Chapter 48
The three of them sat there in silence, Squid feeling
stupider than ever. Why had he been so dumb as to feel
the need to find out who those figures from the red
truck were? Why had he stuck his head around the door
out of curiousity, just as they had been tiredly
clambered up the stairs? All these questions buzzed
around Squid's aching mind like a swarm of furious
bees as he sat there, glaring up at the two of them.
The silence went on...
"So..." Friction said slowly; extremely long silences
made her agitated.
Mr. Pendanski sighed. "So Alan," he said, finally
mustering up enough strength to interigate Squid, who
happened to be much taller and a lot more muscular
than little Pendanski. "Tell us everything; from the
moment you all left to right now."
Squid sat there in silence, contemplating exactly how
much he should tell these two councilors. The truth
was, he was wary and he still dizzy from his hangover,
a condition not fit for sitting there and telling
absolutely everything that had happened--even the
smaller events that had happened to D tent since they
had ran away could be written into an epic poem or a
HUGE saga. And plus, Squid could name many things that
had happened that were not for an adult's ears--things
he would never talk about in front of Mr. Pendanski.
Maybe Friction, but she was different; she was in her
early twenties and she still understood the life of a
teenager.
"Alan?" Mr. Pendanski urged.
Squid glanced darkly up at him, and then, thinking as
quickly as he could, peaced together a much shorter
story that seemed pretty believable.
"Well, we ran away that one night," he began. "Walked
for days, never found the girls, and in the end I got
separated from the others and ended up here."
Mr. Pendanski's jaw dropped as if to say, "That's it?
That's the what happened over the last month?"
"I see..." Mr. Pendanski finally said after a few more
moments of just staring in silence. "So tell us, Alan,
how'd you get separated from the other D tent boys?"
"I got in a fight," was the words that fell out of
Squid's mouth in an instant.
"Really?" Mr. Pendanski asked, sounding a tad bit
amused.
"Yes," Squid confirmed. "With X-ray. I was so mad I
raced off in one direction and they went in the
other."
Squid's eyes didn't leave Mr. Pendanski's who sat
there grinning, with a nervous looking Friction to his
right.
"So you have absolutely no idea where any of the
others are?" Mr. Pendanski asked, his eyebrows still
raised as if suspecting Squid to crack at any moment.
But Squid only shook his head in return.
"You mean you have no clue where any of the girls
are?!" Friction cried, looking close to hysterics.
Squid bit his lip when he finally broke down and
glanced into Friction's large, limpit eyes. He wanted
to tell her the girls were fine, he wanted to tell her
the guys were all there taking care of them, he EVEN
wanted to tell her that he was in love with Chase and
she loved him too-but he couldn't tell her anything,
not in front of Mr. Pendanski anyway. So instead Squid
just shook his head in sorrow.
Friction sat back glumly in her chair, her face
looking pouty and miserable.
"I'm sure they're all okay though," Squid said
quickly. "They're all strong and smart and everything,
they're fine I bet."
But Friction's expression didn't change. "Looks like
we'll have to keep looking for them," she grumbled.
"Oh God..." Mr. Pendanski groaned; he did look very
worn out. "Why can't we just give up already?"
"What?!" Friction cried, jumping to her feet in a
furious instant. "Give up? You're actually telling me
that you are willing to give up when there are
innocent lives on the line?"
"Sarah," Mr. Pendanski tried reasoning. "You can't
keep kidding yourself anymore."
"What?" Friction barely mouthed, looking on the verge
of tears as she stood there in all her anger and
stress.
"You know as well as I do that they couldn't possibly
still be alive; they've been gone for over a month,"
Mr. Pendanski said softly, but Squid, as he sat there
watching the whole fiasco, knew it hadn't been a very
smart thing to say.
"WHAT!?" Friction exploded, her voice vibrating about
the restaurant. "YOU THINK THEY'RE DEAD!!? YOU THINK
THERE'S NO CHANCE OF THEM BEING ALIVE? WELL SQUID WAS
GONE FOR OVER A MONTH AND HE'S AS HEALTHY AS A PEACH!
YOU THINK THEY'RE DEAD!?"
Squid would have liked to stick around to watch Mr.
Pendanski get pulvorized by Friction but he had to get
away. So while Friction stood there, screaming her
head off and Mr. Pendanski sat there looking like a
scared puppy with wrinkles, Squid slipped silently
from the table and hurried sniper-like to the front
door of the hotel. But just before he raced through
the glass double doors he paused to hear Mr. Pendanski
squeal, "Sorry?"
Laughing, Squid ran across the parking lot, and
through the night.
"We should probably be getting back to the hotel," Chase said. They weren't sure of the time but it seemed as if hours had passed since D tent had found the ledge overlooking the valleys of corn and it had already been a few peaceful minutes since they had spent their last firework.
But Chase, although she was feeling sleepy and surrounded by simple serenity, was beginning to worry about Squid. What if he woke up feeling terrible and had absolutely no one there to take care of him?
"Why?" Static asked sleepily. She was was leaning back against Zigzag as he held her in his arms. They both looked as if they were about to drift off into a peaceful sleep at any moment and Chase didn't have the heart to arouse them.
"I dunno," she said slowly. "I guess I just wanted to check in on Squid."
"Squid's a big boy," Armpit said with a yawn. "He can take care of himself."
Chase sighed, she never really liked it when Armpit discouraged her--no matter how tough she made herself look on the outside.
"Chase, if you wanna go back to the hotel and be with Squid then go right ahead," Fidget said as she slowly pulled a leaf apart.
"Yeah Chase," Zippy said, grinning. "If you want to be all ALONE in a seemingly empty hotel with Squid then no one's stopping you!" She winked at this last bit.
Chase rolled her eyes. "Oh shut up!" she groaned.
"Come on SpongeBob! You know you want to..."
Everyone stared at Zigzag, including Static who had quickly pried herself from his arms.
Zigzag stared silently back at everyone before beginning to rock solemnly back and forth singing 'Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star'. After a few minutes Static settled herself back against him and everyone returned to lying about in peace.
"Well," Chase said after a while of contemplating her desicion. "I guess I'm gonna head back now. I'm really tired."
"Sure you are," Magnetic said, snickering.
"Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer..." Zippy started to sing, rocking from side to side.
"Well, good bye," Chase said flatly before clambering shakily to her tired legs.
"Bye," Some of the others murmured as Chase tramped off into the darkness of the corn maze.
The journey back through the maze was much easier than the prying passage Chase and the others had taken earlier--whether it be because of Chase's new found knowlege of this mysterious corn maze or the fact that her eyes had now grown accustomed to this ever thickening darkness. Soon she found herself in the thicket at the side of the road and climbing out of it was just as easy as jumping into one.
Chase stumbled a bit blindly as she pulled herself up onto the road that led back to the hotel. She slumped tiredly towards the faint lights in the distance that she knew to be street lamps in the little town of Iris, completely unaware of anything but the deep silence that seemed to grasp the entire night in an icy fist.
All was silent, all was peacefully still, and Chase was just about there...
Chase would have screamed a horrific shriek that would have pierced all the peaceful silence about the night-if only someone hadn't smothered her mouth with a firm hand.
"Let go of me!" Chase tried to scream, as she pried herself away from this mysterious person.
"Chase! Chase, it's me!" a familiar voice said in Chase's ear.
A blind tangle in the dark, it took Chase a moment to realize that she was being held by Squid, there in the middle of the road.
"S-Squid?" Chase asked in bewilderment. Turning to stare at his shadowed face.
"Shh!" he said urgently. "Where are the others?"
"W-What's going on?" Chase stuttered. "What's wrong Squid?"
"It's Pendanski," Squid explained as quickly as he could. "He's at the hotel, we gotta get the others and leave!"
"Pendanski?" Chase asked again, now completely confused.
"Where are the others!?" Squid cried.
"On this ledge," Chase said. "At the end of a corn maze."
"Where? Take me to them!"
Chase stumbled blindly through the maze for the third time, her confusion weighing her down as Squid followed closely behind.
"This way," Chase said, turning off from the normal winding passage of the maze and racing along a path only carven about an hour before. "We're almost there!"
The path of broken corn stalks stretched on for a few minutes before the land opened up to a flat ledge that looked over miles and miles of fields and vegetation. The view was so beautiful that it caught Squid by surprise for a moment-at least until he remembered Pendanski and Friction dawning at their backs.
The others from D tent were all spread out over the ledge, dozing off to the peaceful sound of crickets somewhere in the valley below.
"COME ON!" Squid cried, running over to Armpit and kicking him in the side. "Wake up!"
"Wake up you guys!" Chase said, grabbing Zippy's shoulders and shaking her out of her sleep. She still wasn't positive about what was happening at the hotel but if Squid was so worried she thought she might try and help.
"What is it?" Zippy grumbled.
"Pendanski!" Chase said breathlessly. "Something about Pendanski! Just wake up!"
"Pendanski?" Static asked, rubbing her eyes. "What about Pendanski?"
"Wake up!" Squid said, kicking the other D tent boys awake in turn. "Pendanski's here! Come on! We gotta leave now!"
"He's here?" Lei asked, sitting up quickly. "Where? How?"
"What's going on?" Zero asked, furrowing his brow.
"Just wake up!" Squid said, pulling Zigzag to his feet. "We HAVE to go NOW!"
When everyone was half awake and confused enough Squid led the way back through the blundering passage as quickly as a herd of turtles can crawl to the sea.
"Last time I saw Pendanski he was being beat up by Friction in the hotel restaraunt," Squid said as he dodged a fallen branch sticking up out of the ground. "That's when I made a run for it. I have no idea where they could be now."
"Friction?" Lei asked. "You mean Friction's here?"
"Yeah," Squid said shortly.
"I wanna see Friction!" Fidget cried.
"No time," Squid said again as he raced out into the thicket, pulled himself up onto the road, and turned to help the others up as well. "We gotta get out of here now!"
"How are we gonna get out of here fast enough?" X-ray asked, refusing Squid's help and pulling himself up onto the road.
Squid's only plan had been to run, but now that he thought about it Mr. Pendanski and Friction would catch up to them in a second if they were in the red truck.
The red truck!
"I know a where we can steal a truck," Squid said quickly. "If we go NOW!"
Squid began to hurry down the road, back towards Iris, the others stumbling along behind him. He quickened his pace as he realized Pendanski and Friction may have already taken the truck in search of them. All he had now was hope.
He skirted a lamp post and raced towards the dirt parkinglot before the hotel, his spirits rising as he spotted the dark outline of a pick up truck in the distance.
"Hurry up!" he called back to the others, tailing behind.
When he reached the truck he faultered for a moment, making sure Pendanski and Friction were no where in sight.
"Ooh! I can take care of this!" Twitch said, climbing into the front seat as soon as he reached the truck with the others. Then, leaning under the steering wheel he yanked at one of the wires exposed beneath the grey plastic of the dash board.
"Come on," Squid said to Chase, as he jumped into the back of the truck. He held his arms up to pull her into the truck as well.
Fidget jumped into the passenger seat beside Twitch and immediately began bouncing excitedly up and down.
"I've never stolen a car before!" she said anxiously.
Twitch pulled at a second wire and the motor began to roar. "Well, there's a first time for-whoo!-everything I suppose!" he said grinning at Fidget.
Rogue climbed into the back seat of the truck-unsuspectedly followed by X- ray, and the others all jumped into the back of the truck along with Squid and Chase.
"What the hell?!" Mr. Pendanski cried, racing out of the hotel doors at hearing the sound of Friction's truck. The moment he spotted all of D tent sitting in the little red truck he nearly fell over in surprise. "What the- "
"DRIVE!" Squid yelled.
Twitch put the truck into drive immediately and began to drive as quickly as he could.
"Get back here!" Mr. Pendanski screamed, beginning to chase after it as it swerved out onto the road.
"YEE-HAW!" Zigzag shouted, as the truck zoomed off into the night and Mr. Pendanski shrunk back in the distance.
The three of them sat there in silence, Squid feeling
stupider than ever. Why had he been so dumb as to feel
the need to find out who those figures from the red
truck were? Why had he stuck his head around the door
out of curiousity, just as they had been tiredly
clambered up the stairs? All these questions buzzed
around Squid's aching mind like a swarm of furious
bees as he sat there, glaring up at the two of them.
The silence went on...
"So..." Friction said slowly; extremely long silences
made her agitated.
Mr. Pendanski sighed. "So Alan," he said, finally
mustering up enough strength to interigate Squid, who
happened to be much taller and a lot more muscular
than little Pendanski. "Tell us everything; from the
moment you all left to right now."
Squid sat there in silence, contemplating exactly how
much he should tell these two councilors. The truth
was, he was wary and he still dizzy from his hangover,
a condition not fit for sitting there and telling
absolutely everything that had happened--even the
smaller events that had happened to D tent since they
had ran away could be written into an epic poem or a
HUGE saga. And plus, Squid could name many things that
had happened that were not for an adult's ears--things
he would never talk about in front of Mr. Pendanski.
Maybe Friction, but she was different; she was in her
early twenties and she still understood the life of a
teenager.
"Alan?" Mr. Pendanski urged.
Squid glanced darkly up at him, and then, thinking as
quickly as he could, peaced together a much shorter
story that seemed pretty believable.
"Well, we ran away that one night," he began. "Walked
for days, never found the girls, and in the end I got
separated from the others and ended up here."
Mr. Pendanski's jaw dropped as if to say, "That's it?
That's the what happened over the last month?"
"I see..." Mr. Pendanski finally said after a few more
moments of just staring in silence. "So tell us, Alan,
how'd you get separated from the other D tent boys?"
"I got in a fight," was the words that fell out of
Squid's mouth in an instant.
"Really?" Mr. Pendanski asked, sounding a tad bit
amused.
"Yes," Squid confirmed. "With X-ray. I was so mad I
raced off in one direction and they went in the
other."
Squid's eyes didn't leave Mr. Pendanski's who sat
there grinning, with a nervous looking Friction to his
right.
"So you have absolutely no idea where any of the
others are?" Mr. Pendanski asked, his eyebrows still
raised as if suspecting Squid to crack at any moment.
But Squid only shook his head in return.
"You mean you have no clue where any of the girls
are?!" Friction cried, looking close to hysterics.
Squid bit his lip when he finally broke down and
glanced into Friction's large, limpit eyes. He wanted
to tell her the girls were fine, he wanted to tell her
the guys were all there taking care of them, he EVEN
wanted to tell her that he was in love with Chase and
she loved him too-but he couldn't tell her anything,
not in front of Mr. Pendanski anyway. So instead Squid
just shook his head in sorrow.
Friction sat back glumly in her chair, her face
looking pouty and miserable.
"I'm sure they're all okay though," Squid said
quickly. "They're all strong and smart and everything,
they're fine I bet."
But Friction's expression didn't change. "Looks like
we'll have to keep looking for them," she grumbled.
"Oh God..." Mr. Pendanski groaned; he did look very
worn out. "Why can't we just give up already?"
"What?!" Friction cried, jumping to her feet in a
furious instant. "Give up? You're actually telling me
that you are willing to give up when there are
innocent lives on the line?"
"Sarah," Mr. Pendanski tried reasoning. "You can't
keep kidding yourself anymore."
"What?" Friction barely mouthed, looking on the verge
of tears as she stood there in all her anger and
stress.
"You know as well as I do that they couldn't possibly
still be alive; they've been gone for over a month,"
Mr. Pendanski said softly, but Squid, as he sat there
watching the whole fiasco, knew it hadn't been a very
smart thing to say.
"WHAT!?" Friction exploded, her voice vibrating about
the restaurant. "YOU THINK THEY'RE DEAD!!? YOU THINK
THERE'S NO CHANCE OF THEM BEING ALIVE? WELL SQUID WAS
GONE FOR OVER A MONTH AND HE'S AS HEALTHY AS A PEACH!
YOU THINK THEY'RE DEAD!?"
Squid would have liked to stick around to watch Mr.
Pendanski get pulvorized by Friction but he had to get
away. So while Friction stood there, screaming her
head off and Mr. Pendanski sat there looking like a
scared puppy with wrinkles, Squid slipped silently
from the table and hurried sniper-like to the front
door of the hotel. But just before he raced through
the glass double doors he paused to hear Mr. Pendanski
squeal, "Sorry?"
Laughing, Squid ran across the parking lot, and
through the night.
"We should probably be getting back to the hotel," Chase said. They weren't sure of the time but it seemed as if hours had passed since D tent had found the ledge overlooking the valleys of corn and it had already been a few peaceful minutes since they had spent their last firework.
But Chase, although she was feeling sleepy and surrounded by simple serenity, was beginning to worry about Squid. What if he woke up feeling terrible and had absolutely no one there to take care of him?
"Why?" Static asked sleepily. She was was leaning back against Zigzag as he held her in his arms. They both looked as if they were about to drift off into a peaceful sleep at any moment and Chase didn't have the heart to arouse them.
"I dunno," she said slowly. "I guess I just wanted to check in on Squid."
"Squid's a big boy," Armpit said with a yawn. "He can take care of himself."
Chase sighed, she never really liked it when Armpit discouraged her--no matter how tough she made herself look on the outside.
"Chase, if you wanna go back to the hotel and be with Squid then go right ahead," Fidget said as she slowly pulled a leaf apart.
"Yeah Chase," Zippy said, grinning. "If you want to be all ALONE in a seemingly empty hotel with Squid then no one's stopping you!" She winked at this last bit.
Chase rolled her eyes. "Oh shut up!" she groaned.
"Come on SpongeBob! You know you want to..."
Everyone stared at Zigzag, including Static who had quickly pried herself from his arms.
Zigzag stared silently back at everyone before beginning to rock solemnly back and forth singing 'Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star'. After a few minutes Static settled herself back against him and everyone returned to lying about in peace.
"Well," Chase said after a while of contemplating her desicion. "I guess I'm gonna head back now. I'm really tired."
"Sure you are," Magnetic said, snickering.
"Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer..." Zippy started to sing, rocking from side to side.
"Well, good bye," Chase said flatly before clambering shakily to her tired legs.
"Bye," Some of the others murmured as Chase tramped off into the darkness of the corn maze.
The journey back through the maze was much easier than the prying passage Chase and the others had taken earlier--whether it be because of Chase's new found knowlege of this mysterious corn maze or the fact that her eyes had now grown accustomed to this ever thickening darkness. Soon she found herself in the thicket at the side of the road and climbing out of it was just as easy as jumping into one.
Chase stumbled a bit blindly as she pulled herself up onto the road that led back to the hotel. She slumped tiredly towards the faint lights in the distance that she knew to be street lamps in the little town of Iris, completely unaware of anything but the deep silence that seemed to grasp the entire night in an icy fist.
All was silent, all was peacefully still, and Chase was just about there...
Chase would have screamed a horrific shriek that would have pierced all the peaceful silence about the night-if only someone hadn't smothered her mouth with a firm hand.
"Let go of me!" Chase tried to scream, as she pried herself away from this mysterious person.
"Chase! Chase, it's me!" a familiar voice said in Chase's ear.
A blind tangle in the dark, it took Chase a moment to realize that she was being held by Squid, there in the middle of the road.
"S-Squid?" Chase asked in bewilderment. Turning to stare at his shadowed face.
"Shh!" he said urgently. "Where are the others?"
"W-What's going on?" Chase stuttered. "What's wrong Squid?"
"It's Pendanski," Squid explained as quickly as he could. "He's at the hotel, we gotta get the others and leave!"
"Pendanski?" Chase asked again, now completely confused.
"Where are the others!?" Squid cried.
"On this ledge," Chase said. "At the end of a corn maze."
"Where? Take me to them!"
Chase stumbled blindly through the maze for the third time, her confusion weighing her down as Squid followed closely behind.
"This way," Chase said, turning off from the normal winding passage of the maze and racing along a path only carven about an hour before. "We're almost there!"
The path of broken corn stalks stretched on for a few minutes before the land opened up to a flat ledge that looked over miles and miles of fields and vegetation. The view was so beautiful that it caught Squid by surprise for a moment-at least until he remembered Pendanski and Friction dawning at their backs.
The others from D tent were all spread out over the ledge, dozing off to the peaceful sound of crickets somewhere in the valley below.
"COME ON!" Squid cried, running over to Armpit and kicking him in the side. "Wake up!"
"Wake up you guys!" Chase said, grabbing Zippy's shoulders and shaking her out of her sleep. She still wasn't positive about what was happening at the hotel but if Squid was so worried she thought she might try and help.
"What is it?" Zippy grumbled.
"Pendanski!" Chase said breathlessly. "Something about Pendanski! Just wake up!"
"Pendanski?" Static asked, rubbing her eyes. "What about Pendanski?"
"Wake up!" Squid said, kicking the other D tent boys awake in turn. "Pendanski's here! Come on! We gotta leave now!"
"He's here?" Lei asked, sitting up quickly. "Where? How?"
"What's going on?" Zero asked, furrowing his brow.
"Just wake up!" Squid said, pulling Zigzag to his feet. "We HAVE to go NOW!"
When everyone was half awake and confused enough Squid led the way back through the blundering passage as quickly as a herd of turtles can crawl to the sea.
"Last time I saw Pendanski he was being beat up by Friction in the hotel restaraunt," Squid said as he dodged a fallen branch sticking up out of the ground. "That's when I made a run for it. I have no idea where they could be now."
"Friction?" Lei asked. "You mean Friction's here?"
"Yeah," Squid said shortly.
"I wanna see Friction!" Fidget cried.
"No time," Squid said again as he raced out into the thicket, pulled himself up onto the road, and turned to help the others up as well. "We gotta get out of here now!"
"How are we gonna get out of here fast enough?" X-ray asked, refusing Squid's help and pulling himself up onto the road.
Squid's only plan had been to run, but now that he thought about it Mr. Pendanski and Friction would catch up to them in a second if they were in the red truck.
The red truck!
"I know a where we can steal a truck," Squid said quickly. "If we go NOW!"
Squid began to hurry down the road, back towards Iris, the others stumbling along behind him. He quickened his pace as he realized Pendanski and Friction may have already taken the truck in search of them. All he had now was hope.
He skirted a lamp post and raced towards the dirt parkinglot before the hotel, his spirits rising as he spotted the dark outline of a pick up truck in the distance.
"Hurry up!" he called back to the others, tailing behind.
When he reached the truck he faultered for a moment, making sure Pendanski and Friction were no where in sight.
"Ooh! I can take care of this!" Twitch said, climbing into the front seat as soon as he reached the truck with the others. Then, leaning under the steering wheel he yanked at one of the wires exposed beneath the grey plastic of the dash board.
"Come on," Squid said to Chase, as he jumped into the back of the truck. He held his arms up to pull her into the truck as well.
Fidget jumped into the passenger seat beside Twitch and immediately began bouncing excitedly up and down.
"I've never stolen a car before!" she said anxiously.
Twitch pulled at a second wire and the motor began to roar. "Well, there's a first time for-whoo!-everything I suppose!" he said grinning at Fidget.
Rogue climbed into the back seat of the truck-unsuspectedly followed by X- ray, and the others all jumped into the back of the truck along with Squid and Chase.
"What the hell?!" Mr. Pendanski cried, racing out of the hotel doors at hearing the sound of Friction's truck. The moment he spotted all of D tent sitting in the little red truck he nearly fell over in surprise. "What the- "
"DRIVE!" Squid yelled.
Twitch put the truck into drive immediately and began to drive as quickly as he could.
"Get back here!" Mr. Pendanski screamed, beginning to chase after it as it swerved out onto the road.
"YEE-HAW!" Zigzag shouted, as the truck zoomed off into the night and Mr. Pendanski shrunk back in the distance.