The chair came tumbling down through the opening, narrowly missing them. A moment later it popped to the surface and floated.
“Well, there’s that chair you were wishing you were to stand on,” Max said to Brattleboro.
“No help. I was talking about a highchair.”
“Try again, Max,” 99 said.
Max tried again.
He got a floor lamp.
“Once more, Max.”
This time he got a drawer from a chest of drawers.
“Don’t give up, Max.”
Next time, when he tugged on the cord, it held firm.
“Success!”
“Too bad,” Brattleboro said. “I was beginning to like it down here. The place is nicely furnished.”
Max climbed the rope, then pulled himself up through the opening. 99 followed. Then Brattleboro emerged from the trap.
Max peered into the dimness. “I wonder what I lassoed?” he said.
“Max, it doesn’t matter.”
“No, I’d like to know. When I tell this story to my grandchildren. . here I’ll turn on a light.”
He flicked on the switch. His eyes followed the cord.
“Oh. . hello, there,” Max smiled.
Guru Optimo was sitting up in bed looking at them curiously. The cord was looped around the large toe of his left foot.
“Thanks for the hand,” Max said.
“Foot, Max,” 99 corrected.
Guru Optimo grinned broadly. “No, Sergeant Preston, in the Royal Mounted Police we sit on the horse facing front,” he replied.
“Speaking of that,” Max said, “there’s a matter I’d like to discuss with you.”
“I have something to say too,” Brattleboro said.
Guro Optimo beamed. “I don’t care what your mother says, the light bulb is
“Yes, well, that’s very interesting,” Max said. “But what I’d like to discuss is renewing your agreement with Control. You promised, you know, that you would join us in our fight against the forces of evil. Now, as we look at it, a promise is a promise. So-”
“Don’t listen to that gush,” Brattleboro broke in. “A promise isn’t a promise. A promise is a tactic. You didn’t know what you were doing when you made that agreement with Control. They tricked you. Besides, you have a later agreement with KAOS. You promised you would join us in our fight against the forces of good!”
Guru Optimo looked from Brattleboro to Max, from Max to Brattleboro, confused.
“I would like to point out,” Max said, “that with us you would have the satisfaction of knowing that you were making the world a better place to live.”
Guru Optimo brightened.
“What’s that in comparison to the satisfaction of knowing that you were making the world a better place for
Guru Optimo glowed.
“You’re losing him, Max,” 99 warned.
“Speaking of old movies,” Max said to Guru Optimo, “remember last year’s famous Academy Award loser-‘A Beach Bunny Skins Her Shins at Jones Beach’? Recall what handsome, muscular, high-minded pre-med student Seth O’Scope said to gorgeous, blond, empty-headed apprentice beautician Spray O’Hara when she came staggering up onto the beach with her surf board wrapped around her neck? He said, ‘What doth it profit a man to gain the whole world and flunk social responsibility?’ Think about that.”
Guru Optimo looked blank.
“I don’t think that’s an old enough movie, Max,” 99 said.
“Maybe not. I’ll try again. Speaking of old-”
“What’s going on here!” a voice behind them roared.
Max, 99 and Brattleboro turned and found Lucky Bucky Buckley standing in the doorway.
“You’re just in time,” Max said. “We were playing a game of Trivia, with old movies as the subject. Your question is: In the movie ‘The General Died at Dawn,’ what time was it exactly? We know it was dawn, of course. But at what time exactly did the sun rise on that day?”
“Guards!” Buckley shouted.
Max shook his head. “That isn’t even close. Try 5:17 A.M.”
“5:17 A.M.?” Buckley guessed.
Again, Max shook his head. “You were closer when you said ‘guards!’ ”
“Zop’em!” Buckley screamed at Guru Optimo.
A flash of light exploded over Max’s, 99’s and Brattleboro’s heads.
“Well, that ends the game,” Max said.
He dived under the bed.
99 followed him.
Brattleboro ducked behind the chest of drawers, one drawer of which was missing.
“Don’t just sit there! Zop!” Lucky Bucky shouted at Guru Optimo.
Guru Optimo’s head, upside down, appeared over the edge of the bed.
“Hide your eyes!” Max warned 99.
There was a flash of light.
But Max and 99, their eyes shielded by their hands, were unaffected.
“Grab’em!” they heard Lucky Bucky cry.
Peeking out, they saw that the guards had arrived.
The guards dived under the bed after them. Max and 99 crawled out on the other side.
A flash lighted the room.
But it was aimed at Brattleboro. And, looking out through the opening where the drawer had been, he caught the flash full in the eye.
Brattleboro jumped up, then began roaring around the room, throttle wide open.
The others stared at him.
He knocked over a table, a floor lamp, the chest of drawers, then roared out of the room and down the corridor.
“What was he?” 99 asked.
“A motorcycle cop,” Max replied. “And I think he’s after that hit-and-run driver who ran that traffic signal earlier tonight.”
“Zop’em!”
Max and 99 ran for the doorway. But a guard had stationed himself in the opening.
A flash of light exploded inches away from them.
They dived back under the bed.
The guards followed.
Max and 99 crawled out from under the bed, and, hand in hand, galloped across the top of it-and across Guru Optimo in the process.
Guru Optimo aimed.
“Zop! Zop! Zop!”
But at that instant the guards emerged from under the bed and stomped across it in pursuit of Max and 99, tromping Guru Optimo beneath their boots and spoiling his aim.
Max and 99 dashed for the doorway again.
The guard still barred their way.
“Zop!” Buckley shouted wildly.
