"Yea," said Michael, "with lots of mustard on the hot dog, and a baseball game to watch."
"No mustard on mine," said Sandy.
"What about you?" Alan asked Laura who was staring into the watery caramel thoughtfully.
"What?"
"What do you want on your hot dog?"
"Nothing."
"Boy," said Michael as he looked at the endless sea of caramel and dead trees, "just try following the silver-brick road now. I wonder where we're headed now."
"Just get the hot dogs -- and the beer," Roy prompted.
Feeling hungry himself, Alan put his hand into his cap. The hot dog was slippery. It squirmed out of his hand and jumped into the caramel. Roy lunged after the fish, but it was faster in the gooey soup than he thought it would be. Only when it swam away from the boat did Roy begin to think that it was a rabbit that had jumped out of Alan's cap.
"Try again, Alan," said Michael. "Pulling swimming rabbits out of your hat is a good trick but we can't catch and eat them."
"I'm trying," said Alan.
He reached into his cap only to release yet another frisky rabbit to the water. Then another rabbit slipped out and then another and still another until Alan gave up and put his cap back on. He and his companions glumly watched the fish rabbits hop in and out of the caramel all round the shell.
"It didn't work," said Roy.
"Don't expect me to work miracles all the time."
"Don't feel bad, Alan," said Laura. "The rabbits were a miracle, too."
"I didn't know rabbits could swim," said Sandy.
"Only in Alan's dream universe is that sort of thing possible," said Michael. "The only thing that is impossible is to get what we need when we want it."
"I Guess we just weren't supposed to have hot dogs just now," said Laura.
"Who said so?" asked Michael.
Laura shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe we're supposed to find out where we're going, first."
"How? By following the yellow-bricked road?" asked Roy.
"Silver-bricked road," Alan corrected him.
They sat in the stillness of the water for some time. Gentle waves rocked the shell and a current carried it along. The sky was a clear, pale, pink and the moon Alan had made out of his quarter shone above them.
"Maybe we're supposed to free some prisoners," Alan suggested, "like they're in -- I know -- they're in the Castle of Ultimate Darkness and we have to set them free."
"Where's that?" asked Roy.
"At the end of the world or something," Michael replied.
"Or at the bottom," said Alan.
"How do we get there?" asked Sandy.
"Why don't we let the prisoners take care of themselves?" asked Roy.
"Why don't you put your imagination to better use?" Michael asked Alan.
"Because your lack of imagination isn't getting us out of here," Alan replied.
"What do you think we need to do to free the prisoners?" asked Laura.
"I think," said Alan with a faraway look in his eyes, "that we'll have to figure out how to get rid of the ogre who lives there."
"Just get some machine guns out of your hat and gun 'em down," said Michael.
"No," said Alan, "I think we'll have to dive down to the bottom of this lake, get the ogre's heart that is inside an egg and break the egg."
"WHAT?!" chorused the others.
"Just what I said," Alan insisted. "Get the ogre's heart that is inside an egg and break the egg. That's the way you do that sort of thing in this sort of world. Sorry if you don't like it."
There was a long silence.
"At the bottom of the sea?" asked Sandy.
Alan, troubled, stared into the caramel water without answering. He dipped in his hand and found that the caramel was more diluted than before. That would make diving in more palatable if it came to that.
"How do you know you have the right story this time?" asked Michael.
"You just have to know the right stories," Alan answered.
"Alan's right about the fairy tales," said Laura. "I've read them, too. Usually the ogre's heart is buried somewhere else so that the ogre is free to be as heartless as he wants."
"Since when do we have to do what some fairy tale tell us to do?" asked Roy.
"Since before the time when the first dragon started to breathe forth stories," Alan answered.
"How do you propose that we carry off this mission?" asked Sandy.
Alan kept on staring into the water.
"I guess I just don't know."
"Why don't you just pull this egg out your hat and then break it?" asked Michael.
"Hmm."
For a long time Alan didn't move. Then he straightened up, slowly removed his cap and reached in. He put his hand in as far as it would go but he felt nothing. Roy, his eyes popping out, looked underneath the cap, but couldn't see Alan's arm. The rest of his companions stared at Alan as he reached in still further. Then suddenly he lost his balance and fell in, leaving an empty cap resting on the bottom of the shell. The others stared into space in stunned silence. Finally Michael picked up the hat.
"At least he left us this," said Michael uneasily. "Poor guy. Such a good friend. Guess we'll have to do without him."
He looked over to Laura with some embarrassment, but Laura wouldn't look at him.
"I didn't push him in or anything," said Michael.
Still no reply. Right at the moment when he thought he had Laura to himself at last, Michael found that he had driven her into the arms of the rival who was gone. Already he wanted Alan back in the hope that Alan's presence would send Laura back into his embrace. He fingered Alan's baseball cap. It looked and felt like an ordinary baseball cap. One would never guess at the strange things that had just happened through its agency.
"We're in a pickle now," said Laura glumly as she stared into the water in hope of some inspiration.
"As if we weren't in a pickle before," Sandy added.
"At least we knew where we were going," said Laura.
"No, we didn't," said Michael.
"Alan said we were on the way to the Castle of Ultimate Darkness to free some prisoners," said Roy. "As if you knew where that is."
"Could be anywhere," said Michael.
"Or nowhere," added Laura.
"Big help we are to the prisoners," said Sandy, "if there are any."
"Don't know why we should have to go to a creepy place like this Castle of Ultimate Darkness because of some guys couldn't keep themselves from getting caught by this ogre," said Roy. "Why should we have to suffer because they're so stupid? It's not fair."
"Maybe it wasn't fair that they got caught," Laura suggested.
"We're not getting anywhere with this talk," said Michael.
Nobody spoke for a long time while the shell floated aimlessly on the water. Every now and then a rabbit jumped in and out of the water. Roy eventually reached the point where he could think of nothing else.
"I have an idea," said Roy.
"Good for you," said Michael.
"We need your cap."
"It's Alan's cap," said Laura.
"Finders Keepers," said Michael.
Laura shot him a withering look and turned her head away. Michael pretended he didn't care.
"Well?" said Roy.
"Well, what?"
"The cap."
"Oh."
Michael tossed the cap over to Roy who barely managed to keep from dropping it overboard. Nobody paid him any heed as he pulled out a large fishnet.
"Guess it'll have to do," Roy murmured as he dipped the net in the water after a rabbit that just managed to elude him.
The net started to grow in the water, making it harder for Roy to maneuver but at least it gave him a wider swoop. He swiped a few more times at some rabbits that came near the shell only to tease him and then dart away at the last minute.
"Stupid rabbits!" Roy muttered.
"Smarter 'n you," said Sandy.
Roy grunted and dipped the net back into the water. The waves started to churn. Roy tightened his grip on the net as the waves began to stretch it several times larger than its original size and it was still growing. When several rabbits jumped just in front of the net, Roy swiped at them but the net slipped out of his hands and floated on the water. Roy shrugged.
"Stupid rabbits. Stupid net."
"Stupid Roy for trying to catch rabbits in the water with a fish net," said Sandy.
The boat suddenly lurched forward.
"What the-" Roy cried out as he struggled with the net.
Michael grabbed desperately at the net to help Roy, but he couldn't reach it. A high wave lifted the net to its crest and then sent it crashing down on the shell, drenching everyone and catching them all in its mesh. They were all so tangled up in the net that he could hardly move and they quickly gave up the struggle. It was soon apparent that the net was drawing them in a particular direction. There was nothing to do but wait and find out where they were going when they got there.
After a long journey on the water that seemed to take forever, it was a relief for the teen-agers when a dark mountain loomed over the horizon. As the net brought them closer, it was still hard to see a definite shape to it as its outlines were lost in a fog. It could have been a volcanic island. But as they approached the island, they could see an irregular array of towers shooting up from the rock. A portcullis rising within a large gaping mouth over the water welcomed the teenagers. Nobody had to say that they had found the Castle of Ultimate Darkness.
-------------
Alan felt as if he had been falling forever. His body knew he was moving through water, but he neither swallowed any water when he breathed in nor blew out any bubbles when he breathed out. It was a relief to him when he finally saw a large dark shape below him. Anything was better than this endless falling in a bottomless ocean.
Alan landed gently on a sandy bottom. A forest of seaweed towered over him. Once he had his bearings, he could see the dark shape moving in his direction. Alan stood to face it. What Alan saw first was a small pair of eyes and a huge mouth filled with a jumble of sharp teeth. It was a gigantic fish of some sort that no human could identify. The fish opened its mouth but did not swallow Alan.
"What do you want?" the monster asked. Its breath raised a storm of bubbles. Its voice made the whole ocean rumble.
"I - I want - "
Alan stammered. Even then, no air bubbles came out of his mouth when he spoke.
"I know you want," growled the fish. "Humans always want something. You are human aren't you?"
"Y-y-yes, as far as I know," answered Alan, who wasn't sure of anything by this time.
"What is it that you want, then?"
"I - I - want the egg that encloses the heart of the ogre who lives in the Castle of Ultimate Darkness."
The request sounded so ridiculous that Alan could hardly believe that he had asked it. But then his whole situation was ridiculous.
"What will you do with it if you get it?"
The sea monster nudged itself forward a little, causing Alan to back away. At least it seemed to take his request seriously.
"I - I - I don't know."
"Will you give it back to the ogre?"
Alan wanted to say "No," but with a fish that size of this one, he did not want to give the wrong answer.
"Uh - yes -- if -- I mean -- if that will be a good thing."
The monster snorted.
"Do you know what is good and what is not?"
Alan had it on the tip of his tongue to say that of course he knew right from wrong. But the sea monster's piercing eyes were enough to make Alan doubt himself to the very bone. What was the right thing? It would be a nice gesture to the ogre to give him his heart back, but would that gesture be very nice for other people if they were devoured by the ogre as a result?
"I - I don't know," Alan stammered. "I wish I did."
"Very well."
Alan thought he had given the wrong answer when the fish swam closer to him and opened its jaws even wider than before. Alan would have fled, but there was nowhere to flee to. The sea monster engulfed Alan and tripped him over its teeth and into its mouth. He slid down a chute that was soft and slimy and landed on a surface that was slimier still. Alan slid about in the pitch darkness until he felt something solid. It was wood. He ran his hands around the object. It felt like a treasure chest. He fumbled for the latch and found it. When Alan opened the chest, a piercing light almost blinded him and he had to look away. When he was ready, he slowly turned his eyes back to the chest. There, he saw the most beautifully painted egg laying inside, its vivid colors forming making an intricate design. Alan looked at it for a long time before remembering what he had come for. He gingerly picked the egg out of the chest, clasped it to his body and swam upward, all the time wondering if he would ever reach the surface again.
------------
When the darkness inside the Castle of Ultimate Darkness smothered Alan's companions, they each took one another by the hand so as not to feel totally lost. The gentle rocking motion of the shell might have been reassuring if they had been able to see anything at all. A sharp chill filled the air. There was nothing to say. The teenagers just listened to the swish of the water and entertained the faint hope that at least their deaths would not hurt too much. Roy squirmed about, almost tipping the shell over, until he could stand it no more. He reached into Alan's cap. Whatever it was that he grasped exploded in his hand.
"What the-"
A modest flame burned in the middle of the shell like a bonfire, lighting up the faces of the teenagers but not lighting any walls or ceilings about them.
"Nothing to cook, though," said Michael.
"How could anybody have an appetite at a time like this?" asked Laura.
One look at Roy's miserable face showed that even he had lost all thought of food for the first time in his life.
"Might as well find the prisoners and free them and get this over with," said Sandy.
"Or die in the attempt," said Michael. "Maybe we'll get turned into stone or something."
"Can't be worse than this," Sandy muttered.
The shell struck a wall with a grinding sound that jolted the passengers. The fire lit up a rock platform just about level with the shell. It was suspiciously convenient as a dock for them. The net fell away, as if inviting the teenagers to land.
"Wanna see what's here?" asked Michael.
"What do we have to lose?" asked Sandy.
"How about some torches?" asked Michael.
"Don't need them," said Laura as she pointed to a murky flickering light up ahead of them.
"How about securing the boat?" asked Michael.
"How?" asked Sandy.
"We'll get another boat if we need one," said Laura.
"Let's see if I can get a rope," said Roy.
But when he reached into the hat, he quickly let go of the live thing he touched. He shuddered when he saw a bat flying away from the fire into the darkness. So they gave up securing the shell and stepped out on the rocky ground. The four teenagers held unto each other as they slowly felt their way towards the flickering light up ahead. The closer they came, the more it looked like a movie showing on a large video screen.
"Wonder what the show is," said Michael.
Nobody replied. The movie, or whatever it was they were watching, did not make sense. One moment they saw a roaring train hurtling straight at them. The next cut showed a little girl dressed in a tutu tap dancing awkwardly to a dippy piece of ballet music. Then before they knew it, Batman swooped through the air on a jungle vine and landed on a stage where a rock band was performing.
"And here are the prisoners," Laura whispered as she pointed out the shadows of five people chained to their seats as if in a movie theater and watching the movie.
"Who do you think they are?" asked Roy.
"They could be anybody who was crazy enough to come this way," Sandy replied.
Michael thought the prisoners looked too familiar for comfort. There were two females and three males, to judge by the back of their heads. The group come to free the prisoners turned their attention back to the movie. When the rock band was halfway through its song, a hobo, appearing in living color, emerged from a forest, reached into his knapsack and pulled out a hot dog dripping with mustard. He handed the hot dog to a startled Michael, then supplied the others with hot dogs and beer. Bemused, they started to munch on their food. A baseball player stepped up to home plate and hit the first pitch over the center fielder's head. When the fielder threw the ball back towards the infield, an armored knight caught it and threw the ball at a knight in black armor who was attacking him with a rapier. As the black knight fell over backwards, the scene changed again to the interior of a castle with a cold stone floor. Torches flickered on the walls, lighting up a labyrinth of corridors.
"Which one do we take?" asked Sandy.
Michael scraped his foot on the stone. Only then did they realize that they were now in the movie.
"Guess anyone is as good as another," said Michael.
"Let's hope so," said Laura. "We've got to free those prisoners."
"Which I suppose means meeting our host, the Ogre of the Castle," said Roy.
An earsplitting roar reverberated throughout the corridor, seeming to come from all directions.
"Do you think that's the ogre?" asked Sandy in a hushed voice.
"Yea," Michael answered.
"THIS WAY, YOU FOOLISH TASTY MORSELS!"
Michael ended up with Laura deep in his arms, which normally would have made him feel brave, but the ogre's roar had swept out what courage he ever had.
"I guess that's the way to go," said Laura, pointing down one of the corridors.
"How about going somewhere else?" Roy suggested.
"Don't worry," said Laura trying to convince herself that she was brave. "We'll come up with something if the ogre's dangerous. Or Alan will come along and help."
Knowing enough not to risk looking at Michael for his reaction to that hope, Laura walked down the corridor, forcing the others to follow her. Roy dropped his plastic beer glass and hot dog wrapper on the floor. The others, not knowing what else to do, followed suit. The Ogre roared again. Everybody stopped in their tracks. After a long silence, they plucked up the courage to continue. No torches lit the way, neither were there any flickering video screens. Each step became harder to make in the darkness.
"What the-" Roy spluttered.
"What's this, flypaper?" asked Sandy.
"Feels like glue to me," said Michael once he had reached the point where he could no longer lift either foot off the cave floor.
Laura bent over and felt something thick and sticky all over the floor. Anything she might have said stuck in her throat.
"This way, my friends," growled a monstrous voice.
"We can't!" Roy gasped, "we're stuck!"
"GOOOOOD!"
A loud clanking of a motor that needed maintenance echoed through the cave. The four would-be rescuers felt the motion of the cave floor as they were turned around until they found themselves facing another wall-sized screen filled with the black-and-white image of a large misshapen tree sitting on a throne of rotted wood. One eye, looking like a huge bubble, looked out from the middle of its forehead. Several arms that dripped a gooey substance swayed gently from side to side. Roy, shaking in his shoes desperately reached into Alan's cap but only came up with a rotten apple that disintegrated into this hands. The ogre looked like one of the caramel-coated dogwoods come to life. In the light of the movie screen, the four captives could see the caramel flowing from the ogre down to their feet. No wonder they could not move.
"Have you brought something for me?" asked the monster. There was no clearly discernable mouth, but there was movement where a mouth should be.
"Uh - I'm afraid not," said Sandy.
"Just our cheerful selves," Laura replied, with a forced lilt to her voice.
"Hmmmmm," growled the Ogre. "Your cheerful selves will have to do. I rather like listening to the cries of cheerful selves from the bottom of my bottomless pit as they wait for me to decide to nibble on them. Hmmmmmm."
"Uh, Mr. Ogre," said Laura, "Can I call you Mr. Ogre?"
"If you like."
"How can a bottomless pit have a bottom to it?"
"Hmmmmmmm. Are you that curious to find out?"
"Well - uh - after a fashion," said Laura.
"Uh, Mr. Ogre," said Michael.
"Ye-e-e-essss!"
"Uh - I think I've got something for you."
"What?"
Michael held up Alan's baseball cap.
"Right here, Mr. Ogre. This cap's got everything."
"That is the best kind of cap there is," said the ogre.
"What would you like, Mr. Ogre?"
"Make it a nice sssssurrrpprisse!"
Michael reached in Alan's cap. Yes! His hand closed around something sturdy, made of metal. He fumbled about until he found the trigger, then pulled out an automatic machine-gun.
"How about this?" asked Michael as he opened fire.
When the bullets hit the ogre, the caramel splattered all over Michael and his companions. The machine gun ran out of bullets without having done any noticeable harm to the ogre. Michael and his friends were a bigger mess than ever.
"Well?" asked the Ogre during the ensuing silence.
"Well, what?" asked Michael.
"What do you want, and what are you going to give me for what you want?" asked the ogre.
"We want you to set the prisoners free," said Laura.
"And what will you give me for them?" asked the Ogre.
"How about this?"asked Sandy.
She reached into the cap and found the handful of water she wanted. She threw that at the screen. The drops ran down the screen, but nothing else happened.
"Wrong story," said the Ogre.
"You're a humbug!" Sandy cried.
The Ogre remained unruffled by the insult.
"Yes, I am a humbug, but not the humbug you think I am. Try again."
"We're still sorry, Mr. Ogre," said Laura. "Will you set the prisoners free and let us go home if we give you what you want?"
"Yes."
"Do you promise?" asked Laura.
"How many times do I have to promise that I will set the prisoners free if you give me what I want?" asked the ogre. "JUST GIVE ME WHAT I WANT AND WHAT I NEED!"
"Scouts honor?" asked Roy.
"Scouts honor," the Ogre echoed.
Roy reached into the cap. A pigeon fluttered out, crapped in his hand, flew into the screen where it crapped again on the head of the Ogre and then flew off.
"I guess that wasn't it," said Roy.
"That wasn't it," the Ogre agreed.
There was a long silence while the teenagers thought again. The Ogre seemed willing to wait forever if necessary.
"You know," said Laura, "I think we need Alan back. Maybe he's found - you know - what he was looking for."
"I'll bet he's got nothing but a fistful of seaweed, if that," said Michael.
"Think we can find him again?" asked Sandy.
"Better try," said Roy.
Laura reached into the cap. Finding nothing, she reached in further until she started to fall over the edge.
"Catch her!" cried the ogre.
Michael grabbed one foot, Sandy and Roy the other.
------------
Alan had given up ever finding his way out of the fish, let alone the ocean, when a hand suddenly closed over his free arm. He let it pull him up for the longest time until finally he tumbled out onto a gooey floor with Laura. He blinked his eyes and took in the faces of his companions.
"You got it!" cried Laura.
"Got what?" asked Alan. "Oh yes, yes, the egg."
Alan turned the egg in his hand while his friends admired its design.
"My gift, pleassse," growled a voice that startled Alan.
Alan looked at the screen where he saw the black-and-white creature.
"Are you the ogre of the Castle of Ultimate Darkness?" Alan asked him.
"You could say that," answered the ogre.
"He's not so bad when you get to know him," said Sandy.
"He says he'll free the prisoners and let us go home if we give him what he wants," said Michael
"Let's see if he wants the egg," Laura prompted him.
Alan looked at the Ogre doubtfully.
"Is this egg what you want?" he asked.
"It's not the egg I want," said the ogre. "It's what's INSIDE the egg that I want."
Alan looked at the egg. It felt so delicate in his hand. He hated the thought of having to break it.
"Mr. Ogre," said Michael, "It appears that it will be necessary to break this beautiful egg in order to give you whatever is inside it."
The ogre's bubbly eye bulged a bit.
"Hmmmmmmm. My heart was broken. Let the egg be broken."
Alan hesitated a moment, then smashed the egg against the screen. The girls screamed. The sticky egg yolk dripped down the screen. The teenagers waited in suspense. The video screen seemed to shrink. Something, or somebody struggled under the mess of egg yolk. Then a gloved hand shot out. The hand turned back the yolk as if it were the flap of a tent, and the magician stepped forward, minus his hat. The teenagers stared at him in astonishment.
"Thank you," said the magician.
More silence.
"That was your heart?" asked Laura.
"Fraid so."
"What a put-up job," Michael scoffed. "Very funny."
"Not for me it wasn't," said the magician. "Losing your heart for several centuries is no joke."
"Uh - how did it happen?" asked Sandy.
"I wasn't looking, I guess," the magician replied, "so the Evil Sorcerer got a hold of it before I knew it. It feels ever so much better now that I have it back."
"We're glad to hear it," Alan replied, his voice trembling. "Uh - I'm sorry I gave you the egg back the way I did. I thought-"
"That I was an ogre," said the magician. "And I was. You didn't find the nicest way to do the job, but you got the job done. That's what counts."
"Uh - you said you would set the prisoners free and let us go home," Laura reminded him.
"Ah yes, so I did. Glad to do it, too. Come this way."
The teen-agers tried to follow, but their feet were still stuck in the caramel.
"Uh - Mr. Magician!" Michael called after him.
The magician turned around and saw the problem.
"Ah! Just a minute!"
The magician climbed like a monkey up the side of the cave up into a a movie projector booth. He quickly pulled off one reel, put another in its place, and let the film roll. The opening scene of Lawrence of Arabia filled the screen, showing endless desert and a rider in the distance. The desert's sand, littered with plastic beer glasses and hot dog wrappers, poured out of the movie and around the teenagers until it was sand and not caramel that covered their feet.
"Is that better?" asked the magician.
"Yea," said Sandy.
"Good!"
The magician hopped down from the projection booth and led the teenagers down a flight of steps that wasn't there before, and then entered the room where the prisoners sat before a colorful video screen. On closer inspection, the rescuers could see that the color came from another egg yolk splattered on the screen.
"Untie them," prompted the magician. "There's one for each of you."
The teenagers did as they were told. Only when they had untied all the knots did each of them recognize themselves as the prisoners.
"Come on, lead them out!" the magician urged, oblivious to the astonishment of his companions.
It felt strange to take themselves by the hand and lead themselves away, but there was no arguing about the matter.
"Just up ahead," the Magician prompted, pointing to a wall with a pale light shining over it.
They followed the Magician over to the wall, wondering what they were going to do next.
"Now, just reach up and pull yourselves out."
The wall was impossibly high, but the freed doubles of the rescuers stretched and easily reached the top. The doubles then reached down to pull themselves up and over the rim where they stepped out of the Magician's hat. The teenagers rubbed their eyes as they took in the Magician and the fairgrounds. The doubles were gone.
"And there they are, back safe and sound in no time at all!" the Magician cried amid a titter of applause. "Thank you very much for volunteering."
"You're welcome," Alan mumbled, not knowing what to say.
The audience, seeing that the little side show had come to an end started to move away to other attractions.
"Before you go," said the Magician, "I've got something for you by way of a thank you."
He pulled out eggs from behind the ear of each member of the group and handed the eggs to them. They all gasped as each egg had the same colorful design as the one Alan had found inside the fish.