The Brilliantly Rainbowed Adventure

- Chapter 43 -
Crystal Blue Persuasion

        We landed in the clean, refreshing, crystal-blue waters of the big lake that was due south of the Servants Entrance. There was a patch of deep water near the shore of that lake, and that's where we went in, one after another, like hairy little bombs dropping into the cool depths.
        I remember hitting the water and going down and down and down so far, so deep, that it must have taken me thirty seconds to swim back to the surface. Billy said later that he got stuck in the bottom of the lake and was towed out by a friendly manatee, but we didn't pay him any mind.
        After swimming back up to the surface, we swam to the shore and collapsed there, totally spent. We were like a pod of strange dolphins that had followed their leader onto a sandbar and now had to face the sun and the tourists, but we weren't ready for it yet.
        "You know," opined Frogstick. "We're like we're a bunch of weird whales that have followed their leader onto a patch of sand."
        "I was just thinking that," I said suspiciously. "Or something like it."
        "Me, too," squeaked Slug.
        "Me, three," squawked Stink.
        "Even I," stammered Billy.
        "Strange," offered Egghead, lifting his eyebrows. "Perhaps our readers are sharing a moment with us." I would have made fun of him right now, but I was afraid to. Ever since the rocket shot out of his head there on the Whopping Big C, I'd been sort of shy about making fun of his Fantastic Fiction Theory.
        The brand new Great Florida World Crater was smoking nearby, just north of the lake. It was a comforting sight. The complex had collapsed from the center out to the borders, chasing the security folks out just in time. Even the perimeter fences had fallen into the edges of the hole, but the woods surrounding it had been spared, which was good news to us.
        We were anxious to avoid the crush of reporters and rubberneckers who would surely be coming to try and analyze and explain to one another the meaning of the new Florida World Crater, showing the whole majestic spectacle to a world-weary nation on the evening news. To avoid the crush, we hiked toward the far side of the lake. The lake was a big one. It took us about five hours to reach the southern shore, but it was smooth going on the white sand beach. We stopped along the way to eat lunch out of the very same backpack that Zeb had so faithfully toted since the beginning of our trip.
        Along about this time a debate began about the possibility having a steak dinner at the expense of Steerius, the Wonder Cow. But Zeb would have none of it, so we settled for fritters and jitters fried in peanut oil. Actually, it wasn't half bad, to tell you the truth.
        Finally, we slogged up to a likely looking campsite on the southern shore: a place where a small green meadow came down to a pretty little beach. We decided to pitch our camp there, and that's what we did.
        Well sir, the Old Coot showed up, much to our surprise. He had ditched us at the Servant's Entrance when things got Froggy, sort of slipping away from the hubbub (the ubiquitous pub full of blub that characterized Florida World before its fall). From our beach, we could see a huge column of smoke that was still rolling up in the clear autumn sky. The distant helicopters looked like dragonflies buzzing a campfire.
        The Old Coot drove his old Jallop' right up there to that white sand beach. He had brought fishing poles and a trotline, and he had Mozart playing on his MP3 player. He put his speakers up on the top of his car so we could all groove to his happening sounds.
        Our little band of misfits was united once again. We were as happy as a bunch of slugs in the sun, and even the birds seemed to know it, and to enjoy it.
        We had heard the full story of Frogstick's Adventures in Blunderland during the walk around the lake. He had heard a considerable piece of our own story, too. We all agreed that we had enjoyed some fine adventures.
        "I wouldn't take nothin' for it," said Frogstick. "Now that it's over."
        We were all itching to get to next weekend's big Firemen's Frolic, back in our hometown of Gutchinville. We figured that we'd be the stars of the show with the stories of our hair-raising escapades. Of course, they were mighty scary while they were happening, and we were sweating it to get out of them more than once. But now we were starting to forget that fact. Adventures are like that. They're best after they're over. When they're going on you don't have time to really enjoy the misery proper-like, but after an adventure, you sort of stand at a distance and squint, and then you can see clearly how grand it was all the while, only you didn't notice it at the time, because you were sweating it, like I said.
        We were all real happy with the way that things had worked out. We may have been the last folks to get out of Florida World alive, but at least we had made it, and we were mighty relieved about that. In fact, we were ready to brag on our survival to all the world, even though we wouldn't have made it without considerable help from our author and our canny readers, who are undoubtedly both brilliant and patient to have read this much of the fantastic Fictional Adventure that Egghead keeps harping about.
        Along about sunset, the massive column of smoke rising from the Great Florida World Crater seemed to become less ominous. The borders of the smoky column were tinged with a brilliant shade of gold, and rays of light, reflecting throughout the cloud of boiling vapors, splayed outward from the core in every direction. They were electric darts of light; molten arrows of light; shot by an unseen atmospheric archer straight through the flaming sky. We were all dazzled enough to forget about our nightmarish morning in the plastic jungle of Florida World. How ironic it was that the consumption of that lair of pinstriped dragons should be so fitting, and yet so fair to look upon!
        Pretty soon it was dark. We all sat around the fire finishing a dinner of fried bluegills and hushpuppies with a side order of Cobb salad. We were all real quiet.
        As we looked up into the sky, we saw the first thin crescent of the new moon. Then, far, far away, high in the uttermost reaches of the stratosphere, a marvel passed though the darkened sky. Right before our eyes, a tiny, ultra-black dot slowly traversed the heavens, in obvious orbit around the earth. Whenever it passed in front of a star the starlight expanded or contracted crazily, pulled, as it were, by this heavy, lightless magnet.
        "A neutron star," breathed Egghead.
        "A black hole?" asked Billy skeptically, "In orbit?"
        "Heavy hump of giveless suction drank the dark until he birthed," rapped Zeb. "He blew his cool with high degrees, and fled the yawning bonds of earth."
        "He's saying it's Professor Nemo up there," I translated.
        "Nemo!" Egghead gasped. "That's it!"
        "What?" asked Frogstick.
        "What?" asked Stink.
        "Wheat?" asked Slug.
        "Not wheat, you varlet, what!" cried Billy in great distress, "Oh, does not the fair earth groan beneath the bulk of this so great a fool?" He wrung his hands comically as he spoke.
        "Of course!" recried Egg.
        "What?" asked Frogstick.
        "What?" asked Stink.
        "Desist!" howled Billy, "Let him tell us!"
        "It's a negative apotheosis," exclaimed Egghead, as if that cleared things up.
        "Say what?" glopped Froggy.
        "The classical exaltation of the heroic figure into a shining heavenly body has been accomplished in reverse," explained Egghead. "Professor Nemo, the puffed-up champion of analogical billingsgate, has been anathematized. He's been rendered into a heavenly warning: a light-sucking stain revolving indecorously in an otherwise pristine sky. It is," opined Eggy, "a relatively new twist on a hoary trick-of-the-trade."
        I wondered in a big way at the unusual sight wobbling above us in the sky. But, as Egghead says, life is not to worry about when you're just a figment in the imaginations of so many readers, so I scratched my head and turned away. As I did, I suddenly craved a Fizzies, and I felt fantastic!
        Our strange adventure seemed to be drawing to an even stranger conclusion. How was this tiny neutron star maintaining an orbit around the earth? What permutations of logic allowed for this possibility? Why was I thinking these thoughts? My mind boggled, and then it went and boggled some more. Then we all straggled up from the beach to the camp, bone tired and ready to go to sleep.