“Oh.”
Max moved. The beam of moonlight hit him in the eyes again. “If I could just figure out how to create a flash of light,” he muttered. “But I can’t think with that light in my eyes.”
“Will you move again, please. My Staten Island passengers want to board.”
“Yes. . all right. . Say, would you ask them if they have any idea how I could- The moonlight! Why can’t I use that!” He opened 99’s purse and got her hand mirror from it. Then, holding it up, he caught the reflection of moonlight in it and flashed it against the wall of the dungeon. “Perfect! Now, if I can just flash the light in the guard’s eyes!”
“Will you fasten your seat belt, please,” 99 said. “I’m about to embark.”
“That’s an airliner, 99, not a ferry boat.”
Max flashed the light at the guard, trying to shine it in his eyes. But the guard was squirming too vigorously.
“Man the lifeboats!” 99 cried.
“What seems to be the problem?” Max asked.
“I’m about to ram a lighthouse!”
“99, that isn’t a lighthouse. That’s me. I’m flashing a light around, trying to unhypnotize that guard.”
Again, Max attempted to shine the light in the guard’s eyes. But the guard simply would not hold still long enough. Finally, Max gave up.
“We’re sunk, 99,” he said dismally.
“Shhh! Don’t let my passengers hear you say that!”
“They might as well know the worst. There is no possible way for us to survive. And it’s all the fault of that KAOS agent, V. T. Brattleboro. What a double-dealer! Although, I don’t know why I expected any more. A KAOS agent is the lowest form of life.”
At that instant, the guard, who had been six feet tall, skinny and bareheaded, stopped giggling and squirming, became short, fat and topped by a derby hat, and leaned over the edge of the well and said indignantly, “Oh, yeah!”
“V. T. Brattleboro!”
“Come out from behind that ferry boat and say that!” the KAOS agent said threateningly. “I dare you!”
“So it’s you, is it!” Max replied. “Mister Bad Guy in person! You just pull me out of this well and I’ll thrash you to within an inch of your lowest form of life!”
“You and who else!” Brattleboro sneered.
“Me and my ferry boat, that’s who!”
Furious, Brattleboro grabbed the crank and began hoisting the bucket from the well. Max and 99 were tossed about. The moonlight, reflected in the hand mirror, flashed in 99’s eyes.
“Max!” she cried suddenly. “Where am I?”
“I couldn’t say exactly, 99. Somewhere between Staten Island and lower Manhattan, but that’s as much as I can tell you.”
“Max, why, for heaven’s sake, would I be there?”
“Because that’s where the Staten- 99, you are the Staten Island Ferry, aren’t you?”
She stared at him. “The Staten Island Ferry! Max, I’m 99! Don’t you remember me? Did Guru Optimo hypnotize you?”
“I’ll explain it later, 99,” Max replied. “Right now, I have to-”
V. T. Brattleboro reached into the bucket, got Max by an arm, yanked, and hurled him across the dungeon, where he splattered against a stone wall, then dropped in a heap to the stone floor.
“Call me a lowest form of life, will you!” Brattleboro said, outraged.
Dazed, Max struggled to his feet. He shook his head, clearing his vision. “Not only are you a lowest form of life,” he responded, “but you are also unclean, irreverent, untrustworthy-”
“Don’t try to win me over with compliments now,” Brattleboro snarled.
“-and nasty to your mother!”
Brattleboro charged.
Max sidestepped and dropped him with a karate chop.
Stunned, Brattleboro dragged himself slowly to his knees.
“Max, we’re supposed to be working together,” 99 said. “Why are you two fighting?”
“Because our friend almost fed us to the crocodiles.”
“I don’t remember that, Max. When did it happen?”
“While you were the Staten Island Ferry, 99.”
“Max! Are you going to start that again! I have never been the Staten Island Ferry!”
“Ed Sullivan is going to be very unhappy to hear that, 99.”
Brattleboro had regained his feet.
“Max! Watch out!” 99 cried.
Max and Brattleboro hit each other with karate chops at the same instant. They dropped to the floor together and lay side by side, unconscious.
99 shook them. “Max. . Brattleboro. . get up!”
Max opened his eyes. “Well, I lost fairly, anyway,” he said. “That’s something.”
Brattleboro opened his eyes. “Well, I lost unfairly, anyway,” he said. “That’s something.”
“It was a draw,” 99 informed them. “You both lost.”
Max and Brattleboro jumped to their feet and raised their hands to karate chop each other again.
“Stop it!” 99 said. “You’re acting like children!”
“He started it,” Max pouted. “The first thing he did when we landed on the island was try to kill us!”
“A little joke-all in fun,” Brattleboro said. “How did I know you’d misunderstand. I wouldn’t have done it if I’d known you were going to shoot back at me with a machine gun.”
“All right, your apology is accepted,” Max replied. “But what about when you were dropping us into that well in that bucket.”
“I don’t remember that, Max,” 99 said.
“It didn’t happen. He made it up,” Brattleboro said to her.
“Max, you shouldn’t make up stories,” 99 said.
“Stories? 99, I remember clearly that-” He interrupted himself, looking puzzledly at Brattleboro. “Why aren’t you squirming and giggling any more?” he said. “I saw Guru Optimo zop you with a spell.”
“While he was zopping me with a spell, I was zopping him with a spell,” Brattleboro explained.
“I don’t think I quite understand that.”
“Well, as he hypnotized me into thinking I was ticklish, I hypnotized him into thinking that he had hypnotized me into thinking I was ticklish. But, actually, his zop was canceled out by my zop. So, although I had hypnotized him into thinking he had hypnotized me into thinking I was ticklish, actually, I wasn’t hypnotized at all-he was. Clear?”
“No. But forget it. Let’s go back to where you were dropping us into the well. That was your second attempt to try to kill us.”
“Only teasing,” Brattleboro said. “I would have pulled you out.”
“You pulled us out only because you were angry about me calling you a lowest form of life.”
“Just a minute, Max,” 99 said. “Why don’t I remember any of this?”
Max explained. He told her everything that had happened since Guru Optimo had hypnotized her.
“Well. . I still don’t remember it,” she said.
“But you believe me, don’t you?”
“Yes, Max, of course. That is, all except the part about me being the Staten Island Ferry. That’s preposterous.”
“I agree,” Brattleboro said. “You shouldn’t make up stories, Max.”
Max raised his hand to deliver a karate chop.
“No, Max!” 99 intervened.
“All right,” Max said grudgingly. “I’m willing to forget everything that’s happened up ’til now and declare a truce. But he’ll have to stop trying to kill us.”
“Do you agree?” 99 said to Brattleboro.
“I agree-Max is willing to forget everything that’s happened up ’til now.”
“And the rest, too.”
“Okay-and he’ll have to stop trying to kill us.”
“No,” 99 said, “you’ll have to stop trying to kill us.
“I promise-for what it’s worth,” Brattleboro replied.
“Say ‘We’ll all be friends and we’ll work together,’ ” 99 insisted.
Brattleboro put a hand behind his back and crossed his fingers. “We’ll all be friends and we’ll work together,” he said.
“Now, you, Max.”
Max put a hand behind his back and crossed his fingers, “Ditto,” he said.
“Good,” 99 beamed. “Now, what next?”
Max pointed to Brattleboro. “I think we better bind him and gag him and hide him somewhere before he double-crosses us again,” he said.
“Max!”
“That wouldn’t be very smart,” Brattleboro said. “I couldn’t tell you my plan if I were gagged.”