Twelfth Chapter — A Lack of Butter Knives

Seven Eleven and Kapono Cloudstalker arrived back at the hut, where Aolani and Mr. Chippie were playing gin by the fire. It was a very homey scene. “Woooo. Fail, you did, Young Cloudstalker,” Mr. Chippie ascertained.

“How did you know?” Seven Eleven asked.

“Mind waves, wooooo,” the rodent replied. “Now, a task there is before you.”

“What?”

“Woooooooo.”

“No, seriously, tell me.”

“Long road before you, there is. A long and winding road, it is. Wooooo.”

“Oooh, Aolani has all four aces,” was Kapono’s contribution to the conversation.

“Where does the road lead?” Seven Eleven asked.

“To the empty spaces in your mind, wooooooooo.”

“What?” Seven Eleven was affronted. She knew not what else to say, so contented herself with blinking.

“When the moon is up above, and Jupiter aligns with Mars, you’ll see the singing of the stars,” Aolani spoke up absent-mindedly, while discarding a four of diamonds. “Really, I thought everyone knew that.”

“What does that have to do with me?”

“You shouldn’t have discarded that,” Kapono remarked. “Master Chippie has the three and the five of diamonds. If you had concentrated your mind on the Force, you could have sensed that…”

“Wooooo,” Mr. Chippie said, drawing the four of diamonds toward him through the air.

“What task is before me? I don’t get it! I just don’t get it!” Seven Eleven whined.

“When a red fox and a brown cow frolic in the ocean, you will know what the task is,” Aolani sighed, regretting that she had to explain such a simple notion.

Seven Eleven became hot and bothered. “I don’t see why you all have to be so mysterious all the time,” she pouted. She stormed out of the hut. “If anyone needs me, I’ll be down on the beach watching for livestock.”

“Wooo, hastily spoken that was,” Chippie remarked. “Livestock, a fox is not.”

She tromped through the jungle and came to the beach, where she encountered Marianne down by the seaside sifting sand. Seven Eleven was in no mood to sift sand with her, however, so she walked a little ways down the beach until she came to Sally, who was selling seashells by the seashore. The seashells were chipped and broken, however, and so Seven Eleven was not interested in these, either.

When she was finally alone, she thought she could detect the sounds of Marianne and Sally being attacked by the spectre, but as she could not be sure, she did not let it concern her overmuch. The ocean was empty and calm, with no trace of foxes or cows—not even hens.

She became philosophical. She pondered the great mysteries of life, such as why the chicken felt it had to cross the road. She contemplated the teachings of Socrates and Plato and various other quacks of notoriety. “Why is the sky blue?” she mused. “And why did Double Eleven conk me over the head and run away?”

All questions became unimportant when she realized she was sitting in quicksand. She leapt up with a curse and another when she had to leave her shoes behind. To make matters worse, the spectre came looming over the hill and forced her to flee in abject terror. She sprinted across the beach in bare feet, wondering if abject terror was the opposite of abstract terror or what.

From above she heard a strange noise, like unto but not exactly the sound of butter knives rubbing against each other. Seven Eleven looked up, and gasped when she saw Kapono Cloudstalker hovering above her perched on a floating carpet. He did not have any butter knives.

“What the…?” she huffed, nearly tripping over a sea turtle sunning itself in the moonlight.

“The Force,” explained the angsty padawan simply, tossing his braid in what she supposed was a proud movement. “Hop up.”

“You’re floating several feet above my head.”

“Use the Force.”

“If you say that one more time by golliwockers I’m going to turn right back around and fling myself at the spectre, damn self preservation and let it do its worst!”

Kapono sighed. “Unfortunately I have taken an irrational liking to you, Dirt Girl, so I can’t let that happen.” With that, he levitated Seven Eleven up onto the carpet. It took her a moment to realize she could stop flailing her arms and legs in a running motion, and she sniffed petulantly, feeling stupid. This was not uncommon.

The spectre, though able to float, was curiously helpless to thwart this little trick, and it hovered impotently on the beach, watching them soar away.

As they soared over the dark black of the ocean under the night sky, Seven Eleven asked a pertinent question, “Where are we soaring?”

“Look over there!” said Kapono, rudely ignoring her question.

She briefly considered peeling him like a potato, but instead followed his pointing finger with her eyes (as following with the rest of her body would have resulted in a nasty fall) too see what she could see.

“Is that a sea serpent?” she wondered, locking eyes on a large creature flailing about in the water.

“Fool,” said Kapono with his customary scorn. “It’s a brown cow. And look over there, at the red fox.”

“Are they…?”

“Frolicking?”

“Yes.”

“It would appear so.”

“That’s just nasty.”

“Wait, now they’ve paused. They see us.”

“Did the cow just moo at us?”

“The fox is holding up a sign.” Kapono steered the carpet closer to that they could read the sign:

CONTENTED COWS COME FROM CALIFORNIA

“Well, that’s just not right,” sputtered Seven Eleven in protest. She pulled a rock from her pocket and threw it at the fox, seething with competitive pride.

“What are you doing, stupid?” Kapono stopped the missile mid-air and made it plop harmlessly into the water well away from the frolicking animals. “Do you want their help or not?”

Seven Eleven pouted, sitting back down on the airborn rug. “All they are trying to do is brainwash us with their propaganda, I—”

Her complaint was cut short when something hard struck her on the head and she passed out.

When she came to, she espied Cloudstalker sitting cross legged on the carpet, holding something dark and round in his hands. “Wassat?” she inquired, stifling a diatribe about how sick she was of getting knocked on the head.

“It’s a Magic 8 Ball,” he said. “Courtesy of the cow. I’m asking it important questions.”

“Oh? Like what?”

“Will I become the most powerful Jedi ever?” He gave the ball a shake. “Oooh, it says I will be feared and loathed by many, but will have bad skin and respiratory problems.”

“Give me that,” Seven Eleven snapped impatiently, snatching the ball from his hands. “Why did Double Eleven conk me over the head and run away?” She gave it a shake and peered with great anticipation down at the triangular prophet.

“NO,” it said, “GUESS AGAIN.”

“What the…? Stupid thing’s broken,” she huffed.

“Ask it what you should do.”

“What should I do?” Seven Eleven obeyed. “And if you tell me to drink more Ovaltine I swear by my pretty floral bonnet, I will end you.”

“What bonnet?” Kapono asked, but was shushed as Seven Eleven gave the ball a couple shakes, rattles, and rolls.

“Huh. It says I must travel to the Mountain of the Most Unpleasant Things Imaginable,” Seven Eleven said with knit brow. Actually she said it with her mouth, but that is immaterial. “Why should I do that?” she asked the ball, but as she jiggled and jived it, it slipped from her fingers and rolled off the carpet, plummeting into the deep waves below.

“Drat!” she cried, and punched Kapono in the arm. “Why didn’t you use the Force?”

“I was busy staring at the way your hair falls over your face when you look down,” Kapono said absently, and Seven Eleven flushed awkwardly. That begs for a pun but nothing specific is coming to mind.

“Well, will you transport me to the MotMUTI on your magic carpet?” she asked, taking advantage of the moment to tuck a loose tendril of hair behind her ear.

“It’s actually a Force carpet, not a magic carpet.”

“Whatever.”

Luckily for Seven Eleven, young Cloudstalker seemed unmanned by her apparent beauty and agreed to fly her to her destiny. She was glad that he had been marooned on an island with only his sister for female company and was thus so easily entranced by her somewhat substandard feminine charms. It definitely helped move the plot along.

Next Chapter:
Khaos and Karnage on the Road to King Kandy’s Kastle

Tags: 711, Aolani, Kapono, Mr. Chippie, spectre