Flotsam Page 5

  Amy laughed. “They probably would, if they got the chance, but mostly they think you’ve got chicken slop in that bucket, and they're waiting for you to dump it.”

  Brier frowned. “But I already dumped the grain out. Don’t they know that there’s no slop in the bucket?”

  “They’re just chickens They have a brain the size of a mosquito.”

  Brier gave the chickens an evil look. “Ha, ha,” he laughed. “Hey, chickens. You had better watch out. You look at me like that, again, and I’ll make a fried chicken sandwich out of you.” He bravely parted the chickens with his famous karate chop, glad that it wasn’t a totally useless move.

  “Now what?” Brier asked, folding his arms.

  “We gather the eggs.”

  “You gather eggs?” Brier asked, “How do you gather eggs? I don’t suppose the chickens lay their eggs in an egg carton, and you just pick up the carton and you’re done?”

  “Brier, you’re funny, you know that?” Amy walked into the chicken coop, but stopped, remembering something important. “Brier, actually, you might want to skip egg gathering. There’s a leghorn rooster in here. He’s so mean. Mr. Heckler calls him Scrooge. He likes to attack people when their backs are turned. I’m even scared of him.”

  Brier looked around carefully, making sure that no rooster was coming to attack him. “Hmm, I don’t know. Maybe I’ll just stand by the door, and if you need any help I’ll come, and rescue you. He poked his head in the chicken coop. “Pew, it stinks.”

  Amy smiled, and crinkled up her nose. “You’re right, it does stink.” She walked bravely into the coop, not really cherishing the idea of gathering eggs. The hens were usually moody; they would peck her hands and loudly voice their disapproval when she reached into the nesting box to take the eggs. One chicken, in particular, had five eggs underneath her, and the chicken thought it was horrible of Amy to steal them.

  “Watch out!” Brier suddenly cried. “The rooster!”

  Before Amy knew what had happened, the rooster whizzed over to Amy, jumped on her pant leg, and started pecking at her jeans. Its head feathers were fluffed out in fight mode, like an opened umbrella.

  Amy kicked, but the evil white rooster held on and flapped its wings furiously. Amy kicked harder, and the eggs she had just collected fell from her pockets and splattered onto the ground. Then the hens jumped up from their nest and ran to devour the broken eggs, like cannibals.

  Amy screeched, and kicked harder. She often thought of Scrooge as an icon of the devil: small, mean, red eyes, no brain, and always picking at things, making them think that they are smaller, when in reality he was the midget.

  Amy kicked one more time, launching the rooster into orbit for about a second. When he landed on the ground, he was hardly fazed.

  “Stupid chicken! Amy said, kicking the rooster, only to have it come back for another attack.

  Brier summed up his courage, ran to Amy’s aid, and kicked scrooge into orbit again. He chuckled at his bravery. “If the animal rights people could only see me now.”

  When Scrooge landed, his red eyes zeroed in on Brier like a guided missile. It scared Brier so bad that he stood up suddenly and conked his head on the roof of the chicken coop. “Oh, ouch! That hurt.”

  Scrooge tried killing Brier’s pants and shoes, pecking and scratching at them. “Get off me!” Brier shook his leg, trying to vibrate the rooster off. “Chicken’s don’t have teeth do they?” He asked Amy.

  Amy shook her head. “No they don’t have teeth, Brier. Otherwise our pants would be shredded by now.”

  Brier howled in pain “Ouuuuuuch! If roosters don’t have teeth, what did I just feel?”

  “I’m sorry,” Amy said, “sometimes a beak can feel as sharp as a tooth.”

  “What are we going to do?” Brier moaned. “I can’t live with this flesh-eating rooster attacking my leg forever.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ve got it,” Amy said, bending down and grabbing the rooster with both hands. The rooster kicked, screeched, and flapped wildly. “Hold still, you dang creature,” she cried, tossing it up into the air. The rooster hit the ground a few feet away, looked at them in distain, turned round and strutted the other way.

  “Possessed, rooster,” Brier murmured, walking a safe distance away from the rooster.

  “You know,” Amy said, “since you’re in a chicken- hating mood, how do you feel about throwing some rotten eggs?”

  “Yuck, rotten eggs? Why in the world would you want to throw them?”

  “Why? Because it’s fun. That’s why. And it just so happens that I know where a whole bunch of rotten eggs are.”

  Brier shook his head.

  “Dude, Amy. You can find anything in the world, and you choose to find rotten eggs? You really must get bored here. Cuz that’s the strangest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “Come on,” Amy said, beckoning Brier to follow her to an old abandoned shed, where nothing resided except spiders and mice. “I promise. It will be lots of fun.”

  “Yeah,” Brier muttered. “Lots of fun.” He stopped and stared at the shed Amy had just disappeared into. It looked like it had been through a tornado. Similar to the chicken coop, the shed had been there so long that it had become a wooden fossil, like a Jurassic dinosaur, with only its barest bones of wood left, petrified into the ground.

  He walked into the shed and looked around. Amy bumped into him and she let out a shriek. “Careful! I’ve got rotten eggs in my pocket.”

  Brier jumped back, a horrified look on his face. “Oh, that was close.”

  Amy nodded. “Yeah, it was. Would you be kind enough to hold your shirt out, so you can carry a few of these eggs? I can’t hold them all on my own.”

  “You’re crazy, Amy, if you think I’m going to hold rotten eggs next to my body.”

  “Brier, just do it.”

  Brier frowned. “Fine. I’ll do it. But if one pops while it’s in my shirt, you will hear about this.”

  Brier reluctantly lifted his shirt, basket style, and Amy gently placed seven very rotten eggs into it.

  “Pew, they sort of stink, Are you sure they won’t explode on me before we can throw them?”

  Amy was too busy looking for eggs to answer. The barn was full of cracks and crannies that the hens liked to use as nests. Amy peeped into a spot that was usually full of eggs. The nest was behind an old kitchen sink that Mr. Heckler used as a hay manger.

  “I found the jackpot!” Amy exclaimed, carefully filling her pockets with the old eggs. Brier walked over to Amy, and she deposited eight more eggs into his expanding shirt.

  Brier looked disgustedly at them. His shirt looked like it had stretched to the maximum. “Amy, I don’t know if I can handle this many rotten eggs.” He looked at Amy for sympathy, but she looked bulgy herself. Her pockets looked like they held gigantic jellybeans.

  Amy patted the side of her pockets gently. “I think we have enough.”

  “Ya think?”

  They started out the door, when Brier stopped, and gasped. There was a loud popping sound in Brier’s shirt, and then a terrible smell filled the air. Brier’s eyes grew wide. “Amy,” he gasped. “I think one just popped in my shirt.”

  Without thinking, Brier let the whole bunch of eggs drop to the ground. They exploded like a host of stink bombs, their milky-green-yellow centers oozing with a gaseous smell.

  “Brier, you dork!” Amy cried. “You just broke them all. Move! Get out of here! Before we die.

  Brier held his breath, and waved his hands to disperse the terrible smell. He gagged. “Air! I need air!” They quickly ran out of the shed to escape from the gaseous smell that held them prisoner.

  “I can’t believe we’re still alive.” Brier looked at his gooey shirt. “I warned you Amy. But you didn’t listen.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s the risk you took when you held out your shirt.”

  “Sorry doesn’t cut it. I’m going to stink for a week. Look at my shirt.”

  “Here, tak
e it off, and we’ll wash it with the hose.”

  “What about your plan to throw rotten eggs? You’re still carrying some.”

  “Oh, forget it, we’ll do something else.” Amy placed the rotten eggs she had gathered, carefully behind an old tire, while Brier rinsed out his shirt.

  “Does it smell any better?” Amy asked, watching as Brier put his wet shirt back on.

  “Yeah. Some. Just the idea of rot being close to my skin is nasty.”

  “So…” Amy wondered, “do you still want to do something?”

  “Does it involve exploding shells of puke?”

  “No. It sort of a to-do list?”

  “A to-do list? What do you mean?

  “It’s a more of a To-Find list. Mr. Heckler gave it to me. Says it’s a test, to see if I can find something really big for him.”

  Brier’s eyes lit up with curiosity. “Mr. Heckler wants you to find something big? Now that sounds like fun. Can I bring my camera?”

  “Bring whatever. But if we find anything, don’t show any pictures you take, to The Crab Apple Chronicle. I don’t want to be exploited by every gold digger in town.”

  “Promise,” Brier agreed. “No exploiting.”

  Chapter Eight

  ---Mr. Locksley---

  Brier looked at the list and read aloud, “Find ole’ outlaw Leatherspur’s lost lightning treasure.” Brier looked up, with a funny expression on his face. “Treasure,” he murmured. “So do you know where it’s at?”

  Amy shrugged. “I’m not sure.”

  “What? You're not sure. I thought finding things was easy for you.”

  “It is. Most of the time. But a lost treasure is a little tricky.”

  “Tricky as in...?”

  “Confusing.”

  “How could it be confusing?”

  “Well, to be honest, I’ve never really looked for treasure before. Even if I did try to find it, there are hundreds of acres of mountain and fields to look over.”

  “You’ve never found treasure before? Come on.”

  “Well,” Amy tried, “I did find a gold coin, once.”

  “Hmm… seems as if you dearly need somebody to help you along. With your skills, you could have been a millionaire by now. Gosh, I can’t believe the secret service didn’t pick you up a long time ago.”

  Amy frowned. “Well. I’m glad they didn’t. What kind of life would that be?”

  “Probably better than the one you have now.”

  “Maybe.”

  Brier looked at Amy impatiently. “So, are you going to do your thing and try to find it?”

  “Yeah,” Amy sighed. “I guess.” She closed her eyes, concentrating all her thoughts on finding the outlaws lost treasure. The image that popped into her head was fuzzy, and distorted. Pictures of a No-Trespassing Sign, and a very dark place filled her mind with glimpses of glimmering pieces of gold.

  “Do you see it?” Brier asked.

  “I think so. It’s kind of blurry.”

  “What did you see?”

  Amy rubbed her eyes, and shrugged. “It’s somewhere dark. There’s a No-Trespassing sign, and a big mountain.”

  “Hmmm,” Brier murmured. “I know of a few No- Trespassing signs. Come to my house and I’ll get my camera and my new bike. You can use my old bike, and we’ll start looking.”

  Soon, Brier and Amy were on the road, checking out every No Trespassing-Sign they found. But at each one, Amy shook her head. When she was in the right place she would know, because her body would begin to get warm. Without warning, a horn blared, and brakes screeched behind them.

  Amy stopped her bike suddenly, and looked back. What she saw made her feel sick to her stomach. Flotsam was standing in the middle of the road looking innocent and oblivious. Black skid marks told Amy why an expensive-looking red truck was stopped in a barrow pit at the side of the road.

  The truck door opened and out stepped a strange man wearing a girly-looking flowered Hawaiian tank-top, and tight wranglers. His bulging muscles made it seem as if he had eaten from Popeye’s magic spinach can all of his life. He had stringy black hair. His eyes were yellow and set far back in his head, with large, dark bags underneath them. His skin looked leathery and hard, as if it had been tough from babyhood.

  Before Amy had time to fully take in the sight of the strange-looking man, Tristan and his thugs jumped out of the back of the truck, and hovered behind him, like black flies around an ugly carcass.

  “I should have run you over,” the man shouted, shaking a fist at the fawn. “You darn-upside-down-Picasso-painting-of-an-Elmer's-glue-salt-and-pepper-deer. You’re nothing but a “broken-antenna-gush-pot-of a slimy-trumpet-earwax and steaming-cow-mold. And besides that, you're a worthless-rotten-lipstick-potato, cumulus-car-battery-rain-ruptured-zipper-spit-plug.”

  Flotsam looked unconcernedly at the shouting man. A bumblebee flying by could have captured more of his attention. Flotsam lazily wandered over to Amy, glad that he had found his “mom.” Amy patted Flotsam nervously. She wondered how long Flotsam had been following them, and how long this crazy man’s cuss words would last.

  The grouchy man’s name was Malice Moonshine. But most people called him Mr. Locksley. He drove an expensive truck and lived in a fancy house. Nobody knew exactly how Mr. Locksley got rich, and most did not want to know. Tristan and his gang spent most of their time with Mr. Locksley, doing errands for the man, claiming that he employed them. But most people knew that Mr. Locksley had an off-colored reputation that was in the gray scale more often than the brighter colors, and that to be employed by him meant doing something shady.

  Mr. Locksley smiled at Amy, showing off a golden tooth, that gleamed.

  “Is that beast your pet?” He spat out a stream of black tobacco that landed on Brier's shoe. Brier grimaced, disgusted at the man’s uncouth behavior.

  The man was so close to Amy that she could smell his breath. It smelled like a dozen stinkbugs, mixed with pepper and cloves. The smell was so strong it could curdle toe hairs and wilt flowers.

  “Yes, he is my pet,” Amy said, giving Locksley a sour glare.

  Mr. Locksley let out a loud laugh. “PET? Don’t ya know that it’s illegal to keep deer as pets?”

  Amy shook her head. “It had no one else to care for it. We won’t get in trouble for feeding it, especially if it could die without our help.”

  “Had no one else to take care of it?” Mr. Locksley repeated. “Spose that’s what I should say next time I want to break some government-inflicted-virus-moldy-slush-chain-and-fetter-laws!” He frowned a frown that made Amy think of a pumpkin that had wilted after being left on a porch all winter.

  “I’m really sorry about Flotsam being in the road,” Amy apologized. “I didn’t even know he was following us.”

  “Yah,” Mr. Locksley harrumphed. “I’m sorry too! I'm sorry I didn't hit it. The only reason why I didn’t hit the it is that I didn’t want to dirty up my truck. And sorry doesn’t fix my truck. My truck is permanently damaged. Look at that scratch; it’s as big as the Missouri river!”

  Amy sized up the scratch, which was as about as big as a pinhead, and about as un-noticeable as a black spot on a black sweater. “Where did your truck get that scratch from? You didn’t crash into anything.”

  “Where! Where! WHERE? Broken-tea-kettle-shoelaces and super-glue-gum! I got it from me crashing into the ding, ping-lying gravel bar pit!” He laughed, and beckoned for Tristan and his gang to come nearer. “Boys, take their bikes. See what we can hock’em for.”

  Tristan’s thugs yanked Amy’s bike from her, while Tristan shoved Brier away from his bike and knocked him to the ground. “Move it, punk.”

  “You can’t just steal our bikes!” Amy cried, grabbing Tristan’s arm.

  “Let go of me, shrimp,” Tristan commanded, pushing Amy away. “We’ll take whatever we want. Right boys? Like I said, we take from the rich and give to the poor.

  “Well said, boys.” Mr. Locksley laughed a wheezy laugh. �
�Sides, we’re not stealing, per se. I’m just being my own insurance company. Collecting what’s due me. Oh, yeah, boys check their pockets; see if they’ve got any goods stashed in there.”

  Tristan smiled, and picked through Amy’s pockets, coming out with a wallet, and a paper. He pocketed the wallet and looked at the paper curiously.

  “Give it back!” Amy commanded. “Those are my things.”

  Tristan gazed at the paper with a sour smirk on his face. On it was Mr. Heckler’s Lost-Things List.

  “Doing some errands, I see,” he said, gazing at Amy with hard eyes. “Treasure hunting? Very nice. Knew there was a reason that old man wanted you.”

  He handed the paper back to Amy. “Keep on looking. I’ll be keeping an eye on you. Especially when you find the gold.”

  Tristan moved to Brier’s pockets, but found nothing. Instead, he took the camera hanging on Brier’s neck. “Here’s for nothing,” Tristan sneered, slugging Brier in the stomach.

  Brier staggered back, gasping for air.

  “Touch Brier again,” Amy shouted, standing between Brier and Tristan, “and so help me, I’ll send Mr. Heckler’s wolves after you. And believe me, they’ll tear you apart.”

  “Yeah. Sure,” Tristan murmured, hopping into the back of the truck with the rest of his followers. “So long, suckers.”

  “Jerks!” Brier called after them, still clutching his stomach as Mr. Locksley drove away.

  Amy sat down on the pavement and stared at Mr. Heckler’s list. “Least I can cross off one item on here now.”

  “Really? Which one?”

  “Number four.”

  “What’s that?”

  Amy pointed to the paper and read: #4. Find Indian Warsaw’s gold tooth.”

  “Oh!” Brier said, remembering the glinting gold tooth in Mr. Locksley’s mouth. “That’s the tooth?”

  Amy nodded. “Yup. The very same tooth. Mr. Locksley must have found it a long time ago, and had it put in.”

  “Guess you can’t really take that to Mr. Heckler.”

  “Nope. Guess not.”

  “So what are we going to look for now?” Brier wondered. “Maybe we should start on something a little less interesting. Like Mr. Burnham’s lunchbox. I’m sure Tristan could care less about that.”

  Amy nodded, and crossed off #4. Find Indian Warsaw’s gold tooth. It’s hearsay that an arrow hit him in the jaw and knocked it out of his mouth.