The 8th Continent (14 page)

He watched carefully, waiting for the trash bag to change.

He kept watching.

The sprinkler dribbled to a stop. The green liquid pooled underneath the bag of garbage. The bag hadn't changed. None of the garbage had.

The Eden Compound didn't work.

EVIE BACKED AWAY FROM THE DISPERSAL DEVICE. “WHAT? NO! HOW CAN IT NOT WORK?”

“Evie, calm down!” Rick begged.

She turned on Doctor Grant. “You said it would work! Why won't it work?”

Doctor Grant looked like he had caught a skunk by surprise. “Go stick your head in an igloo and cool it, you spicy potato chip. All I know is that I reassembled the formula and produced a sample of the compound based on our designs.”

“I'm sorry.” She hung her head. “I didn't mean to shout. It's just that we are so close, and now I don't know what to do. How can it not work?”

Evie felt like she had gone to the coolest amusement park in the world, waited for hours in the line for the biggest roller coaster, and gotten all the way up to the front, only to have the sunburned guy operating the ride tell her that it was out of order, and she couldn't get on. It wasn't fair. They had come so far, only to have the eighth continent taken away from them at the last second.

“There is only one explanation,” Doctor Grant said. “Something was missing from the compound.”

“But how can that be?” Evie asked. “You reassembled the formula. We brought you the other half.”

“Most of the work we did years ago was theoretical,” Doctor Grant said, pulling a pair of gloves and an empty vial from a drawer under the computer terminal. “The formula was exactly as your father and I had left it when we disbanded the project, but we didn't do extensive testing. Something must be missing.” The doctor touched the container to the pool of liquid on the ground, wrinkling his brow as he scooped some up. Suddenly, his expression shifted. “Wait a minute! I've got it. There was an ingredient we talked about incorporating into the formula—a rare fungus called the fecundite mushroom, which grows only in a small island prefecture in Japan.”

Evie slapped Rick in the arm. “You hear that? We're going to Japan. We'll be able to get the last component
and
samurai sword souvenirs.”

Doctor Grant placed the now-lidded vial by the computer and pulled off his gloves. “Niels Bohr and I will stay here and work on producing a large quantity of the Eden Compound. When you return with the mushrooms, I'll”—he began to singsong—“add it to the batch, and then we will be off to the garbage patch.”

“A scientist
and
a poet!” Rick grinned.

Evie shook with excitement. That old feeling of adventure was coming back to her. They were going on another journey.

Rick ran to get their stuff. Evie started to follow, but Doctor Grant added, “Evie, wait. Come here.”

“What is it, Doctor Grant?”

He put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “We will make it work. I promise. You'll get your continent. I believe in you.”

“You do?”

“There's something about you—it reminds me of your father.”

She scratched the back of her head, embarrassed. “Yeah, I get that a lot.”

“You are going to need his tenacity, and his creative spirit, to accomplish your mission. Never forget that.”

They parked the
Roost
in a forest on the outskirts of town and ventured into Oshiaka Village. Boxy apartment buildings lined both sides of the street like oversized LEGO structures.

Knowing they were close to their goal, Evie and Rick raced through the town, forcing 2-Tor to hop after them, flapping his metal wings. If only his robot body could have moved as fast as his robot mouth. “First you leave me alone in the
Roost
for over a day. I did not know if you had drowned or abandoned me or what. Now you are leaving me behind! This is highly irregular.”

Rick looked around the village suspiciously. “It's weird that there aren't any people out on the street.”

“Overzealous construction companies,” 2-Tor explained. “They build whole towns prefabricated, but there is no demand, so the completed neighborhoods remain vacant.”

“Do you think Condo Corp was behind this place?” Rick asked.

Evie snatched the smartphone from Rick's hand. “Maybe it's a bank holiday. The GPS says we're close. The field where the fecundite mushrooms grow should be just beyond this intersection.” She didn't want to think about Vesuvia and her company, not when she could feel their moment of triumph fast approaching. Her sweaty palms tightly gripped the sterile bag they would use to gather the mushrooms. She used to pick dandelions when she went hiking with her dad. This would be no different. The fecundite mushrooms were a bright emerald color—easy to spot.

The Lane siblings rounded the corner and found themselves on the edge of a strip mall. Two lines of storefronts—plastic wig shops, gumdrop emporiums, poodle dry cleaners—surrounded a wide, flat asphalt parking lot. There was not a car in sight.

“Oh, dear,” Evie groaned. She ran out into the middle of the lot, which the GPS said was the center of the mushroom field. “This is bad. This is worse than very bad.”

“What's wrong?” Rick asked, running over to her.

“Where's the field? Where are the mushrooms?”

A banner hung over one of the store marquees. 2-Tor translated the Japanese characters. “Grand opening! Now with double car capacity.”

“Oh no!” Evie wailed. “When they built this shopping mall they must have paved over the field.”

“You mean the fecundite mushrooms are under the blacktop?” Rick asked, scraping the asphalt with the toe of his shoe. “How are we going to get to them?”

“I don't know,” Evie replied. “Maybe we can find a backhoe or a jackhammer and break up the rock. There must be something we can do. Rick, can you think of anything on the
Roost
that could help us?”

But Rick wasn't listening. His gaze was directed across the parking lot at a stoplight hanging from a wire over the entrance to the mall. A small bird, made of pink plastic, was using it as its perch. It cocked its head to the side and stared at the children.

Then another bird, identical, came out of the sky and landed beside its twin. Then another, and another. A whole flock of the plastic birds landed on the stoplight and its support wire. Their eyes were fixed on Rick and Evie.

“What do they want?” Evie crossed her arms defiantly.

Rick swallowed hard. “I think they want us. Run!”

The birds flapped their wings in computerized unison, rising into the air in a swarm and diving at Rick and Evie.

There was no chance of escape. Sharp plastic beaks pecked at them and pinched their skin. As the birds struck 2-Tor's shell, it sounded like a hailstorm at a car dealership.

The flying pink robots grabbed Rick and Evie by their clothes and hoisted them into the air. The siblings dangled helplessly, kicking their legs. They cried out, but they could not be heard over the noises of the birds, which sounded like a swarm of locusts.

But one sound
could
be discerned over the cacophonous flapping. A giant pink truck rumbled down the street toward them. Its wheels were cylinders, like a steamroller, but a long metal tube came down the front, like the snout of an anteater. As the vehicle came closer, powerful suction snorted the concrete street into its nozzle. The road broke apart in huge chunks, leaving behind dirt and rubble.

Worst of all was who was at the helm. On first look, Evie thought she was seeing things, but a second glance told her that her eyes were indeed telling the truth: Vesuvia Piffle was driving the vehicle. Diana sat behind her, clinging to her seat, looking worried, as usual. They both wore pink hard hats.

The vehicle swerved as Vesuvia stood to wave at them smugly. She cackled like the witch she was. “Thanks for leading me to where the mushrooms grow, Evie LAME. Now
I
have the last component I need to complete the Eden Compound and make the eighth continent my own!”

THE LANE GIRL STRUGGLED AGAINST THE PLASTIC BIRDS AS DIANA CHECKED TO MAKE SURE THEY
had her locked down tight. The birds had formed chains connecting beak to tail, holding Rick, Evie, and their robot escort fast against the ground. Evie squirmed like an earthworm that had fallen in a can of soda and had to sip her way out. “Let us go!” she screamed.

Vesuvia twirled across the vacant parking lot, sucking on a strawberry-pink lollipop. She struck a ballerina pose and imitated Evie's pleas. “‘Let us go! Let us go!' I'll let you go off a
cliff
if you don't shut up.”

Diana was glad their mission was almost over. All this flying around the world gave her a tummy ache. “They're all tied up,” she told Vesuvia.

Her friend purred. “Oh, Diana. Doesn't it feel good to have everything go pinkly perfect for you? Doesn't it feel grand? Imagine how terrible it would feel to be failures, like these two losers and their robot sparrow.”

2-Tor squawked. “I am a crow, young lady.”

Vesuvia sneered. “Oh, really? I couldn't tell. You must have been built by a failure.”

“Why are you doing this?” Rick struggled against the bird chains.

“Isn't it obvious?” Vesuvia slithered over to Rick, Evie, and 2-Tor.

Diana stepped aside and watched. She felt bad leaving the Lanes helpless like this, but it was the only way to make sure Vesuvia accomplished her goals. Besides, what was the alternative? Overnight Vesuvia had changed Evie into a poisonous toad, to be avoided at school at all costs. Things were worse now. Vesuvia had gone from crazy-sticks-trash-in-your-locker to crazy-ties-you-up-and-leaves-you-to-die. If Diana disobeyed the super-secret CEO of Condo Corp, she would be pinned down just as fast as the Lanes.

She quieted her thoughts and listened to Vesuvia's triumphant monologue. She had rehearsed it all the way from Geneva.

“There was no place on the seven continents where Winterpole and the local authorities would let me build New Miami, my perfect plastic city. But there was another way. An eighth continent—one I could form in my own image.”

Evie struggled against her bonds. “The eighth continent is ours! You can't have it.”

“Shh . . . shh-shh-shh-shh-shh-shhhh . . .” Vesuvia removed her lollipop and stuck it in Evie's mouth to silence her. Evie gagged and spat out the saliva-covered candy.

“You really are the stupid one, Peevey Evie. If the eighth continent is yours, why are you tied up in a Japanese parking lot, while I have every last fuddy-duddy mushroom in existence?”

Diana grimaced, glancing at the bag of fungi at her feet. It had not been easy, breaking up the asphalt with the concrete sucker, then foraging in the stiff dirt below for the few shriveled mushrooms that had survived the construction project.

“We've been following you almost from the beginning,” Vesuvia explained. “My little bird kept a close eye, so we were always one step behind you, until we found our window to get ahead. And now here we are. Time to leave you in our dust.”

“You'll never get away with this!” Evie cried out. “We'll find you.”

“Oh, I don't think so.” Vesuvia smoothed her shiny plastic hair against her head. “My concrete sucker is going to slurp up all this concrete, and then it's going to slurp up you. Did you know my concrete sucker was manufactured by Lane Industries? How ironic is it that your own father's invention is going to kill you? Hahahahaha! That's hilarious! Enjoy your last few minutes of being a total loser with no taste in clothes.”

Vesuvia turned on her plastic heels. Diana hurried to follow. As they passed the concrete sucker, Vesuvia flicked the throttle up to full. Gears roared, and the machine lurched toward the bound Rick, Evie, and 2-Tor.

Diana followed Vesuvia back to her pink hoverjet, leaving the Lanes and their poor robot chaperone to their demise. Vesuvia wasted no time in buckling into her seat in the cockpit and ordering Diana to take off.

“Music, please,” Vesuvia commanded once the ship was in the air, and Diana immediately obliged. During the whole ride to the Arctic Sea they blasted the latest album from True North, the world's hottest boy band. Tad Hutstoff was the coolest, and his solos made Diana want to sing out loud. She resisted the urge, however. Vesuvia had made it clear that she thought Diana's singing sounded like a drowning mongoose.

They parked the hoverjet with a splash, just above where the pink bird had told them the submarine lab was hidden. An empty raft of lashed-together plastic bottles floated nearby.

“Diana, you twit, open the torpedo tube.”

Frowning sullenly, Diana mumbled, “It's really not nice to talk to me like that. You just have to say please.”

Vesuvia scrunched up her face, looking like Diana had insulted her grandmother. “I will talk to you any way I want! I'm the one in charge. Me!”

Diana lowered her head and nodded.

“Now”Vesusiva smoothed her plastic hair against her head,—“deploy Chompedo!”

Something like a giant pink bullet shot from the torpedo tube at the front of the hoverjet. It had the red eyes, dorsal fin, and jagged grin of a bloodthirsty shark.

The pink robo-shark swam in a tight circle around the hoverjet, looking hungry. Diana followed Vesuvia through the top access hatch and watched the shark crash through the waves.

Vesuvia's instructions were somewhat predictable. “Chompedo! Destroy!”

Chompedo jerked his pink metal body sharply, veering onto a collision course with the empty bottle raft. He opened his hydraulic mouth wide, revealing two rows of razor-sharp chainsaw teeth, whirring hungrily.

He didn't need the chainsaws. Chompedo was so big he engulfed the raft in one bite, swallowing it whole. The metal leviathan leaped triumphantly into the air and hit the water with a splash that sent a salty wave crashing down on top of Diana.

Vesuvia was miraculously spared. “Excellent work, Chompedo! You will never fail me. Now come. Let us climb aboard that pretty pink hull of yours. We have work to do.”

The robo-shark pulled alongside the hoverjet. Vesuvia and Diana hopped onto his back, the bag of fecundite mushrooms in tow. There was another access hatch that led to a small storage compartment inside Chompedo where the two girls could ride out the journey.

Through the porthole at the front of the compartment, Diana watched as Chompedo dove beneath the waves, speeding them to their destination. Chompedo's red eyes clicked into bright spotlights, which illuminated a long black submarine in front of them.

“Align with that access hatch on the starboard side,” Vesuvia ordered.

Chompedo connected the two hatches, forming an airtight entryway.

Vesuvia grinned and twisted open Chompedo's access hatch eagerly. “We are so close, Diana. I can smell it!”

She opened the submarine's hatch, revealing the face of a lonely seal. “
Rowf!
” The seal barked fish breath in Vesuvia's face.

Vesuvia turned green and fell to the floor of the storage compartment with a clang.

“
Arf! Arf! Arf!
” the seal laughed.

Diana helped her friend to her feet, and together they climbed aboard the sub.

“Now what do we do?” Diana asked, swinging the bag of mushrooms over her shoulder.

Vesuvia scampered ahead, past the sub's darkened laboratories. “Remember what my pink bird told us. This old doctor who helped the Lanes is blind. They were supposed to bring him the febundie mushrooms.”

“Fecundite,” Diana corrected.

“Fekundun. Felitebrite. Whatever. We give him the mushrooms, he gives us the compound. We just need to pretend to be the Lanes. Should be easy.”

Diana wasn't so sure, but Vesuvia had brought her this far. There was no turning back now. They made their way to Doctor Grant's lab, where the old scientist was putting the finishing touches on a big project. Several vats of steaming liquid crossed the middle of the chamber. What looked like giant eggbeaters bobbed in and out of the vats, mixing their contents.

As the girls entered, a long, thin cat sat up on the desk and hissed at them. Doctor Grant spun around in his chair. His unseeing eyes stared blankly into the darkness. “Quiet, Niels Bohr! Um, hello? Is someone there?”

Vesuvia cleared her throat and spoke with the same energetic twang as Evie Lane. The resemblance was uncanny. “Doctor Grant? It's me, Evie! Rick and I are back with the fedoodoo mushrooms you asked for. Hooray! I did it. I am totally not a loser who would wear shoes from two seasons ago. I'm awesome!”

Doctor Grant showed a relieved smile. “Rick, is this true?”

Diana coughed, trying to make her voice as deep as she could. “Uh, yes! Uh, ahem. Fascinating. Er . . . affirmative. We have the fungal component you requested, Doctor.”

“Splendid, just splendid!” Doctor Grant said, holding out his hands. “Give it here.”

“Uh, ahem . . . here you go, sir,” Diana said, handing over the bag of mushrooms.

The cat—who, upon closer inspection, resembled a tiger—hissed again.

Doctor Grant ignored him and took the bag gratefully. “Rick, you sound funny. Are you all right?”

Diana gulped. Vesuvia gave her a look that could have flayed a fish. Diana tried to laugh. “Huh-huh. Guess so, sir. The water is quite cold.”

“Yes, yes, I suppose,” Doctor Grant said. “Well, take a seat in the hallway and give me a few minutes. I'll add the mushrooms to the compound so you can be on your way.”

“What?!” Vesuvia exclaimed, sounding surprised that her plan had worked. “Really? Oh, wow bam yippie! Thanks, mister!”

Vesuvia and Diana shuffled out of the room, while Doctor Grant added the mushrooms to the vats. The distillation process did not take long at all. A few minutes later, they were back in the lab. Doctor Grant brought out a pushcart. On it was a machine that looked like a cross between a monster-truck engine and a lawn sprinkler.

“This is my rain machine,” Doctor Grant explained. “I've equipped it with a bottle of the condensed Eden Compound. All you have to do is take it to the garbage patch and throw the switch. The compound will disperse into the atmosphere and rain down over the entirety of the garbage patch. And then the eighth continent will be yours!”

“Hooray!” Vesuvia cheered in Evie's voice. “I've never had an accomplishment like this before in my whole life. I wonder what's different about me that it's happening now? Hmm . . .”

“Well, don't wonder too long,” Doctor Grant replied, giving the pushcart an extra shove. “You better hurry, or some little snot will try to take the Eden Compound away from you.”

Diana coughed. “Ahem. He is right, Ve—uh . . . Evie. We better go.”

Silently, Vesuvia stuck a finger in her mouth like she was gagging. “Pleasure doing business with you, Mister Doctor Grant.”

They retreated to Chompedo as quickly as they came, dragging the Eden Compound rain machine behind them.

When they were safely back aboard the robo-shark, Vesuvia said, “That was easier than I'd thought! What a blind, old idiot. Chompedo, this smelly old man and his not-pink cat have served their purpose. Once we are away in the hoverjet, you know what to do.”