In the Jungle: Chapter 8

Chapter 8

“You were pretty deep down there,” Faysaham said to his beautiful brother.
“I know! I mean, like, if I planned to live down there, I’d probably eat bugs and dirt!” Mahasyaf replied to his ugliful brother.
Head Narrator: Narrator, remember what I said --
Narrator: YES, Head.
“The Narrator is sure annoying,” said Zoe. “He messed up the whole story!”
“Only the first few chapters,” said Bo. “But you’re sure right; he practically messes up everything!”
Remember what I said about all fame being lost?
“Yeah, yeah.”
Anyways, as they were walking in the depths of the jungle, a dark shadow fell over them, and the only  sound heard in the jungle was the screaming of five creatures.
Head Narrator: Narrator, that’s too casual! Make it exciting!
Narrator: YES, Head.
Suddenly, a dark shadow fell over the five creatures.
“AAAHH!” yelled Tommy.
“Help!” screamed Zoe.
“What happened?” bellowed Bo.
“No, no, no! I don’t WANNA lose my pitiful brother again!” Faysaham cried, struggling to find his brother in the dark shadows.
“I’m not pitiful!”
“I said beautiful, not pitiful! The narrator must have heard wrong!”
“Ohh, not trapped again!” Mahasyaf groaned loudly, changing the subject.
Gags were placed on the five creatures’ mouths as they were dragged away mercilessly.

***

Nothing was heard in the room except muffled voices.
Outside the room, three creatures were speaking together, sitting at a round table.
“That was pretty easy,” said Creature #1. “They didn’t even take one look at our beautiful faces!” He tore off his face mask and stroked his nasty, bumpy, warty, pimply face.
Creature #2 made a disgusted face and turned away. To Creature #3 he said, “What are you planning to do with them?”
Creature #3 rubbed his hairy, stubbly chin. “Huh. I don’t really know.”

The whole time they were talking, Tommy was watching them. He saw them through the door with his X-ray vision.
“They’re pretty dumb,” he whispered to the other four creatures.
“Like you,” said Bo.
“Shadrach.”
“Whateva, bro. What’s shadrach anyway?”
“Envy Em.”
“What’s that?”
“Never mind.”
“Oh, come on, tell me!”
“I did. Envy Em are the letters N, V, and M and they sound like Envy Em. And NVM is short for never mind. So thr! Ever heard of chat language?”
Bo groaned.
Tommy swirled his head around and laser-cut the ropes that tied his beautiful blue hands tightly. After his hands were free, he ripped off his gag. Then he untied everybody else’s ropes and pulled of their gags.
“Be quiet! You don’t want those dummies to hear us!” Tommy whispered.
“I didn’t even say any--” Zoe began.
“Silence, mortal!” Tommy bellowed.
Zoe rolled her eyes.
Tommy tiptoed over to the door and pressed his intangible alien ear to it. He listened very closely.
“Did he now?” Bo whispered to me.
I do not approve of--
Head: Narrator, please. Remember what I said about--
Narrator: I did not you were still here, Head!
Head: I’m just observing your non-existent narrating skills. Is there a problem with that?
Narrator: Yes, I think I do--
Head: Anyway, as I was saying, remember what I said about disapproving of anything characters do or say. That’s Narrating Rule #9, by the way.
Narrator: You didn’t tell me that before!
Head: Was waiting for the right time to tell you. Bye, I’m leaving now.
Narrator: Good riddance.
Bo rolled his eyes.
“I think I’ll go check on them mortals now,” said a voice from the room. Tommy’s big black eyes grew as big as grapefruits and he quickly motioned for everybody to run! He laser-cut a hole in the wall and everybody ran through. Tommy zoomed through it and quickly fixed the wall. Just in time, too.
The doorknob rattled. The door swung open.
“WHAT IN THE ATINTHA?” Creature #2 bellowed.
Creature #2 made his way over to--
“I would like it if you just called me Retro instead of Creature #2,” said Retro (a.k.a. Creature #2).
“Yeah!’ said Creature #3 from the room. “Call me Crech and call him Turey.”
Retro looked defiantly at me.
Fine, I’ll call you all your real names.
“Thanks!” the creatures all cheered, pumping their nasty fists in the air.
“Now, please define us,” said Turey.
Turey is a small, pimply green snake who sheds his skin whenever he gets extremely angry. Crech is a huge brown elephant with two big bumps on top of his head. And Retro is a crazy howler monkey who always howls and bellows and hollers at everything. Like now, he was bellowing at his five lost prisoners.
Retro glared in anger at the gags and cut ropes on the dungeon ground. It wasn’t much of a dungeon, really. It was a small, dimly lit room made of dirt. And everywhere, bugs made homes. Especially cockroaches. In fact, just at that moment, a cockroach came out of Retro’s nostril and he screamed. The cockroach crawled into his open mouth and slipped down his throat. Retro gagged dramatically.
“Help me,” he gagged. “I’m choking!” He coughed even more dramatically.
Turey and Crech glanced at each other and snapped into action. They grabbed another gag from their collection and gagged Retro. Retro howled to show how much of a howler monkey he was.

Meanwhile, the five creatures, three of which are our heroes, were scurrying away into someplace safe.
“That was too easy,” said Mahasyaf.
“Isn’t that good?” asked Zoe.
“I daresay,” he answered.
“Well, let’s move on, then,” Bo said. He puffed out his chest proudly and marched away into a bush.
Faysaham glanced at Tommy, who stared at Mahasyaf, who looked at Zoe. Then they all gaped at Bo, who staggered out of the bush. A stream of blood trickled beneath Bo’s mouth and tickled him. Leaves were stuck in his hair. One leaf extruded out of Bo’s nostril. And his whole face now consisted more of scratches than skin.
“Oooh, yucky in my tucky,” said Faysaham, gagging. When he could not bear it a single second more, he bolted over to a tree, hastily dug a hole, and puked.
“Look what you did you my bro!” Mahasyaf yelled angrily at Bo, who grinned evilly and sheepishly. He was very ugly, with his scratched and dusty face, bloody nose, and leafy head. He felt very nasty, but he could see no near place to wash up, so--
“Liar!” Zoe exclaimed to me. “There’s a stream right there!” She pointed.
Oh yes. As I always knew, there was a stream east of the five creatures. It was silver-brown in color, and there was cushy, squishy mud at the bottom.
Zoe rolled her eyes at me, the  narrator. “‘As you always knew’?” she said rudely. “I knew it was there first!”
Silence!
“I wonder why I always get killed,” Bo complained. “The Narrator hates me the most, I think. And I’m the funniest guy in the book!”
That’s where you are wrong, Bo. That’s just how the story goes.
“Hmmph.”
Bo shuffled to the stream, and was just about to jump in when suddenly...

“AAAAAAAAHHH!!!”
Bo screamed in horror as a green, muddy hand popped out of the stream with a loud and upsetting SPLORPP.
The hand slithered out of the water and wrapped itself around Bo’s neck. Bo was too wimpy to keep himself on shore, so he was pulled into the muddy water.
“Hey, Narrator!” Zoe yelled up. “I thought you said there was cushy, squishy mud at the bottom! Doesn’t that mean you can see through the water?”
Well, yes, Zoe. What’s your point?
“If you can see through the water, that means you can see what the hand is attached to!”
Ohh, right! I didn’t think of that.
Zoe made a face.
After hearing Zoe’s point, Tommy, Mahasyaf, and Faysaham (who had just come back from puking) ran up and stared in the water.
“I can’t see no nothin’,” said Mahasyaf.
“I don’t see no nothin’ either,” said Faysaham.
Zoe looked at everybody in horror. Then, with the most determined expression, she leaped into the water.
Tommy, Faysaham and Mahasyaf waited for her to come back up.

Guess what?
She never did.