(Click)
(Silence)
(click)
“He hung up,” Max reported to 99.
“Max, then why are you still listening on your extension?”
“Shhh. . I think the operator got the lines crossed. Mr. Lincoln and General Grant are discussing the campaign.”
“Battle strategy, you mean, Max?”
“Not that kind of campaign-the election campaign. Grant wants Lincoln to shave off his beard. He says it makes him look like a beatnik.”
“Max. . do you think you should listen?”
“I’ll- Oops!”
Max put his shoe back on.
“What happened, Max?”
“Mr. Lincoln couldn’t talk any more.”
“I imagine he was pretty busy.”
“Yes. He said he had a long speech written and he had to edit it down so it would fit on the back of an envelope.”
“What did the Chief say, Max?”
“He called me a nut. Remember when Lucky Bucky Buckley tossed my shoe phone out the window, 99, and it hit V. T. Brattleboro? Well, apparently the blow unzopped him. Anyway, he called the Chief on my shoe and told him that you and I are dead. And the Chief believed him.”
“Maybe Brattleboro believes it, too.”
“Possibly.”
“The Chief, I suppose, refused to ask the Air Force to bomb the island out of existence.”
“Right.”
“What do we do now, Max?”
“Carry on, 99. We have no other choice. In spite of the fact that we will undoubtedly be too late, we’ll have to try to find our way back through the jungle to the castle and attempt to stop Lucky Bucky Buckley and Guru Optimo.”
“It sounds like a complete waste of time to me, Max.”
“Well, look at it this way, 99-what else do we have to do?”
“That’s a point.”
“Backward, 99!”
“Don’t you mean Onward!?”
“No, backward, 99-back to the castle.”
“Oh.”
Once more, they plunged into the jungle, following the stream. The heat beat down on them. The vines lashed at their faces. And the brambles pulled at their clothes.
Max halted. “It’s no use, 99. We’re lost.”
“Max, why don’t you climb one of these palm trees?”
“It doesn’t appeal to me, 99.”
“To look around, I mean. Maybe you could spot the castle.”
“Oh. All right.”
Max shinnied to the top of a tree.
“What do you see, Max?” 99 called.
“Well, I’m not sure. But it looks a little like a monkey.”
“I resent that a great deal,” the monkey said.
Max stared. “V. T. Brattleboro!”
“What is it, Max?” 99 shouted.
“It’s Brattleboro, 99.”
“Ask him what he’s doing up there!”
Max faced Brattleboro again. “You heard the question,” he said.
“I climbed up here for privacy,” Brattleboro replied. “I was making a phone call.”
“On my shoe?”
“Right. I had a sudden inspiration. I said to myself, why don’t I call the Chief and have him contact the Air Force and have the Air Force bomb this island out of existence. But I knew he wouldn’t do it for me-a KAOS agent. So I pretended to be you. Which wasn’t easy, because, earlier, I had called him and told him you were dead. But this time I told him that Brattleboro was wrong, I wasn’t dead. Then I asked him to contact the Air Force.”
“Yes? And?”
“He hung up on me.”
“I’m not surprised,” Max said.
“The call wasn’t a total waste, though,” Brattleboro said. “I found out that Mr. Lincoln will be in Gettysburg later today.”
“Oh. . good. He got the speech edited down, I guess.”
