Chapter 52: Scavenger Hunt
The thing about food is, the more something is processed, the less you can really taste what it is you're eating. Sometimes this is bad, like when you overcook vegetables until they're basically flavorless mush. Growing up with chefs for parents, I learned pretty quickly that it wasn't vegetables that were the enemy, it was the way they were prepared. If you make them the right way, the natural flavors are enhanced.
Of course, it works the other way. Like when you're warped to a parallel universe that doesn't have cows or pigs, and where the chickens are more likely to eat you than the other way around, so your best bet for protein is worms and bugs. I'm well aware that back on earth, there are cultures that regularly eat that kind of thing, but if you're not used to it, the thought is repulsive. But, take a beetle, and grind its meat up, and you're left with something that tastes a lot like something between beef and pork.
I was thinking this as I sank my teeth into the Quarter-Pound Beetle-Burger at Matt's Newtopian Bistro. Correctly assuming that the fam could use a good meal after a month on the road with dwindling rations, Marcy'd taken us there on her (apparently being Head Ranger of the Knight Guard came with a pretty nice stipend). We were just finishing up when an arrow whistled past us and hit the wall of the restaurant. I don't know… have I gotten too used to this sort of thing happening? I feel like I have.
Anyway, this arrow wasn't a weapon, it was a message (gotta get creative when you haven't invented texting yet). It contained the first clue of some kind of puzzle scavenger hunt; apparently this is just something the King does on the regular to send Marcy messages. Seems, I dunno needlessly complicated to me, but I guess a king gotta have his fun somehow, am I right?
So, don't get me wrong… I love puzzles. And most of the time, I'm pretty good at them. But the funny thing is, whenever I'm around Marcy, it feels like my IQ drops down to the single digits. It's like… she's so smart that my brain convinces itself that it's not needed. When she isn't in the picture, Super Stacker master champion. When she is? Me Anne. Me not make think good.
And it was clear that it wasn't going to be much different this time, since Marcy immediately knew where to go the second she looked at the clue.
At least I got to see this place!
[drawing of the coral forest]
The Coral Forest comes in all the colors of the rainbow… at least the ones that coral comes in. They look like plants, but according to Marcy (and apparently the biology textbook that I never paid attention to) they're actually the cast-off exoskeletons of a jellyfish relative.
They're beautiful, but we weren't here for sightseeing. We were here to solve a puzzle and find the nest clue. The tree had two eyes, with only one open. Of course, my brilliant mind told me that the solution was to listen to trees. Can you imagine? Needless to say, I was waaaay off. Marcy, naturally figured out that it was actually pointing to a nearby statue of a newt looking through a telescope. Get it? You look through with one eye? Yeah, feeling dumb right now…
It doesn't help that I get so easily distracted! Like, right after Marcy solved the first clue, I got sidetracked trying to help this little girl get her caterpillar out of a tree, so I didn't really have time to fully think about the second clue… not that it would have helped, it was just a picture of a fly and a four-headed arrow with the letter W. I stared at the stupid thing trying to pull some meaning out of it, but it just sat there mocking me. I ran off to see if anyone else could help; this was Newtopia, right? A whole city full of scholars! And it just got me distracted yet again. I wound up talking to this old lady for like half an hour. In my defense, Doris lived a pretty interesting life. Three husbands, two wives, a couple of those at the same time… she'd traveled the world, been an archaeologist a pirate and the CEO, of a major corporation. Are all the old ladies in Amphibia this cool? Are all the ones back home? Maybe I need to rethink the Ba train…
But in the meantime, Marcy had already solved the second puzzle… somehow, a fly and the letter W had led her to some random brick in some random brick wall. See, this is what I'm saying; her brain is on some other level far beyond what mine operates at. So at this point, I'm feeling pretty down about myself. And it wasn't exactly helping that the next location was the big bridge in the middle of Newtopia… that had a huge statue of Marcy on it… and was named after her… because she's the one who designed it.
This was what I was dealing with. My best friend designs bridges. Meanwhile, me Anne. Me make fire. Me bash head with club.
I pretty much couldn't take it anymore. I just needed to be anywhere but there. So I wandered off, and wound up helping this gnatcho vendor wrangle her trays. Gertie gave me an order on the house, which suited me just fine. Nothing better than eating your feelings when they're coated in hot cheese.
We got to talking, and it turns out she has this whole imposter syndrome complex too. I guess it's even worse when you're a regular dummy surrounded by thousands of geniuses instead of just one. She confided to me that the secret fitting in was to fake being smart, which, I guess if it works for her…
When I got back to Sprig and Marcy, they were stumped by the third clue, a triangle with some little wheel thing drawn on it. And… well, Gertie would be proud at the stream of complete BS I rattled off, which is how we wound up in the sewer system. And for a moment, I thought I had somehow actually stumbled onto the right track, because we found a wheel down there that kinda looked like the one on the clue. Maybe this whole "fake it" thing really did work.
What I didn't take into account was that the sewer system was yet another thing that Marcy had designed (dang, she's been busy. Meanwhile I spent three months learning sitcom lessons and chasing Swamp Bigfoot), and that her improvements amounted to "get a bunch of live alligators to eat the trash, but don't teach them to distinguish between trash and people" (but then, it was my brilliant idea to come down here in the first place). Solving the puzzle was on hold. We needed to run for our lives now.
We found an access to the surface, but the manhole cover was too heavy for us to budge. I thought we were pretty much done for when I heard a familiar voice from up above. In my first real lucky break today, Gertie's route just happened to pass by this particular manhole. With her help we were able to pry the cover off, but the gator grabbed hold of us and now we had a different problem. It took the help of Gertie, Hop Pop, Polly, Doris, and the little girl from before to pull us out… coincidentally, all the people I'd gotten distracted helping or talking to before. Almost a cartoonish level of contrivance if you think about it too much, but I've been overthinking things all day.
The upshot, though, was that "faking it had gotten us no closer to solving anything and nearly turned us into gator chow. And to make matters worse, Sprig happened to blurt out how I feel jealous of Marcy's intelligence. Thanks for that.
Marcy admitted something to me, then. That she feels jealous that I'm good at making friends and talking to people. Which… really, I've never even thought about.
Come to think of it… did Marcy really have any other friends back home, besides me and Sasha? I never remember her hanging out with anyone else. And she was in a lot of clubs… but she was also the only member of a lot of them. I wasn't close to a lot of people either, but at least I was on a speaking basis with a lot of them.
I guess being able to relate to people is a kind of smarts too…
Well, I'd had a major epiphany about myself, but that didn't get us any closer to solving the puzzle. And on top of it, I'd never gotten to eat my gnatchos. Luckily Sprig got a fresh batch. And then… I saw it.
A triangle with a little wheel… except it wasn't a wheel. I was a slice of jalapeño on a gnatcho chip!
Sure enough, the final clue was under the order of Gnatchos, and the message was "BRING ME THE PLANTARS".
…kind of anticlimactic if you ask me, I mean, that was pretty much why we were here anyway, isn't it?
Huh… I guess I didn't really need to be a genius to solve this puzzle, did I? All I needed was a bit of… Anne-tuition.
…ugh. No. That's terrible. Let's not ever again.
A.N.: Jose: Yep.
Ashley: Actually, they've taken so long because I've been kinda slacking off on the writing with the holidays approaching. I don't know when I'm gonna do another Sasha and the Resistance chapter. Was the scribbled out word "cute"? I'm not telling!
RJ: Does anyone not love Marcy? Is such a thing even possible?
Next: The Plantars Check In
