The Goonies (11 page)

The path to the treasure is not an easy one.

Stef meets the octopus.

The Goonies finally discover the treasure aboard a mysterious pirate ship as they are caught by the Fratelli family (Below).

“The Goonies”

I passed my inhaler up, and I could see him take a long suck on it.

I whispered to Andy, “Last time he used that was in the elevator. Andy, this might get rough. You better let me take your
hand.”

I don't know why I said it, it just came out. She looked so petrified and smelled so good, I just sort of had this urge to
protect her. I don't know.

I really wanted her to like me, I guess. Not that she would, not someone with braces and asthma, but still, that's what I
wanted. I think that's why I ratted on Brand about the elevator thing—so she'd think less of him, so maybe she'd think more
of me. But then the trouble was, as soon as I said all that stuff, I felt real bad about breaking my promise to Brand, so
I felt even worse about myself, which made me think Andy must feel worse about me too. So the whole thing kind of backfired,
which made me remember that's why it wasn't such a good idea to break promises, even if I thought I had a good reason.

I must have looked awful pitiful to her, because she took my hand, and then
I
felt less nervous. Go figure
that
one out.

We kept walking, and the tunnel got real wide, so we could stand straight. After about twenty feet it turned a sharp corner,
putting us in a pool of water up to our ankles. I walked to the front where Brand was. Near the head of the group I stopped,
though, 'cause something caught my eye, on the ground, in the water. A lot of somethings, in fact.

In fact, sparkling and glinting there in the red phosphorous of the flare light, under the ripples of the shallow pool, were
thousands of ancient, glimmering coins.

We'd found the pirate gold.

“We've found it! We're rich!” I screamed.

And then the flare went out.

The Wishing Well… The Wrong Door… The Goony Oath… Leeches… Brand Flips Out… We Lose Data… The Pirate Skeleton… Rendezvous
in Tunnel #3… Into the Skull's Nose.

I fell to my knees, scooping up handfuls of coins out of the inch-deep pool. All I could see at first was this red, glowing
spot where the flare used to be, but as my eyes got used to the dark, I saw there was a shaft of cool, white moonlight coming
straight down on us from above. And it smelled like fresh air too. Brand was taking in these big, deep breaths, like he was
out of the elevator again.

As the guys were stuffin' their pockets with coins, I looked close at my handful. Pennies. Lincoln-head pennies.

Data was looking closer too. “What year was that map made?”

Then Mouth started checking. “Few hundred years before Lincoln… Washington… Eisenhower… Roosevelt… Martin Sheen—”

“That's President Kennedy, crater face. We must be at the bottom of the old Wishing Well,” said Stef.

She was right. It was mostly pennies down here, with dimes and quarters scattered around. Hardly a fortune.

Still, it was major pocket-change, so we started stuffin' our pockets.

Andy just stood there, though. “I always used to believe that when you threw a coin, it turned into your wish.”

In a few seconds Stef passed and looked at her and nodded. “Wait a minute, you guys. These are somebody else's wishes, not
ours.”

She emptied her pockets. Then I did. She was right, it's not cool to mess with somebody else's wishes.

Everyone put the money back, except Mouth kept one quarter. “Yeah, well, this wish was mine, and it didn't come true.”

I stared back and forth between the map and the medallion I'd ripped off from Chester's neck. I was sure they were connected,
I just didn't know how. “What's this got to do with the map?” I muttered to Willy's spirit, which I was becoming more and
more certain was floating around here someplace. “I know the answer is here somewhere, Willy. I know how smart you are.…”

Suddenly there was a loud splash right in front of Data. He fished into the water and came up with a silver dollar. “Now who's
got the
K
to be makin' dollar wishes?”

Brand grabbed the coin. “Well, let's get their attention before they split.” He sailed the dollar straight up the well, as
hard as he could.

We heard a
thunk
, and then a voice shouted down to us. “Hey! Who's down there?”

It was a familiar voice.

The Goonies went nuts cheering.

“Hey, throw us a line!”

“Help!”

“We're down here!”

There was a pause, and then the voice at the top said, “Andy! Is that you I hear?”

And then I recognized the voice up there. Troy Perkins.

Of all the jerks in all the places in all the world, it had to be that jerk on that spot at that moment.

Andy shouted up to him. “Yeah, Troy, it's me! I'm stuck down here!”

“Who's that with you?”

“Stef and Mikey and Mouth and… Brand…”

“Those Goonies?”

“Troy, just send down the rope and bucket and save us, for God's sake.”

“What have you been
doing
down there?”

“Troy, this is no time for show-and-tell. Now, please!”

“And how'd you
get
down there?”

She was gettin' real fed up, I could see, and nobody else wanted to say anything, 'cause how can you talk to a jerk?

“We got here through the lighthouse and into the tunnels,” she started out, real patient, “and then we banged on the underground
water pipes, but nobody heard us.…”

“Pipes? The pipes under the Country Club? Was that
you
banging? Do you have any idea how much trouble you caused?”

“Trouble
I
caused?”

“Damn right! We had sewage going through the shower lines, we had water fountains getting sucked into the ground, we had toilets
exploding…”

“Well, we had falling boulders and bats and… why are we discussing this while I'm trapped at the bottom of a well?” she screamed.

She got her point across, I guess. In a few seconds we heard the bucket being lowered down to us.

All the guys were pretty excited, but I stood off alone, still staring at the medallion. “I know I can beat you, Willy. This
is just one of your games.”

The bucket reached us, at the end of its rope, and everyone gathered around as Andy started to put her foot into it. I got
real sad all of a sudden, like somehow all of this was going to disappear—almost like it had never happened at all—as soon
as Andy rode the bucket up.

So I grabbed her arm. “Andy, wait! We've got this other clue now… and Chester Copperpot never got this far, so we have a chance
to—”

“A chance at what, Mikey?” she said. She was lookin' right at me. She was real serious. “Getting killed? Look, if we keep
going like this, somebody's gonna get dead. Boulders, bats… I don't even want to
imagine
what other things are down here. Besides, we've got to get to the police.”

“Chunk probably already got to the police,” I said.

“Unless he's already dead.”

“Don't say that! Don't
ever
say that,” I snapped at her. “Goonies never say die.”

“I'm not a Goony,” she said quietly.

“Right, I forgot for a second.” I turned to the others, who were just standing there watching us, like we were gladiators
or something. “But
you
guys understand what I'm sayin', don't you? The next time you see the sky, it'll be over another town. Next time you take
a test, it'll be at some other school. Our moms and dads want the best of stuff for us, but they gotta do what's good for
them because it's their game, it's their time, but down here, it's
our
time. Our time and our adventure and our rules and plans. But the minute we ride up Troy's bucket, that's all over.”

They were all lookin' at me with their whole bodies, like maybe they were hearin' for the first time the melody I'd been hearin'
all along. I tried to make 'em hear it another way.

“Look, a couple years ago my mom and dad got on that big game show. Remember, Brand? Mom spent a month makin' those funny
costumes. She was a giant egg. Dad was a frying pan. Dad kept sayin' we were gonna live on Easy Street. So we drove all the
way to Hollywood. When we got there, they put us in this big audience with all these other people in funny costumes. Then
some dude with lipstick and sprayed hair came down the stairs. He walks up to us, right? First he makes Mom guess how much
toilet bowl cleaner costs, and she gets it right. Then he makes my dad guess what a jar of Ragu spaghetti sauce weighs, and
he gets
that
right.
Then
he asks my dad, ‘Is the Big Prize behind Door Number One, Door Number Two, or Door Number Three?’ Now, my dad's lucky number
was always two. He got married on August second. He got his job on June second. He's got two kids—”