucky standing up to Phillipe and made a little purr. I think that was a bit of mutual evil-pet respect going on there.

  Kirsty and Trevor walked up to Phillipe. Lucky turned to them and hissed. Kirsty tried to land a kick to knock him off Phillipe, but Lucky thwacked her with his tail and she hit the ground with a thud.

  Kirsty smiled as she got up and dusted off the sand. “He would make a good guard.”

  “Well, maybe he doesn’t want to stay,” Ezmirelda said. “Maybe I want to go home and teach my new evil dragon some wicked evil tricks.” Lucky hissed one more time at Phillipe, then pulled back and walked over to her side, and Phillipe started to breathe again. “We’ll think about it,” she said, and patted Lucky on the head.

  Madame Mako turned to me and Geeky Girl again.

  “This entire exercise is most irregular. You weren’t at all ruthless in there. You helped each other? I don’t understand,” she said.

  “I know,” Geeky Girl said. “But we can work on that.

  “Grandma, you said friends are a hindrance, but I don’t agree. They are the ones who have your back when you need it most.”

  Madame Mako shook her head.

  Geeky Girl smiled. “Grandma, I don’t think I want to run your evil empire or any evil empire. I don’t ever want to be as ruthless as you’ve had to be to do this.”

  Madame Mako looked kinda hurt and disappointed. “Glenda, if you give up the empire, then you will be stopping your henchman from winning it as well. Is that what you want?” she said, and turned to me.

  “Mark,” I said, “the name is Mark. I personally think I would be epic at ruling an evil empire and flying a volcanic island lair,” I said. “And I think Geeky Girl would be epic at it too.”

  17

  “But for some mad, un-evil reason, that’s not what she wants to do, so I guess I have to live with that,” I said. “And it’s not like this is going to be my only chance to rule an evil empire. That will happen again.” I smiled. “But ya know, if you had a spare crown lying around, I could take that off your hands.”

  Then I spotted a bit of the metal wing twisted into a crescent on the ground that must have broken off in the crash. “Or maybe I don’t have to wait for someone else to give me a crown,” I said, and picked it up, blew the sand off it and put it on. Well, it would have to do for now, anyway.

  Igor smiled. “Urgh, urgh, urgh,” he said.

  “Yeah, I knew it would suit me. Thanks.” I nodde
d.

  Madame Mako looked puzzled. “I don’t understand young people nowadays. In my day, you would not look an evil gift horse in the mouth like this.” She shook her head.

  I leaned in and whispered to her, “And you know, it’s not all bad. You didn’t find a successor, but you did find your granddaughter.” I paused. “Who I know is standing right here, so she isn’t exactly lost, but I was making a point…”

  “You need to know when to stop talking, henchman, I mean Mark,” she said, and gave me a very, very, very slight smile. But ya know, I’ll take that.

  “Then who will take over the volcano island?” Bob said, totally killing the moment.

  “I would do a fantastic job running the island,” Sanj said. “And I could pick up the evil elephant research where you left off, Madame Mako.”

  “I would be the best to run this island. Can you imagine a wresting ring in the center of the volcano!” Diablo added.

  “Obviously, I would be best,” Dustin said. “Just because I’m me.”

  Madame Mako turned to walk away from all the campers telling her how fantastic they would be. Her mildly irritated face was tipping into pretty fed up. As she turned and headed for the bridge off the island, she dropped her remote control.

  “Madame Mako! Wait!” Sanj rushed forward, picked up the remote and was just about to hand it to her as she stepped onto the bridge when he stopped.

  “I just need to show you how well I could control this island if it were my empire,” he said. “With this much power, I could do amazing things. You’ll see.”

  Sanj started pressing buttons on the remote. The volcano started to shake, and then boulders started shooting out from the crater and raining down on the shore.

  “Run for cover!” Trevor shouted.

  Trevor and the counselors herded everyone under an outcropping of rock so they were a bit protected, but that meant they couldn’t see us or Sanj standing on the shoreline jumping up and down and hitting random buttons.