Homecoming: Part Two

      Somewhere between beginning the story and now, snow had started falling and Anna had forgotten that she was still sad that her old owner had not returned to take her home. On the other hand, though she had put down her chess piece to remember her old owner by while she was getting hot chocolate for them, she had picked it right back up when he got back.

      McCloud smiled and shook his head. "No. It wasn't. I wasn't surprised and I don't think Ru was either. But he was a lot more disappointed than I was." He paused, snapped a marshmallow out of his hot chocolate, and then wondered, "Now, wait a minute, where was I?"

      "You had gone to Meridell looking for Jelly World. Ru told you that you could go back home if you wanted, but you said no."

      "Right," McCloud agreed. "Because, whether Rushishi wanted it or not, he was my brother." McCloud hesitated a moment and then smiled fondly at the remembrance. "Since Jelly World was obviously not in Meridell, Rushishi suggested that we take the boat to Mystery Island because he'd heard of an old tomb or city or something that was so labyrinthine and old that no one really knew where it ended.

      "Of course, to Ru, such mystery practically screamed Jelly World.

      "Unfortunately, there was a boat between Meridell and Mystery Island that I had to deal with..."

      *********************

      Before leaving home, Virtupets Space Station, there were very few things that McCloud could say definitively that he hated. Now, he knew for certain that he hated squibble berries and the sea. "Are you sure we can't just fly to Mystery Island?"

      Rushishi frowned and looked out at the choppy water. "Something without wings has no business flying," he said.

      "Well, something with wings has no business swimming," McCloud rebutted.

      "That's different," Rushishi insisted. "This boat has a fin." At McCloud's quizzical look, Rushishi led him to the back of the boat and pointed down at the water below. McCloud looked, but couldn't see anything. "You can't see it, of course, because it's underneath the water, but all boats have a thing called a rudder that makes it turn. It's shaped like a Jetsam's fin."

      McCloud stared into the water and tried to imagine a Jetsam fin on the bottom of it. It wasn't long before his imagination had run away and was imagining the entire ship was alive, thrashing around, trying its hardest to swallow him whole. There was no way McCloud was going to go to Mystery Island on a wooden Jetsam.

      "That's it," he said. "I'm going home."

      "Have a nice trip," Rushishi said, waving.

      McCloud was about to disembark when he thought about how far he would have to fly and remembered how he had gone through this entire "leave Ru to find Jelly World on his own" conversation a dozen times before now. The main reason that McCloud was still with Rushishi now was the same as always: he was too scared to go back home alone. "I changed my mind," he proclaimed as he went back to Rushishi's side. "It's not a long trip anyway, right?"

      "No. Only a few hours."

      "Good." McCloud leaned over the rail and looked at the water.

      The captain was a surly-looking Kyrii that, when he wasn't silent, was shouting orders to his burly and dangerous-looking crew. He was the only captain that hadn't lost a ship to a storm or worse in the past three months, though, so Rushishi decided this was the safest ship to go to Mystery Island on. By McCloud's estimation, that only meant that this captain was due a disaster.

      All of McCloud's worrying turned out to be for naught, though, as Mystery Island appeared on the clear horizon with a good wind in their sails. Rushishi seemed to be enjoying himself as much as McCloud had ever seen. He was standing at the prow, catching the wind in his coat and his face to the sun.

      McCloud settled down on the deck and squeezed his head between the balusters and watched the water go beneath them. A school of happy-go-lucky Maraquan Pteris played in the ship's wake for a while until a Maraquan Eyrie swam alongside the boat. McCloud waved to his sea-going cousin, but he didn't seem to see him and swam away.

      In no time at all, McCloud was quickly given another reason to hate the sea: he was becoming sea-sick.

      At first he tried to hide it but, but there was no hiding it after a while. He was definitely seasick. McCloud groaned and squeezed his eyes shut, his head and paws dangling off the side of the ship. McCloud thought it was hardly anything to laugh about, but he could hear it from across the deck. Rushishi was bawling with laughter. "You really should have gone home when you had the chance," he said, wandering up to him.

      "I'll be fine," McCloud assured him, but immediately felt horribly ill once again when the boat hit another wave.

      "Don't worry," Rushishi said, patting his back once and leaning over to hang off the side of the boat with him. "You can see Mystery Island now," he said, pointing.

      McCloud tried to look up and saw the island's palm trees grow larger as they got closer, but immediately had to look back down. "Just tell me when we get there!" he begged.

      They did eventually get there, but not as soon as McCloud would have liked. The minute the gangplank hit the dock, McCloud was soaring down it with his feet still on the ground. He never thought he'd be so glad to feel the earth beneath his paws again. He was so happy, he didn't at first realize what a strange place Mystery Island was.

      The moment McCloud felt his stomach settling down again after sloshing about like the waves on the ocean, a pretty Island Aisha danced up to him and put a flower necklace around his neck. McCloud skittered away and shed the necklace, looking horrified. Rushishi, meanwhile, wasted no time in snatching McCloud's necklace and putting it over his head.

      "You don't want a souvenir?" Rushishi asked. "Your loss, I guess. Excuse me, darling," he said, turning to the Aisha. She stopped dancing and faced him, her hands clasped before her and her long Aisha-antennae pulled forward attentively. "Where is that Lost Tomb or whatever we've been hearing so much about on the mainland?"

      The Aisha smiled and nodded at him. "You mean the Lost City of Geraptiku," she said, and pointed off in the direction of a large, dark jungle. McCloud shuddered inside as the Aisha went on, "It's entirely deserted, except for some adventurous tourists we seem to get sometimes." She looked from Rushishi to McCloud and, at that moment, McCloud could have sworn her eyes flashed an evil red. "You'll like it, I'm sure."

      "Oh, yes," Rushishi agreed. "How do we get there?"

      "You can walk," she suggested, pointing down a path, "or you can take the Tiki Tour and just get off when you get to the city."

      "Thank you, my lady," Rushishi said with a bow, and sauntered off toward the Tiki Tour stand by the harbour ticket stand. He strode up to the Coconut JubJub standing next to an unused rickshaw and said, "Two for the Tiki Tour to the Lost City," he ordered, pulling out his bag of Neopoints to pay.

      "Fifty Neopoints a head," the JubJub said in a nasally tone.

      Rushishi turned to McCloud. "Quick," he said. "Take off my head."

      He laughed uproariously when McCloud looked absolutely horrified. "I'm not going to take off your head!" McCloud shouted. "How would we ever get it back?" For a moment, McCloud thought they might be able to reattach it if they put him in an oven or under a hot sun, but he'd never tried to fix a broken Jelly Blumaroo before. He didn't want to take the chance.

      "Have you ever heard of a joke, McCloud?" he asked, handing the Coconut JubJub the hundred Neopoints he'd asked for.

      Soon enough, Rushishi and McCloud were crammed into the rickshaw and headed off toward the Lost City of Geraptiku. McCloud couldn't hold down his feeling of terror as they neared it. It looked dark and scary. The kind that might just like having an Eyrie for dinner and a Jelly Blumaroo for desert.

      The JubJub traipsed by the Training School, where they saw students practicing outside with long sticks they used as weapons, led in a combination of moves by a red Nimmo. They passed an enormous cooking pot manned by a tribal Faerie. McCloud wasn't sure, but he thought he saw her toss a few petpets in there. Then the jungle got deep and dark and the Coconut JubJub just kept right on going.

      When the Coconut JubJub stopped the rickshaw to point out some of the more notable attractions of the Lost City, Rushishi jumped out. "That's the deserted tomb, I guess?" Rushishi asked, pointing at a huge ziggurat surrounded by sick-looking palm trees surrounding it.

      "Yep," the Coconut answered.

      "Thank you for the ride," Rushishi said to the JubJub with a bow and a smile. "We'll catch the next rickshaw."

      The Coconut JubJub laughed and nodded his head, waving with one of his feet. "Good luck. I hope someone sees you again. Don't get lost." Before McCloud could change his mind about going with Rushishi, the JubJub jogged off down the path away from them.

      McCloud gulped and looked up at the ziggurat that Rushishi was walking towards. "This sounds like a bad idea to me," McCloud said, running to catch up to Rushishi. They went past a few ratty and deserted huts, old pictures on tarps half filled-in, and a group of petpets playing under a leather lean-to before stopping at the foot of the ziggurat. McCloud looked up. "Yep. Bad idea."

      "Nonsense!" Rushishi laughed, pounding up the steps. "Where's your sense of adventure?"

      "I think I left it back on the boat," McCloud answered, running up after him.

      The entrance to the ziggurat was dark, somehow darker than the rest of the jungle, though McCloud hadn't thought that possible at first. It smelled old and moldy, too, and like there was something old and moldy lurking inside it. "Do we... um... have to look in here?"

      "Yes," Rushishi answered easily, hopping into the dark, dank cavern.

      "Ru..." McCloud moaned.

      But Rushishi was already going down the hall. Of course, he wasn't watching where he was going, as usual. McCloud, on the other hand, was watching every step all four of his paws and all two of Rushishi's feet were taking. They had taken a few turns and gone up and down a few flights of stairs before McCloud brought his feet to a halt.

      "Hey, Ru!" he shouted and the Jelly Blumaroo whirled around, a stupid smile on his face. "How are we ever going to get out of here?"

      Rushishi pointed behind McCloud in the direction they had come from. "What other way would we go to get back out?"

      "Are you even paying attention to where you're doing?" McCloud demanded, and then fell completely silent. There was a sound like a stomach growling, which, in dank, dark places, is never a good sign. Rushishi was about to speak, but McCloud hurriedly shushed him and turned his ears around, listening for the rumbling tummy again.

      HooOOOOOOooooo...

      "Was that..." McCloud whispered, trying to hold his breath and speak at the same time.

      "Just the wind," Rushishi said with a wave of his hand.

      HooooOOOOooooosssss...

      McCloud squawked in fright, whirling around toward the sound, hunching up his shoulders and back to become as small as he could."Ru!" he whimpered.

      "Come on, McCloud," Rushishi muttered, walking over and putting his hand on McCloud's back. "I've met Babies braver than you."

      "You have not!" McCloud snapped.

      "Wanna bet?"

      Rushishi didn't get a chance to answer, for something else in the cavernous hallway rasped, "Meeeeee hungry!"

      McCloud screamed and bolted. Rushishi shouted and bounded right along after McCloud. McCloud cast one short look over his shoulder to see a ghost of an island Hissi whirling along after them, his transparent body undulating on invisible air currents. "Me hungry!" the ghost complained again.

      "Run, run!" Rushishi shouted.

      "I am running!"

      "Run faster!"

      "I am!" McCloud pulled his wings in as close to him as he could and sprinted ahead as fast as his legs could carry him. The only problem was... he wasn't sure where he was going. Left. Right. Left again. Maybe right? "Ru!" he shouted.

      "Where in the name of Fyora are you going?" Rushishi wailed.

      "I don't know," McCloud snapped. "You're the one who was going any which way he wanted to!"

      "I was following a complex pattern of—oh never mind! Just follow my directions!" With that, Rushishi bounded onto McCloud's back.

      "Oof! What are you doing?" McCloud demanded.

      "Be quiet and run!" Rushishi demanded, "That way!" and pointed. McCloud followed his directions left, then right, then right again. They had to make a U-turn, but they took another three lefts and a right before they saw the light of day. The ghost Hissi was, unfortunately, still right behind them telling the otherwise empty hallways how hungry he was.

      "Doesn't he ever," McCloud gasped, "say anything else?"

      "I don't know—maybe he'd say 'yum' when he's finished EATING US!" Rushishi shouted and pointed. "Straight ahead! Go! Go! Go!"

      McCloud turned his ears back and surged forward, running as fast as he could. And then there it was! The door! McCloud almost cried, he was so happy. He pounced through it, spread his wings, and soared over the jungle away from the tomb, the dark jungle, and the ghost Hissi that seemed unable to leave his tomb.

      "Meeeee hungryyyy!" the ghost wailed, his voice drifting up and over the tops of the jungle trees even as he fell further and further behind them.

      "WhooaaAA!" Rushishi screamed, wrapping one of his arms around McCloud's neck and holding onto his hat with the other hand. "Land! Land! Laaaand!"

      McCloud just laughed and soared straight for the Mystery Island boat docks. "Not on your life!"

To be continued...