Mr. Chickee's Messy Mission (12 page)

Richelle said, “That's it! I'm through with this place.”

She marched to the front door and said, “Flint Future Detectives, let's go! Dictionary, you said this is the house of one branch of the Guide family, does that mean there are other Guides who aren't sullen and disrespectful and generally miserable?”

The dictionary said, “Wow! You
are
pretty bright! Correct again. There are—”

The teenager said, “Yeah, sure there are. There's the Tender Guides, the Loving Guides, the Merciful Guides, the Kindhearted Guides, the—”

Richelle said, “That's all we need to know. Thanks for nothing. Steven, Russell, let's go.”

The kid said, “You're wasting your time. If you could read, you'd've seen that they're all out.”

Richelle said, “Is that true, Dictionary?”

“True, like most of the people in this land, this young knucklehead is neither particularly bright nor exactly civil, but he, and the rest of the denizens of Guide Land, are generally very truthful.”

“Whoa!” the teenager squealed. “You've gotta tell me where I can get one of these!”

Russell said, “How come all the other Guides are gone?”

The kid pointed at the Oops-a-Daisy on the wall.

Steven said, “What, they ran away because your world's going to be destroyed?”

“Of course not! Didn't you read the list, genius? There wasn't anyone there named Cowardly-Guide, was there? No one in the Guide family runs from anything, they're all gone because they've all been hired. It's your bad luck that for the first time in Ourside's history four thousand three hundred and twenty-two of the four thousand three hundred and twenty-three Guides have been hired at the same time.”

Steven said, “Hired by who?”

“Oh, you think you're the only ones who want to leave? Your talking thumb drive was right, you aren't a real smart group, are you? Nearly everyone who has had some kind of contact with those bums from Yourside is trying to find a way to their world.”

Russell said, “They're all trying to get to Earth?”

“Earth? Oh, I see now! You guys are Yoursiders! That explains why you're such morons.” He frowned and said, “And that's where that cool thumb drive came from. You guys get all the cool toys there.”

Richelle said, “Listen, there's one Guide that that list says is still in. We want to hire him.”

The kid chuckled. “Oh, really? Don't you wonder why he's the only one who hasn't been hired?”

Steven said, “Yeah, I don't get it. If everyone's so desperate to get out of here, how come no one has chosen him?”

The dictionary said, “Word of warning, if you notice the number after the remaining Guide's name, you'll see it is five hundred and forty-one. That is a listing of how many generations his particular family has been guides.”

Richelle said, “Oh, so does that mean since he's got so much experience he's too expensive to hire?”

The kid laughed. “Nope. We all cost the same.”

Steven said, “Then why hasn't anyone taken him?”

Great-great-grampa Carter's dictionary said, “Not only is his family extremely experienced at guiding, they've also had many, many years of practicing being obnoxious and
sullen and surly. I'm afraid he's still here because nobody can put up with his attitude.”

Richelle said to the teenager, “What about you? Can't you guide us?”

The kid said, “Me? You think I'm one of the Sullen Guides?”

Russell said, “Sure, you're pretty mean. Is everybody in Ourside so hard to get along with?”

The teenager said, “Not at all. There are some folks here who are quite pleasant, but I stay away from them, I wouldn't want any of that niceness rubbing off on me.”

Russell said, “Yeah, Mummy always tells me if you run around with dogs, you end up with fleas. Or is it if you run around with hogs, you end up with cheese? Or maybe it was if you roll around on logs, you end up—”

Richelle said, “Russell! Please! Time's wasting and we've got to get to this place.”

She turned to the sullen teenager. “All right, we'll take the last Guide, whoever he is. How do we do it?”

The kid smiled and said, “Believe me, it'll be my pleasure to introduce you to Mr. Marvin Surly-Guide, I'll go get him.”

He walked out of the room and it sounded like he banged a bunch of pots and pans together. A second later he walked back in.

He said, “Morons from Yourside, I'd like to introduce you to the most wonderful of the Sullen Guides, the most intelligent, the most well-loved and also the handsomest of all of the Guides!”

The Flint Future Detectives waited and watched the doorway that the kid had just walked through.

Finally Richelle said, “Well?”

The teenager said, “Well what?”

“Well, where is he?”

“Right here! It's me!”

Richelle's eyes rolled. “Are you kidding?”

The teenager said, “When I said ‘the handsomest of all of the Guides,’ it should've been a dead giveaway. Sort of like asking, what color is the little brown jug?”

Russell said, “Wait! Wait! Don't tell me!”

Richelle groaned and said, “I guess we have no choice. Let me explain, we're the Flint Future Detectives and we'd like to hire you to take us to—”

The kid bellowed, “I know, I know. Why do you want to go there? All the other saps are trying to get to Yourside.”

Russell stepped behind Steven and said, “Mr. Chickee said I should follow my feelings and that's where I feel we should go.”

The kid said, “Mr. Chickee? Othello Chickee sent you? Why didn't you say so?”

Steven and Richelle sighed and smiled. Richelle said, “We didn't know it would make a difference.”

The boy yelled, “It doesn't! But rules are rules, and if Othello Chickee's involved, it means that Ms. Tiptip and a ton of other Old Souls are too, so it looks like I haven't got any choice, I've got to take you. How much time is left on your Oops-a-Daisy?”

Richelle checked her wrist. “Oh, no! We're already
down to twenty-nine days, twenty-three hours, nineteen minutes and fifty-two seconds!”

Marvin Surly-Guide said, “I can't believe it. It's always me who gets involved in things like this. Listen, I don't know if you have time enough to get there and back. Don't know and don't care. But if you're going to have any kind of chance, we've got to get going. It always takes a lot longer to get there and back than you think it will.”

Russell said, “We're ready!”

Marvin said, “Then let's go. The porch we need isn't far, but judging by the way you guys look and act, leading you clowns is going to be as hard as leading a herd of cats.”

Great-great-grampa Carter's dictionary said, “Oh joy, not only is he arrogant, surly and obnoxious, this charmer is also blessed with impatience.”

Marvin said, “Wow! That thing is so sick! We're going to have to work something out so that if I get you guys back here safe you'll give him to me.”

Richelle said, “Whatever, but time is wasting, we need to go.”

The Journey to H.A.L.F. Land

I
T DIDN'T
TAKE LONG
to see why no one from Ourside had wanted to hire Marvin Surly-Guide. He was doing his job, but just barely. He was horrible at the Guide part of his name and absolutely great at the Surly part.

He wasn't telling the Flint Future Detectives much more than “Turn here” or “Can't you walk any faster?” or “If I was you, I wouldn't touch that.” (Which he didn't say until Russell had tried to eat something he found that was brown and gooey and smelled like corn bread, something that right after he took a bite bit him right back.)

Any questions Steven and Richelle and Russell asked were ignored or met with a roll of the eyes or a rude snort.

But it was Russell who finally seemed to get the guide's attention.

“Hey, how come we haven't seen any cute, teeny trolls with hair growing out of their ears or from between their toes? Every book I've ever read where people go to a strange world and take a journey there're always a bunch of trolls that come out to make them laugh. Seems like we've been walking long enough that we should've run into one or two by now. And I could use a good laugh.”

Marvin gave a small shudder and said, “Don't worry, there are plenty of hairy, tiny people where we're headed. Not very many of them are cute, though. Mostly they're irritating, goofy little twits. Sort of like smaller, older versions of you guys.

“I feel bad about you getting bit by that barfoodle, so I'm gonna give you one word of warning about those little people, kid. When we do run into one, they don't like it when anyone calls them trolls, they wanna be called Whizzers.”

Russell got his laugh. He put his hand over his mouth and said, “You said ‘whizzers’!”

Great-great-grampa Carter's dictionary said, “No, Russell. As defined in
The Dictionary of Modern Ourside: Whizzer
([WHIZ-
ur
]
n. Any of a race of diminutive, incomplete, trouble-causing, supernatural beings exiled from Yourside, found almost exclusively inhabiting various rooms in the H.A.L.F. Land sector of Ourside
.)”

Marvin said, “Your talking book hit the nail right on the head.”

Russell said, “These Whizzers are troublemakers?”

“Of course they are, but don't worry about running into them out here, they're kept just about on lockdown.”

Richelle, Steven and Russell all said, “
Kept
?”

“Ooh, touchy little bunch of Yoursiders, aren't we? Yes, they're kept, but no, it's not like they're prisoners or slaves or anything. Nearly everyone you'll run into where we're going stays in different rooms and they're cool with it. They can jet whenever they want, but most of 'em just chill in their rooms.”

Richelle said, “Okay, Surly-Guide, I'm not taking one more step until you tell us where we're headed. This place doesn't sound like somewhere I want to go.”

Marvin turned his nose up at Richelle and said, “It's the place your cool talking book said, H.A.L.F. Land.”

“Halfland?”

“H.A.L.F. Land, two words. The initials stand for the Hopeless, Abandoned, Lost and Forgotten.”

Russell said, “No! I'm not going back to Flint until I find Rodney Rodent!”

Marvin said, “No, not Flint.”

Richelle said, “Russell, stop! Marvin, you're talking about a land where people are separated because they're hopeless and lost? This place is sounding worse by the minute! I'm turning right around and going back to Mr. Chickee and Ms. Tiptip! I can't believe they'd let us go somewhere like that.”

“Nice speech, Miss Cyrus-Herndon. Let's all wait a minute and see if it's made me cry … nope. But if you could stop being Miss High-and-Mighty for a second, you'd see there's nothing fishy going on.” Marvin snorted. “People
here in Ourside
would
find it strange that someone from Yourside has a problem with H.A.L.F. Land, though.”

Richelle said, “Why? You should stop stereotyping, some of us from Earth are very compassionate.”

“You think so, huh? Still, some folks in Ourside would think it's weird you're worried, because everyone and everything in H.A.L.F. Land is there because of something a bunch of people from your Earth did.”

Richelle said, “What?”

“Yeah. And these Earth people don't send only Whizzers to H.A.L.F. Land either, they send all kinds of characters. The old folks in Ourside have tried to make the Yoursiders stop sending these Whizzers and things here, but they keep on disrespecting us and acting like they don't care. They're a real hardheaded group of people.”

Russell said, “They sound like a bunch of losers, who are they?”

“You're right, they're some
real
losers. Your people call them things like authors, playwrights, poets.”

Richelle said, “They're writers?”

“Yeah, that's them,
writers
.” Just saying the word made him twist his face like he was having a seventy-two-bean-burrito bellyache.

“The old folks here have been trying to let them know they need to quit sending us the hopeless, the abandoned, the lost and the forgotten, but more and more of them come. And since Yourside discovered word processors and computers, we get tons of them every day.”

Steven said, “Huh? I don't get it. My mom said most authors don't make enough money to send a letter across town, much less send someone to another world.”

“That's just it, they don't get charged anything to send these characters to us.” The guide seemed to remember he was trying hard to be uncooperative. “Look, I'm a Guide, not an Explainer, not a Decider. There's a sign outside of H.A.L.F. Land that'll tell you how everyone and everything there got in.”

Richelle scrunched her left eye partially shut and left her right eye partially open. She twisted her lips to the right, then back to the left. “You've got horrible manners, but you haven't misled us so far, so I guess we'll keep going.”

Marvin gasped and said, “My word! If I were to mislead you even one time, I'd lose my license! My family has been honorable Guides for five hundred and forty-one generations. I don't intend to do anything to break that string. I just wish I had a higher-class group of people to deal with.”

A house near a large tree appeared around a bend in the road. A sign hung from the front of the porch: