The Pickled Apocalypse of Pancake Island (8 page)

I giggled like a little pancake as I ran back into the castle and took the spiral staircase down to the kitchen. On the counter, Fanny Fod had left me two bottles of beer and a plate of peanut butter pancakes made from her smile. I did a shimmy dance across the kitchen, surprising even myself. It felt good to wake up somewhere you belonged. Even breathing was a pleasant, exciting activity. I popped open a beer, took a sip, ate two pancakes, and rubbed my belly. This was the ultimate breakfast. If every breakfast were a nation, no breakfast in the history of breakfasts could lay a finger on this one. It was a utopian breakfast.

I ate another pancake, rubbed my belly, and polished off the first beer. It was very resourceful of Fanny to use only ingredients from her own body. It was resourceful and she did it well.

I patted my stuffed belly and did a sluggish shimmy. I decided to name this one. I named it The Great and Beautiful Breakfast Empire. I thought maybe I would show it to Fanny Fod when she got home as a thank you for breakfast.

I heard the Cuddlywumpus snuffling behind the dungeon door and decided I should have a look. Fanny never mentioned when she might return. I put my ear to the door. There was a soft, ruffling sound. It sounded like the Cuddlywumpus was right behind the door and I had startled it. "Excuse me," I said, knocking. "May I come in?"

The Cuddlywumpus did not reply. I slowly reached for the doorknob until my hand grasped its green handle. I held my hand there for a while before turning it. Although I failed to see how a pancake as kind and generous and beautiful as Fanny Fod could keep a dangerous pet around, there was the off chance.

Pickles used to keep sad and dangerous pets all the time, not because they had any use for sad and dangerous pets. In our part of the universe, rubber monsters fell out of the sky rather often. When pickles encountered these monsters, they did not know what to do with them, so they put them in soggy boxes and called them pets. They took the rubber monsters home and made them into pets because they did not know what else to do with them, and sometimes the rubber monsters became sad and dangerous pets.

The Cuddlywumpus sounded sad the first day. I felt pretty certain it would not be one of those pets that was sad and dangerous, though. This was a happy place, after all. Now that I was happy there was nothing to fear.

I swung open the dungeon door.

A tentacle whipped around my waist and yanked me into the air. The tentacle laid me down on a floor made of bacon vultures. The tentacle recoiled from me. I was dizzy and nauseated. I puked up the utopian breakfast.

I looked up at the Cuddlywumpus. It was a giant shagpuff, hunched over and covered in furry tentacles. Each tentacle ended in an ear. Looking closely, I saw a mouth inside every ear and a hand inside every mouth. Its face was flat as a pancake's and blank except for two black button eyes. When the Cuddlywumpus cried out yesterday, it must have cried out from the mouths inside the ears on the tips of the tentacles. The Cuddlywumpus was hooked up to colorful machines. Pulsing green hoses ran from the Cuddlywumpus to the machines. They were either pumping something into the Cuddlywumpus or pumping something out.

The Cuddlywumpus mewed. It blinked its eyes at me as I approached the machines.

"Don't worry, I won't hurt you," I said. "I just want to know why Fanny keeps you locked away down here. You must be very important for her to keep you secret from everyone."

The Cuddlywumpus snuffled. It slapped its tentacles against the floor out of nervousness. To inspect the machines, I had to turn my back on the Cuddlywumpus. The beast appeared to be gentle enough. Timid, even.

The machines possessed no monitors, no gauges, no buttons or levers. I reached out to touch one and my hand passed right through. The machines were blocks of color that possessed the physical immateriality of vapors exhaled from mouths on chilly evenings.

I reached for one of the ropes. Unlike the machines, the ropes were solid matter.

The Cuddlywumpus mewed again.

"Hold on, I only want to know whether something is going into you or out." I felt along the rope. "Hm . . . it's coming out of you." I looked at the Cuddlywumpus and scratched the top of my head. "What is coming out of you?"

The Cuddlywumpus averted its eyes.

I followed the algae-textured hose to the golden, immaterial machine connected up to it. I raised the hose to my mouth and chomped down.

I tasted maple syrup.

Maple syrup was being milked out of the Cuddlywumpus.

Where could all this maple syrup go?

The sea, I realized. Nowhere but the sea.

Something popped behind me. I spun around. The dungeon was filling with green balloons. They were identical to the balloons I'd seen Fanny release into the sky. The balloons floated through the dungeon darkness, vanishing. Wobbling, silent orbs. Like pickled spirits.

I circled the Cuddlywumpus to its backside and discovered that the balloons were emerging from the cuddlywumpus.

Above me, beyond vision, the balloons popped in a rat-tat sequence.

I remembered that Fanny Fod could come home at any time and I had no idea how long I'd been down there, so I patted a furry tentacle and left the dungeon, befuddled by my discovery.

*

I spaced out on the roof for the rest of the day. I looked up at some point and Fanny Fod was standing over me. Neither of us said anything. She wasn't really smiling, though she tried, and I knew I was trying, and failing, to smile as well.

"Did you have a good day?" I said.

"I've been home for a while," she said. "Have you enjoyed yourself?"

"Yes, thank you for breakfast this morning. It was the best breakfast I've ever had. I invented a shimmy in honor of it. Would you like to see?"

"The Cuddlywumpus is feeling unwell. I'm going down to the dungeon to stay with it awhile. I love the Cuddlywumpus so much. I can't stand to see it feel bad."

You don't love the Cuddlywumpus, I thought. Nobody would lock up something they love in a dungeon and then hook it to a bunch of machines to milk it of their goodness.

I retracted that thought. I couldn't think that way about Fanny. I knew she was only thinking of the greater good, if such a thing existed. I knew she was pure at heart and simply doing what she thought best, even if what was best to her seemed cruel and irrational.

"Would you like dinner in a while?" she said.

"Dinner would be fabulous."

A question formed on her peanut butter lips. She lowered her blueberry eyes. I sat up, my heart palpitating. My guts ached. Get it over with, I thought. Ask your question and crush me. You know I'm a bug. I'm not worthy of you, so end this quickly, gently. I will say I understand and politely return to my pickled plight.

"I'll be in the dungeon. Come inside in a while," she said. "Dinner will be waiting."

She left. I lay back and studied the green sky. I had done that. I was responsible for that. I had turned the sky green and killed a few pancakes, but even in my evil ways, I was better than these pancakes. I cared whether I was doing right or wrong. I deliberated every word and action. Happy pancakes cared as little about the moralistic value of their actions as sad pickles, perhaps even less.

*

Dinner was the same as the night before. It was only our second night together, but I got the impression that Fanny Fod could only make one thing. Granted, pancakes and maple beer were the best things ever. Even so, I wondered how long it would be before I would tire of the monotony. The best things must get old at some point. I might even start craving brine chowder, for the sole sake of variation.

It was weird. We were totally meant for each other and we'd had such a great time last night, but neither of us seemed to feel much like being around each other right now. A nervous energy charged the air. It was apparent that we both had things to say to each other.

"You haven't touched your pancakes," I said.

"I feel full."

"How's the Cuddlywumpus?"

"You know that no one can ever find out about the Cuddlywumpus, right?" she said.
I shrugged innocently. "The cuddly what? You mean the Nothing in the dungeon?"

She smiled.

"I'm serious," she said.

"So how's the Cuddlywumpus?"
"Why are you so interested in the Cuddlywumpus?"

"Because I want to know this thing you love. I want to turn your love for the Cuddlywumpus inside out."

"I can't do this."

"Do what?"
"You were in the dungeon," she said. "While I was gone, you went down in the dungeon to see the Cuddlywumpus despite me specifically telling you not to do that. I told you that you were free to roam, but that if you cracked open the dungeon door even the slightest crack, you would not be welcome here. I threatened to kick you out. And you went and opened that door. You opened that door and you infected the Cuddlywumpus with your . . . well, you infected the Cuddlywumpus with yourself. So now I can't trust you in my castle."

I wanted to demand answers of my own. What was she doing keeping the poor thing locked up, milking it for all it was worth? Couldn't she at least provide the Cuddlywumpus a sunny room higher in the castle? But I was in no position to question her. She'd brought up her grievances first. Besides, this was her castle. Also, this was Pancake Island, not Pickled Planet. Arguing was probably taboo.

"Can you explain yourself?" she said.

I was festering. All my life, pickles had demanded explanations from me for the things I did. It was dangerous to try to explain what shouldn't be. It was better to be silent and let them think what they wanted.

"Well?" she said.

"Can we enjoy our dinner and talk afterward?" I said.

She lowered her head and picked up her glass and concerned herself with the beer. I took that as an affirmative. I had time to let my disjointed thoughts coagulate. Meanwhile, I turned my body over to my taste buds and gorged myself on pancakes and beer.

After dinner, Fanny and I went straight to bed. She did not check up on the Cuddlywumpus. She did not even speak its name. Fanny walked up the stairs in front of me, but I crawled into the big bed first. Like the night before, we gravitated toward the center. We wrapped our arms around each other. We wrapped our legs together. We could not have possibly been any closer. It was another greatest moment for me, but I felt that maybe it was not as great for her. Between the time I awoke and the time I noticed Fanny standing over me on the roof, something had changed. We were no longer the same pickle and pancake we had been the night before.

"I can't do this," she whispered.

She drifted off in my arms. No goodnight, no peanut butter kiss.

I fell into a dream about the faces. They tried to smother the zucchini castle. You will succeed, I said to them in the dream. You evil ones will succeed.

I did not want it to be true. I did not want the evil faces to succeed, because if they ever smothered me in my dreams, I would be lost forever. And now I had more than a dream to lose. I had Fanny Fod.

THE PICKLED APOCALYPSE

I awoke in shambles.

Fanny Fod writhed on the floor in a tangle of crepe blankets. Her blueberry eyes wobbled in their sockets. She was having a seizure.

"Fanny!" I said.

I took my skull in my hands. Shouting hurt my brain.